The White Sea

«The White Sea has spread out from the Freezing Ocean at noon» — started his story about the Arkhangelsk land Boris Shergin. The White Sea is northern, cold and volatile, generous to the hardworking and severe to the careless. It impresses with its restrained beauty at any time of the year stormy or still. It tests to destruction with ice and wind, hugs with wide tides, burns with bright snow and warms with the sand of white beaches — the warmth of the Openhearted North!

photo: Grigoriy Chukhin

The White Sea is the only of the Arctic seas, most of which is located south of the Arctic Circle. This is the inland sea of the Arctic Ocean. From almost all sides it is limited by land and is connected to the Barents Sea by a bottle neck strait along the conditional border between Cape Svyatoy Nos and Kanin Nos. The White Sea is characterized by features of both marine and continental climate. Here quite often storms arise with a wave height of up to 5 meters, and in winter the sea is partially covered with ice.

The full-flowing rivers of the Arkhangelsk region that flow into the White Sea make it relatively unsalted and create a counterclockwise circular flow. The depth of the sea is relatively shallow: from 340 meters in the Kandalaksha Gulf to 50-20 meters in the Onega, Dvina and Mezen Bay. The Mezen Bay is characteristic of the highest tides and drops of up to 7 meters! And on the Northern Dvina, the tidal wave goes upstream at a distance of more than 100 kilometers. At low tide where shallow, the water goes far from the coast, exposing a hard sandy bottom — a great place for romantic walks in fine weather!

photo: Andrey Belavin

Pomors populated the White Sea — brave explorers, sailors and fishermen, who named each coast. The Arkhangelsk region includes part of the Pomor coast, Summer, Winter, Mezensky and Kaninsky coast. Not without reason the Pomors said: «The sea is our field.» In skillfully stitched sea-boats (karbass), they went to Murman (the Kola Peninsula) to catch cod, hunted sea animals, and produced salt. Pomor villages with huge log cabins and unique wooden temples grew along the shores. The path to Pomorye was well known to the merchants from Europe, who brought goods to fairs in Kholmogory. Scandinavian sailors called the White Sea Gandvik or the Bay of snakes (due to the curved coastline).

The White Sea is the hot spot of legendary historical events. Here, on the Solovetsky Islands, German and Savvaty founded a monastery, which played an important role in the history of Russia. In different eras, the Solovetsky Monastery became a spiritual, cultural and economic center, a military fortress and a political prison. The future patriarch and a reformer Nikon entered into the religion here in Anzersky Skete. Later, Nikon founded a monastery on a stone island Kiy in the memory of his rescue during the storm. The first trading port of Russia, Arkhangelsk, was founded on the White Sea. The trade exchange was so strong that even the special language Russenorsk emerged, used by the Pomors to communicate with the Norwegians. Peter I was impressed with the White Sea. Here he studied the art of ship-handling with the Dutch and the English skippers, here he laid the foundation for the construction of the state fleet at Solombala shipyard and showed the white-blue-red flag for the first time. The traditions of sea shipbuilding are promoted at shipyards of the town of Severodvinsk, where Russian nuclear submarines are built. The White Sea is a place of fishing, hunting sea animals and production of algae.

photo: Alexey Kalugin

The Arctic tern nests on the coast of the White Sea, the only bird in the world migrating from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Over the year, it overcomes a record distance of up to 70 thousand kilometers. Various types of jellyfish live in the sea, several types of mussels, starfish and corals, as well as dense underwater forests of seaweed (kelp) and ahnfeltia, used for production of agar-agar. The White Sea is famous for fish, navaga, cod, the White Sea herring and salmon. The sea is a home for a sea hare, a ringed seal, the largest population of harp seals in the world. At the coast of the National Park «Onezhskoye Pomorye» and on the Solovetsky Islands one can see toothed white whale, and in the northern part of the White Sea — the «Arctic Unicorn» narwhal.

The Arkhangelsk Region is the land the Pomors, legends and stories, where one can easily find the White Sea, feel the smell salt and reed, hear the wind in the pines, see the northern lights over the endless ice or a bright sunset on the beach of Yagry Isle.

photo: Alexey Anisimov

To do list on the White Sea in the Arkhangelsk region:
• In summer — to sunbathe on a sandy beach . If you are lucky — to take a swim
• In winter — to kite on snowy ice
• to fish: in summer — take a boat or a yacht, in winter — ice fishing
• to see a wide tide and low tide
• to visit the Solovetsky Archipelago
• to sail to the stone island Kiy in the Onega Bay
• to go on a tour on the icebreaker vessel, or even take part in the ice channeling of vessels
• to try a salad of algae and to try the cosmetics of the White Sea algae
• to find out how salmon and trout is grown on a farm on the river Solza
• to try cod soup and halibut pies or fried flatfish
• to mount the bell tower on the high steep bank in the village Vorzogory
• to find out about salt production farms in the old village Nyonoksa
• to learn more about the culture in the national park Onezhskoye Pomorie
• to wave in response if you see the seals floating on ice in spring
• to hear the white whales sing

photo in the upper block: Ekaterina Gorbyleva, Irina Butorina, Lyudmila Ashitok, Nikolay Averinsky, Nikolay Vymorkov, Tatyana Stepanishina, Fedor Safonov, Alexey Anisimov