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| Leningrad Station |
My journey north to the Port of Murmansk, home of Russia’s
Northern Fleet and north of The Arctic Circle began quite late at night,
12:40am or so to be exact from Moscow. I had once again stayed at The CityHotel
in Kazan’ Station like I had a few days before when I was leaving for Kazan,
see my entry “Should I Stay or Should I go” for more information about my stay
then. However this time my train was departing from across the street in
Leningrad Station. This meant I had to lug my bag down the stairs from the
hotel into Kazan station, then down into an underpass, back up the underpass stairs
and up some more stairs just to get in the door of Leningrad station. No wonder
I always come back from these trips a bit trimmer and stronger. Nothing builds
up strength like dragging a 20kg + bag through Russia!
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| One of the many stations along the road to Murmansk |
The road to Murmansk was going to be a long one, well over
24 hours by train, but luckily I had bought out the entire cabin, all four
places, so the journey would be a lot more pleasant. No way was I going to be
stuck with three strangers in a cabin the size of a medium sized coat closet.
Plus the amount of luggage I was lugging around, one heavy bag and a backpack,
I likely would have needed to sleep on top of my luggage if I somehow wanted to
fit into a cabin with three other people.
Early the next morning we arrived at our first major stop,
St. Petersburg Ladozhskiy Station, for a record 90-minutes. Normally stops are
no more than a half hour or at very max 60 minutes, so I was a bit surprised by
the length. Ladozhskiy Station, is the only station in St. Petersburg that is
not a terminus meaning trains can go straight through without having to stop.
Our time at Ladozhskiy was a welcome one as I was able to get a nice breakfast
at a coffee shop and stock up on some groceries before we started our long haul
all the way north to Murmansk.
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| Ready to go north! |
There are many things I love about riding the rails in
Russia, but it’s probably the journey and all the stations you stop along
during that journey. I guess that old saying “it’s not the destination, but the
journey” really rings true in this case. Stations along the journey come in all
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| Kandalashka Station |
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| Murmansk train station |
After a very long 36 hours of riding we finally pulled into
Murmansk. Although it was cold, the temperatures were not all that frigid
considering that we were at 69° north. To put Murmansk’s latitude into
perspective the US-Canadian border in my home state of Washington is at 49°
north, so I was quite a bit far north. Thanks to the Gulf Stream though Murmansk
stays pretty warm during the winter and its waters stay ice-free thus serving
as the perfect base for Russia’s Northern Fleet.
When I arrived at around noon I noticed there was not a lot
of light, but I assumed that was because it was cloudy plus it’s in the north
and there’s not much sun light during the winter anyway. Later on when I got to
my hotel I looked up when sunrise and sunset was. I googled “Murmansk sunrise”
and it popped up “sunrise January 11th, 2017”….. WAIT…..what?
January 11th??? No way…I mean I knew we were north but really? Sure
enough after doing some more investigation it turns out that the sun had set a
few days before I came and will not rise again until January 11th,
which is where the term “Polar Night” comes from. And people back home complain
about how “dark” it is during winter! Next time I hear people complain about
how “dark” Seattle is during winter, I’ll tell them it could be worse, just
consider Murmank, where the the sun is down for an entire month and a half. However,
just because the sun never rose did not mean we were without light. Some beams
of twilight came through just like what you’d expect before sunrise making for
semi-light day, but that wasn’t much, about three hours.
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| Murmansk at about 2pm |
After recovering from what I like to call “train lag”, the
next day I went out to explore. The city was quite small and very compact with
not a lot to see. The main drag, Leninsky Prospect or basically Lenin Street stretched
for about a kilometer and made up the center. Unlike in Moscow there were no
fancy luxury stores or restaurants, not like I need any, just the basics. There
was amazingly enough a McDonald’s to which I guiltily admit to eating at. Hell,
I was tired and didn’t want to spend a lot of money so I gave in and went
across the street to the world’s most northern McDonald’s. Say what you may
about McD’s but the food is always reliable and the price can’t be beaten.
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| Leninsky Prospect |
My first stop on my three-stop tour would be The Memorial Complex to the Soldiers and Seamen Who Died in Peaceful Time about
a mile north of town. This memorial was obviously dedicated to those who served
in the navy and to soldiers who died during times of peace and was in the shape
of a giant lighthouse. Inside were marble plaques with the words “Forever
Memory” inscribed on them with the Russian and the flags of St. Andrew next to each
other. The
lighthouse structure was a bit odd sitting there in the middle of a Russian
neighborhood with giant gray apartment blocks surrounding it. Not exactly the
type of place you’d expect to find a lighthouse! But then again Murmansk was
not exactly St. Petersburg with grand European architecture and magnificently
beautiful palaces!  |
| Alyosha Monument |
The next stop was another somber memorial, Alyosha
Monument dedicated to those who died in The Great Patriotic War (aka WWII)
defending the Arctic. As I was walking there it suddenly hit me that all the
places I was going to see were memorials of some kind or another. Yet, I was
not about to sit in the hotel all day and watch TV or surf the Internet.
***EDITOR'S NOTE: the following text turned out double spaced due to a bug in the program, apologies in advance***
***EDITOR'S NOTE: the following text turned out double spaced due to a bug in the program, apologies in advance***
The final stop along my tour of Murmansk would be
“The Waiting Woman” statue, likely dedicated to the many women who await their
husbands to return from being at sea. There was no formal address to the statue
and I couldn’t find it on google maps, but after some real digging I found a
website that did provide an address, so I plugged it into google maps and
started walking. I kept following the instructions, but eventually came to the
address, which was no more than a giant cluster of huge Soviet block apartment
houses. I looked and looked and looked some more but never could find it. I
eventually gave up and called a cab, as I was way too tired to walk back the
three or so miles to town. In hindsight I should’ve asked a local, but I guess
I’m just a typical guy……doesn't like to ask for directions!
My next adventure wouldn’t come until the following day when I visited the nuclear icebreaker Lenin. The Lenin had been in service from 1959 until 1989 when it was retired eventually being converted into a museum in 2005. Every day at 12 and 2pm there are guided tours in Russian, so I decided to take the 12pm tour. It was not a long walk from my hotel to the port, after all I could see the port from my room. Unfortunately because I used Google maps to go there by foot it routed me the long way around to the ship through the rail yards of Murmansk and through the port area. It was not exactly a problem, just that there was a much simpler and quicker way.
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| The Sea Station |
I got down to the area with a fair amount of time before they started the tour at noon. When I reached the Sea Station where cruise ships and ferries depart from, a Chinese girl frantically came running up to me and said in English, “do you speak English”. I said yes and she said that she had lost her phone in the snow and could I help her. I said sure and started hunting around in the deep snow. It seemed hopeless, like finding a needle in a haystack, but we kept looking. Eventually I found a small glow on the edge of a snow bank and sure enough it was her phone! She was overjoyed and hugged me.
After finding her phone in the snow we both moved onto join the tour of the Lenin nuclear icebreaker. Along with around a dozen people we stood out in the snow waiting for them to let us on board. Eventually after a good ten minutes of freezing they finally opened. I asked for one ticket in Russian and amazingly enough was given the Russian Federation Citizen rate even though I’m not a citizen. Not sure why as usually they’re pretty strict on who gets the Russian rate and who does not. And even though I speak pretty good Russian my Scandinavian-American looks somehow give me away.
Our tour began in a giant very official looking
conference room with a large wooden table and a nice looking hardwood floor.
There we’d be briefed about all the information about the ship and its history.
The tour guide described in detail the ship and its long history and gave an
overview of what we’d be seeing that day. One of the most interesting facts was
that it only took the ship a few days to reach the North Pole. He also told us
all about Fidel Castro’s visit aboard the ship many years ago, which was
appropriate since Castro had just passed away a few days before.
Once we finished with the orientation we moved onto
look at other parts of the ship. Our first stop was to take a peak down inside
the room where they actually used the nuclear material to power the ship. To
make it look real they even had some mannequins covered in HAZMAT suits. Other highlights included looking at living
quarters, captain’s quarters (which were quite spacious), the engine room and up
to the bridge.
But one part I found the most interesting was the on-board hospital. The hospital was not exactly spacious but had a full operating room and a place for patients to recover. The equipment they used looked fairly ancient even for 1980s standards. The guide told us that the hospital was used not only for those aboard but as a sort of mobile hospital for villages and different missions along the ship’s route. To top things off there was also a whole dental office next door. It really emphasized to me that the ship was like its own self-contained floating village.
When I arrived in Murmansk the day before I was
pretty distraught over the fact that there was nothing to do and I even
contemplated flying to Petersburg a day or two early . But after seeing all the monuments, the nuclear icebreaker and
having survived a day trip out to the Arctic Ocean I was convinced, Murmansk
was a real diamond in the rough and a place I was overjoyed that I had visited.
For anyone with a desire to get off the beaten path and see a different sort of
place I highly recommend Murmansk!
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| Murmansk |
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