ABOUT RUSSIA / REGIONS / ARKHANGELSKAYA OBLAST

Arkhangelskaya Oblast

Arkhangelskaya Oblast was founded on August 23, 1937. Its territory is 410,7 thousand sq. km (not counting the territory of the Nenetsky autonomous okrug); the total area is 587,4 thousand sq. km (0,31 % of the area of the Russian Federation).

Arkhangelskaya Oblast is situated in the north of the East European plain. The oblast is washed by the White sea and includes the islands of New Land, Franz Josef Land, Solovki and some others. The biggest rivers here are the Northern Dvina with its tributaries Vychegda, Pinega, Onega and Mezen.

Arkhangelskaya Oblast borders upon the Nenetsky autonomous region in the northeast, the Republic of Komi in the east, Kirovskaya Oblast in the southeast, Vologodskaya Oblast in the south and southwest and to the west of it lies the Republic of Karelia.

Arkhangelskaya Oblast is divided into 20 districts, 14 cities, 9 urban districts, 38 urban villages, 240 villages. The Nenetsky autonomous region is also a part of the oblast but it is taken separately. The regional centre is Arkhangelsk. Its foundation year is 1584. Distance between Moscow and Arkhangelsk is 1133 km. The city comprises 9 districts. They are Isakogorsky, Lomonosovsky, Oktyabrsky, Solombalsky, Maymaksansky, Varvarino-Faktoriya, Mayskaya Gorka, Severny, Tsiglomensky.

Density of population (January 1, 1998) makes 2,5 persons per 1 sq. km. The largest cities (January 1, 1998, thousand people) are Arkhangelsk (368,9), Severodvinsk (239,0), Kotlas (66,8), Novodvinsk (48,7), Koryazhma (44,5).

There are about 2500 lakes in the oblast. The climate is like this: the average temperature of January is 12-18 degrees centigrade below zero, average temperature of July - 8-16 degrees above zero. Precipitations here total from 300 to 500 mm a year; the northern part of the oblast is the permafrost region.

Here one can see such sights as the cosmodrome "Plesetsk", the Kenozersky national park, the Solovetskiye Islands.

The museum association 'Art culture of the Russian North' keeps such collections as "The old Russian and Russian art of XVIII - the beginning of XX centuries", "The domestic art of XX century (paintings, graphic arts, sculpture, arts and crafts and national art) ", "The art of Arkhangelsk Territory", "History of art centres of the Russian North", etc.The museum of wooden architecture "Malye Korely" is situated in one of the most beautiful nooks of Arkhangelskaya Oblast in the open air.

The Russian North is the enormous and unique reserve of national wooden architecture. Since antiquity in villages of Onega Territory were built wooden temples, peasant's houses and high-rise palaces and mass production of any possible building and casewood material was organized. In the 16 - 18 centuries native people erected plenty of unique constructions. And all this was created of wood only.

The Arkhangelsk ensemble of modern national music "Beloye More" is famous for its alive sound, choreography and vocal compositions. Musicians themselves wrote the overwhelming majority of arrangements. Their compositions and programs cannot be referred to any well-known genre of national music and not only because the musicians created in collectives of various styles and genres. Most likely it is an attempt to reflect all the variety of modern music by the potential of Russian national instruments. Together with the well-known traditional instruments the musicians use the unique ancient Russian instruments.
REGIONS OF RUSSIA