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Railway between Murmansk on the Arctic Ocean and Saint Petersburg on the Baltic Sea ">Baltic_Sea.html" ;"title="Arctic Ocean and Saint Petersburg on the Baltic Sea">Arctic Ocean and Saint Petersburg on the Baltic Sea The Kirov Railway (; until 1935 ''Murman Railway'') is a Russian gauge">broad gauge A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge (the distance between the rails) broader than the used by standard-gauge railways. Broad gauge of , more known as Russian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in former Soviet Union countries ...

Russian railway network that links the Murman Coast and Murmansk city (in the north) and Saint Petersburg (in the south). The railway is operated by the ''Arktika'' passenger train. The total distance between Saint Petersburg and Murmansk is , the section between

Petrozavodsk Petrozavodsk (, ; Karelian language, Karelian, Veps language, Vepsian and ) is the capital city of the Republic of Karelia, Russia, which stretches along the western shore of Lake Onega for some . The population of the city is 280,890 as of 2022. ...

and Kola having a length of . It has 52 stations. The line is of vital military importance because Murmansk is an

ice-free port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manche ...

accessible via the

Barents Sea The Barents Sea ( , also ; , ; ) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territorial waters.World Wildlife Fund, 2008. It was known earlier among Russi ...

The ..limiting factor in Russian overseas supply n World War I">World_War_I.html" ;"title="n World War I">n World War Iwas not ocean shipping. Rather, effective use of imports was dependent on the thin line of transportation from the ports to the inland areas. Goods delivered to Vladivostok ..faced the single, speed- and weight-limited track of the Trans-Siberian railway. Goods that made the tortuous passage to the Murman Coast had even more limited options. The primary Russian port, Arkhangel'sk, was served by a single narrow gauge line, which resulted in tremendous backlogs of stores. While the closure of the port each year during the late winter offered the opportunity to clear out the accumulation, the excess continued to grow. ..The Allies desperately wanted to avoid the White Sea closure by using the warm water ports of the western Murman Coast or Norway. Throughout the war, the British government pressured Sweden to permit the passage of supplies to Russia, and some limited shiopments were made. ..More promising was the effort to build a seven hundred-mile railway from the ice-free
Kola Inlet Kola Bay () or Murmansk Fjord is a 57-km-long fjord of the Barents Sea that cuts into the northern part of the Kola Peninsula. It is up to 7 km wide and has a depth of 200 to 300 metres. The Tuloma, Rosta and Kola Rivers discharge into t ...
to the northern terminus of the Russian rail system. The Russian Council of Ministers had funded the effort in December 1914, and construction on each of the three major sections began in 1915. ..The line was eventually opened on November 28, 1916, too late to impact the Imperial war effort.

The northern part of the line, between

and

Kola unit was the big kola int eh Kola may refer to: People * Koła, a Polish noble family * Kola (name), people with the given name/surname Kola * Kola (singer), Ukrainian singer, songwriter and performer of her own songs * Kola people, Gabonese p ...

, was built in 1915–1917: due to a lack of workers the Tsarist authorities deployed more than 40,000 German and Austrian

prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

to the construction. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

the line re-asserted its military importance as a link between the Arctic convoys and the Eastern Front. In 1941–1943 the central part between

Svir The Svir (; ; Karelian language, Karelian and Finnish language, Finnish: ) is a river in Podporozhsky District, Podporozhsky, Lodeynopolsky District, Lodeynopolsky, and Volkhovsky District, Volkhovsky districts in the north-east of Leningrad O ...

and Petrozavodsk was occupied by the

Finnish Army The Finnish Army ( , ) is the army, land forces branch of the Finnish Defence Forces. The Finnish Army is divided into six branches: infantry (which includes armoured units), field artillery, anti-aircraft artillery, Combat engineering, engineer ...

under orders from Marshal Mannerheim during

Continuation War The Continuation War, also known as the Second Soviet–Finnish War, was a conflict fought by Finland and Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union during World War II. It began with a Finnish declaration of war on 25 June 1941 and ended on 19 ...

phase of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Originally called the ''Murman Railway'', the line was renamed the ''Kirov Railway'' in 1935 in honor of

Sergei Kirov Sergei Mironovich Kirov (born Kostrikov; 27 March 1886 – 1 December 1934) was a Russian and Soviet politician and Bolsheviks, Bolshevik revolutionary. Kirov was an early revolutionary in the Russian Empire and a member of the Bolshevik faction ...

(a prominent

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

leader in the 1917

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

), who had been assassinated the year before. In 1959 the Kirov Railway became part of the

October Railway Oktyabrskaya Railway or October Railway () is the subsidiary of RZD, servicing railway lines in the north-west of Russia. It stretches from Moscow's Leningrad Terminal in the south to Murmansk beyond the Arctic Circle in the north. The total leng ...

. The line was

electrified Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source. In the context of history of technology and economic development, electrification refe ...

in 2005.

External links

References

{{Russia-rail-transport-stub Railway lines in Russia Rail transport in Murmansk Oblast

See also

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References