Zapadnaya Litsa (, ) is a

naval base A naval base, navy base, or military port is a military base, where warships and naval ships are docked when they have no mission at sea or need to restock. Ships may also undergo repairs. Some naval bases are temporary homes to aircraft that usu ...

of the

Russian Navy The Russian Navy is the Navy, naval arm of the Russian Armed Forces. It has existed in various forms since 1696. Its present iteration was formed in January 1992 when it succeeded the Navy of the Commonwealth of Independent States (which had i ...

, part of the

Russian Northern Fleet The Northern Fleet (, ''Severnyy flot'') is the fleet of the Russian Navy in the Arctic. According to the Russian ministry of defence: "The Northern Fleet dates its history back to a squadron created in 1733 to protect the territories of the ...

, located in

Murmansk Oblast Murmansk Oblast is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (an oblast) of Russia, located in the northwestern part of the country, with a total land area of . Its only internal border is the Republic of Karelia to the south, and it is bor ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

Location

Zapadnaya Litsa Naval Base is located within the Litsa Fjord at the westernmost point of the

Kola Peninsula The Kola Peninsula (; ) is a peninsula in the extreme northwest of Russia, and one of the largest peninsulas of Europe. Constituting the bulk of the territory of Murmansk Oblast, it lies almost completely inside the Arctic Circle and is border ...

in Russia's far north, about 120 kilometers from

Murmansk Murmansk () is a port city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast in the far Far North (Russia), northwest part of Russia. It is the world's largest city north of the Arctic Circle and sits on both slopes and banks of a modest fjord, Ko ...

and 45 kilometers from the Norwegian border, and includes four naval facilities: Malaya Lopatka,

Andreyeva Bay Zapadnaya Litsa (, ) is a naval base of the Russian Navy, part of the Russian Northern Fleet, located in Murmansk Oblast, Russia. Location Zapadnaya Litsa Naval Base is located within the Litsa Fjord at the westernmost point of the Kola Peninsul ...

, Bolshaya Lopatka, and Nerpichya. A severe

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in a region, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteoro ...

with changeable temperatures and strong winds, and a long

polar night Polar night is a phenomenon that occurs in the polar regions of Earth, northernmost and southernmost regions of Earth when the Sun remains below the horizon for more than 24 hours. This only occurs inside the polar circles. The opposite phen ...

in winter (about 43 days), make the Zapadnaya Litsa region an inhospitable place. Numerous rivers, streams and lakes, rocky ground and swamps help characterize this remote and inhospitable area.

History

The area of Zapadnaya Litsa was originally developed in 1939 as a small naval base for

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

, at the beginning of

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 ...

, as a result of

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, officially the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and also known as the Hitler–Stalin Pact and the Nazi–Soviet Pact, was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Ge ...

. It was to be used for German ships under the name

Basis Nord Basis Nord ("Base North") was a secret naval base of Nazi Germany's ''Kriegsmarine'' in Zapadnaya Litsa, west of Murmansk provided by the Soviet Union. The base was part of a partnership that developed between Germany and the Soviet Union follow ...

, but the successful German invasion of Norway the following year quickly rendered the port obsolete. The area remained largely untouched until the late 1950s, when it was further developed by the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

to house the fleet of the newly created

nuclear submarine A nuclear submarine is a submarine powered by a nuclear reactor, but not necessarily nuclear-armed. Nuclear submarines have considerable performance advantages over "conventional" (typically diesel-electric) submarines. Nuclear propulsion ...

program of the

Soviet Navy The Soviet Navy was the naval warfare Military, uniform service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy made up a large part of the Soviet Union's strategic planning in the event of a conflict with t ...

. The first facility built, Malaya Lopatka, became the

home port A vessel's home port is the port at which it is based, which may not be the same as its port of registry shown on its registration documents and lettered on the stern of the ship's hull. In the cruise industry the term "home port" is also oft ...

of the first Soviet nuclear submarine, K-3 ''Leninsky Komsomol''. In 1958, the settlement of Zaozerny (now Zaozyorsk) was formed near to the Zapadnaya Litsa base, and was kept

secret Secrecy is the practice of hiding information from certain individuals or groups who do not have the "need to know", perhaps while sharing it with other individuals. That which is kept hidden is known as the secret. Secrecy is often controver ...

and known under several different names. Today, much of the Zapadnaya Litsa region is a cause of serious

environmental concern The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental, and social movement that seeks to manage and protect natural resources, including animal, fungus, and plant species as well as their habitat for the ...

, due to its widespread

radioactive waste Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. It is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, nuclear decommissioning, rare-earth mining, and nuclear ...

deposits.

In popular culture

Zapadnaya Litsa was used as a location setting for the Russia episode of the

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

'' Tomb Raider: Chronicles''.Tomb Raider Chronicles FMV and Cut Scene transcripts

References

{{reflist Russian and Soviet Navy bases Buildings and structures in Murmansk Oblast

Location

History

In popular culture

See also

References