Murmansk in the context of "Trolleybus"

The Arctic Circle is one of the two polar circles, and the northernmost of the five major circles of latitude as shown on maps of Earth at about 66° 34' N. Its southern counterpart is the Antarctic Circle.

The Arctic Circle marks the southernmost latitude for which at the December solstice (winter) the Sun does not rise and at the June solstice (summer) the Sun does not set. These phenomena are referred to as polar night and midnight sun, respectively, and the closer to the pole one goes, the longer that situation persists. For example, in the Russian port city of Murmansk (three degrees north of the Arctic Circle) the Sun stays below the horizon for 20 days before and after the winter solstice, and above the horizon for 20 days before and after the summer solstice.

Murmansk Oblast is a federal subject (an oblast) of Russia, located in the northwestern part of the country, with a total land area of 144,900 square kilometres (55,900 sq mi). Its only internal border is the Republic of Karelia to the south, and it is bordered internationally by Finland to the west and Norway to the northwest and the Barents Sea lies to the north and White Sea lies to the south and east. Its administrative center is the city of Murmansk. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 795,409; however, at the 2021 Census, the population had declined to 667,744.

The Kola Peninsula (Russian: Ко́льский полуо́стров, romanized: Kolsky poluostrov; Kildin Sami: Куэлнэгк нёа̄ррк) 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 bordered by the Barents Sea to the north and by the White Sea to the east and southeast. The city of Murmansk, the most populous settlement on the peninsula, has a population of roughly 270,000 residents.

While humans had already settled in the north of the peninsula in the 7th–5th millennium BC, the rest of its territory remained uninhabited until the 3rd millennium BC, when various peoples started to arrive from the south. By the 1st millennium CE only the Sami people remained. This changed in the 12th century, when Russian Pomors discovered the peninsula's rich resources of game and fish. Soon after, the Pomors were followed by the tribute collectors from the Novgorod Republic, and the peninsula gradually became a part of the Novgorodian lands. However, the Novgorodians established no permanent settlements until the 15th century, and Russian migration continued in the following centuries.

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 September 1944 with the Moscow Armistice. The Soviet Union and Finland had previously fought the Winter War from 1939 to 1940, which ended with the Soviet failure to conquer Finland and the Moscow Peace Treaty. Numerous reasons have been proposed for the Finnish decision to invade, with regaining territory lost during the Winter War regarded as the most common. Other justifications for the conflict include Finnish President Risto Ryti's vision of a Greater Finland and Commander-in-Chief Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim's desire to annex East Karelia.

On 22 June 1941, the Axis invaded the Soviet Union. Three days later, the Soviet Union conducted an air raid on Finnish cities which prompted Finland to declare war and allow German troops in Finland to begin offensive warfare. By September 1941, Finland had regained its post–Winter War concessions to the Soviet Union in Karelia. The Finnish Army continued its offensive past the 1939 border during the invasion of East Karelia and halted it only around 30–32 km (19–20 mi) from the centre of Leningrad. It participated in besieging the city by cutting the northern supply routes and by digging in until 1944. In Lapland, joint German–Finnish forces failed to capture Murmansk or cut the Kirov (Murmansk) Railway. The Soviet Vyborg–Petrozavodsk offensive in June and August 1944 drove the Finns from most of the territories that they had gained during the war, but the Finnish Army halted the offensive in August 1944.

The Barents Region is a name given, by advocates of establishing international cooperation after the fall of the Soviet Union, to the land along the coast of the Barents Sea, from Nordland county in Norway to the Kola Peninsula in Russia and beyond all the way to the Ural Mountains and Novaya Zemlya, and south to the Gulf of Bothnia of the Baltic Sea and the great lakes Ladoga and Onega. Among the projects is the Barents Road from Bodø in Norway through Haparanda in Sweden and Finland to Murmansk in Russia. The region has six million inhabitants on 1.75 million km; three quarters of both belong to Russia.

The regional cooperation was formally opened on 11 January 1993, initiated by Norway under foreign minister Thorvald Stoltenberg. It includes Nordland, Troms, and Finnmark counties in Norway; Västerbotten County and Norrbotten County in Sweden; Lapland region, Northern Ostrobothnia, Kainuu, and North Karelia in Finland; and Murmansk Oblast, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Komi Republic, Republic of Karelia, and Nenets Autonomous Okrug in Russia. The four countries take turns at chairing the cooperation. Norway's participation is coordinated from the Norwegian Barents Secretariat in Kirkenes. Sweden's and Finland's participation is administrated from the county administrations in Umeå (Västerbotten) and Rovaniemi (Lapland). In January 2008 there was established an International Barents Secretariat which is to provide technical support for the multilateral coordinated activities within the framework of the Barents Euro-Arctic Council and the Barents Regional Council. This Secretariat is located in Kirkenes in the same building as the Norwegian Barents Secretariat.

Oulu (/ˈoʊluː/ OH-loo, Finnish: [ˈou̯lu] ; Swedish: Uleåborg [ʉːlɛɔˈbɔrj] ) is a major port city in Finland and the regional capital of North Ostrobothnia. It is located on the northwestern coast of the country at the mouth of the River Oulu. The population of Oulu is approximately 216,000, while the sub-region has a population of approximately 264,000. It is the 5th most populous municipality in Finland, and the fourth most populous urban area in the country. Oulu is also the most populous city in Northern Finland.

Oulu's neighbouring municipalities are: Hailuoto, Ii, Kempele, Liminka, Lumijoki, Muhos, Pudasjärvi, Tyrnävä and Utajärvi. Oulu is the third northernmost city in the world with a population of over 100,000, after Murmansk and Norilsk in Russia.

Kola Bay (Russian: Кольский залив) 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 the bay.

The eastern shore is craggy and precipitous, the western one is comparatively level. The ports of Murmansk and Severomorsk sit on the east side. Polyarny, the main base of Russia's Northern Fleet, is on the west side of the bay.

Arctic naval operations of World War II were the World War II naval operations that took place in the Arctic Ocean, and can be considered part of the Battle of the Atlantic and/or of the European Theatre of World War II.

Pre-war navigation in the region focused on fishing and the international ore-trade from Narvik and Petsamo. Soviet settlements along the coast and rivers of the Barents Sea and Kara Sea relied upon summer coastal shipping for supplies from railheads at Arkhangelsk and Murmansk. The Soviet Union extended the Northern Sea Route past the Taymyr Peninsula to the Bering Strait in 1935. The Winter War of 1939-1940 between Finland and the Soviet Union opened the northern flank of the Eastern Front of World War II. The Arctic was initially dominated by the Soviet Northern Fleet of a few destroyers, with larger numbers of submarines, minesweepers, and torpedo cutters supported by icebreakers. The success of the 1940 German invasion of Norway provided the Kriegsmarine with naval bases from which capital ships might challenge units of the British Royal Navy Home Fleet. Luftwaffe anti-shipping aircraft of Kampfgeschwader 26 (KG 26) and Kampfgeschwader 30 (KG 30) operated intermittently from Norwegian airfields, while Küstenfliegergruppen aircraft including Heinkel He 115s and Blohm & Voss BV 138s undertook routine reconnaissance. Following the 1941 Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, the Allies initiated a series of Arctic convoys to bring military supplies to the Soviet Union in formations of freighters screened by destroyers, corvettes and minesweepers. Escorting cruisers typically maneuvered outside the formations, while a larger covering force including battleships and aircraft carriers often steamed nearby to engage Kriegsmarine capital ships or to raid the German naval bases in Norway.