KOLA PENINSULA
2006-07-27
On the 30th of May, Andis and Janis on their KTM motorcycles are leaving for the Kola Peninsula. This trip will be a trial for both equipment and team before the big expedition expected in August.
Despite a lazy Southerner dwelling in each of us and dreaming of the sun, we can never resist severe charm of the North. Glacier, a former owner of these lands, moved on merely 10, 000 years ago which is just an instant for the Earth. By polishing the Baltic shield, it made its way through the formations that regale our eyes nowadays: tectonic lowlands are cradles for thousands of lakes; fractures and gaps are hosting fast mountain rivers falling in and crooked firs of tundra are climbing down the sheer rocks.
The Eastern and Western parts of the Kola Peninsula are rather different: the Western part is home of local mountains, also the Khibiny Mountains with its highest point Youdichvumchorr and the Lovozero Tundra Mountains with Angvundaschorr among them. The Khibiny are horseshoe-like by its looks. There are rocks that surrendered the glacier gnawing them and now they stand flattened and pierced with huge round hollows, filled with snow all year round. The Eastern side of the peninsula is covered with tundra and, further South, with taiga. From the beginning of May, rays of sun are no longer hiding below the horizon, and dwarf birch-trees show their first greenery in the unmelted snow.
As for the Northern part of the territory, it is even more picturesque: narrow valleys with the braes embracing calm mirror-like fjords waters, and cold small rivers running down the hills into the Barents Sea; some other stubborn rocks that were standing against glacier letting it brush and round their foreheads now are flat from one side and round from the other one.
The Kola Peninsula is called also the Russian Lapland. It belongs to the Murmansk region of the Russian Federation but historically this is the land of Sami and that is why place names are appearing in two languages here. The Sami tongue stands out of all the language groups; it is not similar even to Finno-Ugric group despite its sounding alike. Also the populated areas have been established here either in the places of the old Sami settlements or during the Soviet period. The biggest town in the region is Murmansk, established by tzar Nikolay Romanov. As for the natives, about 1, 200 of the Sami still inhabit some areas of the peninsula.
However, the foundations of nature have mostly trollic-sounding names, such as Youdichvumchorr, Vudjevr, Imandra and, especially, lake Vilgiskoddeoaivinjarvi which means “the lake next to the Mount Wolf”. The lake is known because of the deepest experimental drillhole in the world that is located in its surroundings. It is twelve kilometres deep and is drilled with only aims of research. The rocks from this drillhole are about three billion years old, and their structure is very similar to the structure of those from the Moon.
Traces of the Northern people trying to survive in the severe conditions of tundra are visible in the least expected places and ways: ancient shamanic drawings on the cliffs of the desert river island; hanging bridges over fast mountain rivers deep in the forest; babylons – four thousand years old spirit dwellings about 12-15 meters in diameter made from stones; seyds – huge stones, reminding human being by its shape and incarnating both evil and good spirits. Each of the human creations looks natural in this area and causes respect to these brave people not only trying to live along the nature but also to become one with it.