Belomorsk

Belomorsk (Russian Беломорск, Karelian Šuomua ) is a city in the Republic of Karelia (Russia) with 11,217 inhabitants (as of October 14, 2010 ).

Geography

The city is located about 375 kilometers north of the capital of Republic of Petrozavodsk, in part, on three large and several smaller islands at the mouth of Wyg and its tributary Schischnja into the White Sea. The Wyg is here extended to the White Sea - Baltic Canal, whose northern end is located on the southern outskirts.

Belomorsk is the administrative center of the homonymous Rajons.

The city lies on the Murmansk railway opened in 1917, a now for the October Railway RŽD belonging railway from St. Petersburg to Murmansk ( kilometer 780). Belomorsk has a seaport.

History

A village called Soroki at the mouth of the White Sea Wyg was first mentioned in the 12th century. The name corresponds to the name of a Russified Karelian the estuaries of the river, Soarijoki.

At the beginning of the 20th century originated in the vicinity of two sawmills and associated workers' housing estate.

1938, the old village Soroki, the sawmill settlement Solunina, the settlement in the Murmansk railway station and a Sorokskaja resulting in the construction of the White Sea - Baltic Canal channel working class neighborhood to the city Belomorsk were pooled. The name is derived from the Russian Белое море / Beloje more for White Sea. From 1941 to 1945, during the occupation of Petrozavodsk by Finnish troops in the Second World War, was Belomorsk capital of Karelo- Finnish SSR.

Demographics

Note: Census data

Culture and sights

The city has a museum of local history, whose exposure is concerned inter alia with the Belomorsker petroglyphs and the history of Pomors.

The approximately 470 people, animals and hunting scenes representing the petroglyphs at the waterfall Scheirukscha the lower reaches of Wyg date from the 3rd to the 1st millennium BC In the petroglyphs an exhibition pavilion was built as a branch of Belomorsker local museum.

Economy

The economy of Belomorsk is determined by the timber and fish processing industry. There are a paper mill and a sawmill; the harbor is the base Karelian fishing fleet ( Karelrybflot ).