Special Interest Tourism (SIT) in Murmansk (Arctic NE Scandinavia)

Touristic Route around the City to Explore the Oldest Rocks in Europe

Bibliographic Data

ID13125706
AuthorsMiłosz Huber (0000-0001-7583-6230, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, corresponding author), Olga Iakovleva (0000-0001-5124-6412, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University), Galina Zhigunova (0000-0001-7981-9278, Murmansk Arctic State University), Marija Menshakova (0000-0003-0441-668X, Murmansk Arctic State University)
Year2023
Volume6
Issue3
Pages2664-2687
Publication date2023-03-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHeritage (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2571-9408 • E-ISSN: 2571-9408
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/heritage6030141
OpenAlexW4322770084
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited56

The city of Murmansk together with the neighboring town of Kola is an agglomeration in the Arctic, in the northern part of the Kola Peninsula on the Barents Sea fjord. Some of its roots date back to the 16th century when the foundations of Russian civilization were built in this region. Rock paintings and labyrinths indicate that there were peoples living in this area before then: the Saami were here much earlier. This historic heritage is superimposed on the extraordinary environment of the far north, with a relatively mild climate associated with the warm Norwegian stream. An important and inseparable element of the city’s landscape is a non-freezing port on the coast, which offers a window to the world, and numerous hills forming an interesting city landscape built of Archean gneisses as old as 3.75 billion years. These are among the oldest rocks in Europe. Murmansk, with its wealth of tourist features and as a center of science, industry, and trade, also aspires to be the capital of the entire Arctic. Walking the streets of this city, which is just over a century old, past its neoclassical buildings, one can observe several inanimate natural forms that show visitors the unusual nature of the city’s topography. Efforts to promote these have been partly implemented around the Monument to the Unknown Soldier, where a small ecological route has been marked out. However, tourist interest in the city is increasing, and this article attempts to answer this interest by proposing a loop of tourist routes displaying many interesting features of the city

Archaeology · Arctic · Geography · Peninsula · Tourism · Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research · Geotourism and Geoheritage Conservation · Geology · Oceanography

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