Russian nuclear-powered icebreakers

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Murmansk

The world’s biggest Arctic city is a mere baby by Russian standards: Murmansk celebrated its 100th birthday in 2016. Murmansk’s raison d’être is its port, kept ice-free by comparatively warm Gulf Stream waters. This bustling, rapidly modernising place gets much of its wealth from the cornucopia of minerals found beneath the ground of the Kola Peninsula, the controversial exploitation of natural resources in the Arctic and close ties with its Scandinavian neighbours.


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