Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 248, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1918 — THE MURMAN COAST [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE MURMAN COAST

THE Murman coast which Germany, with the aid of Finland, has been trying to seize, is a part of Russian Lapland, Sdng the coast of what is known as the Kola peninsula. - The origin of the name Murman is doubtful, hut it is probable that it is a corruption of Norman 0- «•» Norwegian) the district being adjacent to Norway. The Russian custom Is to change the capital N of $ borrowed word into M, so that Norman vould naturally become in Rnsslun, ■Morman" or “Murman.” The Murtnan coast is of immense importance to Russia, since it contains an excellent harbor which is free from ice all the year round—the deep Inlet usually called the Gulf of Kola, hut now fresuently termed the Gulf of Murman. The region has definitely belonged to Russia for some five centuries, and it is extraordinary that no attempt was long made to utilize it for commercial purposes. It was/ of course, rery remote from the then center of Russia at Moscow, and the difficulties jf communication in a virgin country, even now devoid of roads, probably leterred poverty-stricken and slowly progressing Russia from opening a route to it It also lay close to the Swedish frontier (the Swedish empire Included Finland up to 1809), and the llstrict was frequently raided by Swedish brigands and guerrillas. In 1533 the missionary Metrofan (St. Try--on) founded the famous monastery Petchenga * but in 1590, seven fears after his death, this outpost of civilization was sacked by the Swedes and its occupants massacred to the accompaniment of fiendish tortures. The anarchy 6f Russia during the early seventeenth century prevented colonizing efforts. For centuriesRussia was content with Archangel, Icebound for half the year, as her single outlet to the north; and in the nineteenth century large sums were .expended upon the improvement, of that unsatisfactory port, while the Icetree Murman coast was neglected. Murman Railway to Alexandrovsk. This state of things lasted until the beginning of the twentieth century, erhen a naval station was tardily installed at Ekaterina harbor, a bay at the mouth of the Gulf of Kola. A rallwpay to connect this single Ice-free Russian port with Petrograd was protected, bnt, in the usual dilatory Russian fashion, remained a project until the early part of 1915. Then the closing of the entrances to the Baltic and the Black sea, and the consequent Isolation of Russia, awakened the allies to the necessity of utilizing the port, and with feverish energy the railway was pushed forward across the 700 miles of wild .and desolate country—forest, lake, mountain, and snowy steppe—which He between Petrograd and Kola. Thousands of workmen were levied to construct It, and in little more than a year communication was established. But the mortality among the workmen was enormous, as was unhappily too frequently the case with the gigantic engineering feats which excited our In Russia. The railway runs through Kola, at the head of the gulf, and terminates at Romanov or Murmansk, some distance further on. This place was In 1914 a small fishing hamlet, hut has by now grown Into a place of some 3,000 inhabitants. In the present chaotic state of Russian administration it is governed by seven distinct councils or boards, of which the principal one, the regional council, exercises a general supervision over the town and the province. This council is stated as being friendly In feeling towards the allies. The place is, Indeed, practically dependent for food and other necessaries upon supplies furnished by the Wiles by sea; and this vital fact doubtless influences the governing body. > Life in this outpost is curiously artificial. There are no shops or hotels; the councils distribute food and assign lodgings to new arrivals. The rost of living is low, but houseroom is scarcely obtainable. Wages are enormously high—l,ooo rubles a month for locomotive drivers, <JOO for ordinary workmen, 875 for dock laborers.

and so on. Even allowing for the depredation of the paper ruble, the rates are vefy high. Rough Country Without Roads. Alexandrovsk, the naval station on Ekaterina harbor, was during the war a depot of British submarines and other mosquito craft When Russia fell to pieces at the revolution, and Finland became a German vassal state, It was to be expected that an attempt would be made to seize the Murman coast Hopes were held out to Finland of acquiring an ice-free exit to the Arctic ocean. The difficulties In the way of an expedition to the Murman region are great The country Is practically uninhabited, so that a military force must take its own supplies. There are no roads, and the country to be traversed is largely mountainous, interspersed with tracts of forest and marsh, presenting many obstacles to military operations, apart from the arctic climate. On the coast, It may be mentioned, the climate Is deddedly milder"than in the interior. Kola, the port nea? Murmansk, where. Americans, British and French marines' landed in order to protect munitions and provisions originally Intended for the Russian government, Is situated at the Junction of the Kola and Tuloma rivers. Before the war it had only about 600 inhabitants, according to a war geography bulletin of the National Geographic society. In peace times the chief occupation of the people of Kola is fishing, which is profitably followed by the natives from May to August. Kola is well within the arctic circle, being In latitude 68 minutes 52 seconds. It is 835 miles westward of Xrchangel, the great White sea port of Russia. The Penihsula of Kola constitutes the major part of what is known, as Russian Lapland. It is bounded on the north by the Arctic ocean and on the south by the White sea. Its area equals that of the state of New York, and is largely a plateau having an average elevation of 1,000 feet.

Corner of the Inlet at Alexandrovsk.