Pechora Sea

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Pechora Sea (Russian: Печо́рское мо́ре, or Pechorskoye More), is a sea at the north-west of Russia, the south-eastern part of the Barents Sea. The western border of the sea is off Kolguyev Island, while the eastern border is the western coasts of Vaygach Island and the Yugorsky Peninsula, and the northern border the southern end of Novaya Zemlya.

The Pechora Sea is quite shallow, its average depth being only 6 m. The deepest point reaches 210 m. In the southern part of the sea runs the eastward-flowing Kolguyev Current. There are a few islands close to the coast, the largest of which is Dolgiy Island.

The Pechora Sea is blocked by floating ice from November to June. The main river entering the sea is the Pechora.

[edit] History

Historically, before the adjacent Barents Sea was named as such, the Pechora Sea's own name was already established. The rest of the present-day Barents Sea was known then as "Sea of Murmask" (Murmanskoye Morye).

The Pechora Sea was used as a starting point of the exploration of the hitherto unknown icy seas lying to the east. The earliest recorded voyage across the Pechora Sea through the Yugorsky Strait was made by early Russian explorer Uleb, from Nizhny Novgorod. Uleb's passing into the Kara Sea was recorded in 1032.

Russian "Pomors", the coastal dwellers of the White Sea shores, explored this sea and the coast of Novaya Zemlya since the 11th century. The Arctic's first shipping line, the Great Mangazea Route, from the White Sea to the Ob River and the Yenisei Gulf began operating in the latter part of the 16th century. This line opened up the way to Siberia's riches and it worked till 1619, when it was closed for military and political reasons, for fear of possible penetration by Europeans into Siberia.

Nowadays there is some amount of oil drilling in the Pechora Sea at Dolginskoye and Prirazlomnoye oil fields. The negative ecological impact of industrial exploitation in the Pechora Sea coast is intense.

[edit] References

• Encyclopedia Britannica
• Benthic fauna: [1] & [2]
• Oil fields: [3]]
• Ice ridges: [4]
• Human impact on coastal stability in the Pechora Sea: [5]
• Leonid Sverdlov, (Member of the Russian Geographic Society), RUSSIAN NAVAL OFFICERS AND GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORATION IN NORTHERN RUSSIA.
• C. Raymond Beazley, The Russian Expansion Towards Asia and the Arctic in the Middle Ages (to 1500). The American Historical Review