Murmansk: Remembering Seamen

The first stop of the tour was a spot Mui and I were familiar with from our brief time in Murmansk in 2014.

The park-like setting is home to two memorials and a church ... all dedicated to seamen who have died during peacetime since 1945 ... be they fishermen, merchant marine, or military sailors.

The first memorial is the sail of the Kursk, the nuclear submarine that went down in the Barents Sea in 2000 with all hands aboard. The sail was found in a scrapyard nine years later and now serves as a memorial dedicated to submariners who have died during peacetime.

The second memorial, a Lighthouse Tower, has an observation platform at the top and a museum inside the structure. But, as was the case in 2014, it was locked up tight again today.

The Church of the Savior on Waters, sits at the highest point of the park. The gold-domed Orthodox Church was built in 2002, with funding coming solely from the public. When we visited the complex in 2014, one of our naturalist guides told us the story of how, due to restrictive religious practices, the people lied to inspectors and said they were building a community center and not a church.Read more