Arkhangelsk is the first trade sea port in Russia, the “Northern Gates to Arctic”. We are reminded of this by the huge sea anchors, buoys, the fog horn and busts of Arctic Explorers installed on the Red Pier. The Red Pier was also called the Sobornaya Pier, the pier of Seafaring and the Oktyabrskaya Pier. Once upon a time trade and sealing vessels docked here and embarked from here to go on expeditions to high latitudes. The two most famous of them were the expedition of to the North Pole headed by G. Sedov and the expedition on the ice-breaker “A. Sibiryakov” along the Northern Sea Route. V.I. Voronin was the captain of the “Sibiryakov”. The busts of Sedov and Voronin stand near the building of the Northern Sea Museum as a reminder of those heroic and tragic pages in the history of exploring northern latitudes. Here you can also find the bust of outstanding shipbuilder Andrey Kurochkin who built 87 ships at the Solombalskaya dockyard including the “Azov” famed for the Battle of Navarinskaya. Erected here are also the busts of Otto Yulievich Schmidt and polar explorer Ivan Papanin. During the Great Patriotic War Papanin was a representative to the State Defense Committee and was in charge of maritime traffic in the North. Later he was named “an honorary citizen of Arkhangelsk”.
Address: 80, Northern Dvina Embankment, near the State Northern Sea Museum