Nagurskoye
Encyclopedia
Nagurskoye is an airfield in Arkhangelsk Oblast
, Russia
located 1350 km north of Murmansk
. It is an extremely remote Arctic
base. Nagurskoye was built in 1950s as a staging base for Soviet Long Range Aviation
bombers to reach the U.S., and was maintained by the Russian Air Force agency OGA (Arctic Control Group), which maintained all Arctic bomber staging facilities. An An-72 (Coaler) cargo plane crashed here on December 23, 1996 while attempting to land, perhaps one of the northernmost plane crashes ever. The airfield is believed to be operational, maintained by Frontier Guards (FSB) and capable of servicing An-26 and An-72 aircraft. Current imagery available in Google Earth suggests the base was at least functional recently, with tracks in the snow clearly visible around the base and its environs.
Arkhangelsk Oblast
Arkhangelsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . It includes the Arctic archipelagos of Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya, as well as the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea....
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
located 1350 km north of Murmansk
Murmansk
Murmansk is a city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast, Russia. It serves as a seaport and is located in the extreme northwest part of Russia, on the Kola Bay, from the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, not far from Russia's borders with Norway and Finland...
. It is an extremely remote Arctic
Arctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
base. Nagurskoye was built in 1950s as a staging base for Soviet Long Range Aviation
Long Range Aviation
Long Range Aviation was the branch of the Soviet Air Forces tasked with long-range bombardment of strategic targets with nuclear weapons. During the Cold War, it was the counterpart to the Strategic Air Command of the United States Air Force....
bombers to reach the U.S., and was maintained by the Russian Air Force agency OGA (Arctic Control Group), which maintained all Arctic bomber staging facilities. An An-72 (Coaler) cargo plane crashed here on December 23, 1996 while attempting to land, perhaps one of the northernmost plane crashes ever. The airfield is believed to be operational, maintained by Frontier Guards (FSB) and capable of servicing An-26 and An-72 aircraft. Current imagery available in Google Earth suggests the base was at least functional recently, with tracks in the snow clearly visible around the base and its environs.