MOSCOW, July 29. /TASS/. A huge dreary rock in the Barents Sea’s north-east, a few miles from the Kola Bay, lies right at the crossing of sea routes from Murmansk.

Move ahead, into the past!

One route crosses Scandinavia into Europe, and the other one leads to the White Sea and the Northern Sea Route. A speedboat rushed us from Severomorsk to the island in just 30 minutes. It was weird to see an island of my childhood as if for the first time. Almost 40 years later.

The once strong berths have turned into ruins. Photo correspondent Lev Fedoseyev and I hardly managed to get ashore crossing those ruins. We took a road, covered with grass, to reach a ghost village.

In the years of flourishing, it was called Niz. There used to be a shop, a few houses, a kindergarten, a three-year school, military bases and a military cemetery.

Fishers on the shore warn us - a couple days earlier a bear came here. At least five bears wander here. They are hosts on the island, the men said.

We do not have a radio or signal fires, or guns, only cameras and the cell phones, which seem quite useless here as on the shoreline we could find a weak signal.

On the upper plateau, about five kilometers up a winding road, is another village, called Verkh (Top) - there I lived between the age of three and nine.

My father served as the chief of communications at the Northern Fleet’s coastal artillery regiment, and this is why we had a telephone at home, which we often used after heavy snowfalls to call a heating station asking servicemen to dig the entrance to our house from under the snow.

Children to the age of nine used to live on the island together with their parents, but then they were sent to a boarding school on the mainland. Those who remained on the island enjoyed the freedom - they watched cows, about ten of them. Milk was given only to families with babies, or the kids could peep into the bakery to grab dry bread and feed horses, which wandered the island freely.

In winter, soaking wet, we dug tunnels in three-meter thick snow, we loved sliding off hills on sledges to crawl upwards for an hour.

The barracks are practically ruins now, though the two and three floor houses, which we used to call skyscrapers, still look firm, gaping with empty windows.

No furniture, pipes or heaters inside. Here is the club, where used to be a gym, a book store, a canteen with tasty homemade pies, and where families organized parties.

The military left the island in 1995, and the Kildin got deserted.

It is still inhibited

Getting to the East Kildin is easier. This part of the island has a pebble beach, and our boat glides into the coast, so that we jump out easily. The eye catches numerous flowers: a carpet of daisies, bluebells, polar poppies, wild cloves, "golden root" (Rhodiola rosea) - you cannot meet such flowers in Murmansk.

The climate in the north-western part is severe, typically Arctic, but the southern and eastern parts, which go down to the sea, in summer look like alpine meadows.

At the shore, we see a big wooden house; smoke is coming out from the chimney. A man comes to us.

- I am a "native," between 1981 and 1992 I served here, though on the West Kildin…

The man is Alexei Baranov.

- Then I retired, but remained here for another three years, to 1995, until the regiment left the island. I went into trade, opened two shops here, up there and down there, and supplied food for the island… Later on, for some time, I lived in St. Petersburg. And now that I have reconstructed this house, I live here.

Alexei comes here every spring, welcomes brave tourists and fishers, helps scientists will research, and leaves for St. Petersburg for the winter.

According to him, the Northern Fleet has two bases on the island, but strangers are not allowed there.

Back in the Soviet times, transport communication on the island was organized by the military.

In the past, four vessels connected the island with the mainland. Nowadays, only one of them passes by, sailing from Murmansk to Ostrovnoy.

- A small boat, Pingvin (penguin), took people from the shore to the ship and back. If the wave was high, people got frightened as they crawled down a pilot ladder from a huge ship onto the tiny boat, which at times disappears in the water. Any luggage was thrown from the board, sometimes missing the target, - Alexei smiles. - But anyway all people were experienced, strong. Weaklings couldn’t survive here.

Alexei’s life is comfortable: a stove, a small sauna, coal-heating, a satellite antenna for communication, television and the Internet. Two boats with engines - he uses them to go shopping in Severomorsk. In good weather the trip takes only an hour and a half.

- As you can see, I do not suffer from loneliness - here are fishers, they would stop for a chat, and then come the military. And for recent two years, life’s become active here. Some enthusiasts decided to return life to our wonderful island - they are building a church here.

Church of the Blessed Warrior St. Fyodor Ushakov

Two brothers, Andrei and Yuri Orlov, are doing the impossible - at the initiative of Father Serhiy, the rector of the Teriberka perish, they make a spiritual-educational-sports camp and build a church on the Kildin to commemorate the past.

Between the 16th and 18th centuries, the Solovki monks used to live there; they welcomed fishers and traders, gave water to them, accommodated and shared food. Records about the church and a hostel on the island are found at the archive of the St. Petersburg European University.

Later on, in the 19th century, a Norwegian family settled on the island. They had 12 children. The family lived on the Kildin for about 60 years and was the only Norwegian family, living east from the Kola Bay, and the Kildin’s only population. The family’s head was dubbed the Kildin King.

- We installed the worship cross three years ago, and, I think, by this autumn the church will be ready. The construction continues on sponsor money. The church will be 5 by 6 meters, we have associates, who are making domes for us. The church will have the altar, it won’t be big, but it will be cozy and open for all. We have chosen the name - Church of the Blessed Warrior St. Fyodor Ushakov, - Andrei Orlov told us.

Andrei and Yuri live in Severomorsk. They love the nature, the North and the sea. The Navy’s boat has brought to the island logs for future church, windows and a small house. From the sea to the construction site an old ZIL truck carried all the materials. The brothers had repaired the Soviet truck.

- This ZIL was made in 1968, it carries 5 tonnes, but this workhorse can carry even 12, we’ve tried, - Yuri Orlov, driving the truck, told us, jumping as we moved on.

- We could’ve done even more, during this polar night, when it’s light, but we’ve run out of materials, - Andrei said laughing. - Bringing them here is a big deal, you’ve seen it. Our boat can take only little. We are very grateful to the Northern Fleet’s commander for their assistance. It is quite problematic to build anything at such a distance. You buy a nail with one ruble, and when you bring it here its price jumps to five. At some point, we got so stressed, everything seemed impossible… but as we began putting up the walls, the enthusiasm returned.

If most optimistic expectations come true, the church’s walls may be ready by October, and the domes would be made within the coming winter in the Samara Region. Local masters will make the bell tower.

- With God’s help, next summer the first service will be inside the church, - Bishop Tarasius said.

Legends and mysteries of the Kildin Island

- Kildin is like a cork, which burst out from the narrow Kola Bay. There is a legend about a wicked witch, who wanted to block this bay with a stone island not to allow fishers into the sea. But it did not happen, and the Kildin now is separated from the mainland by a narrow strait. Some geologists say it is a part of the Kola Peninsula, others say it is a part of the Urals Mountains. The top weird version claims this island is a meteorite, - a local reporter and historian Sergei Yudkov said.

Beyond Lake Mogilnoye, further on to the east, there is another natural attraction - square stones-coffers, twice higher than a man. Amazingly, the stone is not monolith granite, it is layered, like a piece of limestone. Some experts say, those are fragments of rocks, which had rolled off the top, and the wind and waves have made them look so strange. The ancient Pomors called them Devil Stones.

- In the old times, - Sergei Yudkov said, - on these rocks got ruined the Pomors’ boats, and during the war (World War II), minesweepers Tuman and Passat sank there - by the Devil Stones. K-159 sub sank there, too. This is our local Bermuda Triangle.

These stones-coffers attract many tourists and scientists, and anyone, who saw and touched those granite layers, could not be left unmoved.

Kildin’s Gulag and "Rokossovsky’s golden kilometer"

Here is a part of the paved road across the Kildin. It begins from nowhere and leads to nowhere.

- To be more exact, it is shorter than one kilometer - just 837 meters, we have measured it, - a historian Mikhail Oresheta said. - In Kildin’s eastern part used to be a hospital, inside the former house of the Ericssons, the colonists from Norway. Gulag’s prisoners were treated there. They worked on the island in unbearable conditions, they built tunnels for the armament, and they also paved this road, but never finished it.

Many prisoners on the island were former high-ranking military, and the legend says the name of Rokossovsky’s golden kilometer was devoted to the former marshal. Nobody can say whether he had been on the island or not. But various sources mention he participated in the paving.

Back then, information about prisoners and their work in the North was top secret. Konstantin Rokossovsky was arrested in August 1937 in Pskov, charged with relations with a foreign intelligence service and with participation in a plot against the country’s leaders.

There is no available information about the marshal’s imprisonment. In 1940 he was released.

Practically nothing has remained from that prison on the island - only the tunnels, which the prisoners had made, and that very "golden kilometer of Rokossovsky" - as a monument to Gulag.

The Kildin granite cruiser

The political prisoners built on the island not just the road. An artillery line, anti-aircraft pads, berths for warships, tunnels for repair shops, barracks, a hospital, a club, and a bakery - all those infrastructures were built record quickly right before the war.

By World War II, the Murmansk Region had sufficiently reliable military facilities. The Kildin granite cruiser- this is how the island was dubbed back then.

- During the war, in 1943-1944 here were units of the 27th aviation squadron, commanded by Hero of the Soviet Union Vasiliy Adonkin. After the war, the big military construction continued here. On the island were many tunnels, underground facilities for commanders, and storages, - expert of the cultural heritage museum Olga Zemskova said.

On days of military glory, the Northern Fleet’s flags fly at half-mast and passing ships give a long honk. This way, the Navy pay tribute to the Tuman patrol ship, which sank there on August 10, 1941. The sea around the island keeps remains of other battle ships, submarines and civil vessels as well as vessels of the Arctic convoys.

The Northern Fleet continues cleaning areas of Arctic military bases. The Kildin is on the list. The Navy have organized an ecology platoon. On the East Kildin, it will remove scrap metal and old buildings. As the buildings are demolished, the navy will revegetate the soil.

The Kildin, worn out, but still alive, awaits new future.

A tour to the Kildin. Is it realistic?

Only few tourists come to the island. There is no transport, which could bring them here. The Kildin does not have accommodation infrastructures. And yet, the most curious and brave manage to come and see the island.

Ilya Melnikov, the director of the Ahtilahti tourist company in St. Petersburg, usually organizes groups of ten tourists, hires a boat from Teriberka (the Murmansk Region), and takes the groups to hiking tours around the island. Travelers carry food and equipment. They spend nights at tents.

- We have to apply for passes to the island, - he said. - It is quite doable to walk the island in five days, when we "pick" all the attractions on the way: the deserted military bases, the Severny lighthouse, and the lines of coastal defense. Most interesting are cannons, though quite many objects have been destroyed on the island. Anyway, the underground facilities are in good conditions, and they are interesting in terms of military engineering. In fact, the Kildin is a story about Russia, about what has happened to it - it’s the essence of our reality on a separate island.

Ilya says the island should be developed, but enthusiasm only is too little; such a project requires support, including from the authorities.

This year (2020), Ilya had to cancel trips due to the pandemic, but he hopes to catch up during the next season. Many people in the Murmansk Region would want to organize a sea route to that tiny Arctic oasis. The regional authorities also have plans to develop tourism in the Arctic. We hope all those plans come true.