Murmashi

Not to be confused with Murashi, a large town in Kirovski Rayon.

Murmashi (Finn. Muurmassi) is a Uralican city in Sapmi county, which is the smallest and most southerly city in the Murmansk-Severomorsk conurbation. From city centre to city centre, it is about 12 kilometres southwest of Kuálõk and 21 southwest of Murmansk, and it straddles the Tuloma River, which is bridged by Highway UH-41. (UH-41B also comes into the city's northern section.)

Besides being the smallest incorporated settlement of the four in the conurbation, Murmashi is also the newest, having been founded in 1938 around the construction of the Nizhnetulomsky Hydroelectric Project, which comprises two small dams and the power-producing complex, which takes up roughly two thirds of the larger fluvial island that sits between Murmashi's two halves. The northern dam was destroyed in 2007 during Great War III, but was rebuilt in 2008 and refilled by both rain/snowbank melt and imported water a year later. Furthermore, it was modified to have a small lock put in so that ships could move further down the Tuloma.

Another defining feature of Murmashi is that in its northeastern area (bordering on Kuálõk) sits the Murmanski Rayon International Airport.

Not surprisingly, energy production, aeronautics, shipping industries, and tourism are all major industries in Murmashi. Also important are machine-building, and mining and metallurgy of iron. There is a small food production sector as well. The retail sector is fairly large, given the fact that an international airport is in the city limits.

In the northern part of Murmashi, there are two correctional facilities, including a maximum-security prison which houses the five main Chechen perpetrators of the Kondupohju Riots, who have life-plus-ten-year sentences for first-degree murder with bigoted intent.

Culture
Murmashi's population is largely Finnish and Karelian, unlike the neighbouring settlements which are predominantly Russian with large Finnish minorities. Everyone speaks the three commercial languages of Uralica - Russian, English, and Finnish - and quite a few also speak at least one Samic language, with the majority of these speakers speaking Northern or Skolt Saami.

Although the settlement itself is quite new, there is nothing new about settlement in the area, and this is reflected in both a Saami-ethnographic museum and a regional historical museum in the city. There are also a popular series of mineral spas that are fairly close to the airport. But the main source of tourism in the city is the fact that it is a shopper's paradise of sorts, especially in the southern half of the city.

Neighbourhoods and Suburbs

 * Spa
 * Northbank
 * Tuloma (subordinate village)
 * Energiya