Russia’s important ice-free Arctic port is the largest city north of the Arctic Circle. It sits on a rounded peninsula less than a hundred miles from the border with Norway and a bit further from the Finnish border. A towering, stylized statue of a soldier memorializes the city’s importance during World War II, and a red-and-white lighthouse is dedicated to its seamen, as is a white Church of the Savior on the Waters. It was the main terminal for Allied materiel flowing into Russia from the Arctic convoys in WWII, and later the center of the Soviet submarine and icebreaker fleets during the Cold War. See its history and art museums, and several picturesque Eastern Orthodox churches.