To understand the dimensions and ramifications of the disaster of the Russian submarine Kursk, it helps to know something about its homeport region. The Kola Peninsula, that stencils the southern coastline of the Barents Sea, is a frigid and forbidding region, inherently melancholy, with an unequivocal air of detachment about it. 50,000 nuclear fuel clusters from former nuclear reactors are stored under inferior, supposedly temporary conditions. The land is rich in natural resources like timber, minerals and fish, but lean in permutation. Once contributions of the Soviet State, derelict cowsheds, broken-down trucks and tractors litter the interior, all now relics of so many ruined collective farms.
Towns wither along with their populations.
Life moves at a glacial rate in this frigid climate, where the people have long learned to rely on themselves, while they wait for better days and the grave. The Kursk, commissioned in 1995, sank on August 12th with 118 people aboard in 354 feet of water in the Barents Sea. 560.9 ft. long and 78.7 ft. Its double, skillfully insolated hull construction makes it nearly indestructible, it would take more than a single heavy torpedo ever to sink one. If that behemoth had collided with a NATO submarine, as Defense Minister, Marshal Igor Sergevev insinuated, the Kursk would have unquestionably prevailed over a smaller allied adversary.