Russia (Россия, Rossiya in Russian) is by far the world's largest country, spanning a little over 150° in longitude. It is organized as the Russian Federation (Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) with members known as federal subjects (sub'yekty federatsii). Russia is primarily a continental nation but it has important coastlines on the Baltic, Black, and Caspian Seas and very long coastlines on the Arctic Ocean and North Pacific Oceans. To guard these coasts it operates hundreds of lighthouses, many of them historic. Established in 1953, Magadan Oblast is on the north shore of the Sea of Okhotsk, a large gulf separated from the rest of the Pacific Ocean by the Kamchatka Peninsula and Kuril Islands. Russian occupation of this area began with the explorations of Vitus Bering and Alexsei Chirikov between 1728 and 1741 but there was very limited development or commerce before the Soviet era. Magadan City was founded in 1929 to provide a port for the Kolyma gold-mining district to the north; it now has nearly 100,000 inhabitants. Magadan Oblast is divided into eight administrative districts (raions) plus the urban district of Magadan City. The Russian word for a lighthouse is mayak (маяк); ostrov is an island, poluostrov is a peninsula, kosa is a sandy spit, rif is a reef, mys is a cape, bukhta is a bay, zaliv is a larger bay or gulf, proliv is a strait, reka is a river, and gavan' is a harbor. Russian lighthouses are owned by the Russian Navy and maintained by the Office of Navigation and Oceanography (Управление навигации и океанографии). ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. Admiralty numbers are from volume M of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. U.S. NGA List numbers are from Publication 112.
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![]() Mys Chirikova Light, September 2005 City of Magadan photo by Voldemar |
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Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: East: Kamchatka | Southwest: Northern Khabarovsk
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Posted May 19, 2006. Checked and revised July 8, 2024. Lighthouses: 13. Site copyright 2024 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.