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 Ocean. To guard these coasts it operates hundreds of lighthouses, many of them historic. Russia's Northern Sea Route (Sevmorput) is a well developed sea lane extending through the Arctic Ocean to connect the Atlantic and Pacific. The route extends from Murmansk at the northwestern corner of Russia past the island of Novaya Zemlya and parallel to the Siberian coast all the way to the Bering Strait. The Sakha Republic, also called Yakutia, is a unit of the Russian Federation covering a vast area of Siberia. Nearly as large as India, it would be the world's eighth largest country if were independent. Its Arctic coastline faces the Laptev Sea to the northwest and the East Siberian Sea to the northeast, the two seas being separated by the New Siberian Islands. The Soviet Union established scores of lights along these waters but practically no information is available concerning them. Additional information is needed and would be welcome. The Russian word for a lighthouse is mayak (маяк); ostrov is an island, poluostrov is a peninsula, mys is a cape, bukhta or guba 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 Navy's Office of Navigation and Oceanography (Управление навигации и океанографии). The ARLHS World List of Lights does not list any of the lighthouses in the Sakha Republic. Admiralty numbers are from volume L of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals (although this is one of the few coasts in the world not well covered by that list). U.S. NGA numbers are from Publication 115.
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![]() Solyanaya Sopka Light, Nordvik, August 2008 ex-Panoramio Creative Commons photo by Vladislav Kyamyarya |
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![]() Ostrov Stolbovoy Light, Laptev Sea, October 2010 ex-Panoramio photo copyright Roman Chudinov; used by permission |
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Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: East: Northern Chukotka | West: Taymyria
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Posted January 14, 2012. Checked and revised June 6, 2024. Lighthouses: 34. Site copyright 2024 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.