Shoyna (russian: Шо́йна;
Nenets: Сояна’я, ''Sojanaꜧja'') (also spelled Shoina) is a coastal
village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...
(''
selo''), located on the
Kanin Peninsula
The Kanin Peninsula () is a large peninsula in Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Russia.
It is surrounded by the White Sea to the west and by the Barents Sea to the north and east. Shoyna is one of the few communities on the peninsula.
Fauna
For cetacea ...
in northern
Nenets Autonomous Okrug
The Nenets Autonomous Okrug (russian: Не́нецкий автоно́мный о́круг; Nenets languages, Nenets: Ненёцие автономной ӈокрук, ''Nenjocije awtonomnoj ŋokruk'') is a federal subjects of Russia, federal su ...
,
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
. It had a population of 300 as of 2010.
It was founded in the 1930s by fishing families who named the settlement after the Shoyna ("cemetery" in Komi language) River. An abundance of fish and sea life led to prosperity within the collective farm organized there, and by the 1950s some 1,500 People lived in Shoyna with a fishing fleet numbering more than seventy vessels.
Ultimately, reckless trawling led to the utter annihilation of the
benthic
The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or stream, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. The name comes from ancient Greek, βένθος (bénthos), meaning "t ...
life, which decimated the fishery. More than half of the village is now buried under sand dunes deposited by the wind. It is thought that damage to
permafrost
Permafrost is ground that continuously remains below 0 °C (32 °F) for two or more years, located on land or under the ocean. Most common in the Northern Hemisphere, around 15% of the Northern Hemisphere or 11% of the global surface ...
and destruction of the sea bottom released the sand, which has overwhelmed residents' abilities to control the drifts. The collective farm no longer operates; today, just three hundred inhabitants live at Shoyna, supported mainly by unemployment benefits and pensions.
There is a lighthouse at Shoyna, built in 1960 as a navigational aid to mariners on the
White Sea
The White Sea (russian: Белое море, ''Béloye móre''; Karelian and fi, Vienanmeri, lit. Dvina Sea; yrk, Сэрако ямʼ, ''Serako yam'') is a southern inlet of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia. It is su ...
. Several shipwrecks line the shore as a testament to the treacherous waters. No roads or railroads connect the area with the south. Transportation to the outside world is by ship or air. The civilian airport is a dirt runway 650 metres in length. Local travel is by "truckcycles" (motorcycles with truck wheels).
In 1994, documentary filmmakers came to Shoyna and shot footage of the community. The resulting film, ''Zanesyonnyye Vetrom'' (''Blown in with the Wind''), was released in 2000. New documentary Between Sky and Sand (2017)
Shoyna lies immediately south of the 167 square kilometer
Shoyninsky State Nature Reserve, established in 1997 to protect the spring and autumn staging area for the
lesser white-fronted goose
The lesser white-fronted goose (''Anser erythropus'') is a goose closely related to the larger white-fronted goose (''A. albifrons''). It breeds in the northernmost Palearctic, but it is a scarce breeder in Europe. There is a re-introduction sche ...
(''Anser erythropus''), an Arctic species threatened with extinction. In 2002, Dutch researchers discovered that the nearby Shoyna marsh is an important stopover site for
brent and
barnacle
A barnacle is a type of arthropod constituting the subclass Cirripedia in the subphylum Crustacea, and is hence related to crabs and lobsters. Barnacles are exclusively marine, and tend to live in shallow and tidal waters, typically in eros ...
geese, with counts approaching almost ten percent of the total Russian flyway population.
Climate
Shoyna has a
subarctic climate
The subarctic climate (also called subpolar climate, or boreal climate) is a climate with long, cold (often very cold) winters, and short, warm to cool summers. It is found on large landmasses, often away from the moderating effects of an ocean, ge ...
(''Dfc'') with short, moderately warm summers and long, cold winters.
References
External links
Photos by Alexey Golubtsov2005 photographs by Sergey Maximishin
* ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiMf06GthU4 youtube.com– RT Documentary: ''Mysterious Sands of Russia. Russian village surviving in the sands''
{{Authority control
Rural localities in Nenets Autonomous Okrug