Cities of the Kola Peninsula: Apatity

The largest scientific centre of Kola Peninsula

The town Apatity was founded in July 1966. The employees of the "Apatite" enterprise, scientists and geologists are living in Apatity. Apatity is the second largest town of Murmansk region with approx. 65 thousand inhabitants.

Apatity is the largest scientific centre in the North of Russia with including nine institutes of Russian Academy of Science; the Kola Scientific Centre of the Academy of Sciences with Geological, Mining, Chemical, Technology of Rare Elements and the Mineral Resources Institutes. Specially during the last decade, Apatity has grown into a significant educational centre of Murmansk region with opened branches of many Russian institutions of higher education.

The Institute of Geology has an excellent museum with a beautiful collection of mineral specimens of the Kola Peninsula. The Polar Experimental Station of All-Union Institute of Plants is situated not far away from Apatity. It was founded in 1923 and the first director of this station has become the President of the Estonian Academy of Sciences. Some sorts of potatoes, which have been selected here, are well known not only in the extreme North but also in Middle Asia, Kamchatka, in the other regions of our Country and even abroad.

Lots of interesting exhibitions contributing into development of economics, entrepreneurship and folk handicrafts are conducted in Apatity.