26-Aug-2006 -- The confluence is situated in the northern area of the Kola Peninsula in North West Russia. My wife and I became aware of its nearness to the road on our car navigation unit on our way to Teriberka, a five hundred years old village on the Barents Sea. Forty years ago it had a population of 12.000, to day it is a shadow of itself with around 1.100 souls. This is an area rarely frequented by visitors, Russians as well as foreigners, since it requires special entry permits from the FSB Border Guards, a process which normally takes several weeks to conclude.
The roughly three kilometers climb from the road to the confluence provides an interesting collection of arctic botany with tiny flowers, heather, yellow cloudberries, blueberries, red whortleberries and the most dominant vegetation: the white reindeer lichens.
Before WWII Teriberka was populated by Lapps or Sámi people, nomadic reindeer herders. who migrated from the interior to the coast together with their reindeer in the summer and back inland in the winter. During the Soviet period they were all moved south to Lovozero where they still live. Now no use is made of the ample resources of lichens.
This is tundra area without trees and bushes. There is almost no wildlife. On a previous visit up this way we saw a majestic sea eagle gliding along parallel to our car and the road. On this occasion we scared up a few ptarmigans, or grouses, which seemed very unwilling to fly but kept running along the ground a few meters ahead of us. This is genuine arctic wilderness.
The confluence turned out to be in a shallow dump on the top of a hill. The required photos are therefore not particularly exciting. The weather was kind to us with occasional sunshine and temperatures around 20 degrees centigrade. The breeze was slight, and the mosquitoes were large and many.
It was an easy visit. The most difficult thing was to get a good photo of the GPS. The reflection from the screen required many takes before a usable photo was achieved on the ground, under an anorak.
On the photo to the East on the hill top can be seen one big rock resting on another pointing to the left. This, I have been told, is most likely an old Sami religious place of sacrifice. What a coincidence.
#1- General area of the confluence, taken within 10 – 12 meters of the confluence
#4 - East
#5 - West
#6 - GPS showing the confluence
#7 - Finally there!
#8 - Red whortle berries and reindeer lichens
#9 - Cloud berries
#10 - Willow grouse or ptarmigan