Where is it? Arkhangelsk Oblast, or region, is about 600 miles north of Moscow, just shy of the Arctic Circle. It has nearly 2,000 miles of coastline on the Barents, Kara and White seas. It is in the same time zone as Moscow.

What's the biggest city? Arkhangelsk city accounts for 356,051 of the 1,336,539 people in the region. Other big cities are Severodvinsk (once known as Molotovsk after Vyacheslav Molotov, Stalin's foreign affairs minister and creator of the eponymous incendiary device), which is the main base for Russia's nuclear submarines. Also in the region is the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, which has been a secondary launch facility for Russia's space program. There is some speculation it will become more important because Baikonur, the primary launch site in Soviet times, is in Kazakhstan.

Who lives here? Primarily ethnic Russians. The Nenets ethnic minority has its own autonomous area in the region. There is also a minority population of Komi, who are known for their reindeer herding, although they also have a fully autonomous republic on the border of Arkhangelsk.

What do they do here? The region is centered on the Northern Dvina River and the tributary is key to the area's economy, moving lumber from its forests to the sea. According to Kommersant, 50% of all of the region's industrial workers are involved in forestry. Arkhangelsk was founded as Moscow's outlet to the Baltic Sea in 1584, and it remains a major Russian port for fishing and shipping. The region is also known for its cattle raising and fur farms.

Does it have any English-language news sources? The Barents Observer covers all of the regions bordering on the Barents Sea, including Arkhangelsk.

How do I see what it looks like? There are lots of pictures of the winter weather and coastline on Flickr and Fotki. You can see photos of the hotels that many adoptive parents stay at, the Dvina and Pur Navolok on this page maintained by the Norwegian Barents Secretariat. Here's an aerial map of the city, courtesy of Google Maps. And here's a live Web cam of the city center.

How do I get here? Aeroflot-Nord, a regional carrier formerly known as Arkhangelsk Airlines, flies from Moscow.

Which adoption agencies work here? Adoption Associates lists Arkhangelsk on its Web site. Cradle of Hope has been active here in the past. I've written about the ongoing efforts by Lisa Ann Finneran's charity, Ark Angels For Russian Orphans, to raise $1 million for the orphanages in the region. (Thanks to Lisa for digging up a lot of information for this piece.)

Which Russia bloggers have been here? Lisa writes about her family at "LisaMikePlus3". There's also "My Two Boys".

Truly trivia: Eugenie Fraser was born to a Russian father and Scottish mother in Arkhangelsk in 1906. She grew up to write two books about Arkhangelsk in the last years of the Russian tsars and the Bolshevik revolution, which her city strongly resisted. The are called "The House by the Dvina" and "The Dvina Remains".

Need more information? Kommersant has a profile of the region here. Winters are pretty severe in Arkhangelsk and summers are short; Weather Underground has the current weather info. There's also a Yahoo! group, Our Ark Angels. Its members share stories and photos and have an annual picnic in June.

Image Credit: Alexey Sidorenko