Founded in 1929 as Khibinogorsk, the name that it wore until 1934, Kirovsk is a town located at the spurs of the Khibiny Mountains on the shores of the Lake Bolshoy Vudyavr, 175km south of Murmansk, on the Arctic Circle. Its occurrence was due to the expedition led by Alexander Fersman in 1920s, which discovered large deposits of apatite and nepheline. By the end of 1930, its population grew to ten thousand people, and a mining and chemical plant was under construction. It was renamed after Sergei Kirov, a prominent early Bolshevik leader killed in 1934 by a gunman at his offices in the Smolny Institute. Now, the population of Kirovsk it's about 29,000.
Read more »