At the very top of Europe, its northernmost edge—where, forming a sandy deposit, two rivers meet beneath a mountain: the broad and majestic Tuloma, and the rock-strewn Kola—people have lived since ancient times, driven from many lands of Rus-Russia by dire need to uninhabited, remote, silent places.
They lived well enough, quietly, sometimes even with difficulty. But they always left their children a love of independence and hatred of oppressors. And now nobody remembers why the cheerful river Kola suited them so much—yet gradually everything became tied to her name: the settlement was called Kola, the bay became Kolskiy (the Kola Bay), and the surrounding land—Kola Peninsula.