ARCHANGEL (ARCHANGELSx)  , chief town of the government of Archangel, Russia, at the head of the delta of the Dvina, on the right bank of the river, in lat . 64° 32' N. and long . 40°33' E . Pop . (1867) 19,936; (1897) 20,933 . As early as the loth century, if not earlier, the Norsemen frequented this part of the world (Bjarmeland) on trading 'expeditions; the best-known is that made by Ottar or Othere between 88o and qoo and described (or translated) by Alfred the Great, king of England . The modern town dates, however, from the visit of the English voyager, Richard Chancellor, in 1553 . An English factory was erected on the lower Dvina soon after that date, and in 1584 a fort was built, around which the town grew up . Archangel was for long the only seaport of Russia (or Muscovy) . The tsar Boris Godunov (1598–1605) threw the trade open to all nations; and the chief participants in it were England, Holland and Germany . In 1668–1684 the great bazaar and trading hall was built, principally by Tatar prisoners . In 1691–1700 the exports to England averaged £112,21.0 annually .

After

Peter the Great ARCHBISHOP made St Petersburg the capital of his dominions (1702), he placed Archangels under vexatious commercial disabilities, and consequently its trade declined . In 1762 it was granted the same privileges as St Petersburg, and since then it has gradually recovered its former prosperity . It is the seat of a bishop, and has a cathedral (1709-1743), a museum, the monastery of the Archangel Michael (whence the city gets its name), an ecclesiastical seminary, a school of navigation and a naval hospital . Linen, leather, canvas, cordage, mats, tallow, potash and beer are manufactured . There is a lively trade with St Petersburg, and the sea-borne exports, which consist chiefly of timber, flax, linseed, oats, flour, pitch, tar, skins and mats, amount in value to about 1a millions sterling annually (82k % for timber), but the imports (mostly fish) are worth only aboutn' oo,000 . A fish fair is held every year on the 1st (15th) of Septed . Archangel communicates with the interior of Russia by n e ;1nd•?canal, and has a railway line (522 m.) to Yaroslavl . The t;..our, deepened to 184 ft., is about a mile below the city, and is accessible from May to October . About 12 M. lower down there are a government dockyard and merchants' warehouses . A new military harbour, Alexandrovsk or Port Catherine, has been made on Catherine (Ekaterininsk) Bay, on the Murman coast of the Kola peninsula . The shortest day at Archangel has only 3 hrs . 12 min., the longest 21 hrs .

48 min. of daylight .