Vidyayevo Naval Base (Uritsa)

Vidyayevo is a submarine base of the Russian Navy's Northern Fleet, situated on the Barents Sea coast of the Kola Peninsula in Murmansk Oblast. The installation comprises two separate basing areas in adjacent inlets, Ara Bay and Ura Bay, with the closed settlement of Vidyayevo on the eastern side of Ura Bay serving as the garrison town. Vidyayevo is one of the principal Northern Fleet bases.

The Ara Bay facility berths nuclear-powered attack and cruise missile submarines, including boats of the Akula (Project 971 Shchuka-B), Sierra and Oscar II (Project 949A Antey) classes. During the 1980s the Ara Bay base handled submarines of all three postwar generations. Oscar II boats homeported there have included K-141 Kursk. The Ura Bay facility supports diesel-electric submarines and a small number of surface vessels.

Radioactive waste storage facilities for naval materials are located at Ara Bay. Housing for the garrison consists chiefly of five-storey apartment blocks founded on granite bedrock or on piles driven into permafrost.

The settlement was founded in 1958 as Uritsa and renamed in 1964 after the wartime submarine commander Fyodor Vidyayev. The area began operating as a base for diesel-powered submarines in the early 1960s, and nuclear-powered boats were based there from 1979.