Russia (Россия, Rossiya in Russian) is by far the world's largest country, spanning a little over 150° in longitude. It is organized as the Russian Federation (Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) with members known as federal subjects (sub'yekty federatsii). Russia is primarily a continental nation but it has important coastlines on the Baltic, Black, and Caspian Seas and very long coastlines on the Arctic Ocean and North Pacific Ocean. To guard these coasts it operates hundreds of lighthouses, many of them historic. Most of Siberia is drained by one of three great rivers: the Ob, the Yenisey, and the Lena. The Yenisey River is the largest of the three river systems. The lower course of the river is an estuary called the Yenisey Gulf; the gulf is about 250 km (155 mi) long and up to 50 km (30 mi) wide. The gulf empties into the Kara Sea, a basin of the Arctic Ocean. This page describes the numerous lighthouses along the gulf and its approaches. Administratively this region is part of the Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, the second largest of the federal subjects. The district is larger than Texas but has fewer than 35,000 permanent residents, most of whom live in the town of Dudinka on the lower Yenisey River. Dikson is the only permanent settlement on the gulf. The Russian word for a lighthouse is mayak (маяк); ostrov is an island, poluostrov is a peninsula, mys is a cape, bukhta or guba is a bay, zaliv is a larger bay or gulf, proliv is a strait, reka is a river, and gavan' is a harbor. Russian lighthouses are owned by the Russian Navy and maintained by the Navy's Office of Navigation and Oceanography (Управление навигации и океанографии). Special thanks to V.I. Radygin and Evgeny Gusev for permission to present their photos on thos page. ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. Russian light list (RU) numbers are from Russian Navy Publication 2111 (Kara Sea) as reported by the Admiralty. After 2014 both the Admiralty and NGA dropped their listings of the Yenisey Gulf lights south of the Dikson area. The former Admiralty numbers are from volume L of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. Former U.S. NGA numbers are from Publication 115.
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![]() Ostrov Sibiryakova Northeast Light, April 2011 ex-Panoramio photo copyright V.I. Radygin; used by permission |
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![]() Ostrov Bol'shoy Korablik Light, April 2011 photo copyright V.I. Radygin; used by permission |
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Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: East: Taymyria | South: Yenisey River | West: Yamalo-Nenetsia
Return to the Lighthouse Directory index | Ratings key
Posted December 5, 2011. Checked and revised May 8, 2024. Lighthouses: 62. Site copyright 2022 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.