White Sea small. The main island group is the Solovetsky Islands, located almost in the middle of the sea, near the entrance to Onega Bay. Kiy Island in Onega Bay is significant due to a historic monastery. Velikiy Island, located close to the shore, is the largest island in the Kandalaksha Gulf. The White Sea is a water-filled depression in the block of a continental shelf known as the Baltic Shield. Its bottom is very uneven and contains the Kandalaksha Hollow in the northwest and the Solovetsky Islands in the south. Also, the Onega Bay has many small underwater elevations. The opening
Arkhangelsk Oblast the 1970s and is expected to become part of the Belkomur project — a railway line connecting Arkhangelsk via the Komi Republic with the Perm Krai and the Ural mountains. Almost the entire rail network belongs to the Northern Railway, which west of Onega connects to the Oktyabrskaya Railway. There is also a railway line from Severoonezhsk west to Yangory (an extension of the line from Puksa to Navolok), which belongs to the Department of Corrections. A big number of narrow gauge railways have been built in the 1950s and 1960s to facilitate the transport of timber, but since then