Almost the whole movement of goods from and to Kamchatka goes through the port in Petropavlovsk. The city is located at the dull Avacha Bay, which is only connected to the rough Pacific Ocean through a narrow channel.
The foundation of the city goes back to an Russian expedition in year 1740, leaded by an Danish seaman Vitus Bering. He was send by the tzars to find the strait between Alaska and Chukotka. His expedition consisted of 2 ships: "St. Peter" and "St. Paul". The names of the ships were the basis to build the name of the city (the Russian counterpart for the name Paul is Pavel). Bering and some men of his crew survived a shipwreck on an island, later called after the Dane, where Bering died from scurvy.
As I arrived in Petropavlovsk the weather was exceptional good. It was a sunny Sunday and the whole city seemed to gather at the Avacha Bay for a picnic. It was the only sunny day in Ptetropavlovsk during my whole stay in the city. The prevailing weather is drizzle and moisture. Because of the strong influence of the sea Kamchatka belongs to the parts of the world with the highest snow fall. In many places the snow coverage makes more than 6 m. Though there are winters when this cover is twice bigger and reaches 12 m!
In many areas of Kamchatka, at foot-hills in particular, extraordinarily long and intensive snow falls cause a phenomenon when tree leaves spread earlier than the snow under the trees disappears.
