Arkhangelsk was founded in the mouth of the Northern Dvina River in accord with the Decree of Csar Ivan the Terrible dated of March 5, 1584. Arkhangelskaya Oblast borders upon the Nenetsky autonomous region in the northeast, the Republic of Komi in the east, Kirovskaya Oblast in the southeast, Vologodskaya Oblast in the south and southwest and to the west of it lies the Republic of Karelia. From the early years of its history, Arkhangelsk has been an important seaport and centre of trade, and also a starting point for numerous expeditions to explore the north - the Barents and White Seas, Arctic Ocean, Novaya Zemlya, Spitzbergen, France-Joseph Land and the North Pole. During the Second World War, Arkhangelsk was a destination of convoys that delivered lend-lease goods and equipment from the USA and Great Britain to the Soviet Union. Nowadays, the city's population is more than 360 thousand people. Arkhangelsk is the capital of the Arkhangelsk Region, with vast taiga and deserted tundra, villages of Pomor people and Nenetsky reindeer herds. The most famous place in the Arkhangelsk region is surely Solovetsky Islands, located in the White Sea not far from Karelian shore. The biggest rivers here are the Northern Dvina with its tributaries Vychegda, Pinega, Onega and Mezen. Here one can see such sights as the cosmodrome "Plesetsk", the Kenozersky national park, the Solovetskiye Islands.