An international conference entitled, "Current Issues of Sustainable Development of Russian Arctic Cities," will take place in Murmansk on June 28, Interfax reported. Participants will discuss climate change in the Arctic and the creation of city infrastructure in the Extreme North, as well as the socioeconomic development of subarctic cities, migration and ethno-cultural issues.

"Leading Russian experts as well as scientists from the US, France, Norway and other countries will attend the conference," according to the Murmansk Region press service.

Conference participants will include representatives from the Murmansk Marine Biological Institute, the Institute of North Industrial Ecology Problems, the Institute of Economic Issues and Center of the Humanities of the Kola Science Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Knipovich Polar Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography, Murmansk Arctic State University, Lomonosov Moscow State University, as well as the universities of Connecticut and Virginia (US), Nansen International Environmental and Remote Sensing Center, Nansen Geodesy, Cartography and Environment Center (Norway), University of Rouen (France) and Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography (Germany).

The conference will run for two days aboard the Lenin, the world's first nuclear icebreaker, with support from the regional branch of the Russian Geographical Society, Murmansk Arctic State University, George Washington University and a nuclear energy information center.