The Terek coast is represented by territories and settlements of the Kola Peninsula, washed by the White Sea, with a total length of about 500 km. The scattered villages here face a constant outflow of population, and at times it seems that only local dogs walk the streets. Historically, the Terek coast of the White Sea attracted the so-called ushkuiniks - robbers, equipped under the command of the Novgorod boyars, with the opportunity to trade furs and fish. Settlements formed around the tonyas - special places for fishing. Over time, local settlements came under the control of the Solovetsky Monastery and other large monasteries of the North, whose monks, among other things, established salt production here. The inhabitants of these territories have called themselves Pomors since the 12th century, but today few local residents identify themselves with this ethnographic group (according to the 2010 census, only about 3,000 people in the Arkhangelsk and Murmansk regions). During the Soviet period, factories appeared in the villages, but many of them very quickly exhausted their resources. The Umba sawmill, which used to supply wood for export, has closed; According to local residents, all the wood is now thin and unsuitable for export, and all the good wood has been sawn. Many cities rely on ore, but local residents are concerned that it will soon run out and the city-forming enterprises will close. As for fishing, it is impossible to make money on it as before: this is caused by legal fishing quotas. Collective farms can fish legally, for example, “Inputs of Communism” in the village of Varzuga, but even they lack quotas. Therefore, many settlements are beginning to pay attention to tourism: people come here for fishing, rafting on wild rivers, and in winter, although to a lesser extent, for winter entertainment.

In the village of Umba, the city-forming enterprise was a closed timber mill, as well as a burned-out fish factory. Now only a dairy plant and a fish processing plant remain, which appeared in 2021. They hoped, in particular, to reduce, if not stop, the outflow of local residents to larger cities. However, some residents of Umba still travel to Kandalaksha, another large city by local standards 100 km from Umba, where, for example, an aluminum smelter operates. According to locals, the kindergarten in Umba is empty and residents are mainly engaged in maintenance work, but there are not as many tourists as we would like, partly due to weather conditions: most of the Tersky Coast is located beyond the Arctic Circle. This means that daylight hours are very limited during the fall and winter months. There are disputes about which settlements are located in the Arctic and which are not: they even wanted to take a polar premium (additional payment for living and working in the Arctic) from the residents of the village of Kashkarantsy, 100 km from Umba. In any case, the polar bonus is no longer as noticeable as before, when residents of the middle zone sought to work and live in the North due to more favorable earning conditions.

In the vicinity of Umba there is the open-air ethnographic museum Tonia Tetrina, created on the site of a real fisherman's village Toni. Alexander, the founder of the museum, has been collecting exhibits and the history of these places for many years and willingly shares them with visitors. Together with his wife Olga and son Dmitry, they welcome tourists (but only until November: according to them, not many people come during the polar night), feed moored fishermen lunch and are unhappy with the strict restrictions on fishing in these places. Unlike nearby fisheries, there are no fishing quotas and private fishing is prohibited.

The region’s famous fishery is called “The Entrances of Communism” and is located in the village of Varzuga on the banks of the river of the same name. Engaged in the production, processing and sale of agricultural and fishery products. They are also trying to develop the sphere of recreational fishing with permits, which also apply to visitors, but mainly to residents of the Murmansk region. But wild tourism, bypassing permits, has led to huge amounts of poaching: there is a risk of complete extinction of wild salmon in the region.

Many settlements on the White Sea coast are seasonal holiday villages, for example Kuzreka or Kashkarantsy. In 2010, the population of Kashkarants was 79 people; today, according to a local resident, 12 people permanently live here. Separately, local lighthouse workers and their families live in about 6 houses. Their village has a diesel generator for uninterrupted power supply, unlike the rest of the village.

The village of Kuzomen, sandwiched between the Varzuga River and the White Sea, causes the greatest concern among environmentalists in this region. Due to large-scale deforestation for the needs of local salt mines, overgrazing and forest fires, a giant man-made wasteland has formed here. The sand masses are not fixed and under the influence of the wind they move and cover buildings: in Kuzomeni several houses and bathhouses were washed into the river, and in the old local cemetery the wind carries away the sand, exposing the graves. Reforestation requires a lot of effort and investment and is progressing slowly because funding has dried up after the first stage of planting seedlings. Yakut horses roam around the village, once brought here for household needs, but now completely abandoned.