Short answers, pulled from the story.
The population of the Komi Republic was 737,853 at the 2021 census, down from 1,250,847 at the 1989 census. The republic has experienced significant population decline since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Stephen of Perm, a missionary and native of Ustyug, created the first written alphabet for the Komi language. He settled in Ust-Vym and became the first bishop of Perm, working under the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 14th and 15th centuries.
The Virgin Komi Forests is a UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 1995, covering around 32,800 square kilometers of boreal forest in the Northern Ural Mountains. It is the first natural UNESCO World Heritage Site in Russia and the largest expanse of virgin forests in Europe. It includes the Pechora-Ilych Nature Reserve, created in 1930, and Yugyd Va National Park, created in 1994.
Manpupuner, also called Man-Pupu-Nyer, is a site in the Troitsko-Pechorsky District of the Komi Republic featuring seven large rock towers rising from a flat plateau in the northern Ural Mountains. It has been voted one of the Seven Wonders of Russia. The towers' shapes are so unusual that their tops are inaccessible even to experienced rock-climbers.
Prisoners of the Gulag built all of the Komi Republic's major cities, including Syktyvkar, Pechora, Vorkuta, Ukhta, and Inta, as well as the republic's railways, roads, and original industrial infrastructure. The first mine, called Rudnik No. 1, became the city of Vorkuta. Hundreds of thousands of prisoners were sent to perform forced labor in the Arctic regions.
The Komi Republic's natural resources include coal, oil, natural gas, gold, diamonds, and timber. Petroleum, wood, and paper industries combined made up 94.5% of the republic's exports in 2021. Major industrial centers include Syktyvkar, Ukhta, Vorkuta, Inta, Pechora, and Sosnogorsk.