Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Pechora Sea is an Arctic sea forming the southeastern portion of the Barents Sea, to the northwest of European Russia. It is bordered by Kolguyev Island to the west, Vaygach Island and the Yugorsky Peninsula to the east, and the southern end of Novaya Zemlya to the north.
The Pechora Sea has an average depth of around 50 metres across its approximately 205,607 km2 area. Its deepest point reaches 210 metres, while the bay averages as little as 11 metres in mean depth.
The earliest recorded voyage was made by Uleb, a Russian explorer from Veliky Novgorod, whose passage through the Yugorsky Strait into the Kara Sea was recorded in 1032. The Pechora Sea served as the starting point for Russian exploration of the icy seas to the east.
The Pechora Sea holds 70 fish species, with Boreogadus saida (polar cod) being the most abundant. One of the largest Atlantic salmon stocks in Northern Europe also migrates through the sea each autumn to spawn under the ice, and the Pechora estuary hosts the only Northern European stock of Coregonus autumnalis.
The Pechora Sea is located at the centre of the East Atlantic Flyway and serves as the main staging and moulting ground for king eiders. Long-tailed ducks, scoters, and most other waterfowl species use it as a stopover point during migration.
In September 2013, Greenpeace activists approached and attempted to scale a Gazprom drilling platform in the Pechora Sea. The Russian Coast Guard intervened in the confrontation. Both Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund stated that Gazprom was not adequately prepared to handle a spill from oil production in the area.