The rich oil fields of the Caspian Sea lay over 1, 800 miles to the west, while there were unstable neighbours less than a couple of miles to the south.
Homes on Dikson Island off the coast of northern Russia in the Kara Sea felt shockwaves from the blast that reportedly blew out windows over 490 miles away.
Last week, a clutch of European countries launched plans to develop a vast network of offshore wind-farms over an area of about 293, 438 square miles in the North Sea.