A study from 2019 described Muslim communities in Arctic Russia as "rapidly growing" in the last two decades. An early attempt to build a mosque in a major city (Yakutsk, about 450 kilometers (280 mi) south of the Arctic Circle) failed upon the outbreak of the First World War and the following October Revolution. In 1996, however, it became the site of the world's largest mosque in the far north, capable of holding 3000 worshipers.[1]