Largest Islands of Russia

Geography and geology

Severny (Northern), which has a large ice cap, the Severny Island ice cap, as well as many active glaciers. It has an area of 48,904 square kilometres (18,882 sq mi).

Yuzhny (Southern), which is largely unglaciated and has a tundra landscape. It has an area of 33,275 square kilometres (12,800 sq mi).

The coast of Novaya Zemlya is very indented, and it is the area with the largest number of fjords in the Russian Federation. Novaya Zemlya separates the Barents Sea from the Kara Sea. The total area is about 83,000 square kilometers (32,000 sq mi). The highest mountain is located on the Northern island and is 1,547 meters (5,075 ft) high.

Compared to other regions that were under large ice sheets during the last glacial period, Novaya Zemlya shows relatively little isostatic rebound.

History

The Russian people knew of Novaya Zemlya from the 11th century, when hunters from Novgorod visited the area. For Western Europeans, the search for the Northern Sea Route in the 16th century led to its exploration. The first visit from a Western European was by Hugh Willoughby in 1553. Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz reached the west coast of Novaya Zemlya in 1594, and in a subsequent expedition of 1596, he rounded the northern cape and wintered on the northeastern coast. (Barentsz died during the expedition and may have been buried on Severny Island.) During a later voyage by Fyodor Litke in 1821–1824, the western coast was mapped. Henry Hudson was another explorer who passed through Novaya Zemlya while searching for the Northeast Passage.

Geography

The archipelago constitutes the northernmost part of Russia's Arkhangelsk Oblast, located between 79°46′ and 81°52′ north and 44°52′ and 62°25′ east. It is situated 360 kilometers (220 mi) north of Novaya Zemlya and 260 kilometers (160 mi) east of the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. Located within the Arctic Ocean, Franz Josef Land constitutes the northeastern border of the Barents Sea and the northwestern border of the Kara Sea. The islands are 900 kilometers (560 mi) from the North Pole and 750 kilometers (470 mi) from the Yamal Peninsula, the closest point of the Eurasian mainland. The archipelago falls within varying definitions of the Asia–Europe border, and is therefore variously defined as part of Asia or of Europe.

History

There are two candidates for the discovery of Franz Josef Land. The first was the Norwegian sealing vessel Spidsbergen, with captain Nils Fredrik Rønnbeck and harpooner Johan Petter Aidijärvi. They sailed northeast from Svalbard in 1865 searching for suitable sealing sites, and they found land that was most likely Franz Josef Land. The account is believed to be factual, but an announcement of the discovery was never made, and their sighting therefore remained unknown to subsequent explorers. It was at the time common to keep newly discovered areas secret, as their discovery was aimed at exploiting them for sealing and whaling, and exposure would cause competitors to flock to the site.

Geology

Geologically the archipelago is located on the northern edge of the Barents Sea Platform, within an area where Mesozoic sedimentary rocks are exposed. The area has four units separated by regional erosion surfaces. The Upper Paleozoic unit is poorly exposed and was created by folding during the Caledonian period. The Lower Mesozoic unit, consisting of coastal and marine sediments from the Upper Triassic period, is present on most islands and on the bottom of the straits and consists of limestones, shales, sandstones and conglomerate.

The Upper Mesozoic unit dominates in the southern and western parts, consisting of massive effusive rocks made up of basaltic sheets separated by volcanic ashes and tuffs, mixed with terrigenous rocks with layers of coal.

Climate

Franz Josef Land is in a transition zone between an ice cap climate (EF) and a tundra climate (ET), technically falling into the latter because July and August average above freezing, nevertheless, low temperatures remain below freezing year round. The main forces influencing the climate are the glaciation and sea ice. At 81° north the archipelago experiences 141 annual days of midnight sun, from 12 April to 30 August. During the winter it experiences 128 days of polar night from 19 October to 23 February. Abundant cloud cover further cools the climate.

Geography

Sakhalin is separated from the mainland by the narrow and shallow Strait of Tartary, which often freezes in winter in its narrower part, and from Hokkaido, Japan, by the Soya Strait or La Pérouse Strait. Sakhalin is the largest island in Russia, being 948 km (589 mi) long, and 25 to 170 km (16 to 106 mi) wide, with an area of 72,492 km2 (27,989 sq mi). It lies at similar latitudes to England, Wales and Ireland.

Its orography and geological structure are imperfectly known. One theory is that Sakhalin arose from the Sakhalin Island Arc. Nearly two-thirds of Sakhalin is mountainous. Two parallel ranges of mountains traverse it from north to south, reaching 600–1,500 m (2,000–4,900 ft).

History

Humans lived on Sakhalin in the Neolithic Stone Age. Flint implements such as those found in Siberia have been found at Dui and Kusunai in great numbers, as well as polished stone hatchets similar to European examples, primitive pottery with decorations like those of the Olonets, and stone weights used with fishing nets. A later population familiar with bronze left traces in earthen walls and kitchen-middens on Aniva Bay.

Indigenous people of Sakhalin include the Ainu in the southern half, the Oroks in the central region, and the Nivkhs in the north.

After the Mongols conquered the Jin dynasty (1234), they suffered raids by the Nivkh and Udege peoples.

Climate

The Sea of Okhotsk ensures that Sakhalin has a cold and humid climate, ranging from humid continental (Köppen Dfb) in the south to subarctic (Dfc) in the centre and north. The maritime influence makes summers much cooler than in similar-latitude inland cities such as Harbin or Irkutsk, but makes the winters much snowier and a few degrees warmer than in interior East Asian cities at the same latitude. Summers are foggy with little sunshine.

Precipitation is heavy, owing to the strong onshore winds in summer and the high frequency of North Pacific storms affecting the island in the autumn. It ranges from around 500 millimetres (20 in) on the northwest coast to over 1,200 millimetres (47 in) in southern mountainous regions.

Demographics

According to the 1897 Russian census, Sakhalin had a population of 28,113, of whom 56.2% were Great Russians (Russians), 8.4% Little Russians (Ukrainians), 7.0% Nivkh, 5.8% Poles, 5.4% Tatars, 5.1% Ainu, 2.82% Oroks, 0.95% Germans, 0.81% Japanese, with the non-indigenous people living mainly from agriculture, or being convicts or exiles. The majority of Nivkh, Ainu and Japanese lived from fishing or hunting, whereas the Oroks lived mainly by livestock (reindeer) breeding. The Ainu, Japanese and Koreans lived almost exclusively in the southern part of the island. Since 1925, many Poles fled Soviet Russian persecution in the north to the then Japanese south.

Geography and climate

The Kuril Islands form part of the ring of tectonic instability encircling the Pacific Ocean referred to as the Ring of Fire. The islands themselves are summits of stratovolcanoes that are a direct result of the subduction of the Pacific Plate under the Okhotsk Plate, which forms the Kuril Trench some 200 kilometres (124 mi) east of the islands. The chain has around 100 volcanoes, some 40 of which are active, and many hot springs and fumaroles. There is frequent seismic activity, including a magnitude 8.5 earthquake in 1963 and one of magnitude 8.3 recorded on 15 November 2006, which resulted in tsunami waves up to 1.5 metres (5 ft) reaching the California coast.

History

The Ainu people inhabited the Kuril Islands from early times, although few records predate the 17th century. From the Kamakura period to the Muromachi period, there were Ezo (Ainu) people called Hinomoto from the Pacific coast of Hokkaido to the Kuril region, and Mr. Ando, the Ezo Sateshiku and Ezo Kanrei, was in charge of this ("Suwa Daimyojin Ekotoba"). It is said that when turmoil broke out on Ezogashima, he dispatched troops from Tsugaru. Its activities include the Kanto Gomensen, which calls itself the Ando Suigun, and is based in Jusanminato ("Kaisen Shikimoku"), supplying Japanese products to Ezo society and purchasing large quantities of northern products and shipping them nationwide. ("Thirteen Streets").

Demographics

As of 2013, 19,400 people inhabited the Kuril Islands, of which 16,700 lived on the four disputed southern islands and 2,600 lived on Paramushir, the northernmost large island; the islands in between are uninhabited. These include ethnic Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Tatars, Nivkhs, Oroch, Japanese and Ainus. Russian Orthodox Christianity is the main religion. Some of the villages are permanently occupied by Russian soldiers. Others are inhabited by civilians, who are mostly fishermen, workers in fish factories, dockers, and social sphere workers (police, medics, teachers, etc.). Construction works on the islands have attracted migrant workers from the rest of Russia and other post-Soviet states. As of 2014, there were only 8 inhabited islands out of a total of 56.

Economy

Fishing is the primary occupation. The islands have strategic and economic value, in terms of fisheries and also mineral deposits of pyrite, sulfur, and various polymetallic ores. There are hopes that oil exploration will provide an economic boost to the islands.

In 2014, construction workers built a pier and a breakwater in Kitovy Bay, central Iturup, where barges are a major means of transport, sailing between the cove and ships anchored offshore.

Geography

Zheleznyakov Island (Ostrov Zheleznyakova), right off the NW cape and east of it, Matar Island (Ostrov Matar). Both islands have a length of about 5 km.

Nanosnyy Island 76.283°N 140.416°E / 76.283; 140.416 is a small island located due north off the northern bay formed by Kotelny and Bunge. It is C-shaped and only 4 km in length, but its geographical importance lies in the fact that it is the northernmost island of the New Siberian group.

The small De Long Islands (228 km2) lie to the north-east of Novaya Sibir.

The New Siberian Islands are low-lying. Their highest point is located on Bennett island, with an elevation of 426 m. They are part of the East Siberian Lowland, forming a geographical continuum with the continental plains further south.

History

The first news about the existence of the New Siberian Islands was brought by a Cossack, Yakov Permyakov, in the beginning of the 18th century. In 1712, a Cossack unit led by M. Vagin reached the Great Lyakhovsky Island.

In 1809–10 Yakov Sannikov and Matvei Gedenschtrom went to the New Siberian Islands on a cartographic expedition. Sannikov reported the sighting of a "new land" north of Kotelny in 1811. This became the myth of Zemlya Sannikova or Sannikov Land. In 1886, Russian polar explorer and scientist Eduard Toll, during his first visit to the New Siberian Islands, thought that he had seen an unknown land north of Kotelny Island. He guessed that this was the so-called Zemlya Sannikova.

Geology

As noted by Digby and numerous later publications, this archipelago consists of a mixture of folded and faulted sedimentary and igneous rocks ranging in age from Precambrian to Pliocene. The Lyakhovsky Islands consist of a folded and faulted assemblage of Precambrian metamorphic rocks; upper Paleozoic to Triassic sandstones and shales; Jurassic to lower Cretaceous turbidites; Cretaceous granites; and ophiolites. The Anzhu Islands consist of a highly faulted and folded assemblage of Ordovician to Devonian limestones, dolomites, sandstones, shales, volcanoclastic strata, and igneous rocks; upper Paleozoic to Triassic sandstones and shales; Jurassic to lower Cretaceous turbidites; and upper Cretaceous to Pliocene sandstones and shales.

Climate

The climate is polar (Köppen ET) and severe. Snow cover is present for 9 months of the year.

Temperature in July: At the coasts icy Arctic water keeps the temperatures relatively low. Average maximum temperatures here are from 8 to 11 °C (46.4 to 51.8 °F) and average minimum temperatures from −3 to 1 °C (26.6 to 33.8 °F). In the interior of the islands the average maximum temperatures in July are 16 to 19 °C (60.8 to 66.2 °F) and average minimum temperatures 3 to 6 °C (37.4 to 42.8 °F).

Continuous permafrost rich in underground ice covers the archipelago.

Geography

Severnaya Zemlya comprises four major islands – October Revolution, Bolshevik, Komsomolets, and Pioneer – and around 70 smaller islands, covering a total area of about 37,000 km2 (14,300 sq mi). It is separated from the Taymyr Peninsula by the Vilkitsky Strait. Komsomolets is separated from Canada's northernmost point, Cape Columbia, by under 2000 km.

Four of the main islands are largely glaciated, October Revolution, Komsomolets, and Pioneer, as well as the smaller Schmidt Island at the northwestern limit. The glacierised area on Bolshevik, the southernmost main island of the group, covers about a quarter of its land's surface. The southmost point of Severnaya Zemlya is Cape Neupokoyev at the SW end of Bolshevik Island.

History

Although Severnaya Zemlya lies not far off the northern coast of Siberia, cartographers did not formally record it until the 20th century. Earlier explorers deemed that there was a land mass in the general area, such as in the report by Matvei Gedenschtrom and Yakov Sannikov made in 1810 at the time of their exploration of the New Siberian Islands.

Later in the 19th century, Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld during the Vega expedition sailed very close to this land in 1878 but did not notice it. In 1882, the Danish Arctic explorer and naval officer Andreas Peter Hovgaard, leader of the Arctic survey Dijmphna expedition, set himself the goal of discovering land north of Cape Chelyuskin and exploring the unknown northeastern limits of the Kara Sea.

Climate

Severnaya Zemlya is consistently cold and quite dry (Köppen ET bordering on EF), with a mean annual temperature of −14.8 °C (5.4 °F), mean annual precipitation of about 420 mm (16.5 in), and generally overcast skies. Monthly average temperature ranges from −28 °C (−18.4 °F) in February to 1 °C (33.8 °F) in July. The archipelago sees large temperature fluctuations during winter months, as low-pressure cyclonic activity originating in the North Atlantic make their way across the Arctic, bringing precipitation and higher temperatures. These cyclones are most common in September and October, which see 30% of annual precipitation. Snowfall in summer is common as temperatures hover around 0 °C (32 °F), although higher temperatures occur when warm air masses move north from Siberia.

Geography

October Revolution Island houses five domed ice caps; clockwise from north, they are named: Rusanov, Karpinsky, University, Vavilov and Albanov. The Rusanov and Karpinsky ice caps, located on the eastern side of the island, feed with glaciers the Matusevich Fjord of the Laptev Sea and the Marat Fjord of the Shokalsky Strait. The Karpinsky ice cap reaches a maximum height of 963 m and it is also the highest point in Severnaya Zemlya.

In 2015 the Vavilov Glacier accelerated dramatically due to warming. Between 2015 and 2016 the glacier front advanced 4 km and the glacier lost 4.5 km3 of ice.

Other minor ice caps on the island include the Malyutka Glacier.

History

The island was discovered by Boris Vilkitsky in 1913 during an expedition on behalf of the Russian Hydrographic Service, but its insularity was not proven until 1931, when Georgy Ushakov and Nikolay Urvantsev charted the archipelago during their 1930–1932 expedition.

The Vavilov Meteorological Station was operated from 1974 to 1988 on the northern part of the Vavilov Ice Cap.

The island had a nuclear-powered lighthouse installed in 1989, shortly after the closing of the weather station.

Geography

Komsomolets Island is separated from October Revolution Island in the south by the Red Army Strait and from Pioneer Island in the southwest by the Yuny Strait. The northernmost point of the island is the Arctic Cape, the launching point for many Arctic expeditions.

Practically the whole of the central and southern part of the island is covered by the massive Academy of Sciences Glacier, between Krenkel Bay in the east and Zhuravlev Bay in the west. The northern part is largely unglaciated. The area of this island has been estimated at 9,006 km2. It rises to a height of 780 m.

History

The island was discovered by Boris Vilkitsky in 1913, but it was not proven to be an island until 1931, when Georgy Ushakov and Nikolay Urvantsev charted the archipelago during their 1930–32 expedition. They also named it. In keeping with their tradition of naming the islands after events and movements of the Russian Revolution, this island was named in honour of the members of the Komsomol, the "Communist Union of Youth."

Geography

The island group is administered by Russia as part of Khabarovsk Krai.

Bolshoy Shantar Island. The largest island in the Shantar group, with an area of 1790 km2. It is about 72 km in length and 49 km in width. It has a large brackish lake (Lake Bol'shoe) in its northern end which is connected to the sea through a narrow passage. Smelts (Hypomesus japonicus and olidus) are found in this lake.

Other islands include Prokofyeva, Sakharnaya Golova, Kusova, Ptichy, Utichy and Yuzhnyy.

History

The first recorded exploration of the Shantar Islands was in April 1640, when Russian explorer Ivan Moskvitin allegedly sailed to the mouth of the Amur River with a group of Cossacks and spotted the Shantar Islands on the way back. Moskvitin reported his discoveries to Prince Shcherbatov, the Muscovite voivode in Tomsk. Based on Ivan Moskvitin's account, the first Russian map of the Far East was drawn in March 1642. The Shantar Islands were also explored by Russian surveyors between 1711 and 1725.

American whaleships cruised for bowhead whales around the Shantar Islands between 1852 and 1907. They anchored among the islands to send whaleboats into the bays to the south and west, including Uda, Tugur, and Ulban Bays.

Ecology

There is no permanent population on the Shantar Islands, but they are often visited by commercial fishermen who use them as a base. Other economic activities undertaken on these islands are fur hunting and trapping as well as logging, which in the past were often done illegally. There are spruce forests on the largest islands. Other trees in the island taiga are the Siberian spruce, the Dahurian larch and the mountain pine.

There are many endangered birds on these islands, including the Blakiston's fish owl, osprey, black stork, red-necked grebe, gyrfalcon, solitary snipe, Steller's sea eagle and the Siberian grouse.

Geography and environment

The approximately circular-shaped island has a diameter of 80 kilometres (50 mi) and is 3,497 square kilometres (1,350 sq mi) in area. The highest point on the island is at 166 m (545 feet).

There is only one inhabited settlement on the island, Bugrino, located on the southeast coast. Nenets form the majority of the population, with fishing, reindeer farming and trapping being their main economic activities. Oil and gas are also present.

Kolguyev Island has a tundra climate (Köppen ET) with an August mean of only 8.3 °C (46.9 °F). February is the coldest month, with a mean of −11.5 °C (11.3 °F). Because of its maritime location, Kolguyev Island experiences seasonal lag.

History

Kolguyev has been settled for several centuries by Nenets people, who used the island as a base for seal and reindeer hunting, as well as fishing.

The waters around the island were briefly explored by the navigator Willem Barentsz in August 1594.

In 1841, an expedition by the Russian Academy of Sciences under Franz Josef Ruprecht and Professor Saweljaw visited the island in July and August. They circumnavigated the island and briefly explored its interior, reporting on the island.

Aubyn B. R. Trevor-Battye. He landed in June with an assistant, intending to spend about one month studying the wildlife, especially the birds. Due to mechanical problems with the vessel and a misunderstanding, they were left stranded on the island for 12 weeks.

Economy

The main occupations of the population of the village of Bugrino are reindeer husbandry and fishing. Bugrino is the base of the Kolguyevsky industrial complex. In 2013–2014, due to the lack of sufficient food on Kolguyev Island, there was a massive die-off of deer. The livestock decreased from 12,000 to 200–400 heads (according to other sources, up to 50 heads). Four workers remained in the reindeer herding state farm. There are interruptions in the supply of the population.

ArktikNeft is, along with OAO Arktikmorneftegazrazvedka, which specializes in oil exploration, the only continental company that has received a license to operate on the island. Exploration of the island began in 1980. In 1983, the Peschanoozerskoye oil field was discovered.

Geography

Vaygach Island is separated from the Yugorsky Peninsula in the mainland by the Yugorsky Strait and from Novaya Zemlya by the Kara Strait. The island is a part of Nenets Autonomous Okrug of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia.

Vaygach Island is mainly formed of argillaceous slates, sandstone, and limestone. There are many rivers about 20–40 kilometres (12–25 mi) in length, swamps, and small lakes on the island. For the most part it consists of tundra. Slight rocky ridges run generally along its length, and the coast has low cliffs in places. The island consists mostly of limestone, and its elevation above the sea is geologically recent. Raised beaches are frequent. The rocks are heavily scored by ice, but this was probably marine ice, not that of glaciers.

Geography

Bely Island covers an area of 1,810 square kilometres (700 sq mi). It is covered by tundra, but some lichens, grasses, and dwarf willow shrubs (Salix purpurea) grow during the warmer seasons. It is separated from the mainland by the Malygina Strait, an 8-to-10-km-wide sound which is frozen most of the year. The land is rather flat, going only 12m above sea level, and the island is dotted by small lakes and ponds. Since it is in the Arctic Circle, winters are long and frigid, the average annual temperature is a mere −10.6 °C. In February, temperatures average −24.2 °C reaching a record low of −59 °C. The summers are characterized by fog, with an average temperature of +5.3 °C. The area is subject to polar lows and general cyclonic activity.

Geography

Iturup consists of volcanic massifs and mountain ridges. A series of a dozen calc-alkaline volcanoes running NE to SW form the backbone of the island, the highest being Stokap (1,634 m) in the central part of Iturup. The shores of the island are high and abrupt. The vegetation mostly consists of spruce, larch, pine, fir, and mixed deciduous forests with alder, lianas and Kuril bamboo underbrush. The mountains are covered with birch and Siberian Dwarf Pine scrub, herbaceous flowers (including Fragaria iturupensis, the Iturup strawberry) or bare rocks.

The island also contains some high waterfalls, such as the Ilya Muromets.

Rheniite, a rhenium sulfide mineral (ReS2), was discovered in active hot fumaroles on Kudriavy volcano and first described in 2004.

History

The native inhabitants of all the Kuril islands are the Ainu. They have lived there since at least the 14th century.

Europeans are first recorded visiting this part of the Kurils in 1643 when the Castricum under Maarten Gerritsz Vries was exploring Hokkaido and the surrounding area for the Dutch East India Company (VOC). As with neighboring Urup, Iturup is sometimes said to have been the particular island intended in his account, but in fact his description of an enormous continental Company Land (named after the VOC) and a large and prosperous Staten Island (named after the States General) bear no relation to anything in the area, a fact established by Vitus Bering's lieutenant Martin Spanberg in a series of voyages in 1738, 1739, and 1742.

Geography and geology

Paramushir is roughly rectangular and is the second largest of the Kuril Islands with an area of 2,053 square kilometres (793 sq mi).

Chikurachki, (Russian: влк.Чикурачки, Japanese: 千倉岳; Chikura-dake) with a height of 1,816 m (5,958 ft) is the highest peak on Paramushir and the third highest in the Kuril Islands. It has erupted in 1690, 1853, 1859, 1933 and several times between 1957 and 2008. During the most recent eruption in August 2008, the volcanic ash reached the town of Severo-Kurilsk located 60 km (37 mi) north-east. The previous eruption took place on March 4, 2007, when a 1.5 km (0.93 mi) high plume of ash was emitted that trailed for several hundred kilometers into the neighboring waters.

History

Paramushir was inhabited by the Ainu at the time of European contact. The island appears on an official map showing the territories of Matsumae Domain, a feudal domain of Edo period Japan dated 1644. Russian fur traders are known to have visited the island in 1711 and 1713, and Russian Orthodox missionaries established a church in 1747 to convert the local inhabitants. Imperial Russia's claim of sovereignty over the island was initially confirmed under the terms of the Treaty of Shimoda in 1855, but was transferred to the Empire of Japan per the 1875 Treaty of Saint Petersburg, along with the rest of the Kuril Islands.

Climate and flora, fauna, and funga

Paramushir has a sub-arctic climate strongly modulated by the cooling effects of the North Pacific Oyashio Current. The arboreal flora of Paramushir is consequently limited to dense, stunted copses of Siberian dwarf pine and shrubby alder. The alpine tundra which dominates the landscape produces plentiful edible mushrooms and berries, especially lingonberry, Arctic raspberry, whortleberry and crowberry. Red fox, Arctic hare and ermine are notably abundant and hunted by the inhabitants. The island also supports a population of brown bears. In the spring crested auklet nest on the island. The straits between Paramushir and Shumshu island support a notably dense population of sea otters; harbor seals are also common.

Geography

It is located on the western side of the Chaunskaya Bay, directly off the Nutel'gyrgym Peninsula, at the eastern end of the Kolyma Gulf. The island is 63 km (39 mi) long and 38 km (24 mi) wide with an area of 2,156 km2 (832 sq mi) and a coastline of 550 km (340 mi). It is generally low and flat and there are many small lakes and swamps. Ayon Island is separated from the mainland by the Maly Chaunsky Strait, a shallow channel which is barely 2 km (1.2 mi) wide in its narrowest spot. The bay to the south and east is Chaunskaya Guba. Administratively and municipally, Ayon Island belongs to Chaunsky District, part of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of the Russian Federation.

There are two small settlements, Elvuney (now abandoned) and Ayon in the northwestern end of the island.

Economy

Following the rise of communism in the Soviet Union in the first part of the twentieth century, the native herds were collectivised in 1933 into a group called "Enmitagino". Such collectivisation was very successful on the island and in 1950, the collective in Ayon was turned into a formal Kolkhoz that would eventually have around 22,000 reindeer under its control. In addition to reindeer herding, the new collective was also engaged in sea-hunting and the collection of furs.

A polar station was established on the site of the village in 1941 and the icebreaker Krasin brought Pyotr Sidersky and a crew of seven people to man the new station.

Geography

Kunashir is separated by the Catherine Strait (Kunashiri Suido) from the island of Iturup, which is located 22 km northeast; Kunashir Strait (upper Nemuro Kaikyo) separates Kunashir from Shiretoko Peninsula (Hokkaido Island), located 25 km to the west; Izmena Strait (Notsuke Suido or lower Nemuro Kaikyo) separates Kunashir from Notsuke Peninsula (Hokkaido Island), located 16 km to the southwest; and the South Kuril Strait (Yuzhno-Kurilski Proliv, Minami Chishima Kaikyo) separates Kunashir from Shikotan and the Habomai Islands, 50 km to the east. Kunashir is visible from the nearby Japanese island of Hokkaido, from which it is separated by the Nemuro Strait.

History

The original inhabitants of the island—as with most of Hokkaido and the Kurils—were the Ainu. Europeans are first recorded visiting this part of the Kurils in 1643 when the Castricum under Dutch cartographer Maarten Gerritsz Vries was exploring Hokkaido and the surrounding area for the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Vries's account of the area was incredibly garbled—including a fictitious continental extension dubbed Company Land—but while his imaginary Staten Island is usually connected to Iturup, its placement on most maps of the period more closely resembles the location of Kunashir.

Geology

Kunashir, the southernmost island of the Kuril Arc, is 123 km long (NE to SW), 7 to 30 km wide and has an area of 1,490 km². The island has several volcanic features, including active ones such as Tyatya (1,819 m), Ruruy (1,485 m), Mendeleev (886 m) and Golovnin (541 m). The terrain of Kunashir is rugged and mountainous, with young geomorphology, steep slopes and numerous waterfalls. Asymmetry in relief is notable, with the western (Okhotsk) shore being steep and elevated, in contrast to the eastern (Pacific) shore, which has a more level and flat topography.

In contrast to the Japan Arc, the absolute timing of the evolution of the primary Kuril Arc system has received comparatively little attention, particularly with respect to modern geochronological techniques.

Geography and climate

Urup is essentially rectangular in shape, with a long axis of 120 kilometers (75 miles) and a narrow axis of about 20 kilometers (12 miles). It is the fourth largest of the Kuril Islands, with an area of 1,430 square kilometres (552 square miles). The highest point is Gora Ivao at 1,426 metres (4,678 ft). A number of tiny islets and rocks are scattered around the coast of Urup.

The strait between Urup and Iturup is known as the Vries Strait, after Dutch explorer Maarten Gerritsz Vries, the first recorded European to explore the area. The strait between Urup and Simushir is known as Bussol Strait, after the French word for "compass", which was the name of one of French naval officer La Pérouse's vessels. This French mariner explored the area of the Kuril Islands in 1787.

History

The first attested inhabitants of Urup are the Ainu, the indigenous people of the Kurils, southern Sakhalin, and Hokkaido.

The Castricum under Maarten Gerritsz Vries was the first recorded European vessel to reach this part of the Kurils, arriving in 1643 while exploring Hokkaido and the surrounding area for the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Vries's garbled account of the islands during an era when longitude was difficult to calculate was the origin of the large phantom island Company Land (Dutch: Companies Landt; French: Terre de la Compagnie) that subsequently appeared on European maps at various positions northeast of Honshu.

Geography

This island is desolate and subject to severe Arctic storms, but it has no glaciers. In the summer, large areas of the island are free of ice and snow. Its total area is 288 km2 (111 sq mi). Compared to other Arctic islands it is relatively large and flat, its highest point being only 22 m (72 ft) above mean sea level. The closest land is Ushakov Island 140 km (87 mi) further north.

Wiese Island lies at the northern end of the Kara Sea, roughly midway between Franz Josef Land and Severnaya Zemlya. It belongs to the Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District of the Krasnoyarsk Krai administrative division of Russia. Owing to its extreme northerly location, the surrounding sea is covered with pack ice in the winter, and it is quite full of ice floes even in the summer.

History

In 1924, oceanographer Vladimir Wiese studied the drift of Georgy Brusilov's ill-fated Russian ship Svyataya Anna when she was trapped on the pack ice of the Kara Sea. Wiese detected an odd deviation of the path of the ship's drift caused by certain variations of the patterns of sea and ice currents. He deemed that the deviation was caused by the presence of an undiscovered island whose coordinates he was able to calculate with precision thanks to the availability of the successive positions of the St. Anna during its drift. The data of the drift had been supplied by navigator Valerian Albanov, one of the only two survivors of the St. Anna.

Climate

Wiese Island has an extreme Arctic climate, with temperatures only able to struggle above freezing slightly for a couple of months a year and temperatures are regularly below −20 °C from November all the way through to the following April.

Since records begin in 1945 Wiese Island has not recorded a temperature at or above 10 °C (50 °F) until August 20, 2025 when the high temperature reached 11.6 °C (52.9 °F).

History

In 1741 Commander Vitus Bering, sailing in Svyatoy Pyotr (St. Peter) for the Russian Navy, was shipwrecked and died of scurvy on Bering Island, along with 28 of his men. His ship had been destroyed by storms as they returned from an expedition that discovered mainland Alaska as well as the Aleutian Islands for Russians. The survivors under the command of the Swedish born lieutenant Sven Waxell were stranded on the island for 10 months, and managed to survive by killing seals and birds. They were able to build a boat out of their stranded wreck and managed to return to Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula in 1742 with sea otter furs and preserved meat from the newly discovered island.

Climate

Like the rest of Kamchatka Krai, Bering Island has a subarctic climate (Dfc), though the ocean makes temperatures much less extreme than interior Siberia, with winters being about four degrees milder than in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. The transition to the subpolar oceanic climate of southwest Alaska to the east is very apparent, especially in the extremely low sunshine hours, which average only around 2.8 h per day due to the consistent fog from the Aleutian Low and the Oyashio Current on its western flank.

Extreme temperatures have ranged from −23.5 to 21.9 °C (−10.3–71.4 °F), with the latter occurring as recently as 11 July 2022.

Description

At 95 km (59 mi) long by 15 km (9.3 mi) wide, it is the largest and westernmost of the Commander Islands, with an area of 1,667 km2 (644 sq mi). Most of Bering Island and several of the smaller islands in their entirety are now part of the Komandorsky Zapovednik nature preserve.

Bering Island is treeless, desolate and experiences severe weather, including high winds, persistent fog and earthquakes. It had no year-round human residents until roughly 1826. The 2021 Russian census recorded a population of 654 people, with roughly 300 of them identifying as Aleuts. The island's small population is involved mostly in fishing.

Two and a half miles (4 km) off Bering Island's western shore lies small Toporkov Island (Ostrov Toporkov) 55°12′9″N 165°55′59″E.

Geography and geology

The island consists of two stratovolcanos connected by a relatively flat isthmus.

Krenitsyn -(Russian: Креницын; Japanese 黒石山; Kuroishiyama) with a height of 1,324 meters (4,344 ft) is the prominent caldera at the southern end of the island. This volcano was named after Captain Pyotr Krenitsyn of the Imperial Russian Navy. The mountain rises from a depth of from 600 to 900 meters (2,000 to 3,000 ft), and contains a deep (369 m, 1,211 ft) central caldera lake (Koltsevoe Lake) with a diameter of 7 kilometers (4.3 mi), called Tao-Rusyr Caldera. The central peak of this "island within the island" is actually the highest point on Onekotan Island.

Nemo -(Russian: влк Немо; Japanese 根茂山; Nemoyama) with a height of 1,019 meters (3,343 ft) is the peak to the north.

History

Onekotan, with a number of shallow bays and sandy beaching providing landing points, was inhabited by the Ainu prior to European contact. It appears on an official map showing the territories of Matsumae Domain, a feudal domain of Edo period Japan dated 1644, and these holdings were officially confirmed by the Tokugawa shogunate in 1715.

The island was surveyed by Russian geodesists and explorers Ivan Yevreinov and Fyodor Luzhin in 1720, and was subsequently, claimed by the Empire of Russia in 1736 after the Ainu inhabitants were converted to the Russian Orthodox Church; however Russian tax collectors encountered Japanese officials on the islands in 1744–45.

History

Simushir was inhabited by the Ainu. The island appears on an official map showing the territories of Matsumae Domain, a feudal domain of Edo period Japan dated 1644, and these holdings were officially confirmed by the Tokugawa shogunate in 1715. Russian explorer Gerasim Izmailov was marooned on Simushir in the early 1770s. He spent a full year subsisting on "scallops, grass, and roots"..

Sovereignty initially passed to Russia under the terms of the Treaty of Shimoda, but was returned to the Empire of Japan per the Treaty of Saint Petersburg, along with the rest of the Kuril islands. The island was formerly administered as part of Shimushiru District of Nemuro Subprefecture of Hokkaidō. Settlers on the island were engaged in fishing, and the raising of Arctic fox and reindeer.

Geology

Simushir is highly elongated, consisting of a series of stratovolcanos. The island has a length of 59 kilometres (37 mi) with a width of 13 kilometres (8.1 mi), and an area of 227.6 square kilometres (87.9 sq mi). At the north end of the island is a half-submerged caldera, Brouton Bay, with an entrance only 2.5 meters deep, plunging to 240 meters in the center.

Prevo (Russian: влк. Прево, Japanese: 新知富士, Shimushiru Fuji), with a height of 1,360 metres (4,460 ft). The peak erupted in the early 19th century, forming a symmetrical cone with a resemblance to Mount Fuji. On the summit is a 450 × 600 meter wide summit crater with a small caldera lake on its floor. Lava flows from the summit reach both coasts of central Simushir. Only two eruptions are known from Prevo Peak in historical times.

Climate

In spite of its temperate latitude, the powerful Oyashio Current on the western flank of the Aleutian Low gives Simushir a chilly and very wet subarctic climate (Köppen Dfc) that amazingly almost qualifies as a polar climate (ET), which in low-lying areas would be expected only at latitudes about 20 degrees or 2,200 kilometres (1,370 mi) further north. Unlike typical subarctic or polar climates, however, the winters are only moderately severe and there is no permafrost since the mean annual temperature is around 2.8 °C (37.0 °F), whilst temperatures have never fallen below −22.2 °C (−8 °F). However, the extreme winds, which in winter average as much as 43 kilometres per hour (27 mph), make it feel much colder.

Geography

The Commander Islands archipelago consists of 15 islands and is a part of a submarine volcanic ridge extending from Alaska to Kamchatka dated by the beginning of Paleogene (60-70 million years ago). The islands are the westernmost of the Aleutian Islands, most of which are part of the US state of Alaska, and are separated from the closest US island, Attu Island, and the rest of the chain by 207 mi (333 km). Between the two runs the International Date Line. The relief is somewhat diverse, encompassing folded-block mountains, volcanic plateaus, terraced plains and low mountains. The geologic origins are long-extinct volcanoes on the edge of the Pacific and North American Plates.

The highest point is Steller's Peak on Bering Island at 755 m (2,477 ft).

History

The Commander Islands received their name from Commander Vitus Bering, whose ship St Peter wrecked on the otherwise uninhabited Bering Island on his return voyage from Alaska in 1741. Bering died on the island along with much of the crew. His grave is marked by a modest monument. About half of the crew did manage to survive the winter, thanks in part to the abundance of wildlife (notably the newly discovered Steller's sea cow) and the efforts of naturalist and physician Georg Wilhelm Steller, who cured many of the men of scurvy by compelling them to eat seaweed. Eventually, a smaller boat was built from the remains of the St. Peter and the survivors found their way back to Kamchatka, heavily laden with valuable sea otter pelts.

Climate

The climate is relatively mild for its latitude, and maritime, with 220–240 days of precipitation per year. The cool summers are notoriously foggy. The Köppen climate classification would be classed as Dfc bordering on Cfc and Dfb.

Natural history

There is no true forest on the Commander Islands. The vegetation is dominated by lichens, mosses and different associations of marshy plants with low grass and dwarf trees. Very tall umbellifers are also common.

Due to the high productivity of the Bering Sea shelf and the Pacific slope and their remoteness from human influence, the Commander Islands are marked by a great abundance of marine animal life and a relative paucity of terrestrial organisms. Notably, significant numbers of northern fur seals (some 200,000 individuals) and Steller sea lions (approximately 5,000 individuals) summer there, both on reproductive rookeries and non-reproductive haul-outs. Sea otters, common seals and larga seals are likewise abundant.