Uyedineniya Island

Ensomheden is the Norwegian name of the Russian island Uedineniya, Uyedineniya or Ujeninenije (Oстров Уединения). It is also known as Einsamkeit Island (from the German "Einsamkeit Insel") and more rarely as Lonely Island or Solitude Island in English maps. Located in the central part of the Kara Sea, roughly midway between Novaya Zemlya and Severnaya Zemlya, its latitude is 77° 29' N and its longitude 82° 30' E.

This island is barren and icy, but in the summer there is some tundra vegetation. Its length is 18.5 km and its total area is 202 km². Compared to other Arctic islands it is flat and low-lying, with some swamps and small lakes and a long spit of land on its NE side. Its highest point is only about 30 m.

Owing to its extreme northerly location the weather is bleak and severe and the sea surrounding Uedineniya is covered with pack ice in the winter. It is quite full of ice floes even in the summer.

The nearest land are the Izvesti Tsik Islands which are located about 150 km to the SSE.

Uedineniya belongs to the Krasnoyarsk Krai administrative division of the Russian Federation.

History

The Norwegian explorer Captain Edvard Holm Johannesen from Tromsø gave this island its poetical name at the time of its discovery on 26th August 1878. Ensomheden means "solitude" in Norwegian and this lonely island was doubtlessly so named by its discoverer owing to its isolated location in the Arctic waters.

Soviet polar explorer Professor V. Yu. Vize advanced the hypothesis that there was an extensive shallow area and perhaps more undiscovered islands near Uedinenya. This was based on certain observations made by polar explorers:

"The discovery of that solitary island called Einsamkeit, by Captain Johannesen... is of the greatest importance and significance, as indicating the presence of land hitherto unknown in that direction. Although it received the name it now bears from Captain Johannesen, a name signifying "lonely" or "solitary," it seems exceedingly unlikely that it will prove to be so isolated as is supposed... which would lead to the assumption that it might be the southern termination of a chain of islands eastward of Franz-Josef Land."

During his expedition to Franz Josef Land on ice-breaking steamer "Malygin" in 1931 Vize hoped to carry out oceanographic work in the Northern part of the Kara Sea, but Professor Vize's research was cut short by heavy concentrations of ice. Later expeditions and satellite pictures demonstrated that there were no other islands in Uedinenya's vicinity.

A cervical vertebra of a plesiosaur ("Plesiosaurus latispinus") was discovered on this island during an expedition in the 1930s. It was studied by Soviet paleontologist A. N. Ryabinin.

At the time of the Second World War, there was a small polar observatory on Ensomheden built by the USSR government. On September 8th 1942, the German submarine U-251 (Lt. Captain Timm) surfaced close to the island and destroyed the weather station's small building and its garrison by firing granades against those targets. This was one of the last actions of the Kriegsmarine under Operation Wunderland.

Since May 1993 this island is part of the Great Arctic State Nature Reserve, the largest nature reserve of Russia. The Nature Reserve's purpose is to preserve the habitat of the polar bears, walruses, seals, and the many kinds of birds that thrive on this island.

The polar observatory which had been rebuilt during the Cold War time, was abandoned in 1996. Presently there is no human habitation in Uyedineniya.

References

*Rudolf Samoylovich, "Exploration of the Polar Part of U.S.S.R. in 1934 and the Sedov expedition."
*Albert Hastings Markham. "Arctic Exploration", 1895.
*A.N. Ryabinin, "On new discoveries of Plesiosauria in the Soviet Arctic and of a centrum of a cervical vertebra of Plesiosaurus latispinus Owen from the Lonely island in the Kara sea (Russia)"; Problems of the Arctic AARI, Leningrad; 1939
*L. Peillard, "Geschichte des U-Bootkrieges 1939−1945". 1970.

Links

* [http://www.hamradio.ru/rrc/PHOTOS/photo_e.asp?PAGE=3&ID=5, pictures of the abandoned weather station]
*http://www.hamradio.ru/rrc/ARTICLES/li_e.htm
*Sverdrup Expedition investigations on Uyedinenya Island: http://www.yukoncollege.yk.ca/~agraham/nost202/1915_1924.pdf
*On the hypothesis that there were more islands near Einsamkeit Island: http://207.61.100.164/cantext/accounts/1895mark.html

ee also

*Kara Sea

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