Kamennyye Islands

The Kamennyye Islands or Kammennyy Islands ( _ru. Каменные Острова; Ostrova Kamennye) is a group islands covered with tundra vegetation. It is located in the Kara Sea, off the coast of Siberia, west of the mouths of river Pyasina.

The main islands are (from East to West):

*Morzhovo Island, with a diameter of only 4Km, is the closest to land. It is only about 11 Km from the Siberian coastline.
*Rastorguyev Island. It is long and narrow, and about 15 Km in length. It is occasionally confused with Kolchak Island (which is located further east in the Kara Sea along the coast south of the Nordenskiold Archipelago, and until 2005, used to also be known as Rastorguyev Island).
*Vostochnyy Island, is the largest in the group; 17 Km in length and 9 Km wide.
*Zapadnyy Kamennyy Island, roughly circular in shape; 8.5 Km in diameter.

The sea surrounding the Kamennyye Islands is covered with pack ice with some polynias in the winter and there are many ice floes even in the summer, so that they are connected with the Siberian mainland during the long winters. The climate is severe and summers last only about two months.

This island group belongs to the Krasnoyarsk Krai administrative division of the Russian Federation. It also is included in the Great Arctic State Nature Reserve of the Russian Arctic.

These islands were explored by Russian geologist Baron Eduard Von Toll during an expedition on behalf of the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences.

References

*http://worldmaps.web.infoseek.co.jp/russia_guide.htm
*http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic27-1-2.pdf
*http://www.shparo.com/Toll/toll_biograf.htm

ee also

*Kara Sea