Russky Island (Kara Sea)

Russky Island ( _ru. остров Русский), also spelt Russkyy and Russkiy, meaning "Russian Island", is an island in the Kara Sea. It is located in the Litke Islands subgroup of the Nordenskiöld Archipelago. With and area of 309 km², Russky is the biggest island in the whole archipelago. At a latitude of 77° 03' N, it is also the northernmost island of the group.

Administratively Russky Island belongs to the Krasnoyarsk Krai, of the Russian Federation. It is also part of the Great Arctic State Nature Reserve, the largest nature reserve of Russia.

History

In 1935, during Soviet times, a weather station was established in Russky Island. This outpost was part of the building of a modern polar station network undertaken by the Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route (GUSMP) between 1932 and 1940. Besides taking meteorological measurements, the purpose of Russky Island's station was to monitor Arctic navigation along the Northern Sea Route route. One of the route's branches coming from the Vilkitsky Strait passed right off Russky Island's NW shores. For many years this lonely Arctic station was the only permanently inhabited place in the whole Nordenskiöld Archipelago.

In 1939 the workers of the Russky Is­land station made the measuring of the ice layer and the height of embacles on the perpendicular to the bank section as a present to the 18th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. [ [http://www.vitiaz.ru/congress/en/thesis/98.html "Russian-Soviet polar stations and their role in the Arctic Seas exploration" F. Romanenko, O. Shilovtseva (Moscow State University, Geographical Department, Russia)] ]

On the 25th August 1942, during Operation Wunderland, Kriegsmarine cruiser Admiral Scheer fell upon Russian Icebreaker Sibiryakov (under the command of Captain Kacharev) right off the northwest coast of Russky Island while prowling the waters off the northern end of the Nordenskiöld Archipelago. After opposing heroic resistance, the Sibiryakov was sunk in an unequal battle. Then "Admiral Scheer" headed southwest in order to attack the Soviet military installations at Dikson.

Scientific research on Russky Island, like the monitoring of animal species on the island (lemming, purple sandpiper, turnstone, sanderling, and little stint) was conducted after the break up of the Soviet Union, but the Arctic station was closed in 1999. [ [http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/IWS/n010/p00124-p00131.pdf "Breeding conditions for waders in Russian tundras in 1993" P.S. Tomkovich] ]

References

*Valerian Albanov, "In the Land of the White Death", 2001. Contains pictures of Fridjof Nansen's early Arctic maps.
*William Barr, Baron Eduard Von Toll's Last Expedition. Arctic, Sept 1980.
* [http://dib.joanneum.ac.at/amethyst/download/WP1_NERSC.pdf Fast ice conditions near the "Nordenskjold Archipelago"]
* [http://www.bigarctic.ru/Eng Nature Reserve]