- Kolchak Island
Kolchak Island or Kolchaka Island ( _ru. остров Колчака, "ostrov Kolchaka"), is an island in the
Kara Sea located NE of theShturmanov Peninsula , in an area ofskerries south of theNordenskiöld Archipelago . Compared to other large islands in the area it has a quite regular shape.Its length is 21 km and its maximum width 6.5 km. It is covered with tundra vegetation in the summer, but most of the year it lies under a shroud of snow.This island is located 40 km from the western end of the
Taymyr Gulf and only 14 km southeast ofTaymyr Island . It separated from the nearest coast by a narrow sound that is about one km in width in its narrowest stretch.The climate in the area is severe, with long and bitter winters and frequent blizzards and gales. The sea surrounding Kolchak Island is covered with pack ice in the winter and there are numerous ice floes even in the summer, so that most of the year it is merged with the mainland.
Kolchak Island belongs to the
Krasnoyarsk Krai administrative division of theRussian Federation and is part of theGreat Arctic State Nature Reserve , the largest nature reserve of Russia.History
This island is named after
Aleksandr Kolchak , its discoverer and explorer. He had joinedEduard Toll 's 1900 arctic expedition, which explored many little-known islands of the Kara Sea.Kolchak Island was first ployed on a map in 1901. In 1937 the
Soviet government renamed it afterStepan Rastorguyev and for a few decades there were twoRastorguyev Island s in the Kara Sea. Finally, onAugust 23 ,2005 the former name of the island was restored. However, one occasionally encounters confusion about "which" of the former Rastorguyev Islands was renamed; e.g. a former revision of this article was written about the wrong island.References
* [http://worldmaps.web.infoseek.co.jp/russia_guide.htm Location]
* [http://www.bigarctic.ru/Eng Nature Reserve]
* William Barr, "Baron Eduard von Toll’s Last Expedition, 1900-1903."
* [http://www.rg.ru/2005/07/20/kolchak-doc.html On the name change of a geographical object in the Kara Sea] : "…rename the Rastorguyev Island located in the Taymyr Gulf of the Kara Sea to Kolchak Island…" ("«…переименовать расположенный в Таймырском заливе Карского моря остров Расторгуева в остров Колчака…»")See also
*
Eduard Toll
*Kamennyye Islands
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