Nordenskiöld Archipelago

The Nordenskiöld Archipelago (Russian архипелаг Норденшельда / archipelago Nordenschelda ) is a Russian island group in the northeastern Kara Sea, between Severnaya Zemlya and Taimyr peninsula.

Geography

Named after the Erstdurchfahrer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld the Northeast Passage archipelago extends over about 100 kilometers from west to east and about 80 km in a north-south direction. The approximately 90 islands form several groups. The northernmost island is Russki (Russian Island), south of it are the Litke Islands, Ziwolko Islands, Pachtussov Islands, Wostotschnyje Islands ( East Indies ), and finally in the south of the archipelago, the Wilkizki Islands. From the mainland and the islands, as Taimyr, the archipelago is separated by the 10 to 20 kilometers wide Matissenstraße.

On the belonging to the Wilkizki Islands Tschabak is the highest with 107 m point of the archipelago.

History

The archipelago (up to the Russky Island ) was first achieved in the context of the Great Northern Expedition in the spring of 1740 by Nikifor Chekin, a companion Semyon Tscheljuskins and described.

During the winter the schooner Zarya near the Taimyr peninsula in 1900, the archipelago has been studied extensively. Expedition leader Eduard Toll sent out Captain Fyodor Matissen for hydrographic, geographic and geological survey of the Nordenskiöld Archipelago. With dogsled Matissen crossed the ice between the islands surveyed here almost all the islands and put them cartographically dar. Matissen also discovered new islands. Forty were named by him. He divided the archipelago into the four commonly used today five groups. From the 1930s Soviet expeditions with icebreakers Georgi Sedov and Toros in the archipelago were active, with some islands were named after Communist personalities.

Was located at the northern tip of Russki located from 1935 to 1999, a weather station. Since 1940, there was also a temporary station ( only in summer ) on the southeastern island of the archipelago, the Tyrtow Island, which was abandoned before 1975. Otherwise, the islands are uninhabited.

Since 11 May 1993, the entire archipelago forms with about 500,000 hectares of one of the sections of a total of over four million hectares of nature reserve, Large Arctic Sapowednik (Russian Большой Арктический заповедник / Bolshoi Arktitscheski sapowednik ). Birdlife International shows him as an Important Bird Area ( RU011 ).