Alexandraland
Template: Infobox Island / Maintenance / image missing
Alexandra country (Russian Земля Александры, Zemlya Alexandry ) is - if you no longer expects to distant areas of Victoria Island - the westernmost island of belonging to Russia Franz -Josef- Lands in the Arctic Ocean.
Geography
Alexandra country including the north-western peninsula Poljarnych Lettschikow ( Полуостров Полярных Летчиков ) about 70 km long, and up to 30 km wide. The peninsula is connected via a 3.1 km wide land bridge to the main part of the island.
With approximately 1095 km ² Alexandra country is the fourth largest island of the Franz- Josef- country ( according to Prince George's Country, Wilczek Land and Graham Bell Island ); its highest point, the ice cap cupola Lunny ( Купол Лунный ) is specified with 382 meters above the sea. It is separated by the Cambridge - channel from the eastern section of Prince George's Country, the largest island of the archipelago, and only six kilometers from the north. 157 km further west, outside the Franz- Josef- country, is isolated the Victoria Island. In the north of the island lies the Russian polar base Nagurskaja, the northernmost point of Russia.
History
Probably the island was sighted in 1865 by the Norwegian walrus hunters Nils Rønnbeck. Officially, however, the British polar explorer Benjamin Leigh Smith as the discoverer of the island, in 1880 after Princess Alexandra of Denmark, wife of Albert Edward of Saxe- Coburg and Gotha, the future British King Edward VII, named.
In the spring of 1897, the Jackson - Harmsworth expedition explored under the direction of Frederick George Jackson by dogsled the island. Here, Jackson found out that it was its own island in the neighboring Prince George's country. In 1895, Jackson had mapped the south coast of the island.
In July 1914 reached Valerian Ivanovich Albanow, Navigator of Swjataja Anna, with nine comrades after months of March through the ice for the first time back country. Only Albanow and the sailor Alexander Konrad managed to reach up to the Northbrook Island, where they were rescued in August of the Sedov expedition. They were the only survivors of a 1912 launched Russian expedition under Georgy Brusilov Lvovitch.
1928 investigated several rescue expeditions from the island for survivors of Umberto Nobile's Italia expedition. Two years later, the Norwegian Gunnar Horn landed briefly on the island.
During the Second World War, the German weather group " treasure hunter ", built in September 1943, a weather station on Alexandra country. 10 men were taken on board the research vessel weather Kehdingen under the escort of U -387 to the east coast of the island. In May 1944, the station from the air was supplied. A short time later, however, affected most of the members of trichinosis by eating raw polar bear meat. In July 1944, the station was evacuated. In October 1944, U -387 was sent again to Alexandra country to build an automatic weather station there, but it could not reach the island due to heavy pack ice.
Built by the German soldiers runway was incorporated in 1952 by the Soviet Union in the military base Nagurskaja. The station is operated to this day as only one in Franz Josef Land.