North Land

The archipelago was opened on September 4, 1913 by the hydrographic expedition of 1910-1915 by Boris Vilkitsky . At first it was called by the expedition members the word “Taiwan” (according to the first syllables of the expedition icebreakers “ Taimyr ” and “ Vaigach ”). The official name " Land of Emperor Nicholas II " in honor of the then reigning Russian emperor Nicholas II was received by the archipelago on January 10 (23), 1914 , when it was announced by order No. 14 of the naval minister ^[2] . Disputes continue about who initiated this name. It is known that Boris Vilkitsky was his supporter both before Order No. 14 and two decades later ^{[3] [4] [5]} . The archipelago was originally supposed to be one island.

However, the participants of the Vilkitsky expedition were not the first people who visited the Northern Earth. On the southernmost cape of the archipelago - Cape Neupokoeva on the sloping coast, an ancient one and a half meter wooden post sticks out from the forever frozen ground. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, such pillars laid pomfors and dug them in permafrost, so that they could then pull a loaded boat ashore with a block. Many of these pillars are preserved on the island of Vaigach . Pomine voyages to the Asian Arctic ceased at the beginning of the 17th century, when the so-called Small Ice Age came and became so cold that the ice of the Kara Sea ceased to melt and became impassable for Pomeranian Kochs ^[6] .

There is also the assumption that before Vilkitsky in the same year of 1913, the missing expedition of the famous Arctic explorer Vladimir Alexandrovich Rusanov could reach Severnaya Zemlya. Her tracks on the way to the archipelago were discovered back in 1934. The latest finds, presumably also related to the Rusanov expedition, were found in 1947 on the northeast coast of the Bolshevik island in Akhmatova Bay. The history of the discovery of these finds became the basis for the adventure novel by Veniamin Kaverin, “ Two Captains, ” and the surname of the protagonist of the work that discovered the Northern Earth before Vilkitsky's “Tatarins” is an obvious artistic change-over of the name “Rusanov”.

The Severnaya Zemlya archipelago was investigated in detail in the 1930s by the expedition of Georgy Ushakov , which included radio operator Vasily Khodov, scientific adviser and geologist Nikolai Urvantsev, and Novaya Zemlya industrialist Sergey Zhuravlev. Having traveled about 11 thousand kilometers and conducting instrumental surveys of an area of ​​26,700 km², the expedition compiled the first accurate map of the archipelago ^[7] .

On January 11, 1926, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee ^[2] renamed the Land of Emperor Nicholas II Island to the island of Severnaya Zemlya , the Island of Tsarevich Alexei to the island of Maly Taimyr , and a group of islands consisting of: Land of Emperor Nicholas II, Maly Taimyr and Starokadomsky Island - to the Taimyr archipelago. In 1931 - 1933 the islands forming the archipelago were discovered, which received from the Soviet discoverers ( Nikolai Urvantsev and George Ushakov ) the names Pioneer, Komsomolets, Bolshevik, October Revolution, Schmidt. The former name of the largest of the islands of the archipelago has become the name of the entire archipelago.

On December 1, 2006, the Duma of the Taimyr (Dolgano-Nenets) Autonomous Okrug adopted a decree proposing to return the former name of the Land of the Emperor Nicholas II to the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago, as well as rename the island of Maly Taimyr to the island of Tsarevich Alexei, the island of the October Revolution to the island of St. Alexandra, Bolshevik island to St. Olga’s island, Komsomolets island to St. Mary’s island, Pioneer island to St. Tatyana’s island and Domashny island to St. Anastasia’s island ^[8] .

However, after the unification of the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Taimyr (Dolgan-Nenets) Autonomous Okrug, the Legislative Assembly of the Krasnoyarsk Territory did not support this initiative ^[4] .

In 2013, FSUE Russian Post issued a postal block dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago.

Severnaya Zemlya is located in the central part of the Arctic Ocean. From the west, the coast of the archipelago is washed by the waters of the Kara Sea , from the east - the Laptev Sea . From the continental part of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Severnaya Zemlya is separated by a 130 km long Vilkitsky Strait and 56 km wide at the narrowest point between Cape Chelyuskin and the southern tip of the Transze Islands off the coast of Bolshevik Island . The point farthest from the mainland is Cape Zemlyanoy on the island of Schmidt , 470 kilometers distant from the Taimyr Peninsula .

The northernmost point of the islands is Arctic Cape on Komsomolets Island (latitude 81 ° 16 '22.92 "north), the distance from it to the North Pole is 990.7 km, therefore, the cape is often used as a starting point for Arctic expeditions ^[9] , the southernmost Cape Neupokoeva on Bolshevik Island (77 ° 55 '11.21 "north latitude), the westernmost is the nameless cape in the far west of Schmidt Island (90 ° 4' 42.95" east longitude), the easternmost is near Cape Baza on the island Small Taimyr (107 ° 45 '55.67 "East). The distance from north to south is 380 kilometers, from west to east - 404 kilometers.

47% (17.5 thousand km²) of the area of ​​Severnaya Zemlya is covered in ice. 14% of the coastline falls on glacial shores, which are characterized by steepness with a cliff height of up to 30 meters ^[10] . In total, there are 20 large glaciers on the archipelago. The maximum height of the islands is 965 meters on the island of the October Revolution , 935 meters on the Bolshevik island, 781 meters on the island of Komsomolets , 382 meters on the island of Pioneer and 315 meters on the island of Schmidt . These indicators are much higher than the values ​​indicated on the first maps, where, for example, the highest point of the October Revolution Island was 625 meters, and the Bolshevik Islands - 300 meters, which is 3.2 times less than the actual height ^[10] . Most of the individual glaciers on the island of the October Revolution - 7, then on the island of Bolshevik - 6, four on the island of Komsomolets, two on the island of Pioneer and one on the island of Schmidt ^[10] . Glaciers on these islands are characterized by a domed shape with a smoothly lowering surface. Ice cliffs are found only at the foot.

Places where glaciers overlook the sea often serve as a source of iceberg formation. The most active places are the eastern (Krenkel Bay) and southern coast of the Komsomolets Island Academy of Sciences glacier and the Rusanov Glacier coast in the area of ​​the Matusevich Fjord on the October Revolution Island. Due to the formation of icebergs, the coastline in these places changes by more than a kilometer during the year, which is not typical of other coasts of the archipelago. The size of the formed icebergs usually does not exceed two kilometers in length, but there are exceptions: in 1953 an iceberg of record sizes was recorded - 12 kilometers in length and up to 4 kilometers in width ^[10] .

Numerous rocky placers are characteristic of the ice-free territory of the islands. On Bolshevik Island, they occupy almost a third of the ice-free area ^[10] .

The latest maps of Severnaya Zemlya showed the presence of a previously unrecorded system of rivers and lakes. Nine rivers of the archipelago are more than 20 kilometers long, of which the Ozernaya and Ushakova rivers on Komsomolets island are 64 and 58 kilometers long, respectively, on the Bolshevik island, the Torah river is almost 50 kilometers long and the 45-kilometer Skalistaya river. The rivers of the Severnaya Zemlya are swift, width and depth vary depending on the season and weather, in the middle of summer, with the onset of widespread snowmelt, they become full-flowing, at the same time, their depth does not exceed one meter. From September to July, the rivers are covered with ice ^[10] .

There are few significant lakes; most of them do not exceed 3 km². The largest lake is Spartakovskoe , located on the island of Bolshevik and has an area of ​​about 60 km².

The climate of the islands is marine , arctic . The long-term average temperature is −14 ° C ^[11] . The minimum temperature in winter reaches −47 ° C, a frequent strong gale ^[11] up to 40 m / s ^[12] . In summer, the highest temperature rises to +6.2 ° C; the average January temperature is from –28 to −30 ° C, and July is from 0 to +2 ° C ^[13] . From 200 to 500 mm of precipitation falls annually ^[13] , mainly in summer; their maximum reaches in August, and most of the precipitation falls in the northwest of Severnaya Zemlya ^[12] . At a depth of 15 cm there is permafrost .

During a long polar night, a large heat loss occurs through effective radiation . Therefore, the temperatures of the underlying surface at this time (from October to March inclusive) are very low; Thus, the average surface temperature in January - March is from −31.2 ° C to −31.8 ° C. The process of cooling the surface Arctic air most intensively occurs over the islands.

Even ice-free sections of the islands of the archipelago are not rich in vegetation. On the island of Bolshevik, the territory occupied by the Arctic tundra does not exceed 10% of the total area, and the farther to the north, the less this indicator becomes; for example, on the island of the October Revolution only 5% is occupied by the tundra, while on Komsomolets there is no vegetation at all. Of the plants, mainly mosses and lichens ^[13] , of the flowering plants are foxtail , polar poppy , saxifrage , and croup ^[11] . There is no forest .

The fauna of the islands is richer. Of the birds, there is a polar owl , sandpipers , small bunting , white gull ^[14] , pink gull , skuas , silly , burgomaster , pox , sea ​​eater and tern , less often gaga , loon ^[11] , white partridge ^[12] , silver gull and fork tailed gull . Of the mammals, a polar bear, wild reindeer , arctic foxes , wolves , lemmings, and other small rodents coming from the mainland ^[13] . Seals , harp seals , beluga whales , and walruses live in coastal waters ^[13] (including the Laptev Sea endemic — the Laptev walrus (Odobenus rosmarus laptevi)) and lakhtak ^[11] .

Severnaya Zemlya is the only archipelago discovered in the 20th century, as well as the last major land plot mapped.

In the novel by Veniamin Kaverin, “ Two Captains, ” it says that six months earlier Vilkitsky discovered the Northern Earth, the deceased father of Kati, Ivan Tatarinov, who did not receive fame due to a letter that did not reach his discovery.

In the science fiction novel “ Banishment of the Lord ” (1946), the action takes place on Severnaya Zemlya, on the island of the October Revolution in the Shokalsky Strait area, where the underwater village Mys Olovyanny and mine number 6 are located.

• Nina Petrovna Demme - the first Russian polar explorer, the head of the wintering on the North Earth in 1932-1934.

• Bolshevik
• Komsomolets
• Krupskaya Island
• October Revolution Island
• Starokadomsky Island
• Schmidt Island
• Pioneer
• Small Taimyr
• Foundling

• Severnaya Zemlya // Romania - Saint-Jean-de-Luz. - M .: Big Russian Encyclopedia, 2015 .-- S. 620-621. - (The Big Russian Encyclopedia : [in 35 vols.] / Ch. Ed. Yu. S. Osipov ; 2004—2017, vol. 29). - ISBN 978-5-85270-366-8 .
• Belov M.I. Following the traces of polar expeditions. - L .: Gidrometeoizdat, 1977. - 144 p.: Silt [1] .
• Savatyugin L.M., Dorozhkina M.V. Severnaya Zemlya Archipelago: History, Names and Titles. - SPb .: Nauka, 2010. - ISBN 978-5-02-025389-6
• Ushakov G.A. Island of snowstorms. On untreated land. - L .: Gidrometeoizdat , 1990. - ISBN 5-286-00409-1 .
• Urvantsev N. N. On the North Earth. - 2nd ed .. - L. , 1969.

• Severnaya Zemlya - an article from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia .
• Severnaya Zemlya - the history of the discovery of the archipelago
• Website about life on the North Earth in 1993 with a video and photo gallery