The Severnaya Zemlya archipelago lies in the Arctic Ocean. It consists of four large islands and many smaller ones. The article describes the second largest island of the archipelago - Bolshevik. It is the southern tip of Severnaya Zemlya, washed by two seas at once - the Kara and Laptev. It is separated from the mainland by the Vilkitsky Strait, and from the October Revolution Island by the Shokalsky Strait.
Geographic data
Bolshevik Island has an area of 11 thousand 312 square meters. kilometers, which is almost a third of the entire archipelago. Its highest point is at 935 meters. The relief of the island is predominantly flat with small hills, sometimes turning into hills.
Coordinates of this territory: 78 degrees 36 minutes north latitude and 102 degrees 55 minutes east longitude. Now you know exactly where Bolshevik Island is.
Its coastline is heavily indented, with many bays. The most significant is Akhmatova Bay,which cuts into the land for almost 60 km. Telman Fjord and Mikoyan Bay also penetrate deep into the interior of the island. There are many bays along the coastline - Zhuravleva, Solnechnaya and others.
Bolshevik Island boasts a large number of rivers - Studenaya, Kamenka, Golysheva, Obryvata and others, but there are few lakes here and they are all medium-sized.
Climatic conditions
The climate here is arctic maritime. The average annual temperature has been at around -14 … -16 ° С for many years, while in winter it can drop to -40 ° С, in summer it rarely rises above + 5 ° С. There is little precipitation - up to 400 mm per year, mainly from June to August. Even in summer, the soil thaws only on the surface, a little deeper (at the level of 12-15 centimeters) the ground was bound by permafrost. The area is over 3 thousand square meters. kilometers (30% of the entire island) are covered by glaciers that never melt. The largest of them even got names - Leningradsky, Kropotkin, Mushketov.
Given the low temperature, frequent heavy winds and other adverse conditions, it becomes clear why Bolshevik Island is uninhabited. The weather here is very bad most of the year.
Flora and fauna
Despite the extremely harsh climate, Bolshevik Island is still inhabited. Many birds nest on the hills. These are mainly herring and pink gulls, guillemots, common kittiwakes, burgomasters, as well as such rare species as peregrine falcon, fork-tailed and whiteseagulls.
Walrus and seal rookeries are set up on the island. Occasionally, reindeer, lemmings, wolves and arctic foxes can be seen. But the owner of this island, like the entire archipelago, is a polar bear. Excavations have shown that mammoths lived here about 25 thousand years ago.
According to biologists, about 65 species of plants grow on Bolshevik, that is, the island has extremely sparse vegetation. Mosses and lichens survive here, covering stones with an almost continuous cover, as well as polar willow. Flowering plants are rare - polar poppy, cinquefoil, soddy saxifrage, snow saxifrage, large-fruited minuartia, shortened bluegrass, drooping saxifrage, tangled saxifrage and some other species. From cereals on the island, gray pike and alpine foxtail grow.
The main characteristic of the local flora is the strong sparseness of the vegetation cover, the main reason for which is the stoniness and graveliness for the plains and uplands of the island, which is described in the article.
Nearby small islands
In a radius of several kilometers from the Bolshevik lies more than 20 small islands. The most significant of them is called Superfluous. The rest - Low, Forgotten, Sports, Wedge, Sharp, Close, Marine and a few more - have a small area. All of them are united by a hilly-flat rocky terrain, harsh climatic conditions, poor fauna and extremely scarce flora.
How Bolshevik Island was explored
Reviews of polar explorers about this land are negative. They are accustomed to difficultconditions of life and work, but this island causes despondency in everyone with its unremarkable landscape, gloomy sky, lead waves beating against the shore with force.
The history of the development of the island, as well as the entire Severnaya Zemlya, is a bright page full of true heroism in the whole series of geographical discoveries. The discoverers of the island were members of the hydrographic expedition of B. A. Vilkitsky, who were the first to come ashore on the Bolshevik in 1913. The most detailed study and detailed description of this land was made in 1930-1932 during the expedition of the Institute for the Study of the North. Its members were scientists Urvantsev N. N., Khodov V. V., Ushakov G. A. and Zhuravlev S. P.
In 1979-1983 placers of gold were found on this land. In 1992, an ecological expedition of five scientists visited Bolshevik Island, whose main task was to determine the level of pesticide pollution in Severnaya Zemlya.
An important event for ornithology occurred in 1992, when the ivory gull was captured and banded on the island for further study of this species.
In total, there are 3 polar stations on the island - 1 operating ("Cape Baranova") and 2 closed ("Solnechnaya" and "Sandy").
