The name White is not one island. There is it in the Kara Sea, it is part of the Svalbard archipelago and at the mouth of the Neva, there are legends about the legendary White Island, which was once in the Gobi Desert.
Two islands in the Arctic Ocean
Bely Island, which is part of Spitsbergen, was discovered in 1707 by the Dutchman Cornelis Giles. It was the last of the major islands of the archipelago to be mapped, being the easternmost of them. Refers to Norway.
Bely - an island located in the Kara Sea, belongs to the Russian Federation and is part of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. Bely Island is separated from the Yamal Peninsula by the shallow Malygin Strait, which at its narrowest point does not exceed 9 km.
History Pages
Getting to the island from the mainland is not difficult either in summer or in winter, when the strait is covered with ice. However, the permanent residents, apart from the dog Botswain, who has become popular thanks to the Internet, on the islandIt never happened. In our time, when the regions of the Arctic are being studied more than in detail, new data about the history of this region are emerging. The war period includes a report that a German submarine on August 12-13, 1944 sank an Arctic convoy BD-5 60 miles from the island. In 2009, a memorial sign was erected on the island - a marble slab dedicated to all the dead members of the convoy, and in 2015 the victims of this tragedy of the Great Patriotic War were buried.
In the most general terms
White Island (the Kara Sea) is widely covered very poorly: its area is 1900 square kilometers, the highest point rises to a height of 12 meters above sea level.
It is reported that the island is covered with tundra vegetation, that it has many lakes - a common characteristic of the northern edge. It can be added that the northeastern shores of the island are flat and sandy, the sand is white, its color gave the name to the island. The southwestern shores are steep, sometimes up to 6 meters high.
Flora of the island
However, special attention should be paid to the fact that Bely Island is one of the most important components of the entire ecological Arctic system - it is the habitat of polar bears. In addition to them, walruses and wild deer, arctic foxes and wolverines live in this territory. There are also such rare animals from the Red Book as the lesser swan, the Atlantic walrus and the white-billed loon. As for polar bears, in some articles Bely Island (a photo with its main inhabitantattached) is called the maternity hospital of these animals. Pregnant females arrange lairs on the island, in which they give birth to offspring.
Arctic dump
What attracted attention in our days this northern edge of the earth? First of all, its amazing litter. It would seem, where does she come from on a desert island? I took it, and moreover, in such a size that it attracted the attention of the country's leadership.
Perhaps everyone has heard about the northern convoys with cargoes sent to the Arctic, but no one has heard of the convoys that would return with containers from these cargoes, which included fuel and technical oil. And all these barrels, abandoned equipment accumulated for 100 years, especially actively at the end of the past century.
Bridgehead
But not only the pollution of the island made it the object of close attention of the leadership of the YNAO. The territory of the Kara Sea, on the shelf of which active marine activity is unfolding, where Bely Island is part of the infrastructure of the Northern Sea Route, is considered as a testing ground for environmental monitoring and research work. The island is one of the springboards for the development of the Arctic. The importance attached to Bely Island is evidenced by the following fact: at the beginning of 2016, work on compiling a 3D model of the island, which is made according to unmanned aerial vehicles, should be completed. The map will be posted on the website of the Russian Center for the Development of the Arctic.
Specific benefit
Since 1933 herethe polar hydrometeorological station is in operation, at which the next shift of 4 employees is constantly working. There are border guard barracks on the island, which were useful to the participants of the annual summer environmental expeditions, the first of which started in 2012. The border guards themselves left the icy silence back in the 90s. It should be noted that since 2010 there has been a state project "Cleaning the Arctic".
But Bely Island is brought into a divine form by volunteers traveling here from all over the country and neighboring countries, although annual expeditions are one of the components of the overall environmental strategy of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. 13 volunteers of the first expedition removed 1,000 metal barrels and removed 65 cubic meters of garbage. Their efforts have removed a total of 85 tons of metal.
The island settles in
And in August 2014, the Internet came to White Island. In April 2015, a research expedition set off here, which will work here for quite a long time (fuel and food were delivered to the island for subsequent shifts) and study the cryogenic and ecological systems of the Arctic tundra.
In a word, very close attention began to be paid to the places where Bely Island is located, they began to be actively de alt with: winter expeditions are already being planned, and the island itself is called a place of great hope. A small, cut-down Orthodox church appeared here.
More and moreexpeditions
In August-September 2015, an expeditionary group of the Russian Academy of Sciences arrived here, the object of study of which are polar bears. According to the information received, only in the area where there are people on the island, 5-7 bears constantly live. One of the tasks of the expedition is to fix satellite collars on bears. The program of the group that went to Bely Island is very extensive. A separate item includes the relationship between a polar bear and a human.
The true masters of the island
In 1984, there was the only fact that this animal attacked a person. An employee of the meteorological station, M. V. Popova, went to take readings of instruments in the dark (this procedure is carried out every three hours, the data is transmitted to Moscow), and a bear attacked her. Popova slipped out of a larger jacket, and the attacking predator disappeared into the darkness with its prey. But in 2013, a young male settled near the weather station and maintains peaceful neighborly relations with employees.
Many have become aware of the touching story of the rescue of an 8-month-old bear cub, who was found not far from the station with a shot paw. He was taken out and sent to the Perm Zoo. And the bear cub was given an interesting name - Serik. Sir-ngo Irico, or the White Old Man, known as the Old Man of Ice Island, is the main spirit and protector of this land. On the southern coast, where Bely Island is washed by the waters of the Malygin Strait, there are remains of Nenets altars dedicated to the White Old Man.
