Atlasov Island, known in

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

as Ostrov Atlasova (Остров Атласова), or in

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

as Araido (阿頼度島), is the northernmost island and volcano and also the highest volcano of the

Kuril Islands The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands are a volcanic archipelago administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the Russian Far East. The islands stretch approximately northeast from Hokkaido in Japan to Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, separating the ...

, part of the

Sakhalin Oblast Sakhalin Oblast ( rus, Сахали́нская о́бласть, r=Sakhalinskaya oblastʹ, p=səxɐˈlʲinskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast) comprising the island of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in the Russian ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. The Russian name is sometimes rendered in English as Atlasova Island. Other names for the island include Uyakhuzhach, Oyakoba (Ainu) and Alaid, the name of the volcano on the island. The island is named after Vladimir Atlasov, a 17th-century Russian explorer who incorporated the nearby

Kamchatka Peninsula The Kamchatka Peninsula (, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and western coastlines, respectively. Immediately offshore along the Pacific ...

into Russia. It is essentially the cone of the submarine volcano Vulkan Alaid protruding above the

Sea of Okhotsk The Sea of Okhotsk; Historically also known as , or as ; ) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It is located between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, Japan's island of Hokkaido on the sou ...

to a height of . The island has an area of , and is currently uninhabited. Numerous pyroclastic cones dot the lower flanks of

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

ic to basaltic andesite volcano, particularly on the NW and SE sides, including an offshore cone formed during the 1933–34 eruption. MapParamushir

Alaid Volcano lava flow, Atlasov Island, Sakhalin Oblast, Russia - 24 October 2022 (52451723765).jpg, Eruption with lava flow from the summit crater in October 2022 ISS039-E-14782 - View of Russia.jpg, Astronaut photograph from International Space Station in late April ISS060-E-21034 Socked in Stratovolcano.jpeg, Photo from ISS, surrounded by low clouds Its near perfect shape gave rise to many legends about the volcano among the peoples of the region, such as the

Itelmens The Itelmens (; ) are an Indigenous ethnic group of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. The Itelmen language is distantly related to Chukchi and Koryak, forming the Chukotko-Kamchatkan language family, but it is now virtually extinct, the va ...

and Kuril Ainu. The Russian scientist Stepan Krasheninnikov was told the story that it was once a mountain in Kamchatka, but the neighbouring mountains became jealous of its beauty and exiled it to the sea, leaving behind Kurile Lake in southern Kamchatka. Geographically, this story is not without evidence, as after the last Ice Age most of the icecaps melted, raising the world's water level, and possibly submerging a land bridge to the volcano. Following the transfer of the

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

by the Treaty of St Petersburg, 1875, Oyakoba as it is called by the Ainu and some Japanese, became the northernmost island of the empire and subject of much aesthetic praise, described in

haiku is a type of short form poetry that originated in Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases composed of 17 Mora (linguistics), morae (called ''On (Japanese prosody), on'' in Japanese) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern; that include a ''kire ...

ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art that flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock printing, woodblock prints and Nikuhitsu-ga, paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes ...

, etc. Ito Osamu (1926) described it as more exquisitely shaped than

Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano located on the Japanese island of Honshu, with a summit elevation of . It is the highest mountain in Japan, the second-highest volcano on any Asian island (after Mount Kerinci on the Indonesian island of Sumatra), a ...

. Administratively this island belongs to the Severo-Kurilsky District, in the

of the

Russian Federation Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

References

External links

The Russian Kuril Islands Expedition to Atlasov

"Vulkan Alaid, Russia" on Peakbagger
{{Sea of Okhotsk Islands Active volcanoes Islands of the Sea of Okhotsk Islands of the Russian Far East Stratovolcanoes of Russia Islands of the Kuril Islands Uninhabited islands of Russia Uninhabited islands of the Pacific Ocean Volcanoes of the Kuril Islands Mountains of the Kuril Islands

See also

References

External links