__NOTOC__ Bolshevik Island (, ) is an island in

Severnaya Zemlya Severnaya Zemlya (, ) is a archipelago in the Russian high Arctic. It lies off Siberia's Taymyr Peninsula, separated from the mainland by the Vilkitsky Strait. This archipelago separates two marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean, the Kara Sea i ...

Krasnoyarsk Krai Krasnoyarsk Krai (, ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a krai) of Russia located in Siberia. Its administrative center is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Krasnoyarsk, the second-largest city in Siberia after ...

, Russian Arctic. The island is named after the

political faction A political faction is a group of people with a common political purpose, especially a subgroup of a political party that has interests or opinions different from the rest of the political party. Intragroup conflict between factions can lead to ...

of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

History

The island, together with the eastern coast of what was named Emperor Nicholas II Land, was discovered by Boris Vilkitsky at the time of the 1913 Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition. Its insularity, however, wasn't proven until 1931, when Georgy Ushakov and

Nikolay Urvantsev Nikolay Nikolayevich Urvantsev (; – 20 February 1985) was a Soviet geologist and explorer. He was born in the town of Lukoyanov in the Lukoyanovsky Uyezd of the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate of the Russian Empire to the family of a merchant. He ...

charted the archipelago during their 1930–32 expedition. Prima Polar Station, currently the only Polar station operating in Severnaya Zemlya, is located in this island near

Cape Baranov Cape Baranov (; ''Mys Baranova'') is a headland in Severnaya Zemlya, Russia. History The Laptev Sea shore of present-day Severnaya Zemlya was discovered by Boris Vilkitsky in 1913 during the Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition on behalf of th ...

Geography

It is the southernmost

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

and the second largest island in the group. The area of this island has been estimated at . The island is mountainous reaching a height of 935 m. About 31% of Bolshevik Island, totaling over , is covered by

glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

s, the largest are Leningrad Glacier, Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky Glacier, Kropotkin Glacier, Mushketov Glacier and Aerosyomki Glacier. Most of these ice formations do not reach the sea, ending in

moraines A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris ( regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice sh ...

in valleys or

coastal plain A coastal plain (also coastal plains, coastal lowland, coastal lowlands) is an area of flat, low-lying land adjacent to a sea coast. A fall line commonly marks the border between a coastal plain and an upland area. Formation Coastal plains can f ...

s having a sparse vegetation of

moss Mosses are small, non-vascular plant, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic phylum, division Bryophyta (, ) ''sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Wilhelm Philippe Schimper, Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryo ...

and

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

. (translated as "North Land). . Accessed May 2011 Parts of the shore of the island are deeply indented, with Mikoyan Bay in the northopening to the Shokalsky Strait, as well as

fjord In physical geography, a fjord (also spelled fiord in New Zealand English; ) is a long, narrow sea inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Antarctica, the Arctic, and surrounding landmasses of the n ...

s such as Akhmatov Fjord, Thaelmann Fjord, Spartak Fjord and Partizan Fjord. Cape Unslicht ''(Mys Peschanyy)'' is the northernmost point of Bolshevik Island and Cape Neupokoyev at the SW end the southernmost. Ostrov Tash is a small island located on Bolshevik's southern shore. Lavrov Island and Blizky Island are located off the NE shore and Ostrov Lishniy off its northern tip. The group formed by the smaller Maly Taymyr and Starokadomsky islands is located further offshore off the southeastern end.

Image gallery

File:Bolshevik island, Russia, Landsat 7 image.jpg, Bolshevik Island image ( Landsat-7 1999-07-29) File:Antsev Point 1 2014-08-29.jpg, Southern coast of
Bolshevik Island:
Antsev Point (78°11’N, 103°7’E) File:Solnechnaya-Bucht 1 2014-08-29.jpg, Southern coast of
Bolshevik Island:
Solnechny Bay (78°11’N, 103°7’E) File:Solnechnaya-Bucht 2 2014-08-29.jpg, Southern coast of
Bolshevik Island:
Solnechny Bay (78°11’N, 103°7’E) File:Solnechnaya-Bucht 3 2014-08-29.jpg, Southern coast of
Bolshevik Island:
Solnechny Bay (78°11’N, 103°7’E) File:Akhmatowa-Fjord 1 2014-08-30.jpg, Bolshevik Island:
Akhmatov Fjord (79°30‘N, 103°12‘E) File:Akhmatowa-Fjord 2 2014-08-30.jpg, Bolshevik Island:
Akhmatov Fjord (79°30‘N, 103°12‘E) File:Mikojana-Bucht 1 2014-08-30.jpg, Bolshevik Island:
Mikoyan Bay at one of the world's most spectacular iceberg roads File:Mikojana-Bucht 2 2014-08-30.jpg, Bolshevik Island:
Mikoyan Bay (79°22‘N, 102°E) File:Eisberg-Straße 1 2014-08-30.jpg, Northeast coast of Bolshevik Island:
iceberg road (79°28‘N, 103°E) File:Eisberg-Straße 2 2014-08-30.jpg, Northeast coast of Bolshevik Island:
iceberg road (79°28‘N, 103°E) File:Eisberg-Straße 3 2014-08-30.jpg File:Eisberg-Straße 4 2014-08-30.jpg File:Eisberg-Straße 5 2014-08-30.jpg File:Eisberg-Straße 6 2014-08-30.jpg

Weather conditions

The weather on the island is extremely cold; the annual average temperature is .

References

External links