Chkalov Island (Остров Чкалова; Ostrov Chkalova), formerly Udd Island (Остров Удд), is a coastal island in the southern end of 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 ...

. It is located off

Schastya Bay Shchastya Bay (; ''Zaliv Shchast'ya'', meaning 'Bay of Happiness') is a bay in the Nikolayevsky District of Khabarovsk Krai, Russian Federation. Geography Shchastya Bay is a long coastal lagoon on the western side of the Sea of Okhotsk facing t ...

, between the shorebound lagoon and the sea. Baydukov Island lies only 2 km off its east-southeast tip. Chkalov Island is long and narrow. It is 20.5 km long and has an average width of 1 km. This island is a natural habitat for many birds, like the

great knot __NOTOC__ The great knot (''Calidris tenuirostris'') is a small wader. It is the largest species of the genus ''Calidris''. They are a migratory bird which breeds in Siberia, Russia, and flies to southern Asia and Australia in the northern winte ...

red-necked stint The red-necked stint (''Calidris ruficollis'') is a small migratory wader. The genus name is from Ancient Greek ''kalidris'' or ''skalidris'', a term used by Aristotle for some grey-coloured waterside birds. The specific ''ruficollis'' is from La ...

dunlin The dunlin (''Calidris alpina'') is a small wader in the genus '' Calidris''. The English name is a dialect form of "dunling", first recorded in 1531–1532. It derives from ''dun'', "dull brown", with the suffix ''-ling'', meaning a person or ...

, whimbrel,

bar-tailed godwit The bar-tailed godwit (''Limosa lapponica'') is a large and strongly migratory wader in the family Scolopacidae, which feeds on bristle-worms and shellfish on coastal mudflats and estuaries. It has distinctive red breeding plumage, long legs, ...

and the

common sandpiper The common sandpiper (''Actitis hypoleucos'') is a small Palearctic wader. This bird and its Americas, American sister species, the spotted sandpiper (''A. macularia''), make up the genus ''Actitis''. They are parapatric and replace each other ge ...

Beluga Beluga may refer to: Animals *Beluga (sturgeon) * Beluga whale Vehicles * Airbus Beluga, a large transport airplane * Airbus BelugaXL, a larger transport airplane * Beluga-class submarine, a class of Russian SSA diesel-electric submarine * U ...

whales are common off its northern waters. Administratively Chkalov Island belongs to the

Khabarovsk Krai Khabarovsk Krai (, ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a krai) of Russia. It is located in the Russian Far East and is administratively part of the Far Eastern Federal District. The administrative centre of the krai is the types of ...

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 ...

History

Chkalov Island is named after

Soviet 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 ...

pilot Valery Pavlovich Chkalov (1904–1938), the commander on the Antonov ANT-25 plane that flew on July 20, 1936, from

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

through

Franz Joseph Land Franz Josef Land () is a Russian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. It is inhabited only by military personnel. It constitutes the northernmost part of Arkhangelsk Oblast and consists of 192 islands, which cover an area of , stretching from east ...

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 ...

, Petropavlovsk and

Khabarovsk Khabarovsk ( ) is the largest city and the administrative centre of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia,Law #109 located from the China–Russia border, at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri Rivers, about north of Vladivostok. As of the 2021 Russian c ...

. The plane landed 56 hours and 20 minutes later in the evening twilight, in thick fog, on a coastal strip in Udd Island after having covered . The three-man crew remained overnight on this island at the home of a local resident, Fetin'ya Andreevna Smirnova. In order to take off a wooden runway had to be built. Udd Island was renamed Chkalov Island by Stalin in commemoration of the record-breaking event. In 2006, this historical flight was recreated on a Sukhoi

Su-30 The Sukhoi Su-30 (; NATO reporting name: Flanker-C/G/H) is a twin-engine, two-seat supermaneuverable fighter aircraft developed in the Soviet Union in the 1980s by Russia's Sukhoi Aviation Corporation. It is a multirole fighter for all-weath ...

to mark the 70th anniversary of Chkalov's prowess.Anatoliy Kvochur's Su-30 Airplane Lands at Zhukovskiy
/ref>

References

Avian flu bird data for Chkalov Island

External links

Photos of Chkalov Island
Islands of the Sea of Okhotsk Islands of the Russian Far East Islands of Khabarovsk Krai Uninhabited islands of Russia Uninhabited islands of the Pacific Ocean {{KhabarovskKrai-geo-stub