The Taymyr Gulf (; also known as ''Taymyr Bay'', ) is a gulf in the

Kara Sea The Kara Sea is a marginal sea, separated from the Barents Sea to the west by the Kara Strait and Novaya Zemlya, and from the Laptev Sea to the east by the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago. Ultimately the Kara, Barents and Laptev Seas are all ...

that includes the estuary of the Lower Taymyra. The estuary proper is frozen for about nine months in a year and even in summer it is never quite free of ice floes. Fishes like the golets and the

muksun The muksun ''(Coregonus muksun)'' is a type of whitefish widespread in the Siberian Arctic waters. It is mostly found in the freshened areas of the Kara and Laptev Seas and up the major rivers, as well as in Lake Taymyr. Like all whitefishe ...

are very common in its waters.

Geography

The estuary opens roughly northwestwise from the western coast of the

Taymyr Peninsula The Taymyr Peninsula ( ) is a peninsula in the Far North of Russia, in the Siberian Federal District, that forms the northernmost part of the mainland of Eurasia. Administratively it is part of the Krasnoyarsk Krai Federal subject of Russia. Ge ...

into the eastern expanses of the

, widening from about 4 km at the river's mouth to about 20 km. Its length, including the wider gulf, is about 50 km, and its width roughly 40 km. Taymyr Island is located about 60 km westwards from the mouth of the estuary. Beyond Cape Oscar, the headland of the Oscar Peninsula that limits the gulf to the northeast, lies the Toll Bay. The climate in the desolate area of the Taymyr Gulf is severe, with long and bitter winters and frequent blizzards and gales.

Islands

The most important islands in the Taymyr Gulf are the following: *Chelyuskin Island is the first island at the mouth of the gulf. * Bera Island or Baer Island (Остров Бера) is 3.5 km long. It is located in the middle of the mouth of the gulf, about 13 km from the Kara Sea . This island was named after

Baltic-German Baltic Germans ( or , later ) are ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their resettlement in 1945 after the end of World War II, Baltic Germans have drastically decli ...

scholar

Karl Ernst von Baer Karl Ernst Ritter von Baer Edler von Huthorn (; – ) was a Baltic German scientist and explorer. Baer was a naturalist, biologist, geologist, meteorologist, geographer, and is considered a, or the, founding father of embryology. He was a m ...

. Baer made important contributions to the research of Arctic meteorology between 1830 and 1840. * The Nanosnyye Islands are four small islands, the largest of which is 5 km long and 2 km wide. They are located in the mouth of the estuary, right at the opening of the gulf. * Fomin Island (Остров Фомин) is 11.5 km long and 3.7 km wide. It is located deep within the estuary, dividing the last stretch of the Taymyr River into two branches. . This island was named after early Russian Arctic explorer Nikifor Fomin.

History

In the 1740s, during the

Great Northern Expedition The Great Northern Expedition () or Second Kamchatka Expedition () was a major Russian Arctic expedition between roughly 1733 and 1743, which mapped most of the Arctic coast of Siberia and much of the Arctic coast of North America, greatly red ...

, Nikifor Fomin reached Bera Island and built a hut in order to winter there. The Taymyr Gulf and its islands were explored by

Alexander von Middendorff Alexander Theodor von Middendorff (; 18 August 1815 – 24 January 1894) was a Russian zoologist and explorer of Baltic German and Estonian extraction. He was known for his expedition in 1843–45 to the extreme north and east of Siberia, des ...

during his expedition to Siberia (1842–1845). Bera Island was the farthest northern point he reached after exploring the Taymyr River from the south towards its estuary in August 1843. Baron Eduard von Toll during his last expedition, the Russian Polar Expedition of 1900-1903, explored the mouth of the Taymyr Gulf. Toll found a quartz boulder on Bera Island that had been described by Middendorff. He also found the remains of Nikifor Fomin's hut. Nowadays the Taymyr Gulf is part of the

Great Arctic State Nature Reserve The Great Arctic State Nature Reserve () is a nature reserve in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. With an area of , it is the largest reserve of Russia and Eurasia, as well as one of the largest in the world. History The Great Arctic State Nature Reserv ...

, the largest nature reserve of Russia.Great Arctic State Nature Reserve

Administration

The Taymyr Gulf and all its surrounding area belongs to the

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 ...

administrative division 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

LocationMeteohistory
{{Kara Sea Islands Gulfs of Krasnoyarsk Krai Gulfs of the Kara Sea