Yanka was bathing a new land. Archipelago Novaya Zemlya - a picturesque corner of the Arctic

And meridians 51 ° 30 'and 69 ° 0' east longitude from Greenwich. This land belongs to the Arkhangelsk region. Undoubtedly, scientists ranked it among the mainland islands.

The two main islands are separated by the narrow, winding Matochkin Strait. Of a number of small islands, the largest is Mezhdusharsky Island. New earth serves as the western border. From the south, it is washed by the waters of the Karskiye Vorota Strait, which separates it from the island. From the west and north-west it is washed by the Murmansk and Arctic oceans. Within these limits, the two islands form an arc, slightly curved and convex to the west. Since the northern part of Novaya Zemlya has not yet been explored, and even the position of its northern tip cannot be finally established, the total length and area cannot yet be accurately given. Its length is about 1000 km. The greatest width is not more than 130 km. The area is approximately 80,025 square kilometers. Of this number, the southern island accounts for 35,988 square kilometers, and the northern 44037 square kilometers. Mezhdusharsky - 282 square kilometers. All others are about 290 square kilometers.

The length of the coastline of Novaya Zemlya is about 4400 kilometers. The most southern point- Cape Kusov nos, located on the island of Kusova Zemlya, separated from Novaya Zemlya by the Nikolsky ball strait. From this point, the oceanic coast goes to the west, and the sea coast to the east. The oceanic coast is distinguished by a large indented coastline, forming here a huge number of bays, peninsulas and islands. The southernmost part of the coast is indented by smaller bays. The first significant bay is Sakhanikha Bay (between 55 - 56 ° E). One of the large Novaya Zemlya, the Sakhanikha Bay, flows into the strait. Further to the west is the Chernaya Bay, which juts out 30 kilometers deep into the island. The western and northwestern direction of the coast is preserved up to Cape Cherny, starting from here, the coast turns directly to the north, and then to the northwest. It forms a vast bay between the Black and South Gusiny capes. It has jagged banks. Here is the largest of the Novaya Zemlya skeletons - Mezhdusharsky. It is separated from the coast of Novaya Zemlya by the Kostin Shar strait, into which one of the most significant rivers of Novaya Zemlya, Nekhvatova, flows into. The river is 80 kilometers long. To the north of Mezhdusharsky Island there are two large bays: Rogachev and Belushya Guba.

Starting from the headland of the southern Goose Nose, coastline goes almost along the meridian, without forming any significant bays up to the Cape Northern Gusiny Nos. This part of the coast, 100 kilometers long, is the westernmost part of Novaya Zemlya. It is called the Goose Land. Further to the north, between Cape Goose Nose and Razvenniy Nose, is Moller's Bay, in turn, indented by many coastal depressions, which form good anchorages for ships along with the places lying around the islands. Here, in the bay of Malye Karmakul, there has been a camp for a long time, where several Samoyed families live in winter and summer. In the north, the Moller Bay ends in the deeply located Pukhov Bay, into the top of which the Pukhovaya River flows. Further the Britvinskaya river flows. To the north of Cape Britvin there are two large bays: the southern - Bezymyannaya Bay and the northern - Gribovaya Bay, separated by a high one from the Pervosvotnaya Mountain. Further, before the entrance to the Matochkin ball, the coast is flat and rocky. The entrance to the Matochkin ball presents some difficulty, since one can easily mistake the Serebryanaya lip, which lies a little to the north, for it. However, signs have already been placed to facilitate entry into this bay.

Following the western coast further to the north, we meet the Serebryanaya lip, surrounded by high mountains... Next are the lips of Mityushikha and Volchikha. They are located in a deep recess between the coast of Novaya Zemlya and Cape Sukhoy Nos. From Sukhoi Nos to another prominent place - the Admiralty Peninsula - the coast of Novaya Zemlya is again indented by bays. The largest of them, starting from the south, is Krestovaya Bay with several islands. It includes two Sulmenev bays - northern and southern - and Mashigina Bay. There are many bays from the Admiralty Peninsula to the Gorbov Islands. There are several islands here: Pankratyev, Wilhelma, Krestovy and others.

Further, the coast gradually deviates to the east - to Cape Nassau. The eastern coast does not have as many deep bays and peninsulas protruding into the sea as the western one. Starting from the south of Kusov nos, the coast turns to the north. Here is the extreme southeastern part of Novaya Zemlya, Cape Menshikov. From here, the coast of Novaya Zemlya gradually recedes to the west, with almost no bays, to Abrosimov Bay, which lies slightly south of 72 ° north latitude. The Abrosimova River flows into it. From the Gulf of Abrosimov, the coast of Novaya Zemlya takes a north and north-east direction. Here it becomes more indented up to the very Matochkin ball. From here to the north, the coastline becomes more indented and in places forms rather significant bays, of which the largest are: Chekina, Unknown, Bear. To the north of which lies the Krasheninnikov Peninsula and the Pakhtusov Island (74 ° 25 'north latitude). Further, Pakhtusov discovered Dalny Cape, which lies slightly south of 75 ° north latitude. From where to Cape Middendorf the coast is almost unknown. Behind it to the north lies the Ice Harbor Bay, where the Dutchman Barents wintered in 1598. Further, the coast of Novaya Zemlya rises straight along the northern meridian to Cape Zhelanie. Novgorod was first discovered by Novgorodians, probably in the 11th century. But the first written data about her are found in the edition of Gakluyt: "The principal navigations, Voyages and Discoveries of the English Nation" (London, 1859). Here is the first journey of the British, under the command of Willoughby, east of Nord Cap, in search of the northeastern passage in

Paem, which has become a hell of a halo of Belarusian literature, naradzilasya ў astroze. Ab nyadaly cookery tastes dzyadzki Antosya is aware of amal INTO skin of Belarusian schoolchildren, and signs of “My dear kut, you are sweet to me” may pratsyagnuts any Belarus.

Yak otvaraўsya adzin from national simvals, once from sputnik caretakers Alesy Sharshnevay succeeded to name a hole ector National bibliyatekі Belarus Ales Susha.

"Valadarka" yak krynitsa nathnennya

"New Land" Yakub Kolas pachynak pisats at Minsk and dies there. And eight half-time crop packs on the way started for 12 gados - the menavit of so many spatrebіlasya, if you’re out of your mind - it was shmat.

Pisats Kanstantsin Mitskevich Pachak in 1911, Sedzyachy in Turme for a large number of illegal workers in Minsk province. , for old months, for adnago z znavalnіkaў Belarusian literary language.

"Passing vainy svayh times of 1947 Kolas uzgadvaў, INTO, sedzyachi ў astroza, velmi sumavaў on the piles of earth and zgadva moments of svaygo dzyatsіnstva", - Pavedamіў Alyaksandr Susha.

For three bastards of znyavolennya light dwindled sluggish kolkasts razdzelaў paemy, yakіkh, darechy, it was tryzzats. Some adraz f drukavalisya ў "Nasha Niva".

Lipsya book to the light and opera

Aўtabіigrafіchny creation in 1923 was the first to be ruled by the Belarusian caapertsynae production "Savetskaya Belarus" - dzyarzhaunai and the most violent for thousands of hours.

© Sputnik Alesya Sharshneva

Issued paems "New Land" by Yakub Kolas

"Kolas Kazak himself, INTO padzei ў paeme adnosyatstsa yes 1890-1900-s gadoў, ale nekatorya padzei apisanyya pa realyah to the pains of an hour. - tlumachyts Aleksandr Susha.

Praz some hour s "yaўlyaetsa yashche adno issued - the hell of Belarusian dzyarzhaўnaga was issued. Knigu was given out often, and over the masters of agriculture, prazavali lepshy creators of those hours. stagodja.

The creative work of Kolas and the master Georgy Paplaўskag. Yon zrabin tsely tsykl malyunkak, for yakia at the Leiptsyg exhibition, issued to Oznagaroda yak "Lepshaya kniga to the light".

In tsyagam hour the paem was atrymal and musical. In 1980, Ales Petrashkevich wrote libret, and from "the national opera" New Land "appeared. tematku ў the clock was set by the redka.

Encyclapedia for inshaplanetsyan

Paema nezdarma borrow haloўnae months ў Belarusian literature. "New land" - the Persians of the riotous lyra-epic creature, written in Belarusian, padkreslivaye Alyaksandr Susha.

The tagachasnya chytachy adraza have suppressed the paemu yak folk: the head teacher for the memory and for the easy reading of the days of the khatnikh gastsenyak.

"Acenki paems of adraz and shepherding were great greats, and not only from the side of the chytach and praedstauniko of Belarusian culture, ale and hell of foreign litaraturaznautsau", - Uzbek specialists.

The recenzents are highly appreciated by the mastats of the yakast of the creature and the zmyastoyny, who were grazing and ahrystsili paemu "the encyklapedyyai life of the Belarusian syliancy of the XIX century - the patch of the XX stagoddzya". Menavita geta parananne zastaetstsa adnom of the most papular and tsyapers.

Vyadomy pismennіk and gramadsky dzejach Ales Adamovich at the piles of navukai children "Belarusian verses Raman" ask gіpatetychnae tryanne: kahl b we neykіm chyns scantaktavaly from іnshaplanetsyamі, which is great for the best Yakub Kolas's "new land"

The infection of many haloes issued by Belarusians is possible not only in any country. On the other hand, the National Library of Belarus presented the works of the Belarusian songwriter on the site.

In the case of the admiralty virtual solution, it is possible to `` bachyts '' not only scans of the first issued, but also the first publications, and the sherag of analogous texts, and the third supratsoўnikamі biblіatek.

The archipelago consists of two large islands- North and South, separated by a narrow strait (2-3 km) Matochkin Shar, and many relatively small ones, the largest of which is Mezhdusharsky Island. Northeastern extremity North Island- Cape Flissing - is the most eastern point of Europe. It stretches from southwest to northeast for 925 km. The northernmost point of Novaya Zemlya is the eastern island of the Bolshie Oranskie islands, the southernmost point is the Pyniny islands of the Petukhovsky archipelago, the western one is an unnamed cape on the Gusinaya Zemlya peninsula of the Yuzhny island, and the eastern one is the North Cape of Flissing Island. The area of ​​all islands is more than 83 thousand km2; the width of the Northern Island is up to 123 km, the South Island - up to 143 km. Kli ...

The archipelago consists of two large islands - North and South, separated by a narrow strait (2-3 km) Matochkin Shar, and many relatively small, the largest of which is Mezhdusharsky Island. The northeastern tip of the North Island, Cape Flissing, is the most eastern point in Europe. It stretches from southwest to northeast for 925 km. The northernmost point of Novaya Zemlya is the eastern island of the Bolshie Oranskie islands, the southernmost point is the Pyniny islands of the Petukhovsky archipelago, the western one is an unnamed cape on the Gusinaya Zemlya peninsula of the Yuzhny island, the eastern one is the Severny island Flissing cape. The area of ​​all islands is more than 83 thousand km2; the width of the Northern Island is up to 123 km, the South Island - up to 143 km. The climate is arctic and harsh. Winter is long and cold, with strong winds (the speed of katabatic (katabatic) winds reaches 40-50 m / s) and snowstorms, in connection with which Novaya Zemlya is sometimes called the "Land of Winds" in the literature. Frosts reach? 40 ° C. The average temperature of the warmest month - August - ranges from 2.5 ° C in the north to 6.5 ° C in the south. In winter, the difference reaches 4.6 °. The difference in temperature conditions between the coasts of the Barents and Kara Seas exceeds 5 °. This temperature asymmetry is due to the difference in the ice regime of these seas. There are many small lakes on the archipelago itself; under the rays of the sun, the water temperature in the southern regions can reach 18 ° C. About half of the area of ​​the North Island is occupied by glaciers. On the territory of about 20,000 km, there is a continuous ice cover, stretching for almost 400 km in length and up to 70-75 km in width. The ice thickness is over 300 m. In a number of places the ice descends into the fjords or breaks off into the open sea, forming ice barriers and giving rise to icebergs. The total glaciation area of ​​Novaya Zemlya is 29767 km2, of which about 92% is ice sheet and 7.9% is mountain glaciers. On the South Island there are sections of the Arctic tundra. Creeping species such as creeping willow (Salix polaris), opposite-leaved saxifrage (Saxifraga oppositifolia), mountain lichen, and others are characteristic of the sparse flora of the islands. The vegetation in the southern part is mostly dwarf birches, moss and low grass, in areas near rivers, lakes and bays many mushrooms grow: milk mushrooms, honey mushrooms, etc. big lake- Goose. It is home to freshwater fish, in particular char. Among animals, Arctic foxes, lemmings, ptarmigan, and reindeer are common. Polar bears come to the southern regions with the onset of cold weather, posing a threat to local residents. Sea animals include the harp seal, seal, sea hare, walruses, and whales. On the islands of the archipelago, you can find the largest bird colonies in the Russian Arctic region. Guillemots, puffins, and seagulls live here. On September 17, 1954, a Soviet nuclear test site was opened on Novaya Zemlya with its center in Belushya Guba. The polygon includes three sites: Black Lip - was used mainly in 1955-1962. Matochkin Shar - underground tests in 1964-1990 D-II SIPNZ on the Sukhoi Nos peninsula - ground tests 1957-1962. In addition, explosions were carried out at other points (the official territory of the test site occupied more than half of the entire area of ​​the island). From September 21, 1955 to October 24, 1990 (the official date of the announcement of the moratorium on nuclear tests), 135 nuclear explosions were carried out at the test site: 87 in the atmosphere (of which 84 are air, 1 ground, 2 surface), 3 underwater and 42 underground explosions. Among the experiments were very powerful megaton tests of nuclear charges carried out in the atmosphere over the archipelago. On Novaya Zemlya in 1961, the most powerful hydrogen bomb in the history of mankind was detonated - the 58-megaton Tsar Bomb at the D-II "Dry Nose" site. The shock wave resulting from the explosion circled the globe three times, and on Dixon Island (800 kilometers), the blast wave knocked out windows in houses. Only Novaya Zemlya By an ostentatious lesson Convinced to live not in vain, But with intelligence and use. From a poem by V.G. Amazonov.

The exact time of the origin of the name Novaya Zemlya is not known. Perhaps it was formed as a tracing paper from the Nenets Edei-I "New Earth". If so, then the name could have arisen during the first visits to the islands by Russians in the 11th-12th centuries. The use of the name Novaya Zemlya at the end of the 15th century is recorded by foreign sources.

The Pomors also used the name Matka, the meaning of which remains unclear. Often he is understood as "a nurse, a rich land."

And the land there is really rich, but not in plants, but in animals, which were hunted by hunters. For example, as the artist A. Borisov wrote about the riches of the Arctic at the end of the 18th century, having visited the Yugorsky Shara and Vaigach:

“Wow, how nice it is to live here in the regions rich in crafts! In our area (Vologda province), see how a man works all year round from day to day, and only barely, with all his modesty, can feed himself and his family. Not that here! Sometimes one week is enough here to provide for themselves for a whole year, if the traders did not exploit the Samoyeds in such a way, if the Samoyeds somehow knew how to preserve and dispose of this rich property ... "

Proceeding from the Pomeranian uterus (compass), the name is associated with the need to use a compass for sailing to Novaya Zemlya. But, as V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko wrote, “Svenske, in his description of Novaya Zemlya, says that the name of the Matochkin Shar Strait comes from the word“ mother ”(small compass). This is not true: Matochkin's ball is called the mother's ball, unlike other small balls of Novaya Zemlya, since it crosses the entire Uterus, that is, the mother earth of this archipelago. "

In Finnish, Karelian, Vepsian matka - "way, road", in Estonian matk "travel, wandering". The term is widely represented in the toponymy of the North (cf. Matkoma, Matkozero, Irdomatka, etc.), it was mastered by the Pomors, and, possibly, the name Matka is associated with it.

Novaya Zemlya is located on the border of two seas. In the west, it is washed by the Barents Sea, and in the east - by the Kara Sea.

The archipelago consists of two large islands and many smaller ones. In general, we can say that Novaya Zemlya is two islands: South and North, separated by the narrow Matochkin Shar Strait.

The distance from the northernmost point of Novaya Zemlya (Cape Zhelaniya) to the North Pole is only about one and a half thousand kilometers.

At the same time, Cape Flissing on the North Island is the most eastern point of Europe.

Novaya Zemlya belongs to the Arkhangelsk region, as well as another neighboring Arctic archipelago - Franz Josef Land. That is, the inhabitants of the Arkhangelsk region, having visited Novaya Zemlya, in fact, will not even leave their subject, despite the fact that from Arkhangelsk to Novaya Zemlya in a straight line - about 900 kilometers, almost the same as to Moscow, Estonia or Norway.

The Barents Sea, which had been used by Russian Pomors for several centuries before, was visited in 1594, 1595 and 1596 by expeditions led by the Dutch navigator Willem Barentsz and, although he was not even the first foreign traveler to visit Novaya Zemlya, the sea in 1853 was named after him. This name has been preserved to this day, despite the fact that in Russia this sea in the old days was called the Northern, Siversky, Moscow, Russian, Arctic, Pechora and most often Murmansk.

Something about the geology and climate of the archipelago

Novaya Zemlya in the west is washed by the relatively warm Barents Sea (compared to the Kara Sea), and due to this, the weather there can be quite warm, and even, oddly enough, sometimes warmer than on the coast. Weather forecast for Novaya Zemlya now (in Belushya Guba), as well as for comparison on the coast (in Amderma):

The so-called "Novaya Zemlya bora" is very interesting and remarkable - a strong cold gusty local wind reaching 35-40 m / s, and sometimes 40-55 m / s! Such winds near the coast often reach the strength of a hurricane and weaken with distance from the coast.

The word Bora (bora, Βορέας, boreas) is translated as a cold north wind.

Bora appears when the flow of cold air meets a hill on its way; overcoming the obstacle, the bora hits the coast with great force. The vertical dimensions of the bora are several hundred meters. Affects, as a rule, small areas where low mountains directly border the sea.

Novaya Zemlya pine forest is due to the presence of a mountain range stretching from south to north along the island. Therefore, it is celebrated on the west and east coasts South Island... The characteristic features of the "bora" on west coast there is a strong gusty and very cold wind, northeast or southeast. On the east coast, winds from the west or northwest direction.

The highest frequency of occurrence of the Novaya Zemlya bora is observed in November - April with a duration of often 10 days or more. During bora, all visible air is filled with thick snow and resembles smoking smoke. Visibility in these cases often reaches its complete absence - 0 meters. Such storms are dangerous for people and equipment; they require prudence and caution from residents when moving in case of emergency.

The Novaya Zemlya ridge affects not only the direction, but also the speed of the wind crossing it. Mountain range helps to increase wind speed on the leeward side. With an easterly wind on the windward side, air accumulates, which, when passing over the ridge, leads to air collapses, accompanied by a strong gusty wind, the speed of which reaches 35-40 m / s, and sometimes 40-45 m / s (in the area of ​​the village of Severny to 45-55 m / s).

Novaya Zemlya is covered with "thorns" in many places. If I am not mistaken, these are shale and phyllite (from the Greek phýllon - leaf) - a metamorphic rock, which, in structure and composition, is transitional between clay and mica shale. In general, almost everywhere in the south of the NZ, where we visited, the land is like this. That is why here the paws of the running dogs were constantly wounded.

Earlier, when Europeans had boots with leather soles, they constantly risked tearing their shoes. There is a story on this topic, told by Stepan Pisakhov in his diary: “In the first days I was going to go away from the encampment. She saw Malanya, hesitated, hurried, caught up. - Where are you going? - To Chum Mountain. Malanya looked at my feet - I was in boots - How will you go back? Will you roll yourself sideways? - Malanya explained that on the sharp stones the boots would soon break. - I'll get you some pimas. I waited.

Malanya brought in new pimas made of seals with bearded seal soles. - Dress up. In these pimas, it is good to walk on pebbles, and you can walk on water. How much do pimas cost? - One and a half rubles. It seemed cheap to me. Surprise resulted in a question: - Both? Malanya laughed with a long laugh, even sat down on the ground. Waving her hands, she swayed. And through laughter she said - No, one pim! You will wear one, I will wear one. You step with your foot, and I will step with your foot. So let's go. Malanya laughed and told an old Nenets fairy tale about people with one leg who can only walk embracing - They live there loving each other. There is no malice. They do not deceive there, - finished Malanya and fell silent, thoughtful, staring into the distance of the told fairy tale. Malanya was silent for a long time. The dogs have calmed down, curled up in balls, sleeping. Only the ears of the dogs flinch at each new sound. "

Modern life on Novaya Zemlya

First of all, many associate Novaya Zemlya with a nuclear test site and testing of the most powerful hydrogen bomb in the history of mankind - the 58-megaton Tsar Bomb. Therefore, there is a widespread myth that after nuclear tests on Novaya Zemlya it is impossible to live because of radiation. In fact, everything, to put it mildly, is not at all like that.

On Novaya Zemlya, there are towns for the military - Belushya Guba and Rogachevo, as well as the settlement of Severny (without a permanent population). In Rogachevo there is a military airfield - Amderma-2.

There is also a base for underground testing, mining and construction and installation works. Pavlovskoe, Severnoe and Perevalnoye ore fields with deposits of polymetallic ores were discovered on Novaya Zemlya. The Pavlovskoye field is so far the only field on Novaya Zemlya for which balance reserves have been approved and which is planned to be developed.

In Belushaya Guba there are 2,149 people, in Rogachevo - 457 people. Of these, 1694 are military personnel; civilians - 603 people; children - 302 people. Currently, the personnel also live and serve in the village of Severny, at the Malye Karmakuly meteorological station, at the helipads of Pankovaya Zemlya, Chirakino.

There is a House of Officers on Novaya Zemlya, a soldier's club, sports complex"Arctic", high school, a kindergarten "Punochka", five canteens, a military hospital. There is also a Polyus grocery store, Metelitsa department store, Spolokhi vegetable store, Fregat cafe, Skazka children's cafe, Sever store. The names are just mi-mi-mi :)

Novaya Zemlya is considered a separate municipal entity with the status of an urban district. Administrative center- the village of Belushya Guba. Novaya Zemlya is a closed administrative-territorial entity. This means that you need a pass to enter the city district.

The site of the municipal entity "Novaya Zemlya" - http://nov-zemlya.ru.

Until the early 1990s. the very existence of settlements on Novaya Zemlya was a state secret. The postal address of the village of Belushya Guba was "Arkhangelsk-55", the village of Rogachevo and "points" located in the south - "Arkhangelsk-56". The postal address of the “points” located in the north is “Krasnoyarsk Territory, Dikson Island-2”. This information is now declassified.

Also on Novaya Zemlya there is a meteorological station Malye Karmakuly. And in the north of Novaya Zemlya (Cape Zhelaniya) there is a stronghold of the Russian Arctic National Park, where its employees live in the summer.

How to get to Novaya Zemlya

Regular planes fly to Novaya Zemlya. Since November 5, 2015, Aviastar Petersburg has been operating passenger and cargo flights on the route Arkhangelsk (Talagi) - Amderma-2 - Arkhangelsk (Talagi) on An-24 and An-26 aircraft.

To purchase tickets, book tickets, the date and time of departure for regular civil aviation flights to Novaya Zemlya, you can contact the representatives of Aviastar Petersburg LLC on weekdays from 9.30 to 19.00.

Aviastar representative tel +7 812 777 06 58, Moskovskoe shosse, 25, building 1, letter B. Representative in Arkhangelsk tel. 8 921 488 00 44. Representative in Belushya Guba tel. 8 911 597 69 08.

You can also get to Novaya Zemlya by sea - by boat. Personally, this is how we visited it.

History of Novaya Zemlya

It is believed that Novaya Zemlya was discovered by the Russians already in the 12-15th centuries. The first written evidence of the presence and fishing activity of Russians in the archipelago dates back to the 16th century and belongs to foreigners. Indisputable material evidence of the long stay of the Russians on the archipelago was recorded in 1594 and 1596-1597. in the diaries of De-Fer, a member of the Dutch expeditions led by Willem Barents.

By the time the Europeans first came to Novaya Zemlya, the unique spiritual and trade traditions of Russian pomors had already developed here. Novaya Zemlya was visited by fishers seasonally to catch sea animals (walruses, seals, polar bears), fur animals, birds, as well as collect eggs and catch fish. Hunters hunted walrus tusks, polar fox, bear, walrus, seal and deer skins, walrus, seals, beluga and bear lard (blubber), omul and loach, geese and other birds, as well as eiderdown.

The Pomors had fishing huts on Novaya Zemlya, but they did not dare to stay there for the winter. And not so much because of the harsh climate, but because of the terrible polar disease - scurvy.

Industrialists themselves brought timber and bricks for the construction of the huts. The dwellings were heated with firewood brought with them on the ship. According to the polls conducted among industrialists in 1819, “there are no natural inhabitants; any indigenous inhabitants of Novaya Zemlya were unknown to the traders.

Discovery of Novaya Zemlya by foreign sailors

Due to the fact that Spain and Portugal dominated the southern sea routes, in the 16th century English navigators were forced to look for a northeastern passage to the countries of the East (in particular, to India). So they got to Novaya Zemlya.

First unsuccessful expedition:

In 1533 H. Willoughby left England and, apparently, reached the southern coast of Novaya Zemlya. Turning back, two ships of the expedition were forced to winter at the mouth of the Varsina River in eastern Murman. The following year, the Pomors accidentally stumbled upon these ships with the corpses of 63 English wintering participants.

The following unfinished expeditions, but without casualties:

In 1556, an English ship under the command of S. Borro reached the shores of Novaya Zemlya, where it met the crew of a Russian boat. Accumulation of ice in the Yugorsky Shar Strait forced the expedition to return to England. In 1580, the English expedition of A. Pete and C. Dzhekman on two ships reached Novaya Zemlya, but the continuous ice in the Kara Sea also forced them to sail home.

Expeditions with victims, but also achieved goals:

In 1594, 1595 and 1596, three merchant sea expeditions to India and China set off from Holland by the northeastern passage. One of the leaders of all three expeditions was the Dutch navigator Willem Barentsz. In 1594, he passed along the northwestern coast of Novaya Zemlya and reached its northern tip. Along the way, the Dutch have repeatedly encountered material evidence of the Russians' stay on Novaya Zemlya.

On August 26, 1596, the Barents ship was wiped out off the northeastern coast of the archipelago, in the Ice Harbor. The Dutch had to build a dwelling on the shore of driftwood and ship boards. During the wintering, two members of the team died. On June 14, 1597, abandoning the ship, the Dutch set off in two boats from Ice Harbor. V. Barents and his servant, a little later another member of the expedition, died near the north-western coast of Novaya Zemlya, in the area of ​​the Ivanov Bay.

On the southern coast of the archipelago, in the area of ​​the Kostin Shar Strait, the Dutch met two Russian boats and received from them rye bread and smoked birds. In boats, the surviving 12 Dutchmen reached Cola, where they accidentally met the second ship of the expedition and on October 30, 1597, arrived in Holland.

Subsequent expeditions:

Then in 1608 the English navigator G. Hudson visited Novaya Zemlya (during disembarkation on the archipelago he discovered a noticeable Pomor cross and the remains of a fire), in 1653 three Danish ships reached Novaya Zemlya.

Further, until 1725-1730, Novaya Zemlya was visited by the Danes, Dutch, and British, and on this voyages of foreign ships to the archipelago stopped until the 19th century. The most outstanding of the expeditions were the two Dutch expeditions of V. Barents. The main merit of Barents and De Fer is the compilation of the first map of the western and northern coasts of Novaya Zemlya.

Exploration of Novaya Zemlya by Russians

It all started with two unsuccessful expeditions:

In 1652, by decree of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, Roman Neplyuev's expedition set out to Novaya Zemlya to search for silver and copper ores, precious stones and pearls. Most of the 83 participants and Neplyuev himself died during the wintering south of Dolgiy Island.

In 1671, in search of silver ore and for the construction of a wooden fortress on the archipelago, an expedition headed by Ivan Neklyudov was sent to Novaya Zemlya. In 1672, all members of the expedition were killed.

Finally, relative luck:

In 1760-1761. Savva Loshkin for the first time went on a boat from south to north along east coast Novaya Zemlya, having spent two years on it. One of his winter quarters, apparently, was built at the mouth of the Savina River. Loshkin skirted the northern coast and along west coast went down south.

In 1766, the helmsman Yakov Chirakin sailed on the ship of the Arkhangelsk merchant A. Barmin from the Barents Sea to the Kara Strait by Matochkin Shar. Upon learning of this, the Governor of Arkhangelsk A.E. Golovtsyn agreed with Barmin to send a ship with an expedition.

In July 1768, an expedition led by F.F. Rozmyslova set off on a three-masted kochmar to the western mouth of the Matochkin Shar Strait to draw up a map of the strait and measure its depth. The tasks of the expedition included: pass, if possible, through the Matochkin Shar and the Kara Sea to the mouth of the Ob River and study the possibility of opening a route from the Kara Sea to North America... From August 15, 1768, the expedition carried out measurements and research of Matochkin Shara. In the eastern mouth of the strait - Tyulenyaya Bay and on Cape Drovyaniy, two huts were built, where, divided into two groups, the expedition spent the winter. During the winter, Yakov Chirakin died. Of the 14 people on the expedition, 7 died.
Returning to the western mouth of the Matochkin Shara, the expedition met a Pomor fishing vessel. The rotten kochmara had to be left at the mouth of the Chirakina River and returned on September 9, 1769 to Arkhangelsk on a Pomor ship.

Undoubtedly, the name of Rozmyslov should take one of the first places among the outstanding Russian sailors and explorers of the Arctic. He not only measured and mapped the semi-legendary Matochkin Shar Strait for the first time. Rozmyslov gave the first description of the natural environment of the strait: the surrounding mountains, lakes, some representatives of flora and fauna. Moreover, he carried out regular observations of the weather, recorded the time of freezing and breaking of ice in the strait. Fulfilling the instructions given to him, Rozmyslov built the first winter hut in the eastern part of the Matochkin Shar Strait. This winter hut was later used by industrialists and explorers of the archipelago.

In 1806, Chancellor N.P. Rumyantsev allocated funds for the search for silver ore on Novaya Zemlya. In June 1807, under the guidance of a mining official V. Ludlov, two mining foremen and eleven members of the ship's crew went to the archipelago on a single-masted sloop "Pchela". The expedition visited the island of Mezhdusharsk, visiting the well-known Pomor camp Valkovo. While studying islands in the Kostin Shar Strait, Ludlov discovered deposits of gypsum.

In 1821-1824. Lieutenant F.P. Litke led four expeditions on the Novaya Zemlya military brig. Expeditions led by Litke made an inventory of the western coast of Novaya Zemlya from the Karskiye Vorota Strait to Cape Nassau. Close ice did not allow to break through further to the North. For the first time, a whole complex of scientific observations was carried out: meteorological, geomagnetic and astronomical.

In 1832, difficult ice conditions in the Karskiye Vorota forced the expedition of P.K. Pakhtusov to put a single-mast undecked large karbas “Novaya Zemlya” for wintering off the southern shores of the archipelago, in the Kamenka Bay. For the construction of housing, the remains of a Pomor hut and a driftwood found here were used. As soon as all the members of the expedition moved to the rebuilt winter hut, from the second decade of September they began to keep a meteorological log, entering into it every two hours the readings of the barometer, thermometer and the state of the atmosphere. With the end of winter, multi-day hiking trails for the purpose of inventory and survey of the southern shores of the archipelago. The results of the expedition - the compilation of the first map of the entire eastern coast of the South Island of the archipelago. Thanks to his next expeditions, outstanding results were achieved. Pakhtusov described the southern coast of Matochkin Shara, the eastern coast of the archipelago from the Kara Gate to Cape Dalniy.

Then they were in 1837 on the schooner "Krotov" and a small lodge "St. Elisha ”expedition of the Imperial Academy of Sciences led by Academician K. Baer. The ship was commanded by Warrant Officer A.K. Tsivodka.
In 1838, under the command of Warrant Officer A.K. Tsivolka, an expedition was sent to Novaya Zemlya on the schooners Novaya Zemlya and Spitsbergen. The second schooner was commanded by Warrant Officer S.A. Moiseev. As a result, a number of important studies were made, and well-known Russian and Western European scientists have repeatedly turned to the various scientific results of the Tsivolka-Moiseev expedition.

In subsequent years, the Pomors, who continued to fish on Novaya Zemlya, at the request of the famous Siberian industrialist M.K. Sidorov, landed in the places indicated by him, collected rock samples and set up application posts. In 1870 Sidorov published a project “On the benefits of a settlement on Novaya Zemlya for the development of marine and other industries”.

Commercial development of Novaya Zemlya

The history of the creation of fishing settlements on Novaya Zemlya has purely "political roots". For a long time this region was "Russian", but unfortunately there was not a single permanent settlement here. The first Russian settlers in the North and their descendants, the Pomors, used to go here for fishing. But the "rustic hares" for some reason believed that their Arctic paradise would always be inaccessible to "nemchura", "Germans" - to foreigners ("Germans", that is, dumb, not speaking Russian, the Pomors called all foreigners). And they were clearly mistaken.

It is known that back in the 16th century, soon after the visit of the Dutchman Willem Barents and his associates to the region, Europe was interested in precisely this “corner of the Russian Arctic”. And in confirmation of this "in 1611 a society was formed in Amsterdam, which established hunting in the seas near Spitsbergen and Novaya Zemlya", and in 1701 the Dutch equipped up to 2,000 ships to Spitsbergen and Novaya Zemlya to "beat whales". According to the well-known Siberian merchant and philanthropist M.K. Sidorov, who spent his entire life and fortune only to prove that Russia's strength lies in the development of Siberia and the North, "before Peter the Great, the Dutch were free to hunt whales in Russian territory."

At the end of the 18th - first third of the 19th century, when the North Atlantic whale and fish stocks were already exhausted, and the beaches and shallows of Jan Mayen and Bear, Spitsbergen and other islands lost their once familiar appearance - walruses and seals, polar bears, our the eternal competitors in the development of the North, the Norwegians, turned their gaze to the unexplored eastern expanses of the Barents Sea - the islands of Kolguev, Vaigach and Novaya Zemlya, the icy Kara Sea, which were still "teeming" with Arctic life. The main period of their exploitation of the Novaya Zemlya fields covers approximately 60 years - from the end of the second third of the 19th century to the end of the 1920s.

Although Norwegian industrialists appeared in Novaya Zemlya several centuries later than Russian hunters for sea animals and the Nenets, the presence of Scandinavians in the region was very large, and the nature of the exploitation of natural resources was predatory and poaching. For several years, they mastered the entire area of ​​Russian fishing on the Barents Sea side of both islands of Novaya Zemlya, penetrated into the Kara Sea through Cape Zhelaniya, the Yugorsky Shar and Kara Gates straits and on the eastern coast of the archipelago. Well-equipped and financially secure Norwegian sea animals industrialists, who have long hunted whales and seals in the North Atlantic and near Svalbard, skillfully used the experience of the Arkhangelsk Pomors.

In their voyages along the coast of the archipelago, the Norwegians were guided by the navigational and noticeable signs (gurias, crosses) set by the Pomors, used old Russian encampments or their remains as strong points. These encampments also served as a signal for the Norwegians that the trades were somewhere nearby, since the Pomors usually built encampments and huts nearby. By the beginning of the XX century. they even organized several winter quarters in the archipelago.

A whole branch of the Norwegian economy quickly matured in Russian industries, and small villages in the northern region of our Scandinavian neighbor, from where fishing expeditions were equipped to the Arctic, in a matter of years turned into prosperous cities, creating a good financial reserve for the entire twentieth century.

“The Norwegians' mastery of crafts in the Barents and Kara Seas, on Vaigach and Kolguev contributed to the development of the outskirts of Norway. Thus, the small town of Hammerfest, one of the northernmost cities in the world in the middle of the 19th century, had no more than 100 inhabitants in 1820. After 40 years, 1750 people already lived there. Hammerfest developed its fisheries on Svalbard and Novaya Zemlya, in 1869 sent 27 vessels with a displacement of 814 tons and 268 crew members for the fishery. "

Knowing about the existence in Russia of laws of "coastal law, prohibiting foreigners from settling the shores of the islands without the permission of the government," the Norwegians quite cleverly bypassed this legal obstacle. In particular, according to the famous Arkhangelsk Pomor F.I. Voronin, who had been hunting on Novaya Zemlya for 30 years, he knew of cases when “agents of Norwegian merchants, having their relatives as colonists on the Murmansk coast, spread their plans not only to the island of Novaya Zemlya, but also to Kolguev and Vaygach.

And so, in order to somehow protect against the Norwegian expansion in the Russian North, in the 1870s, in the bowels of the Arkhangelsk provincial administration, a plan ripened - to create settlements on Novaya Zemlya, indicating a national interest in this region of the Arctic. Naturally, the good idea was supported in the capital. From St. Petersburg to Arkhangelsk comes "good" for the beginning of colonization arctic island... The beginning of the existence of the Novaya Zemlya island hunting economy should be considered the second half of the 1870s, when the first permanent settlement, the Malye Karmakuly camp, was established on the archipelago by the Arkhangelsk provincial administration with state support.

From the very beginning of the creation of settlements on the Arctic archipelago, both the state and the provincial authorities believed that the main occupation of the Nenets on Novaya Zemlya would be fishing. The provincial administration even developed and implemented a number of measures to stimulate the attraction of the Nenets to resettlement to Novaya Zemlya and to support their fishing activities.
In the initial period of the colonization of Novaya Zemlya, according to the highest imperial decree, each male pioneer industrialist was entitled to 350 rubles from the state treasury as a "lift" or compensation. At the same time, the settlers were exempted from all state and zemstvo fees for 10 years, and those who wanted to move back to the mainland in five years could return to their former place of residence without prior permission.

In 1892, by order of the Minister of Internal Affairs, 10% of the gross proceeds from the sale of industrial products were to be "credited to a special reserve colonization capital, and the net profit of individual colonists was to be deposited into the savings bank for special registered books." Each Samoyed hunter was entitled to a special book signed by the governor, in which "the amount belonging to the owner of the book was indicated." The spare capital was used to help the pioneers - to transport them from the tundra to Arkhangelsk, to live in it for several months, to provide clothing and fishing tools, to deliver them to Novaya Zemlya, to issue a gratuitous cash allowance, etc.

Population of Novaya Zemlya (its inhabitants)

The residence of indigenous Samoyeds on Novaya Zemlya until the 19th century, in contrast to Vaigach (an island located between Novaya Zemlya and the mainland), has not been confirmed.

Nevertheless, when in 1653 (after the Barents and other foreign predecessors) three Danish ships reached Novaya Zemlya, the ship's doctor of this expedition, De Lamartinier, in describing the voyage to the archipelago, indicated a meeting with local residents- "New Zealots". Like the Samoyeds (Nenets), they worshiped the sun and wooden idols, but differed from the Samoyeds in clothing, jewelry and face painting. Lamartinier points out that they used boats that resembled light canoes, and that the spearheads and arrowheads, like their other tools, were made of fish bones.

In the literature, there are also references to attempts by Russian families to settle in the archipelago in the 16th-18th centuries. There is a legend that the Stroganov Bay, located in the southwestern part of Novaya Zemlya, is named after the Stroganov family who fled from Novgorod during the period of the persecution of Ivan the Terrible. Two hundred years later, in 1763, 12 people of the Paikachev family of Old Believers settled on the coast of Chernaya Bay (southern part of the archipelago). They were forced to flee from Kem, refusing to renounce their faith. Both families were apparently killed by scurvy.

Nevertheless, it is reliably known that Novaya Zemlya became inhabited only at the end of the 19th century. In 1867 on two karbas south coast Nenets Foma Vylka sailed to Novaya Zemlya with his wife Arina and children. The Nenets accompanying them set off back in the fall, while Vylka with his family and Samdey the Nenets stayed for the winter. At the end of winter, Samdey died. Vylka became the archipelago's first known permanent resident. He lived on Goose Land, in Malye Karmakuls and on the coast of Matochkin Shara.

In 1869 or 1870, one industrialist brought several Nenets (Samoyeds) for the winter, and they lived on Novaya Zemlya for several years. In 1872, the second Nenets family arrived at Novaya Zemlya - Maxim Danilovich Pyrerki. The Nenets proved that a person can live on Novaya Zemlya.

“In 1877, a rescue station was set up in the Malye Karmakuly camp in order to provide industrialists with a safe haven both for the period of fishing and in case of unforeseen wintering, and at the same time to provide assistance to the crews of ships in the event of a wreck near this island.
In addition, to protect the erected buildings and to engage in crafts there, at the same time, five Samoyed families from the Mezen district, including 24 people, were brought to Novaya Zemlya and settled in the Malokarmakul camp; they were provided with warm clothing, footwear, guns, gunpowder, lead, food supplies and other tools for hunting and trades.

Lieutenant of the naval navigator corps Tyagin, sent to Novaya Zemlya to set up a rescue station, met there the very two Samoyed families, consisting of 11 people, who had been wandering around Moller Bay for eight years.

These Samoyeds were sent here by one Pechora industrialist, and they were supplied with good means for trades, but they squandered them and, without risking returning to their homeland, completely got along with Novaya Zemlya. Finding themselves in complete economic dependence on one of the Pomor industrialists, who supplied them with the necessary supplies, instead of this - of course, at fabulously cheap prices - taking away their handicrafts, the Samoyeds asked Tyagin to include them in the Samoyed artel brought with the funds of the Society for Rescue on Waters. " ... A.P. Engelhardt. Russian North: Travel notes... St. Petersburg, publishing house A.S. Suvorin, 1897

E.A. Tyagin's expedition. built a rescue station in Malye Karmakuli and carried out hydrometeorological observations during wintering. Tyagin's wife gave birth to a child who became one of the first children born on Novaya Zemlya.

The families of the Nenets colonists settled in Malye Karmakuli elected Foma Vylka as the first inhabitant of the island, the headman. He was entrusted with taking care of the colonists, the duties of maintaining order, as well as organizing the unloading and loading of ships. In the performance of his official duties, Thomas wore a white round tin badge over the patched and salted blubber malitsa, which meant the foreman. After Tyatin's departure, all management of the rescue station passed into the hands of Thomas. He has faithfully performed this duty for many years.

The first known inhabitant of Novaya Zemlya - Foma Vylka

Foma Vylka is an interesting person. He was born on the banks of the Golodnaya Bay at the mouth of the Pechora River, in the poorest family. At the age of seven, being left a complete orphan, he became a farm laborer for a rich reindeer breeder and worked only because he was fed.

The owner had a son who was taught to read and write, forced to read and write. Thomas saw all this. He asked the young owner, they were the same age - to teach him to read and write. They went further into the tundra or into the forest, where no one saw them, there they drew letters on the snow or on the sand, put words together, read syllables. This is how Thomas learned the Russian literacy. And once, when the owner severely beat Thomas, he ran away from home, taking with him the master's psalter ...

Moving from pasture to pasture, where many reindeer herders gathered, Thomas looked after a beautiful girl for himself and decided to marry. Having violated the ancient rites of matchmaking, he himself asked the girl if she wanted to become his wife. And only when he received her consent, he sent matchmakers. Several years have passed. Thomas came to ancient capital European Nenets Pustozersk to the fair. Here he was persuaded to convert to Christianity, to marry his wife according to the Christian rite, to baptize his daughter. Thomas himself had to accept confession in the church. It was then that something unexpected happened. The priest asked the confessor, "Didn't you steal?" Thomas was worried, upset, even wanted to run away, but finally admitted that in childhood he had taken the psalter from the owner ...

The new owner, to whom Thomas was hired for this job, invited him to go to the island of Vaigach at the head of the owner's fishing artel to hunt for sea animals. So for three years Foma went by sea to Vaigach on karbas and always brought good prey to the owner. For Foma, the reputation of a successful hunter, a skillful pilot and a good head of a fishing cooperative was strengthened. After some time, he began to ask the owner to send him with an artel to hunt sea animals on Novaya Zemlya. The owner approved this plan, assembled an artel, equipped two sailing karbas. On the way to Novaya Zemlya, they were met by a strong storm, the rudder of one carbass was ripped off, Foma was washed into the sea. Miraculously, the assistant dragged him aboard by the hair. One karbas turned back, the second, led by Foma Vylka, safely reached the shores of Novaya Zemlya. So Thomas Vylka with his wife and daughter first came to Novaya Zemlya. A year later, their second daughter was born there.

Once Thomas was returning from fishing and saw a large polar bear near the hut-hillock, where his wife and children were. The polar bear was considered a sacred animal among the Nenets. Hunting for him was not forbidden, but the hunter, before killing this beast, must mentally advise the bear to leave, good-bye. If the bear does not leave, it means that he himself wishes for death. Thomas killed a polar bear, went up to him, apologized, bowed, as the owner of Novaya Zemlya and the sea. According to ancient Nenets customs, only men were allowed to eat bear meat. The carcass of the sacred beast could be brought into the chum not through the door, which was considered an unclean place, but only from the front side of the chum, lifting its veil. Women could eat bear meat if they drew a mustache and beard with charcoal. Such a "cunning move" with a departure from ancient rituals, apparently, helped to save many Nenets women from starvation.

Foma Vylka's family had to endure many difficulties on Novaya Zemlya. Harsh, endlessly long winters, loneliness. Food was obtained with great difficulty, clothes and shoes were sewn from animal skins. There was not enough firewood to warm up and light up the chum a little, they burned blubber - the fat of a sea animal.

Once, when the family of another Nenets, Maksim Danilovich Pyrerka, already lived on the island next to the Vylka family, such an event happened. In late autumn, Norwegian sailors came to the Chums of the Nenets from a wrecked ship. They looked terrible: emaciated half to death, in tattered clothes and shoes. Thomas and Pyrerka gladly accepted them into their chum, fed them, warmed them, provided them best places in the plague. The wives made them warm fur clothes and shoes. The Norwegians did not eat seal meat, and the Nenets had to specially go hunting in the mountains, kill wild deer there and feed the guest with fresh boiled meat. When one of the Norwegians fell ill with scurvy, Thomas and Pyrerka forcibly forced him to drink the warm blood of animals and eat raw deer meat, rubbed his legs, body, forced him to walk, did not allow him to sleep much, and thus saved him from death.

In the spring, the Nenets gave the Norwegian sailors a boat, and they left for their homeland. The parting was very touching: they cried, kissed, hugged, the sailors thanked the Nenets for saving them from inevitable death. We exchanged gifts. Foma was presented with a pipe, and he gave them a walrus tusk.

Several years have passed since the sailors left. Once a sea steamer came to Malye Karmakuly. All the Nenets colonists were invited to attend. The Swedish envoy read out and presented a letter of gratitude signed by the Swedish king. Then they began to distribute gifts. The first gift to Foma Vylka was a rifle-fitting and cartridges. Showed how to use it. Foma could not resist with joy and immediately hit the head of a floating loon with a shot from his hand, thereby disrupting the order of the solemn ceremony ...

Mastering the New Earth

In 1880, M.K.Sidorov, together with the shipowners Kononov, Voronov and Sudovikov, submitted to the Minister of Internal Affairs a report on the improvement of the situation in the Northern Territory. It proves the need for the correct organization of the resettlement of Russian industrialists to Novaya Zemlya. By the summer of 1880, an armed sailing schooner"Bakan". Starting this year, regular steamship flights are established from Arkhangelsk to Malye Karmakuly.

In 1881, the regulation on the colonization of Novaya Zemlya was approved. From September 1, 1882 to September 3, 1883, under the program of the First International Polar Year in Malye Karmakuli, continuous observations on meteorology and terrestrial magnetism are carried out.

The work of the polar station was supervised by the hydrograph, Lieutenant K.P. Andreev. In late April - early May 1882, an employee of the station, doctor L.F. Grinevitsky, accompanied by the Nenets Khanets Vylka and Prokopy Vylka, made the first exploratory crossing of the Southern Island of Novaya Zemlya from Malye Karmakul to the eastern coast in 14 days (round trip).

In 1887, a new camp was founded in the Pomorskaya Bay, Matochkin Shar Strait. Here for the winter stayed a member of the Russian Geographical Society KD Nosilov, who conducted regular meteorological observations. Hieromonk Father Jonah arrived in Malye Karmakuly with a psalmist. Prior to this, the diocesan spiritual authorities annually sent a priest to Novaya Zemlya in the summer for the administration of services and services in a small chapel.

In 1888, the Arkhangelsk governor, Prince N.D. Golitsyn, arrived in Novaya Zemlya. In Arkhangelsk, a wooden church was built specially for Novaya Zemlya, which the governor delivered together with the iconostasis to Malye Karmakuly. In the same year, Father Jonah made two trips. One in Matochkin Shar for the baptism of two residents. The second - to the eastern coast of the South Island, to the Kara Sea. Here he found and destroyed a Nenets wooden idol that personified the patron god of deer hunting. Idols were discovered and destroyed by Father Jonah elsewhere on the South Island. Father Jonah began to teach Nenets children to read and write, and to their parents - to pray.

On September 18, 1888, the new church was consecrated. The church was supplied with magnificent icons, valuable church utensils and bells. In 1889, in Malye Karmakuli, a monastic skete was established by the Nikolo-Karelian monastery, with the permission of the Holy Synod. The task of the monks included not only preaching among the Nenets, but also helping in changing the prevailing way of life during the transition from a nomadic life to a sedentary one. The many years of activity of Jonah's father bore fruit. The colonists, the Germans, eagerly visited the temple, and their children read and sang in the church during the divine services.

In 1893, Russian industrialists Yakov Zapasov and Vasily Kirillov with their families moved from the mouth of the Pechora to Novaya Zemlya for permanent residence.

By 1894 the permanent population of Novaya Zemlya was 10 Nenets families in the amount of 50 people. This year Novaya Zemlya was visited by the Governor of Arkhangelsk A.P. Engelgard, who on the Lomonosov steamer brought another 8 families, including 37 people who expressed a desire to settle in the archipelago.

The ship delivered a disassembled six-room house for the school and residence of Jonah's father and the psalmist. This house was assembled in Malye Karmakuls. Another house was brought for the encampment in Matochkin Shara. So, in Malye Karmakuli in 1894 there was a church building, a school, two houses in which the Nenets lived, a building in which a paramedic lived and a store of supplies, a barn where spare building materials were stored, and in winter - a rescue boat. In Matochkin Shara there were three small houses in which the Nenets lived.

.

N.V. Vekhov,
candidate of biological sciences,
Senior Researcher, Moscow

NEW LAND - THE LARGEST AND EXOTIC ARCHIPELAGO IN THE NORTH OF RUSSIA

In memory of the explorers of Novaya Zemlya L. Grinevetskiy, R.L. Syamoilovich and M.M. Ermolaeva

The border and peripheral (remote) regions of the country, due to various reasons, for example, inaccessibility and (or) extreme natural and climatic conditions, are still little known and create a kind of mystery and mystery around them. One of such mysterious lands is the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, located on the border of Europe and Asia and, together with the Vaigach Island, serves as a geographical barrier between the two seas of the western Arctic - the Barents and Kara seas. This 900-kilometer-long island arc rushes almost from the very coast of the mainland in the direction of the North Pole. Like a mysterious magnet, for several centuries it attracted more than one generation of travelers and navigators, who, despite the huge risk of swimming in the Arctic ocean, tried at least once to step on the mysterious land, the peaks of which were decorated with white caps of glaciers glittering for tens of kilometers, and on numerous bird colonies-colonies are arranged on the coastal cliffs; to visit the rivers literally packed with delicious char, to see colonies of molting geese with your own eyes.

Here I was lucky enough to spend four expedition seasons, and therefore my next story is dedicated to this archipelago.
The history of the discovery and development of the archipelago. Earlier than others, since the beginning of the 16th century, the islands of the archipelago and the sea areas around it began to be visited by Russian industrialists - hunters from Pomorie and from the lower reaches of the Pechora. Alas, history does not know a single document that directly speaks of the brave discoverers of the archipelago, immigrants from Ancient Russia. Only in the oral works of the Pomors have legends about past fishing expeditions of distant times to these northern islands survived. The real, strictly scientific, geographical discovery of Novaya Zemlya - already with maps, diary entries and later compiled colorful "pictures" confirming this event, took place at the very end of the 16th century. In the 1590s. By the circular northern route - through the Arctic seas - Dutch merchants sought to establish direct trade relations with China and other countries of Southeast Asia. They intended, in exchange for a European manufactory, to arrange supplies of silk, tea, jewelry, spices, porcelain, and other exotic goods to this part of the Old World.

Three Dutch expeditions in 1594, 1595 and 1596-1597. made it possible to draw on a geographical map the outlines of the western, Barents Sea coast of Novaya Zemlya, to show the main landmarks and objects on it. The Dutch discovery of Novaya Zemlya coincided in time with the invention of the first geographic maps of the modern type by mankind. So the Novaya Zemlya archipelago was "incredibly lucky": it was listed on them (albeit with distortions and inaccuracies due to a lack of reliable data) since the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th century. For almost two and a half centuries, knowledge about Novaya Zemlya was limited to information obtained by European navigators.

The second "discovery" of Novaya Zemlya took place in the 19th century. This period brought the first scientifically reliable information about the archipelago - its geographic location, geology, natural resources, the seas washing the shores of the islands. The beginning of accurate instrumental research was laid by the expedition of the Main Hydrographic Directorate, headed by F.P. Litke. In 1821-1824. he made four voyages to the western shores of the archipelago, describing most of them - in latitude from the island of Kusova Zemlya (the southernmost limit of the archipelago) to Cape Nassau (North Island). Long-term expedition F.P. Litke were identified geographical coordinates of all key capes, islands and bays, along which it would be possible to navigate in the future during coastal navigation, the heights of coastal hills, maps of the surveyed western part of the South and North Islands were compiled.

 
Started by F.P. Litke's work on the description of Novaya Zemlya in 1832-1835. continued by one of his associates in research at the mouth of the Pechora River, second lieutenant P.K. Pakhtusov. Unfortunately, in November 1835 his heroic efforts to explore Novaya Zemlya were interrupted by sudden death. Led by P.K. To the Pakhtusov expeditions, Russia owed the fact that the map showed the southern and eastern regions of the South Island from the Kara Vorota Strait to the eastern mouth of the Matochkin Shar, the southern shores of the Matochkin Shar Strait and almost 3/4 of the coastal area of ​​the Northern Island, to Cape Dalniy, clarified the positions and outlines a number of the most interesting in the commercial value of the bays and lips.

At the turn of the 1860-1870s. Due to the changed ice and climatic conditions in this part of the Earth (one of the periods of "low warming of the Arctic"), the navigation situation has improved so much that within several years Norwegian hunting vessels were able to penetrate here, into the Kara Sea. One of the captains of the Norwegian fishermen - E.G. Johannessen - managed to navigate along the narrow Matochkin Shar Strait and along the Kara Sea, usually covered with an ice cover, insurmountable for ships of that time (Savva Loshkin passed for the first time along the eastern coast of Novaya Zemlya in the 1760s), followed along the Kara coast of the archipelago, reaching the extreme southern tip of the South Island. This navigator also holds another record - in 1870, for the first time since Willem Barentsz, he rounded Cape Zhelaniya and visited the northern part of the North Island. The Norwegian National Academy of Sciences found the results of the voyages of E.G. Johannessen was so significant for the knowledge of the Arctic that she even awarded him a gold medal. In 1871, the example of E.G. Johannessen was followed by other captains of the Norwegian hunting vessels: F.K. Poppy around Cape Zhelaniya also passed along the eastern coast of the archipelago, and E. Carlsen reached 77 degrees north. NS. and 60 degrees in. and then descended to the southern tip of Novaya Zemlya along the Kara Sea.

In the 1870s. for the first time a permanent population appeared on the archipelago, and before that the islands were uninhabited, although they sometimes lingered on wrecked seafarers or hunters-industrialists who, for one reason or another, could not get to the mainland until autumn. With these actions, the Russian government responded to the increased danger of the de facto Norwegian annexation of Novaya Zemlya, which was then de facto considered Russian possession, although Russia's jurisdiction over the islands of the Western Arctic was not formalized by any documents. During this historical period, the Scandinavian authorities almost completely ousted the Russian Pomors from the Novaya Zemlya industries and even founded several of their base settlements on the islands. According to the plan of the Arkhangelsk provincial authorities, under whose authority the islands of Novaya Zemlya, Vaygach and a number of others were, it was necessary to create a network of fishing camps on the archipelago, populating them with Samoyeds (Nenets), as the most adapted to life in such climatic conditions. This is how the first Novaya Zemlya encampments appeared - Malye Karmakuly (1877), Matochkin Shar (1894), Belushya Guba (1897) and Olginskoye (1910).

From other historical events of the chronicle of the development of Novaya Zemlya, which are of universal significance, I note that it was here, on the western coast of the Northern Island, that the world era of polar aviation began. In August, already distant 1914, the Russian pilot Ya.I. Nagursky on a Maurice-Farman aircraft, weighing only 450 kg, with a Renault engine power of 80 l / s and a speed of 90 km / h, when any gust of wind threatened to dump the car into the Arctic Barents Sea or onto the Novaya Zemlya glacier , in the fog, "blindly", without knowledge of meteorological conditions on the track, without a radio station and climatic clothing, made several search flights over land and sea. These flights are a real human feat.

They were almost ten years ahead of the next appearance of aircraft in the Arctic, when in 1923 the Swiss pilot Mittelgolzer made successful raids over the shores of Spitsbergen, and in 1924 the domestic pilot B.G. Chukhnovsky flew around Novaya Zemlya for the first time on a Yu-20 float plane.

All these foreign and domestic individual researchers and entire expeditions left some kind of traces on the map of Novaya Zemlya - the memory of oneself in the form of a mass of geographical names. The Novaya Zemlya archipelago is a real historical and geographical memorial, where thousands of toponyms are concentrated associated with the activities of Austrian, Dutch, Russian and Norwegian expeditions - Willem Barents, Yakov Gemskerk and Cornelius Ney, F.F., Rozmyslov, F.P. Litke, P.K. Pakhtusova, A.K. Tsivolka, officers under the command of K.N. Posiet, A. Peterman, J. Payer and K. Weyprecht, and many others. But the first here, apparently, nevertheless received "registration" the old Pomor names, which were given by now unknown, brave fishermen-Pomors, even before the Barents, went to Novaya Zemlya for "fish teeth" (walrus tusks), seals, walruses, char; they were met in 1594 by the official discoverers of the archipelago - the Dutch, led by a triumvirate of European "captains", Brant Eisbranz, Willem Barents and Admiral of the Fleet Cornelis Ney. Among the Pomor toponyms I will note - Big and Small Britvin Islands, Glazova Bay, Malye Karmakuly Bay, Mashigina Bay, Cape Nikolsky Nos, Sakhanikha Bay, Stroganov Bay, Yartseva Island, and others.

Structure, size and geographic coordinates of Novaya Zemlya

The Novaya Zemlya archipelago is the largest archipelago in the Eurasian part of the Cycrumpolar region of the Northern Hemisphere. The total area of ​​the islands of Novaya Zemlya is almost 83 thousand km2. Even if the Vaygach Island is included in the archipelago, which in origin and geology, like Novaya Zemlya, is an organic continuation of the Ural mountainous country, its area will increase by only 3.4 thousand km2. For comparison, I will point out that the areas of the other three most significant archipelagos in this part of the Arctic Ocean are much smaller: Franz Josef Land - 16.1 thousand km2; Northern Land, or the Land of Emperor Nicholas II - 37.6 thousand km2; Spitsbergen - about 62 thousand km2. Novaya Zemlya is on the list of the largest archipelagos on the planet, ranking 10th. Within the entire Arctic region of the Northern Hemisphere, Novaya Zemlya land is second only to the Canadian Arctic Archipelago with an area of ​​about 1.3 million km2.

So, in fact, Novaya Zemlya consists of two large islands - the North, with an area of ​​48.9 thousand km2, and the South, with an area of ​​33.3 thousand km2. They are separated from each other by a narrow, 800 m to 3 km wide, articulated-curved Matochkin Shar Strait. The strait is so narrow that it was almost always filled with ice, driven by winds from the east, from the Kara Sea. That is why in the old days and, interestingly, even in the 1920s, when the large-scale development of Novaya Zemlya began, in literature and even official documents Novaya Zemlya was referred to as a single island - the island of Novaya Zemlya.

The extreme boundaries of the islands of the archipelago: the northern point is Cape Carlsen, 77 ° 01 "N, 67 ° 52" E, although to the north of it there are two groups of islands - Small and Big Orange (the northernmost tip of the latter lies for three seconds north of Cape Carlsen); southern point - Cape Kusov Nos on Kusov Island Earth - 70 ° 28 "N, 57 ° 07" E, west point- an unnamed cape on the Gusinaya Zemlya Peninsula, 71 ° 50 "N, 51 ° 27" E; the eastern limit of the archipelago is Cape Flissing, 76 ° 42 "N, 69 ° 02" E. Most high point Novaya Zemlya - Mount Maka on the North Island (1547 m above sea level), in an area occupied by ice sheets.

Both large islands The archipelago is surrounded by a whole scattering of small islands, especially along the western, Barents Sea coast and in the south - on the border with Vaygach in the Kara Vorota Strait. Similar islands in the Kara Gates Strait, south of the Gusinaya Zemlya Peninsula (the central part of the western coast of the South Island) and north of it, and in Moller Bay, form a system of skerry waters. Of the largest satellite islands, I will indicate Mezhdusharsky (off the southwestern coast of the South Island) and Kusova Zemlya (near south coast South Island).

The archipelago is washed by the waters of two seas: the Barents Sea, the warmest in the Eurasian Arctic, and the Kara Sea, one of the most ice-covered in the Arctic. In the south, the border lines between them lie in the Karskiye Vorota and Yugorskiy Shar straits, and in the north - approximately at the longitude of Cape Zhelaniya. The central axis of the archipelago - the watershed of the two seas - is shifted to the west. These seas are different. The Barents Sea experiences the warming influence of the dying branches of the warm current of the Gulf Stream, which abut against the Novaya Zemlya archipelago and do not penetrate into the Kara Sea, which is why the latter is a kind of "refrigerator" on the border of the Western and Central Arctic.

Ecological and geographical features. Geology and origins

The Novaya Zemlya archipelago is mainly composed of rocks of the Paleozoic age, overlapped from above by Quaternary deposits. Its geological history has alternated periods of mountain building and relative dormancy. The oldest rocks in the Cambrian archipelago are black phyllites, sandstones, shales and conglomerates with trilobite fauna. Primorsky land areas are covered with multi-meter strata of Early Quaternary ice sheets. When the glaciers retreated, a gradual isostatic uplift of the seabed began, which continues to this day at a rate of about 5-6 mm per year. It is likely that modern coastal land areas were freed from under the sea about 7,600 years ago. One of the evidence of such a process is the landscape of the modern territory characteristic of the former seabed. These are the forms of low ridges (hills) smoothed by the actions of the glacier and sea waves with shallow but significant depressions between them, small absolute heights... Glacial processes and the action of sea waves have led to the fact that the hard bedrocks that make up the archipelago (granites, sandstones, shales, limestones and others) are covered from above with a cover of loose glacial sea deposits up to 1.5-2.5 m thick. sandy-gravelly soils with boulders and pebbles rounded by the sea.

The further development of the natural complexes of Novaya Zemlya was significantly influenced by planetary (global) climate change processes. Such as, for example, the last period of climate warming - the Holocene climatic maximum, when the air temperature was several degrees higher than the current one, the snowless interval was longer, and the winter was milder. During this era, plant communities developed on the archipelago, which were close in composition to the modern groupings of continental subarctic tundras - more southerly natural landscapes. Depressions of the relief along the banks of streams were occupied by sedge and grass-sedge bogs, and vast lowlands with saucers of shallow water bodies were overgrown with hypnum mosses; Here, a kind of hypnum swamps with massive thickets of mosses were formed at the bottom and along the banks of reservoirs. On hypnum bogs, common in more southern regions, mainly in the south of the Arctic and in the Subarctic (as now on Vaygach Island, in the Bolypezemelskaya and Malozemelskaya tundra), thermophilic bog plants grew - for example, marsh cinquefoil, willows, blueberries, cloudberries, some Potentilla and saxifrage. Now they are preserved on Novaya Zemlya in peculiar isolated habitats on the South and partly on the North Islands - in refugia (shelters). Since the Holocene climatic maximum, active peat accumulation has continued in swampy depressions and lakes of the archipelago, but in the environmental conditions that have changed since then, it is now limited only to the South Island, where peat bogs with a maximum thickness of 1.2 m are noted, for example, in Gribovaya lip, on the Belushiy Peninsula and at the southern tip of the island. In evolutionary terms, this process ultimately leads to the disappearance of lakes as a result of the complete filling of lake baths with peat.

Since Novaya Zemlya is located on a continental shelf, it is a typical shelf formation. The modern relief is determined by the tectonic movement of the land. Both islands are characterized by through valleys-grabens, laid along large land faults and having a latitudinal orientation in the general direction. Similar through valleys were discovered relatively recently, at the beginning of the 20th century, when the Russian researcher V.A. Rusanov made several through routes across the Northern Island, between the Krestovaya lips (on the west coast) and (on the east). The above-mentioned Matochkin Shar Strait, which has a maximum depth of up to 200 m, is the same fault.

The relief of the archipelago is dominated by scattered mountain ranges, not elongated in any one direction. Fjords, skerries, sea terraces, as well as many islands and straits between them are common in the coastal area. Some areas of land rose more intensively than others and now rise above the water in the form of islands, others subsided or rose very slowly, which led to the formation of many bays and straits. Land uplifts determined the youthful character of the modern river network with undeveloped river valleys, rapids, waterfalls, the so-called hanging mouths of the valleys. Past and modern glaciations are the reasons for the dominance even at low altitudes of the relief of the features inherent in the highlands, where kars, circuses, nunataks, moraines and glacial lakes are common, which give the relief an alpine-type appearance. Plains (up to 200 m above sea level), low mountains (up to 500 m), medium mountains (up to 900 m) and high mountains (over 900 m) are presented in terms of height and relief forms on Novaya Zemlya.

In its most general form, the relief of each island in the archipelago is as follows. The central regions in the depths of the land, at a distance from the coastline from several to two tens of kilometers, are occupied by an area with heights of more than 200 m - from low mountains to high mountains, including glaciers, some of which break off directly into the surrounding archipelago sea ​​waters... Along the periphery, this area is bordered by coastal plains, whose tongues along river valleys and large depressions penetrate deep into the upland part, sometimes 20-30 km, and in the southern and middle regions of the South Island it even occupies the entire space - "from sea to sea", from the line of the Barents Sea coast to the Karsky line.

The coastline of the archipelago is very indented, abounding, especially in the west, with an abundance of bays deeply protruding into the land - typical fjords. The largest of them are Reineke Bay, Loginov Bay and Sakhanikha Bay, with steep, steep banks. In the south of the island, the shores are of a typical skerry character. But the most impressive fjords are on the North Island, where in their apex parts (peaks) tongues of outlet glaciers break off into the water.

Particularly interesting natural sites are cover glaciers and the phenomenon of glaciation in general. Novaya Zemlya is characterized by intense glaciation due to the specific climate in this region of the Arctic. All the conditions for the formation and existence of ice sheets have been created here - a relatively large amount of solid precipitation, low average annual air temperatures, cold summers and a large albedo of the surface covered with snow and ice. Most of the North Island (about 340 km long, starting from the very north of the archipelago, and the greatest width up to 70 km at latitudes between 75 ° and 76 ° N) and the central part of the South Island adjacent to the Matochkin Shar Strait are located in the cover , semi-cover and mountain glaciers. The area of ​​glaciation in the archipelago is more than 24 thousand km2. The archipelago is the only region of Russia where all existing forms of glaciation are represented - cover, reticular, mountain-valley, and also the ice sheet. North of 75 ° N located largest area a continuous ice sheet, where the ice thickness reaches 250-300 m.The ice sheet here consists of two parts - the Novaya Zemlya ice sheet proper with heights of up to 1000 m, located to the north of the Admiralty Peninsula up to 66 ° E, and the Northern Ice Cap with heights of 550-600 m, separated from the main ice sheet by the valley of St. Anne.

 
Along with the general trend of retreat of glaciers, which has been traced at least over the past four hundred plus years (their initial state was recorded in 1594-1597 by the expeditions of V. Barents), there are advancing glaciers on Novaya Zemlya. These are, for example, the Petersen and Shokalsky glaciers. The archipelago contains both active and sedentary glaciers. From observations on the Shokalsky glacier in its middle part, the speed of ice movement was determined - 100-150 m per year. In the central parts of the ice sheet, at altitudes of 700 m and more, i.e. in the area of ​​feeding, the speed of movement of glaciers decreases to 10-20 m per year. The highest values ​​of the speed of movement of glaciers are noted on the passes through the barriers, where it reaches 300-600 m per year. Interestingly, in winter, the speed of glaciers' movement decreases by about half compared to summer.

While on Novaya Zemlya, it is interesting to observe such a phenomenon as the formation of icebergs. They form at the marginal areas of glacial tongues descending into the sea. A particularly picturesque picture is presented by narrow fjord bays, at the tops of which, with a huge noise, similar to the explosions of powerful shells or bombs, under the pressure of the weight of the ice bulk of the glacier, many-meter mountains of greenish ice break off into the sea, raising small "tsunamis". From here, along the entire length of the bay, like flocks of mysterious white birds of a bizarre shape, newly formed icebergs "float" into the open sea.

Climate. The archipelago is located in two climatic zones - arctic and subarctic. On Novaya Zemlya it would have been much colder if not for the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, the North Cape branch of which, albeit already almost cooled, still reaches the archipelago. It rests on its western, Barents-Sea coast, where winter temperatures can be 5 degrees or more higher than on the eastern Kara coast.

The characteristic features of the climate of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago are high air humidity, an almost constantly gloomy sky (the number of clear days per year does not exceed 29), frequent and rather significant atmospheric precipitation (from 190 mm at Cape Zhelaniya in the northernmost point of the archipelago to 300 mm at Cape Vykhodny; the amount of precipitation on the glaciers reaches 600 mm per year), fogs and constant strong winds, accompanied by blizzards, which is why Novaya Zemlya is often called the "Land of Winds".

In the Arctic belt is the northern part of the archipelago - Severny Island and small islands adjacent to it, the rest of Novaya Zemlya lies in the subarctic belt. In the northern part of the archipelago, the average temperatures of the coldest month range from -15 to -20 ° C on the west coast, and on the east from -20 to -30 ° C. Average temperatures of the warmest month on the coast reach + 5 ° C, and at sea -0 - + 5 ° С. For the southern part of Novaya Zemlya, the average January temperatures are –5 °, –10 ° С - in the west and –10 °, –25 ° С - in the east. July temperatures reach + 10 ° C on land and + 5 ° C at sea.

An extraordinary phenomenon of the local climate, especially on the North Island, is the famous Novaya Zemlya pine forest. It is most often observed in winter, but it can also be in summer. It was in such a summer forest that I had to get in August 1995 during my stay on the shore of Ivanov Bay in the north-west of the Northern Island. During a bora, the wind accelerates in a matter of hours to the speed of a hurricane (up to 30 m / s, with gusts up to 60 m / s). This wind flow, like a "courier" train, suddenly falls from the heated part of the glaciers down to the sea; its stream carries small stones, pebbles and sand, causing an unusual phenomenon - during the twilight that suddenly fell on the plains from the coast towards the seaward part, low waves with white crests - "lambs" run. Bora can last for 4-7 days. Usually, after a borough, the weather changes dramatically, as after a major thunderstorm in central Russia.

Rivers and lakes. It is not surprising, but even in the Arctic, on Novaya Zemlya, there are many rivers and lakes, although they are unevenly distributed over the archipelago. For example, on the North Island, the most severe natural conditions, there are few rivers. This is both a consequence of climatic features and the presence of glaciation on land. The rivers of the Severny Island are short, no more than 10-15 km in length. The largest of them are Gusinaya, Mityushikha, Promyslovaya and Yuzhnaya Krestovaya. A completely different picture is observed on Yuzhny Island, where the river network is more developed. The rivers are long, several tens of kilometers long; among the largest of them are the rivers Abrosimova, Savina, Sakhanina, Bezymyannaya, Rogacheva, Pukhovaya.

The watershed between the rivers flowing into the Barents and Kara Sea, expressed well enough. On the South Island, it runs along the ridges of uplands in the interior regions and is displaced to the east, as a result of which the drainage basin of the Barents Sea occupies 2/3 of its area on this island. Most rivers are characterized by undeveloped valleys, replete with heaps of boulders, collapses of the slopes of the valleys with extended rapids, rocky rifts and waterfalls. All of them are fed by snow and glaciers. The water temperature in the rivers during the summer period is cold - does not exceed 8-10 ° С; in glacial streams and rivers it is even lower - no more than 0.1-0.2 - 1.5 ° C.

There are also lakes on Novaya Zemlya, which is generally uncharacteristic for such high-latitude islands, where these geographic objects are rather an exception than a rule, and a similar circumstance noticeably distinguishes the Novaya Zemlya archipelago among its Eurasian "brothers". Here lakes are common and occur from its southernmost limits to northern ones; they even exist at one of its extreme points - on Cape Zhelaniya, where for a long time they were a supplier of fresh water to supply it to the polar station of the same name.

Both in the interior, confined to the periglacial area (directly at the foot of the glaciers), and in the coastal areas of both islands of the archipelago, there are many lakes ranging in length from several hundred meters to 1.5-3 km. The tundra plains of the Southern Island are especially rich in stagnant reservoirs, where the largest lakes in area are the 1st and 2nd Nekhvatovs, Pakhtusova, Kashina, Sakharova, Zyussa, Ledyanoe and Gusinoe. Several types of lakes are known on the archipelago: thermokarst (zonal for the permafrost area), they can be found only on the South Island - on the peat bogs in Gribovaya Bay and in the southern part of the archipelago; relict coastal, formed during the uplift of the coastal area and often located at heights of up to 100-150 m above sea level; glacial valleys and mountainous. Most of the reservoirs are flowing. The depths of the lakes are very different. For example, thermokarst and lying on the coastal plains in the southern polar deserts of the North Island are shallow - 0.9-2.0 m deep. But there are many lakes on the archipelago, insignificant in area, but deep-water, as, for example, discovered by the author on the eastern coast of the South Island on the coast of Abrosimov Bay (6-10 m deep with a water surface of no more than 1 hectare). The deepest among the described and studied lakes of the archipelago are the Deryugin lakes ( maximum depth 90 m) and Nekhvatovy (74 m). All shallow lakes up to 2 m deep in winter freeze to the bottom, and deep lakes in winter they are covered with a layer of ice of almost two meters. Such deep lakes differ from all sorts of small ones by the presence of arctic char populations in the first of them.

Flora and vegetation (natural areas). Unlike all other high-latitude archipelagos of the circumpolar region, Novaya Zemlya lies in two natural zones. Slightly more than a third of the archipelago (Yuzhny Island up to about 72 ° N) is occupied by Arctic tundra, and on the coastal areas there are plain variants of tundra-Arctic vegetation. And in the inner, more sublime,
landscapes - mountain-arctic tundra. In the coastal part of Yuzhny Island, the lowland variants of the Arctic tundra go up to the Matochkin Shar Strait (up to about 73 ° N), although its mountainous area already occupied by the mountain-arctic variants of the polar deserts.

To the north of the main dividing line of the islands of the archipelago - Matochkin Shara, the nature of the vegetation changes radically. Here, even on the coast, there are practically no flat areas (they are represented by small fragments) and low mountains dominate. Therefore, mountain tundra groupings go to the sea itself, and in the central, most elevated part, mountain-arctic variants of polar deserts are common, in some points they also go directly to the sea.

The last sections of the mountain variants of the Arctic tundra run in the coastal region of the Severny Island approximately to the latitude of the Admiralty Peninsula (up to 75 ° N), and to the north begins the kingdom of polar deserts, represented by their southern version. In this part of the archipelago, where on the periphery of the North Island land has risen from the sea or freed from retreating glaciers relatively recently, primary landscapes that have not yet changed in evolutionary terms are widespread with lunar-like landscapes and primitive, poorly structured soils. Polar deserts in a narrow strip (with a maximum width of no more than 2-6 km) run along the edge of the sea to the highest latitude point of the archipelago, encircling it from the Barents Sea and Kara sides. The inner part of the island is an area of ​​lifeless ice sheets.

The main feature of the natural zones of the archipelago is a significant variety of vegetation (more than 240 species of terrestrial flora are known), which is associated with the extended latitudinal extension of Novaya Zemlya and its proximity to the mainland land. Both the Arctic tundra and the polar deserts differ significantly in the diversity of flora from the same natural areas in other regions of the Arctic. This is due to the presence of a wide variety of habitat conditions on the islands and microzonal refugia (shelters), which predetermined during periods of climatic changes on Earth (cooling and warming of the climate) unhindered migrations and penetration of heat-loving plants, respectively, from the south, from the mainland tundra through Vaigach Island, to the north ( during climate warming) or, conversely, the movement and subsidence far to the south of cold-loving plants of the north (from the polar deserts and their analogues) to the south, the fixation of such migrants in the composition of plant complexes.

The presence of hydrophilic species in the composition of vegetation is evidence of more comfortable conditions for biota on the high Arctic islands in the history of this region of the Earth. For such of them, as, for example, crested pondweed, several types of dupontia and phippia, arctophila yellow, Pallas buttercups, Hyperborean and others, lanceolate and common tails, marsh cinquefoil, unrooted mulberry, marsh marigold, Novaya Zemlya - the only one among the high-latitude archipelago the area where these aquatic and semi-aquatic plants are known, which gives the whole archipelago an exotic look. A researcher who finds himself near water bodies suddenly gets the impression that he is on the mainland, a few degrees south of latitude, in a different natural-geographical area. Almost like Jules Verne in his "Children of Captain Grant" or Arthur Conan Doyle among the members of the expedition in " lost World". For some of these plants, Novaya Zemlya habitats are the northernmost currently known in Europe.

Heat-loving relics, witnessing more favorable conditions than modern conditions on the islands, on the archipelago are "land" cloudberries, blueberries, two species of fern cystopteris, round-leaved wintergreen, willow-leaved and broad-leaved willow-leaved tea, Lapland castillea, dwarf birch, a number of other marsh plants ... These species survived in micro-shelters - in hollows protected from strong northern winds, in crevices of rocks, on the slopes of the southern exposure, where heated soils and stones create favorable temperature conditions, cause flowering of plants and ripening of seeds, which is a necessary condition for the existence of their populations in time.

The landscapes in the zone of the southern variants of the polar deserts also have an exotic look. These are almost continuous massifs of gravel, boulders, primary, unstructured soils released from under melting glaciers, or sediments washed up by sea waves. As in the real desert of the hot belt of the Earth, there is no continuous cover of vascular plants, and even such primitive plant forms as mosses and lichens form small clusters only in hollows, in places protected from the wind, etc. ecotopes. Primitive, almost completely devoid of vegetation, primary landscapes experience a real moisture deficit; lakes and rivers are the exception rather than the rule. Individual vascular plants, their stunted clumps, together with mosses and lichens, are noted in very exotic loci, again similar to the deserts of the hot south. The lack of organic matter and moisture, common for the southern and northern deserts, determines the type of vegetation that is the same for such landscapes - these are peculiar oases, sometimes having areas of several tens of square centimeters or even the size of a tea saucer, formed on a seaside terrace on the emissions of the remains of dead sea animals ( whales, sperm whales, walruses, seals) or fin. Such accumulations of organic matter, slightly immersed in pebbles or clay soil and decomposing over decades, serve first as a haven for mosses, on whose layers lichens settle, and only then vascular (higher, or flowering) plants. Another potential ecotope for plant settlement is a narrow, literally a few centimeters wide, strip of coast along large and small streams, rivers and lakes. Such harsh conditions for the existence of plants here also led to the poverty of the flora of flowering plants, of which only a little more than 50 species were noted (more than 4 times less than in the tundra adjacent to the Arctic deserts). The settlement of the polar desert landscapes comes from the south, from the area of ​​the arctic tundra. The first barrier in the way of such migrants is the transitional area between these two natural areas... More than 80 species reach it, but, as you can see, almost a third of migrants settle here, stopping their distribution to the north.
Fauna. As with any northern island, there are very few real land animals on the archipelago. On Novaya Zemlya, only four of them are now known - the Arctic fox, the Novaya Zemlya subspecies of the wild reindeer, hoofed and Siberian (obskoy) lemmings. In the historical past (before the beginning - the end of the 19th century), when there were many game animals on the archipelago and their intensive hunting was carried out, there were also wolves and foxes. Of the mammals, marine species are the most diverse.

Coastal areas of land and sea areas, like a magnet, attract Atlantic walrus, polar bears, seals (bearded seal, ringed seal, bald seal, or harp seal). Narwhal, beluga whale and bowhead whale are common offshore. At the end of the 20th century, when the number of marine mammals began to decline throughout the Arctic, the waters and land of the archipelago remained the only region where there is a relatively large number of walrus, and in the north of the Northern Island - from the Russkaya Gavan Bay to the Ice Harbor - the author discovered several large rookeries this giant with a total number of several hundred, and possibly even thousands of heads. Some of these rookeries, for example, on the Greater Orange Islands, have been known since their discovery in 1594 by an expedition of Dutch merchants.

In addition to amazing colonial seabirds, Novaya Zemlya is the nesting area of ​​the common eider, northern colonial sea duck, barnacle goose, an exotic species that arranges colonies, like gulls, on cornices. Other "flying" exotic species include graceful swans - bean goose, whooper, white-fronted, white-fronted goose, tundra, and several species of geese (black and red-breasted).

Of course, Novaya Zemlya is not only a habitat for large animals, mammals and birds. Primitive animals live in the soil and on its surface - insects (mosquitoes, midges, rare species of butterflies and beetles), worms, as well as nematodes, rotifers, and lower crustaceans living in lakes. These animals are located at the very base of the trophic pyramids of soil and aquatic ecosystems, constituting a food base for small species of birds and fish living in island rivers and lakes.
This, in general terms, looks like the most extensive archipelago in the Eurasian Arctic - Novaya Zemlya.

"Geography for Schoolchildren". - 2015. - No. 3 . - S. 3-14.