Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands Острова Комсомольской Правды | |
|---|---|
Island group | |
 Map of the archipelago. | |
 Location of the Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands at the northeastern end of the Taymyr Peninsula | |
| Country | Russian Federation |
| Federal subject | Krasnoyarsk Krai |
TheKomsomolskaya Pravda Islands (Russian:Острова Комсомольской Правды,Ostrova Komsomol'skoy Pravdy) are an archipelago in the far north of theRussian Federation. The islands are uninhabited and are covered withtundra vegetation,shingle and ice.
The climate in these islands and the surrounding waters is extremely severe with frequent gales and blizzards in the winter. The sea surrounding the archipelago is covered with fast ice most of the year and is obstructed by pack ice even in the summer.
The island group was known asSaint Samuel Islands[1] (named afterSamuel the Confessor) before the 1917Russian Revolution and then they were renamed afterKomsomolskaya Pravda, being for a while the only island group in the world named after a newspaper.[2] This situation lasted only until theIzvesti Tsik Islands were given their name after newspaperIzvestia. The original name of the islands, "Samuila", was retained for one of the islands of the group though.
These islands are located in theLaptev Sea coastal region, off the mouth of theSimsa Bay in theTaymyr Peninsula. This island group belongs to theKrasnoyarsk Krai administrative division ofRussia.
The largest islands areOstrov Samuila andOstrov Bol'shoy (also known asOstrov Stolovidnyy). Both of them belong to the offshore subgroup, which geographically is sometimes referred to as the proper Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands. The strait between these islands is known asProliv Diksonskikh Gidrografov (Hydrographer Dikson Strait).
The smaller islands that are located close to the coast at the mouth of theSimsa Bay:Udobnyy,Vilkitsky (orSrednyy),Kraynyy (also known asSliyaniye) and smallKuropachiy (known also as "Avanpost" and "Forpost"), form another subgroup that is also known as theVilkitsky Islands (Ostrova Vil'kitskogo). These are named after geographerBoris Vilkitsky and should not be confused with the Vilkitski (or Dzhekman) Islands that are part of theNordenskjold Archipelago or with other islands also called"Vilkitsky".
Uzbekistan Island, named after the formerUzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, has an intermediate position between the two subgroups of the Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands.
Just around the corner of the north east point of the nearby mainland lies smallFram Island (Остров Фрама; Ostrov Frama), which was named afterNorwegian explorerFridtjof Nansen's shipFram.
These islands were first reported in 1736 by Russian explorerVasili Pronchishchev.
In 1933 the newly formed Glavsevmorput' (Chief Administration of the Northern Sea Route) dispatched the first convoy of freighters via theNorthern Sea Route to the mouth of theLena to deliver cargoes bound for theYakut ASSR. It consisted of three freighters and was escorted by the icebreakerKrasin. Despite heavy ice conditions in the Kara Sea two of the ships reachedTiksi, their destination, and unloaded their cargoes. The third ship,Pravda was bound for BukhtaNordvik with an oil exploration expedition. Despite warnings,Pravda ran aground near its destination and turned back.
Severe ice conditions in theVilkitsky Strait (betweenSevernaya Zemlya andCape Chelyuskin), forced the three freighters of the convoy, thePravda, theVolodarskiy and theTovarishch Stalin to winter atOstrov Samuila in the Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands. A shore station was built and a full scientific programme maintained all winter byN. N. Urvantsev and his wife, Dr. Yelizaveta Ivanovna. Urvantsev used the base to explore theTaymyr Peninsula.
These ships were released in the following year byIcebreaker Feodor Litke. Battering heavily the ice around the Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands for one week, the Feodor Litke finally succeeded in breaking the freighters free after carving a 10 km channel with so much effort that its hull suffered grievous damage.[3]
77°20′00″N107°00′00″E / 77.33333°N 107.00000°E /77.33333; 107.00000
