Boiler archipelago. Boiler room. Here, endangering themselves, poachers seek mammoth tusks. And scientists collect invaluable data here. But soon it will all be over: the New Siberian Islands are rapidly sinking into the water

One of the key strategic points in the development of the Arctic is the New Siberian Islands archipelago. Our military and researchers have chosen the largest island in the area. Delivery to Kotelny Island, which is part of the Anjou Islands group, has been a popular service among companies engaged in sea transportation since 2013.

Boiler - really big Island, its area is more than 23 thousand km. sq. It has been known since the 18th century thanks to the merchant Ivan Lyakhov. This territory in the east limits the Laptev Sea, dividing it with the East Siberian Sea. A pier is being built here, similar to the one already equipped on Novaya Zemlya.

A closed-cycle military city is being built on Kotelny Island in the Arctic

This is required in order to freely receive ships of any class with cargo during the summer navigation period and carry out raid unloading from barges.

Cargo transportation to Kotelny Island from the mainland is required to bring in wintering supplies at the time when maritime traffic will be hampered by ice and low temperatures. In this area, the snow melts only for two months, the rest of the time - a harsh Arctic winter.

This island is part of the Ust-Lensky nature reserve and is known for its characteristic arctic fauna - arctic fox is hunted here, mammoth remains have been found, there are populations of deer and polar bears. The polar explorer Dr. Herman Walter is buried at the Kotelny. One of the capes of the island is named after the brave explorer.

The logistics of cargo delivery to Kotelny Island implies a competent route planning. If passenger and oversized cargo transportation can be carried out by air, thanks to the Temp airfield, transportation of heavy equipment, equipment for stations, residential modules to Kotelny Island is possible only by sea and is desirable during summer navigation, for the convenience of unloading ashore.

In 2013, the former Soviet military base began to be restored here. This is included in the program developed by the Russian Ministry of Defense - the creation of the "Arctic Shield", radar and other stations. Transport to Kotelny Island is predominantly by sea from Tiksi, a port located on the continent closest to the archipelago.

In 2013-2014, the reconstruction of the Temp air station began, which is being expanded to receive heavy aircraft and develop military aviation. However, sea transportation to Kotelny Island remains the preferred mode of cargo delivery.

A military camp has been built on the island, for the construction of which ships deliver engineering equipment, special equipment, building materials and other property. The 99th tactical group is located here. Also, the military often order the shipment of armored personnel carriers, snowmobiles, tractors and other pieces of equipment necessary for the full functioning of a military settlement in the Arctic to Kotelny Island by sea.

We ensure the delivery of goods to the island and back to the continent, using our own equipment to unload the goods on an unequipped shore. To organize the life and work of military personnel in a remote area Far North an established regular supply is needed - food and household supplies, medical supplies, additional materials for the repair of housing and equipment. All this can be delivered at any time by sea, using the services of sea freight.

Kotelny Island: photo

Online information about the village of Kotelny Ostrov, which is located in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) region and the Ust-Yansky district.

Gradually, information about Boiler Island village will be supplemented by our specialists. Thus, you can easily and easily view the map of the location of this settlement, familiarize yourself and find out the weather forecast in the village of Ostrov Kotelny. Information will also be posted regarding work, active and working for this moment businesses, hospitals, schools and much more.

The next step will be the combination of each locality and all residents into a large online social network. Thus, all residents of the Ust-Yansky district will be able to easily communicate with each other.

Weather in the village Ostrov kotelny for a week, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) region, Ust-Yansky district

This section will help you find out what Weather in Ostrov Kotelny per day (September 17, 2018). As you can see, we provide the maximum number of days with a weather forecast in the village Ostrov kotelny located in: Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) region, Ust-Yansky district.

Thus, you can easily view the weather forecast in the village or the village of Ostrov kotelny for today, tomorrow, a week (7 days) or for 2 weeks (14 days), a month. You can always trust our online service. We are trying to increase the maximum accuracy of weather, pressure, humidity or cloudiness in the city of Boiler Island

Map to the village Ostrov Kotelny, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) region, Ust-Yansky district

How to get to the village Ostrov Kotelny, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) region, Ust-Yansky district.

Where is Ostrov Kotelny located? You can look at the Yandex map on our website.

Online map of Ostrov Kotelny village, Ust-Yansky district, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) region

An online map of the village of Ostrov Kotelny (Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) region, Ust-Yansky district), which is located in Russia, will always come in handy for you. Online map Village Ostrov Boiler will allow you to quickly find the location of the settlement, help you navigate the area. On the online Yandex map of the village of Ostrov kotelny, additionally, all state institutions of the village or city of Ostrov kotelny are placed. In addition to state institutions, shops, schools, hospitals, cultural centers, churches and many other objects.

By the way, you have a real opportunity to view the weather for the neighboring village of Mikhailovka.

Base on about. boiler house

Image from the Resurs.F3 spacecraft, KFA 3000 camera. Scale is about 1:100,000.

The New Siberian Islands are located in the North Arctic Ocean, north of the mainland coast Eastern Siberia, in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). The picture shows West Side Kotelny Island, the largest in the archipelago. The western rocky coast of the island is washed by the waters of the shallow Laptev Sea. The island is composed of alluvial and marine deposits, limestones, sandstones, shales, and granites. Powerful permafrost is widespread everywhere. The river network is well developed and is represented by the Khos-Toryuttyakh and Krestovaya rivers. The harsh landscapes of arctic deserts and tundra are common here.

The landscapes of the Arctic deserts are confined to the leveled surfaces of the plateau and flat-topped hills (Walter). The herbaceous-moss cover with lichens and single flowering plants is very sparse. Below, along the slopes of the hills, there is a mountain arctic polygonal tundra with a well-developed moss cover and a sparse layer of flowering plants.

The landscapes of the Arctic tundra are located on low undulating plains, strongly dissected by river valleys. Shrubs here are represented by polar (arctic) willow and polar birch. The most prominent role is played by saxifrage, cotton grass, polar poppy, gravel, partridge grass. Characteristically big variety mosses and lichens.

The island is inhabited by lemming (polar mouse), arctic fox and reindeer (leaves for the mainland for the winter). There is a stoat. The polar bear visits quite often. Lots of different birds. Geese, white partridge, snowy owl, snow bunting, gulls, sandpipers come here to breed.

Kotelny Island

In rivers, lakes, sea ​​bays and lagoons are found char, saffron cod, whitefish, omul, herring and some other fish. In coastal waters, there are seals, walruses, and white whales. There is no permanent population on the island, but employees of polar meteorological stations and fishermen spend most of the year on the island. The arctic fox trade, hunting, fishing, and the search for mammoth ivory, an ornamental material for Yakut bone cutters, who became famous for their artistic products, are well developed.

Here, endangering themselves, poachers seek mammoth tusks. And scientists collect invaluable data here. But soon it will all be over: the New Siberian Islands are rapidly sinking into the water

On the last day of August, it snows on Kotelny Island. You won't go far without a down jacket. But it is light here all day and night, you have to cover the windows with blankets at night. At the height of summer, the sun is only half-rising, but now, barely rising with dawn, it rolls along the horizon and falls briefly behind it at midnight.

The ship "Polaris" drops us off on the southern shore of Kotelny Island, where the Sannikov meteorological station is located. The chief Sasha and his wife Sveta, the meteorologist Sanya Jr., the cat Vaska, the white dog White, the black dog Black, the red dog Shayba and the dog Sarah, who seems to have had wolves, live here. Sasha and Sveta met at the Novosibirsk Meteorological School, arrived at the station in the north of the island, then transferred here. “There should be more of us on staff, and we are supposed to work every other day, but we are on duty every other day. Even better: I worked for a day, slept for a day, and work again,” says Sasha. “If there would be a second day off, it’s not clear what to do with yourself.” Boredom is generally more difficult to bear than the climate.

Sasha says that when he lived in the north of the island, other meteorologists strove to hunt bears. They will only see one in the distance, they run after a gun. And Sasha grabbed a stick and knocked on the fuel barrels, which are everywhere, to frighten away the beast. Bears go out to people all the time, looking for food. And people shoot without thinking twice. “I tell them, the bear, if he wants, will tear your head off, you won’t have time to raise your gun. But he is not an aggressive animal, even a cautious one. How many times it happened: you go to take readings in the winter - there is no one, even snow, then after five minutes you leave the house - you see your tracks, and next to them are bears. That is, he saw you, waited until you left, and went about his business.

True, bears appear on the island less and less. The wolves have also died out since the deer disappeared. And the border guards killed the deer - for fun, they shot whole herds from helicopters. Now deer are found only in the depths of the island - one at a time, two at a time, and then rarely. There are mice and foxes left. Pestsov Sasha constantly saves from dogs, and recently pulled a snowy owl out of Bely's mouth. How Bely grabbed it is not clear, owls usually do not let anyone close to them at 20 meters.

IN free time Sasha collects mammoth tusks, which is much more profitable than his main job. She and Sveta have been here for the fifth year and are going to quit - they have earned as much as they wanted, it's time to go home, to the Altai Territory, open their own business and give birth to children. Because it would be crazy to have children here: no school, no hospital, not even a paramedic within a radius of hundreds of kilometers. If something happens, you need to call a sunboard, which God knows when it will arrive. The former head of the station had a stroke, they came for him only a few days later.

I understand the meaning of the term “hard-to-reach station” when I try to send a letter. The Sannikov station was founded in 1942, and little has changed since then in terms of everyday life and technology. There is no mail, a satellite phone - as a last resort, e-mail - through the Tiksa branch of Roshydromet, where it is read and censored at their discretion. It's not like it's their job, it's more of a hobby. Sveta throws my letter to a colleague in Tiksi and asks to send it to the specified address. A few minutes later the answer comes: “The letter has been cancelled. Don't ask questions.” Once a year, the Roshydromet ship Mikhail Somov comes to the island, bringing a supply of food for the whole next year, paper mail and new employees. Border guards flew in four times this summer. There is no more official communication with the earth. And unofficially, by the spring, Yakuts and other tusk seekers appear. And although caterpillar vehicles are strictly prohibited on all islands - protected area, - prospectors come on all-terrain vehicles on ice and later, in spring, on boats, despite the mortal danger.

When Sasha and Sveta came here in 2010, they were dropped off on an all-terrain vehicle. The ice on the sea is not at all smooth, all around there are hummocks as high as a five-story building. Even more dangerous are holes in the ice: you never know whether it is a puddle or a crack all the way to the water. ATVs lean out of the cab with binoculars - look out for the way. Sometimes there is nothing left but to try to jump over the rifts at full speed. “The driver knocked on our body, saying, whoever is sleeping, wake up and hold on tight, we will jump,” recalls Sasha. - It accelerated to the stop, with a clang jumped over a hole in the ice, but did not fly, and the rear part got stuck in the water. I opened the door, I thought, now we will be pulled out by the second all-terrain vehicle on a cable, and the water rushed inside. On the edge of the ice floe stands the head of the brigade Gena, yelling: get out! His head is covered in blood - they and the driver in the cab shook so much that he broke through the hatch in the ceiling with his head. Waking up, we barely had time to jump out in our socks. All things, computers, everything that was inside, went to the bottom. Luckily, we had two more rovers with us, sat in them, borrowed shoes, so we made it to the station alive.”

Access by water is no less dangerous: poachers usually sail on flat-bottomed aluminum boats. The nearest coast is 400 kilometers from here. In autumn, in a storm, the waves are under two meters, so you have to jump from wave to wave at full speed. They say that last year one person went overboard, but the boat did not even stop, because if you turn off the engine, the next wave will cover and drown everyone. On marine rubber boats of the "Zodiac" type, which are more reliable and much more expensive, only an organized team of poachers from the village of Kazachy comes.

The weather station is the only center of civilization here, and poachers and border guards, having reached the island, first of all go to the guys. Meteorologists keep Swiss neutrality, accept both. Sometimes scientists also come. And now we - four geomorphologists, the photographer Max and me - during the expedition of the Russian Geographical Society to the New Siberian Islands were thrown to Kotelny for a week.

Tiksi

Our expedition began six days earlier, when we flew to Tiksi, the nearest city on the mainland to the islands. As is often the case with semi-abandoned northern cities, Tiksi seems to be frozen into the past. "Glory to October!" - reads the inscription, lined with rusty fuel barrels on the hillside above the city. The port of Tiksin is still operating, but it looks like its own ghost: there are rusty cranes near the water, peeling barges and skeletons of ships in the water, the coast is littered with mountains of scrap metal, and wooden two-story buildings that have rotted into dust surround the port.

Thirty years ago, Tiksi prospered: a coal mine, a port - everything was under construction, it required labor, in a hostel five people were packed into a room designed for two, crazy people received money. “In the eighties, five hundred rubles were considered an ordinary, small salary,” says our accompanying Valera, “people had ten, fifteen thousand on their books. Well, of course, then it all burned down. IN better times 15,000 people lived in Tiksi, today three times less. There is no mining or production. Even the only grocery store closed all morning - the saleswoman simply did not come. We are going to have lunch in the city center, in the only restaurant here, which works only by advance order. After dinner, they say, it's better not to linger here: behind the next door is a bar - without dancing, but with a guaranteed fight.

Over lunch, I ask the expedition leadership what our main goal is. “The number one task is to run through all the points as quickly as possible and understand where and how to work in the future,” says Alexander Bulygin, scientific director of the enterprise. - We do not discuss the political component, I am not competent, but Putin voiced it. It is necessary to prove that the shelf is the extension, the further expansion of our great homeland, and, accordingly, we have priority rights for the development of minerals.”

“Return the Russian presence in the Arctic, including the military one,” says Konstantin Zaitsev, expedition leader and assistant to polar explorer Chilingarov. - And scientific. The Russian presence in the Arctic declined significantly in the 1990s. We also want to create a national park here, which would be better protected than the existing reserve. I would like to make a recreational area for scientific work and tourism, so that there is no uncontrolled use of resources.”

The thesis about the return of the military presence somewhat contradicts reality: before our eyes, the military unit in Tiksi-3, in October it was completely disbanded, and the city airport, which belonged to the Ministry of Defense, was closed.

After lunch we drive to the Tiksi meteorological station. We have time to launch the "ball", that is, the weather balloon. A white ball one and a half meters in diameter with attached sensors rises 38 kilometers above the ground and bursts there. For two hours of flight, the sensors manage to report everything about the speed and direction of the wind, temperature and other atmospheric parameters. This information is expensive: an air corridor runs over Tiksi, through which a dozen and a half flights pass daily connecting Europe and Asia, so all major air carriers buy accurate weather reports.

“Now there are those who have nowhere to go or who are working towards a northern pension,” says meteorologist Olga Viktorovna. - The work is unfeminine, in winter you need to manually drill two and a half meters of ice in order to measure the thickness. Every three hours a day, you need to take readings and send a report. Water temperature, wave height, precipitation. In winter there is a blizzard such that you can not see your feet. But I'm probably an abnormal woman, sometimes you go from the site in April: the frosts rang out, the chiffchaffs flew in, the sun, the snow sparkles. And you think: what happiness! Although than better weather, the more work the meteorologist has.” Later I learn that Olga Viktorovna is a thunderstorm for all the surrounding meteorologists, and the Tiksin station is exemplary.

Already at dusk we return to the hotel in a car with a local businessman Stepan Sukach. In the expedition, he is responsible for logistics and support. I ask him what he is doing here. “Actually, I'm doing a mammoth. From mid-July to September, thirty people collect tusks and bones from me, then they buy everything from me, ninety percent are China, ten are Russian artists. It's actually full of minerals. Previously, coal was mined. There are diamonds and gold. Every year we submit applications for development, while they refuse. The city lives on subsidies, although everything could be here. I like it here. I'm a hunter and fisherman, you know? And that in winter the heating can be turned off at minus 50, so in my apartment in each room there is a stove and a generator such that there is enough for the whole house. You can't take me with your bare hands. But in general, I'm moving to Moscow for the winter. We drive up to the hotel. The inscription at the entrance: "Honor and glory - according to work."

Water marks

The concentration of oxygen isotopes in ice can be used to describe the climate in which this ice is frozen. In nature, there are several isotopes of oxygen, that is, atoms that differ only in mass. You can think of them like bowling alley balls - they are the same size and shape, but noticeably different in weight. For example, the oxygen isotope 16O is lighter than 18O.

“We know the exact ratio of isotopes in ocean water, it is constant,” explains Natalya Belova, a researcher at the Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University. In a warm climate, closer to the equator, more heavy oxygen evaporates into the air from the water than in northern latitudes. Therefore, in more harsh winters heavy oxygen 18O evaporates more slowly from the oceans and falls out faster in the form of rain and snow.

When the air reaches the Arctic, it has much less heavy oxygen. The snow that falls from such air will contain less than 18O. There are calculated values ​​for the ratio of 18O and 16O isotopes, which can be used to judge the average January temperature. The less 18O in the ice, the colder was the winter in which the ice was frozen. This has been calculated in many places in the Arctic and matches the meteorological data quite accurately if we look at ice that has frozen recently, when people were already making weather observations.”

boiler house

On Kotelny Island, with geomorphologists from Moscow State University, Nadya, Natasha, Denis and Sasha, who sailed with me on the Polaris, every morning we climb into an all-terrain vehicle and set off along the coast to the thermal circus - a place where ancient ice melts. The New Siberian Islands are rapidly eroding - the coastline in some places recedes by 10, and in some by 30 meters per year. This picture of rapid destruction by geological standards is mesmerizing: a high, steep bank is sliding, forming something like a clay amphitheater with protruding cones - baidzherahs, as geomorphologists call them. Brown ice rises like a wall above the lunar landscape. Most likely, in the future the islands will completely go under water, but while they are standing, scientists have a chance to find out what the climate was like in this area hundreds of thousands of years ago. And we are here exactly for this - to take samples of ice and soil, in order to reconstruct the conditions in which the islands were formed based on their composition.

The brown ice above the thermocircus looks like a glacier sprinkled with earth on top. However, as geomorphologists explain to me, this is not a glacier, but vein ice, it is formed in a completely different way: from small veins of ice in the ground cracked by frost. Over tens and hundreds of thousands of years, veins of ice grow, turning into giant blocks, or yedomas, which look like ice cliffs above the seashore. There is no climate anywhere on Earth today for the formation of food.

Stretching the swamps higher, geomorphologists climb into the thermocircus with shovels, picks and axes. Sasha and Denis break off pieces of the ice floe at different levels and arrange them in numbered packages. In the evening, they will pour the melted ice into test tubes, which will then go to the laboratory in Moscow for isotopic analysis. By the ratio of oxygen isotopes in melt water, you can find out what the climate was like here when this ice was frozen (see p. 183). Nadya is in the very middle of the thermocircus and, bogged down in mud up to her knees, is digging up samples of peat at a level below the ice vein. By the composition of peat in the laboratory, you can determine the age of the ice above it, and by the composition of the soil, you can learn more about how it was formed. "Why is all this necessary?" - I ask when we drink in the evening for the successful start of field work. “For the same reason why any paleoreconstructions are needed,” Natasha explains. - Without knowledge of the past it is impossible to predict the future. In nature, everything is cyclical, including climate. To know what will happen after, you need to imagine what happened before.

The most useful mineral

“Once on an expedition, we found a mammoth leg with bones and meat in the permafrost. For a thousand and ten years she lay in the ground. We threw a piece into the pan - we thought we would eat mammoths - but the meat on the fire turned into a brown smelly liquid. Time destroyed the tissues, so that they only seemed to be preserved in the ice.” I remember this story, told by photographer Sergei Zhdanov in Tiksi, when we are walking along the tundra with Sasha in search of a tusk. The New Siberian Islands are composed of soft deposits of the Quaternary period, which began 2.6 million years ago and continues to this day. Now all this is thawing, eroding and falling into the sea. Tusks and skeletons of mammoths, Pleistocene horses and lions are constantly being exposed. But in recent years, poachers have been collecting them quite quickly.

There, see the orange flag? This is where the former stationmaster died.

Sasha says that the head of the weather station before last, Sergei Kholodkov, actually drank a little, like everyone else. But somehow an icebreaker came, and Kholodkov exchanged a lot of fish for a lot of alcohol. “Something jumped in his head, he started and could not stop. First he drank at home, then he quarreled with his wife, took a gun, canned food, alcohol and went to the tundra. In October. He shot from a gun at the banks, warmed himself by the fire, probably hunted. It was already freezing cold. His wife called the Ministry of Emergency Situations, they wool the island, but the snow is all around. His remains, severely devoured by arctic foxes, were found just two kilometers from the station by his cousin, who arrived in the spring. ”For the whole day, Sasha finds one small fragment of a tusk, twenty kilograms. He jokes: "Here is my monthly salary lying around." The season is coming to an end, so the tusk in easily accessible places is already all collected. Previously, there were significantly more of them, and there were fewer applicants. And less control. Our all-terrain vehicle Valera and other people of the Tiksin businessman Sukach, who work at the Boiler, say that they have collected only three hundred kilograms. This is not much, a whole tusk of an adult mammoth weighs up to a centner, but finding one like this is a colossal success. Whole ones from the base to the tip and dark brown or dark cherry color are most valued. And a very big luck - paired tusks. When “one man” found a collectible pair a few years ago, events unfolded like in a James Bond movie: a helicopter flew in a couple of hours, people in black glasses handed a case with cash to a lucky miner and took the find. “They say he was paid a million rubles,” says Valera. “But that was five years ago, since then the prices even for an ordinary tusk have increased five times, and even for collectible ones, even more so.” There are four categories of quality, but on average a kilogram costs $500 today. This is the price at which seekers rent the tusk to their superiors. Then the tusk is sent to the capital, where it is checked in different instances, registered and resold to special companies that have a license for international trade.

At night, border guards bring arrested poachers to the station. The border guards arrived a few days ago along with "legal" all-terrain vehicles-mammoth hunters. ATVs - Vladimir and Oleg from St. Petersburg. On the mainland, Vladimir demolishes old houses and digs pits for new ones. Demanded, in general, profession. But the tusk is more profitable. The Yakuts, he says, are illegal immigrants, and he has permission. The island is both a border zone and a nature reserve. There is a semi-legal form of existence here - with permission. It is framed in federal agency nature management and in specialized research institutes. What exactly the permission is for is not specified, but definitely not for the extraction of a tusk.

In the tundra, you can neither dig, nor even drive heavy machinery. But, of course, both workers-searchers and border guards travel, because otherwise it is impossible to find a tusk and illegal immigrants. Also, under no circumstances should you dig the ground, you can only collect what lies on the surface. But, of course, you won't get much.

The next morning, the border guards make a final raid on the island by helicopter and find three more Yakut diggers. Two groups of poachers - yesterday and today - meet at the helicopter cheerfully, like old friends at a party. The colonel, despite the sleepless night, also radiates goodwill and directs the loading: “Stop fraternization, we go into the helicopter one at a time. Whoever spoils inside or breaks something will go out over the sea without warning!

The Yakuts, whom the border guards are taking out, do not look dejected. All that threatens them is a fine of about 500 rubles for violating the border regime and a couple of thousand if they resisted during detention. Carrying a weapon without the required documents is already more serious, but no one will be punished for the extraction of a tusk. “And this is no longer our business, but Rosprirodnadzor,” the colonel answers the question about the tusk. But they don't do it at all. It’s impossible to take a tusk out just like that, in order to officially withdraw it, you need to fill out a bunch of papers, and there’s nowhere to put it.” However, the detainees do not have any tusks with them. It is hidden in the depths of the island without identification marks. Only GPS-points, according to which the caches will be found when they come for it in the fall or spring.

“It’s even more profitable for them,” says Valera, when we follow the helicopter with our eyes. - From Tiksi they will reach their villages for thirty thousand rubles. And from here the boat gets up at a hundred and a hundred and fifty. It seems to me that they finished their work and deliberately went closer to surrender so that the border guards would take them away. Otherwise, they would hide in the tundra, as others are hiding now.”

Permafrost

A day later, we are also taken from the island. During the time that we spent at Kotelny, the Polaris managed to climb to the De Long Islands and return back. I ask the rest of the ship what we missed. “Not so much, we drove from island to island more and more and took pictures with flags,” says Denis Ivanov, a specialist in marine mammals from the Institute of Problems of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “Although something interesting happened.” Denis with burning eyes tells about three gray whales, which were met for the first time in these latitudes. "And of course my favorite place now - Vilkitsky Island. On a sheer cliff, bird colonies, a rookery of seals, bears immediately walk higher on a ledge. I would work there for a couple of days. But we were not even dropped off, they said that it was dangerous with bears. Laughter!"

The last stop before Tiksi is Maly Lyakhovsky, from which we pick up another group of scientists. While the expedition leadership is attaching flags with the emblem of the Russian Geographical Society in the frame, Denis finds out from local meteorologists that every year at the end of August or the beginning of September, a flock of several hundred belugas swim past the island. “Now it’s clear where you need to go to really work next year,” he says. - Beluga whales swim from east to west, but no one knows where and where. So far, according to my observations, the sea is dead here. On the other hand, we explored quite a bit, we landed on the islands for a maximum of two hours, and even then not at all. This is nothing, in a good way you need to explore each island for two or three days, and so for a couple of months.

At Fadeevskoye, biologists from the North-Eastern Federal University took samples from the bottom of the lakes with cores, so that later in the laboratory they could identify diatom species in the sediments and restore them. ancient climate. “We only managed to collect a dozen samples,” says Ruslan Gorodnichev, team leader. - There would be more time or a helicopter could explore the entire island. And there would be no need to destroy the vegetation cover. And so I don’t even know when the traces of all-terrain vehicles will overgrow. Some - in thirty or fifty years, some - in a hundred. And some - never, because if you raise the fertile layer, there are silts under it, which are instantly washed out.

It is really difficult to find a place on Kotelny where there would be no traces of an all-terrain vehicle. But in the early 2000s, a tusk was worthless and there were soldiers on the islands, so poachers didn’t come here. Now the military bases are abandoned, and 100-150 people with their equipment are digging on each island from spring to autumn.

We can say that the islands still go under water, and in what form they will disappear - pristine or plowed - is not so important from the point of view of evolution. Communication with geomorphologists, who operate not even for thousands, but for millions of years, directs thoughts in this direction. Especially now the tusk and hunting are the only source of income in the Yakut villages. And poachers are by no means outright negative characters in this story. The same Igor, who comes here for a tusk along with his people, thanks to these sorties, rebuilt the village of Cossack and literally brought it back to life.

There is one inconvenient circumstance: the more all-terrain vehicles and diggers - "abrasion agents", as scientists call them, the more faster island disappear. If a national park is organized here, where deer and polar bears walk instead of all-terrain vehicles, and the soil cover is disturbed only in strictly scientific interests, then the islands will stand still for several thousand, or even tens of thousands of years. During this time, the climate can change as you like, and the erosion of the coast can stop altogether. It is possible that in a broad sense, from the point of view of eternity and geomorphology, all scenarios are equally good. But geomorphology, as you know, is the science of the relief of the earth. It has nothing to do with the life that takes place on this relief.

Photos Max Avdeev

Kotelny Island - from the polar station to the Arctic foothold

The construction of the Arctic infrastructure on the northern borders of Russia has been carried out at an accelerated pace for two years now. However, until now the life of military personnel on remote islands is oversaturated with "hardships and hardships", and transfer to the mainland seems to be an unrealistic prospect for them. After a wide public outcry that arose around the material about the service of the military from the Arctic island of Kotelny, Voyennoye.RF decided to figure out how the base on the Novosibirsk Islands arose and what tasks it would perform as part of the Arctic Military District.

The eye clings immediately to the error. We do not have the Arctic Military District, we have USC SF (Unified Strategic Command of the Northern Fleet).

38,000 kilometers of tundra

This is exactly the area of ​​the archipelago of the New Siberian Islands, washed by the two seas of the Arctic Ocean. Nine months of the year, the land on the islands is covered with snow and ice, and even in summer the air temperature here rarely exceeds +5 degrees Celsius.

There is formally no permanent civilian population here, but workers at polar stations and hunters spend most of the calendar year on the islands. In difficult Arctic conditions, people hunt for polar fox, fish and look for scarce mammoth ivory, from which Yakut craftsmen create unique art products.
The quantitative composition of animals living on the islands is also unstable. For the summer period, reindeer come from the mainland, polar bears wander over the ice. Walrus, seal, white whale live in coastal waters.

The Novosibirsk Islands are owned by Russia archipelago in the Arctic Ocean between the Laptev Sea and East Siberian Sea. Administratively, it belongs to Yakutia. They consist of three groups of islands: the Lyakhovsky Islands, the Anjou Islands and the De Long Islands. The first information about the islands at the beginning of the 18th century was reported by the Cossack Yakov Permyakov, who sailed from the mouth of the Lena to the Kolyma. In 1712, as part of a Cossack detachment led by Mercury Vagin, he landed on the island, later called Bolshoi Lyakhovsky.

The largest island of the archipelago is Kotelny - its area is 23,200 kilometers. It is believed that the island was discovered back in 1773 by a merchant Ivan Lyakhov while observing wandering herds of wild deer.

The eastern part of the island, now called the Faddeevsky Peninsula, was once explored by the famous Yakov Sannikov.

Where the name of the island came from is not known for certain. One of the versions claims that the Cossacks, landing on the island for the first time, found a cauldron on the shore, left earlier by no one knows. According to another version, on the contrary, they forgot on the shore, leaving the island in a hurry, their own boiler.

The relief of the island is hilly, in the south is its highest point - Mount Malakatyn-Tas, 361 meters high. The composition of the earth's crust is mainly limestone and shale. Inland waters represented by small rivers and lakes. The largest lake is Evsekyu-Kyuel. The climate is arctic and harsh. The animal and plant world is typical of the arctic tundra.

During the Soviet Union, the island housed a military base, mothballed after the collapse of the USSR. In 2013, the restoration of the base and runway of the Temp airfield began. In the future, it is planned to build a full-fledged military camp here.

Kotelny Island is located between the East Siberian and Laptev Seas and is the largest in the archipelago of the New Siberian Islands, as well as in the small archipelago of the Anjou Islands. According to administrative division, the island is part of the Bulunsky ulus of Yakutia, Russian Federation.

The area of ​​the island is 23.200 square kilometers, highest point- Mount Malakatyn-Tas, raised above sea level by 361 meters. Kotelny Island is part of the Ust-Lensky nature reserve.

The beginning of the scientific development of the islands dates back to the 19th century. In 1912, an expedition to them was made icebreakers "Taimyr" and "Vaigach", and by 1928, a geophysical observatory appeared on one of the islands - the first stationary station on this earth.

Capital "Temp"

The polar station at the Temp airfield, which arose after the war at Kotelny, is considered to be a kind of center, the capital of the New Siberian Islands archipelago. It was built on a pebbly spit, near the fishing and hunting base of five wooden buildings, which supplied the population of the base with the necessary food.

GAZ-47 at the Boiler. Russian Geographical Society Novosibirsk

They lived on "Tempe", despite the unofficial status of the capital, modestly, in a northern way. Here was a common hut, where all the workers of the airfield, headed by his chief, spent the night, a dining room, an office for meteorologists and a small bathhouse. And, of course, a garage for repairing equipment and storing the GAZ-47 caterpillar transporter at the disposal of the polar explorers. As elsewhere in the North, this car, which received the slang name "Stepanida", was the "workhorse" of the "Temp".

The then completely new AN-2‚ LI-2 and IL-14 landed on the Kotelny. Planes flew to the island no more than twice a month with regular delays due to bad weather. As witnesses of those polar years recall, aircraft at the Kotelny always waited with impatience. Together with them mainland came the latest news, correspondence, products. The planes took back the replaced workers, the prey of hunters and fishermen, as well as the data of meteorologists.

The heavy tread of war communism

The military appeared at the boiler room in the late 60s. cold war was in full swing and to ensure air defense on the northern borders of the Union, a radar was hoisted on the island. For its service, a company of soldiers was transferred to the Kotelny, who lived in hastily built barracks.
In the 1970s, the USSR Ministry of Geology took an active interest in the New Siberian Islands. It was decided to create an expeditionary camp for seismic exploration specialists in the immediate vicinity of the Temp airfield, and seismic laboratories themselves appeared throughout the archipelago. By official version, they were supposed to monitor natural earthquakes in the Arctic Ocean. Taking into account the difficult political situation of that time, it cannot be ruled out that the geologists at Kotelny were, as they say, "dual-purpose" and were engaged, among other things, in applied military seismology.


Seismological station at Kotelny

Moreover, a lot of attention was riveted to seismic exploration at that difficult time. Suffice it to recall the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU of May 13, 1958, which literally said the following: "In connection with the urgent need to expand and improve in the shortest possible time the permanent system for the early detection of nuclear explosions, to oblige the USSR Ministry of Defense to create during 1958-1959 a permanent control service for nuclear weapons tests, including in its composition the existing special monitoring units. At the same time, in 1959, the "Special Control Service" was formed, under the auspices of which the so-called "early warning system for nuclear tests" functioned.

With the collapse of the USSR, in the development of the Novosibirsk Islands, if not a dot, then certainly an ellipsis was put. In 1993, against the background of a large-scale curtailment of activities in the Arctic, the polar infrastructure at Kotelny was abandoned by people.

Rise from the Ashes - Boiler House

The first survey of military facilities on the New Siberian Islands after 20 years of inactivity took place in 2011 by a comprehensive expedition of the Russian Geographical Society. The members agreed that runway strip airfield "Temp" has survived and is subject to restoration.

The state of the infrastructure of the airfield "Temp" during the survey by the expedition of the Russian Geographical Society

The following year, military sailors set off to examine the boiler room. The flagship of the Northern Fleet, the nuclear-powered missile cruiser Peter the Great, approached the shores of the New Siberian Islands. One of the tasks then was called "working out actions for landing troops." It was during this operation that a Ka-27 carrier-based helicopter made a hard landing at Kotelny. The crew was not injured as a result of the incident, but the course of the expedition was disrupted.

In 2013, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the return of the military to Kotelny. "Our military left there in 1993, and yet this is a very important point in the Arctic Ocean. I mean a new stage in the development of the Northern Sea Route. We agreed that at this point we would not only recreate the military base, but also we will put the airfield in order, make it possible for representatives of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, hydrologists, climate specialists to participate in the joint work to ensure the safety and efficiency of work on the Northern Sea Route, so that Russia can effectively control this part of its territory," the Russian leader said. at a meeting at the Department of Defense.

Aerodrome "Temp" after restoration

Words were not far from deeds, and already in October of the same year, the military department reported on the restoration of the Temp airfield. The debut of the revived runway at the Kotelny was the reception of the An-72 military transport aircraft with the working group of the Ministry of Defense on board.

Six months later, large-scale exercises of the Airborne Forces were held at the Tempa base, which involved the parachute landing of 350 people and military equipment. At the same time, the construction of a temporary field camp on the island began, and equipment and building materials were brought in.

Terrible flower of the north

One year ago in history military base The most important event took place at the boiler house. The Russian Defense Ministry decided to build here closed-type town "Northern Clover".

"Northern Clover" on Kotelny Island

"It will be a modular city that we are building using modern technologies. Personnel will go out into the street only to keep watch and on duty - this is living in the city closed loop", - said the commander of the detachment of warships of the Northern Fleet Oleg Golubev about the construction.
At the initial stage, more than 440 workers and about 120 units of construction equipment were involved in the construction of the town, which from a height resembles a shamrock, painted in the colors of the Russian flag.
In December 2014, the fifth Arctic Military District was created in Russia. It included submarine and surface forces, naval aviation and air defense of the Northern Fleet. The event was also marked by the announcement of the commissioning of the "Northern Clover".
Unsightly life of the island army
Against the backdrop of the triumphant development of the Arctic, along which Russia is advancing by leaps and bounds, it is easy to forget about those who, on their shoulders, are pulling the country to the northern riches. And the famous line from the charter, which says that "a soldier is obliged to endure all the hardships and hardships of military service with steadfastness and courage" - this is probably the only way to explain the conditions of service at the Kotelny today.

In the course of preparing another material about the life of ordinary soldiers and officers in the Russian army of the 21st century, Voyennoe.RF correspondents talked to more than 10 servicemen from Kotelny and found out what the development of the Arctic actually turns out to be.
Poor quality food and rusty tap water, lack of stable communication with relatives, delays in payment of monetary allowances, the inability to transfer to the mainland - these are just a few of the problems that the fighters faced at Kotelny.

"Lord, we're just tired of all this already ..." - the wife of one of the servicemen says in despair, waiting for the return of her husband from the island for more than a year.

The denouement is near

At the end of May, FSUE "Spetsstroyengineering" at Spetsstroy of Russia summed up the results of the tender for the second and third stages of construction and commissioning of the Temp airfield at Kotelny. Another 5 billion of state funds will be spent on Arctic infrastructure. The airfield will be able to receive aircraft of all types, airborne units will be able to be based in military camps on the island, warships. After all, the main task of the new military district, as the commander of the Northern Fleet Vladimir Korolev succinctly noted, is to maintain stability in the Arctic.

Russian military in the Arctic

Whether the life of the servicemen themselves, who work daily in the harshest conditions, will change after the construction is completed, time will tell. After all, no one will say how many billions will be spent on people.
In 2013, in the context of building infrastructure in the Arctic, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu expressed himself unambiguously:
I really don’t want someone to have to perform feats because of someone’s laxity.

Arctic "Temp" on Kotelny Island is back in service

The Arctic airfield "Temp", mothballed more than 20 years ago, is back in service. At the end of October, the first aircraft of the Russian military transport aviation (An-72) landed on its runway.

TTX aircraft An-72 "Cheburashka"

The aviation commandant's office also started working on the island.

Temp, located on Kotelny Island, part of the Novosibirsk Islands archipelago, was built back in Soviet times. It began its work in 1949 and received aircraft until the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union collapsed and Arctic exploration was suspended. Accordingly, the airport was abandoned.
Times have changed and Russia new energy took up the study of the Arctic. The first attempt to recreate the airfield was made in 2012. The Russian military planned to land on the island from the air, but it did not work out - the helicopter crashed. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the expedition had to be curtailed.
The second attempt was made from the sea and was successful. In September of this year, ships of the Russian Northern Fleet, led by the heavy missile cruiser (TARKR) Peter the Great, came to Kotelny Island. They delivered to the island a special detachment of 150 people, as well as 40 units of various equipment, fuel and food.

The undertaken ice campaign can be called unprecedented.

Nuclear icebreaker "50 Years of Victory" (project 10521). It is the largest not only in Russia, but also in the world. The overall width of this giant is 30 meters, the maximum length is about 159.6 meters, the draft is 11 m, the power on the shafts (energy flow directed to the shafts from the propulsion system) is 49 MW, the propulsion power is 54 MW. Displacement - 25168 tons. The maximum ice thickness that the icebreaker is designed to handle is 2.8 m. The crew is 106 people (today). It was put into operation in 2007 by JSC Baltiysky Zavod.

The operation involved almost the entire nuclear surface fleet of Russia - TARKR "Peter the Great" and four nuclear icebreakers of the State Corporation "Rosatom" - "Yamal", "Vaigach", "50 Years of Victory" and "Taimyr".

Ships and vessels covered over 4 thousand nautical miles, passing into the Kara and Barents Seas, as well as the Laptev Sea.

On the largest of the islands of the archipelago, Kotelny Island, it was decided to build a stationary berth for receiving barges and ships of the middle class, similar to the berth on the island New Earth, and also use the port of Tiksi as a base point for the delivery of materiel to Kotelny Island, which will ensure the possibility of importing supplies, including wintering stocks for three months.

On September 13, engineering and special equipment, various property were unloaded on Kotelny Island, a test tactical exercise of the marines was carried out to land an amphibious assault on an unequipped coast. In general, 35 units of military engineering and special equipment were unloaded.

On September 13, shipborne helicopters began unloading ships. A field camp has been equipped for the temporary accommodation of the marines, personnel, the commandant's office of the airfield, its security and defense has been organized.

Seven calculations of engineering and special equipment of the Marine Engineering Service equipped three landing points, the coast was strengthened, the coastal platform, route and access roads were equipped. Two helicopters involved Mi-26 Air force for unloading bulky cargo.

Characteristics of the Mi-26T modification.

In the period from 14 to 16 September, ships were unloaded using landing boats, pontoon ferries, shipborne helicopters and helicopters of the Air Force.

Currently, all equipment and property have been unloaded. The unloading of diesel fuel and fuels and lubricants continues.

Work has begun on the reconstruction of the runway of the Temp airfield. Heated frame tents were installed for temporary accommodation of personnel. The installation of pre-fabricated housing from social blocks has begun, the system has been deployed.

In parallel with the unloading operation, a field camp was set up on Kotelny Island to accommodate the marines of the Bad Fleet and frame heated tents were installed for temporary residence of the personnel of the aviation commandant's office, a space communications system and a medical unit were deployed. Restoration work has begun on the runway of the Temp airfield.
Modern technologies will make it possible to have a full-fledged military camp on the Novosibirsk Islands, where not only military personnel will be located for their intended purpose, but also meteorologists, employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, who together will have to ensure the safe use of the Northern Sea Route.

Satellite Kotelny Island

It was possible to restore the infrastructure of the island and build an airfield in record time, in just a couple of months. Now a modular residential complex for polar explorers has been created on the island, where there is everything you need - electricity, a water filtration and purification system, hot and cold water supply.

According to forecasts, air communication between Kotelny Island and the Big Earth will be carried out all year round, in any weather. In addition, in the near future, according to forecasts, this Harbour Air will be able to accept military transport aircraft, including the heavy Il-76.

So far, the military has completed only part of the tasks to strengthen the Russian presence in the Arctic, set by the country's president. Now it is necessary to recreate the structure of another Arctic airport - the Tiksi take-off complex, located in the Yakut village of the same name.

Will SF-USC be assigned other tasks besides the protection of fish, gas and oil resources? Yes, they are already installed. Here we can single out the transport direction - improving the safety and efficiency of using the Northern Sea Route (operation of a military airfield on the New Siberian Islands, work to restore runways at other military Arctic airfields - all these facts fall into the new strategy).

Another area that the General Staff singles out directly is ensuring security in the north of Russia. After the collapse of the USSR, the northern (Arctic) direction for Russia became one of the most unprotected. And considering what strategically important resources the Russian Federation, then the "uncovered" Russian North may soon become easy prey for those who have long aimed their eyes at the Arctic. And it is not necessarily about the conduct of hostilities, large-scale special operations.

And so that no one suddenly has an urgent need to test the strength of the Russian Arctic in the near future, the very structure is being created in which naval, air and land groups will be integrated. A single fist is being created, which, by the mere fact of its existence, is quite capable of cooling hot heads. By this, Russia makes it clear to its "partners" that it is ready to defend its interests, using all available forces and means for this. And the forces and means are not so few. One Arctic group of Russian icebreakers, for which, of course, there will always be work in the region, what is it worth ... If you didn’t announce the start of work on the revival of the military presence in the Arctic now, and don’t start doing it, rolling up your sleeves, tomorrow you could get such "forceful reception", which would force the country to fly out of the region with a cork. No wonder the world press is already starting to exaggerate the topic of " international status» Arctic... So the timeliness of the work begun can hardly be overestimated.

Russia has restored its military base on the New Siberian Islands, the main task of which will be to ensure the security of the Northern Sea Route. The base was closed 20 years ago, but now a group of military personnel has arrived there, leading the work on reopening the facility.

The nuclear-powered icebreaker "50 Years of Victory" is leading warships of the Northern Fleet to the Novosibirsk Islands.

On the island of Kotelny, the largest of the islands of the archipelago, it was decided to build a stationary berth for receiving barges and ships of the middle class, similar to the berth on the island of Novaya Zemlya, and also to use the port of Tiksi as the base point for the delivery of material resources to the Kotelny island, which will ensure the possibility of delivering supplies, including wintering for three months.

Project 775 large landing ship "Olenegorsky Gornyak" unloads equipment on Kotelny Island
On September 13, engineering and special equipment, various property were unloaded on Kotelny Island, a test tactical exercise of the marines was carried out to land an amphibious assault on an unequipped coast. In general, 35 units of military engineering and special equipment were unloaded.
On September 13, shipborne helicopters began unloading ships. A field camp has been equipped for the temporary accommodation of the marines, personnel, the commandant's office of the airfield, its security and defense has been organized.

Seven calculations of engineering and special equipment of the Marine Engineering Service equipped three landing points, the coast was strengthened, the coastal platform, route and access roads were equipped. Two Mi-26 helicopters of the Air Force were used to unload bulky cargo.
In the period from 14 to 16 September, ships were unloaded using landing boats, pontoon ferries, shipborne helicopters and helicopters of the Air Force.
Currently, all equipment and property have been unloaded. The unloading of diesel fuel and fuels and lubricants continues.
Work has begun on the reconstruction of the runway of the Temp airfield. Heated frame tents were installed for temporary accommodation of personnel. The installation of pre-fabricated housing from social blocks has begun, the system has been deployed.

In parallel with the unloading operation, a field camp was set up on Kotelny Island to accommodate the marines of the Bad Fleet and frame heated tents were installed for temporary residence of the personnel of the aviation commandant's office, a space communications system and a medical unit were deployed. Restoration work has begun on the runway of the Temp airfield.
Modern technologies will make it possible to have a full-fledged military camp on the Novosibirsk Islands, where not only military personnel will be located for their intended purpose, but also meteorologists, employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, who together will have to ensure the safe use of the Northern Sea Route.

Satellite Kotelny Island

The New Siberian Islands are a Russian-owned archipelago in the Arctic Ocean between the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea. Administratively, it belongs to Yakutia. They consist of three groups of islands: the Lyakhovsky Islands, the Anjou Islands and the De Long Islands. The first information about the islands at the beginning of the 18th century was reported by the Cossack Yakov Permyakov, who sailed from the mouth of the Lena to the Kolyma. In 1712, as part of a Cossack detachment led by Mercury Vagin, he landed on the island, later called Bolshoi Lyakhovsky.
Kotelny Island itself was discovered in 1773 by the Russian merchant Ivan Lyakhov. The eastern part of the island, now called the Faddeevsky Peninsula, was once explored by the famous Yakov Sannikov.

The construction of the Arctic infrastructure on the northern borders of Russia has been carried out at an accelerated pace for two years now. However, until now the life of military personnel on remote islands is oversaturated with "hardships and hardships", and transfer to the mainland seems to be an unrealistic prospect for them. After a wide public outcry that arose around the material about the service of the military from the Arctic island of Kotelny, the site decided to find out how the base on the New Siberian Islands arose and what tasks it will perform as part of the Arctic Military District.

38,000 kilometers of tundra

There is formally no permanent civilian population here, but workers at polar stations and hunters spend most of the calendar year on the islands. In difficult Arctic conditions, people hunt for polar fox, fish and look for scarce mammoth ivory, from which Yakut craftsmen create unique art products.

The quantitative composition of animals living on the islands is also unstable. For the summer period, reindeer come from the mainland, polar bears wander over the ice. Walrus, seal, white whale live in coastal waters.

The largest island of the archipelago is Kotelny - its area is 23,200 kilometers. It is believed that the island was discovered back in 1773 by merchant Ivan Lyakhov while observing wandering herds of wild deer.

The beginning of the scientific development of the islands dates back to the 19th century. In 1912, the icebreakers Taimyr and Vaigach made an expedition to them, and by 1928 a geophysical observatory appeared on one of the islands - the first stationary station on this earth.

Capital "Temp"

They lived on "Tempe", despite the unofficial status of the capital, modestly, in a northern way. Here was a common hut, where all the workers of the airfield, headed by his chief, spent the night, a dining room, an office for meteorologists and a small bathhouse. And, of course, a garage for repairing equipment and storing the GAZ-47 caterpillar transporter at the disposal of the polar explorers. As elsewhere in the North, this car, which received the slang name "Stepanida", was the "workhorse" of the "Temp".

The then completely new AN-2‚ LI-2 and IL-14 landed on the Kotelny. Planes flew to the island no more than twice a month with regular delays due to bad weather. As eyewitnesses of those polar years recall, the aircraft at the Kotelny always waited impatiently. Together with them fresh news, correspondence, products came from the mainland. The planes took back the replaced workers, the prey of hunters and fishermen, as well as the data of meteorologists.

The heavy tread of war communism

In the 1970s, the USSR Ministry of Geology took an active interest in the New Siberian Islands. It was decided to create an expeditionary camp for seismic exploration specialists in the immediate vicinity of the Temp airfield, and seismic laboratories themselves appeared throughout the archipelago. According to the official version, they were supposed to monitor natural earthquakes in the Arctic Ocean. Taking into account the difficult political situation of that time, it cannot be ruled out that the geologists at Kotelny were, as they say, "dual-purpose" and were engaged, among other things, in applied military seismology.

Moreover, a lot of attention was riveted to seismic exploration at that difficult time. Suffice it to recall the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU of May 13, 1958, which literally said the following: "In connection with the urgent need to expand and improve in the shortest possible time the permanent system for the early detection of nuclear explosions, to oblige the USSR Ministry of Defense to create during 1958-1959 a permanent control service for nuclear weapons tests, including in its composition the existing special monitoring units. At the same time, in 1959, the "Special Control Service" was formed, under the auspices of which the so-called "early warning system for nuclear tests" functioned.

With the collapse of the USSR, in the development of the Novosibirsk Islands, if not a dot, then certainly an ellipsis was put. In 1993, against the background of a large-scale curtailment of activities in the Arctic, the polar infrastructure at Kotelny was abandoned by people.

Rise from the Ashes - Boiler House

The following year, military sailors set off to examine the boiler room. The flagship of the Northern Fleet, the nuclear-powered missile cruiser Peter the Great, approached the shores of the New Siberian Islands. One of the tasks then was called "working out actions for landing troops." It was during this operation that a Ka-27 carrier-based helicopter made a hard landing at Kotelny. The crew was not injured as a result of the incident, but the course of the expedition was disrupted.

In 2013, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the return of the military to Kotelny. "Our military left there in 1993, and yet this is a very important point in the Arctic Ocean. I mean a new stage in the development of the Northern Sea Route. We agreed that at this point we would not only recreate the military base, but also we will put the airfield in order, make it possible for representatives of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, hydrologists, climate specialists to participate in the joint work to ensure the safety and efficiency of work on the Northern Sea Route, so that Russia can effectively control this part of its territory," the Russian leader said. at a meeting at the Department of Defense.

Words were not far from deeds, and already in October of the same year, the military department reported on the restoration of the Temp airfield. The debut of the revived runway at the Kotelny was the reception of the An-72 military transport aircraft with the working group of the Ministry of Defense on board.

Six months later, large-scale exercises of the Airborne Forces were held at the Tempa base, which involved the parachute landing of 350 people and military equipment. At the same time, the construction of a temporary field camp on the island began, and equipment and building materials were brought in.

Terrible flower of the north

“This will be a modular town, which we are building using modern technologies. Personnel will only go outside to keep watch and on duty - this is living in a closed cycle city,” said Oleg Golubev, commander of the Northern Fleet warship detachment, about the construction. .

At the initial stage, more than 440 workers and about 120 units of construction equipment were involved in the construction of the town, which from a height resembles a shamrock, painted in the colors of the Russian flag.

In December 2014, the fifth Arctic Military District was created in Russia. It included submarine and surface forces, naval aviation and air defense of the Northern Fleet. The event was also marked by the announcement of the commissioning of the "Northern Clover".

Unsightly life of the island army

In the course of preparing another material about the life of ordinary soldiers and officers in the Russian army of the 21st century, the correspondents of the site talked to more than 10 military personnel from the Kotelny and found out what the development of the Arctic actually turns out to be.

Poor quality food and rusty tap water, lack of stable communication with relatives, delays in payment of monetary allowances, the inability to transfer to the mainland - these are just a few of the problems that the fighters faced at Kotelny.

"Lord, we're just tired of all this already ..." - the wife of one of the servicemen says in despair, waiting for the return of her husband from the island for more than a year.

The denouement is near

Whether the life of the servicemen themselves, who work daily in the harshest conditions, will change after the construction is completed, time will tell. After all, no one will say how many billions will be spent on people.

In 2013, in the context of building infrastructure in the Arctic, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu expressed himself unambiguously:

I really don’t want someone to have to perform feats because of someone’s laxity.

Continues to follow developments.