Origin of the name Hebrides. Origin of the name Shetland
The Austrian expedition, led by Julius Payer and Karl Weyprecht, set off in the distant 1872 in search of the Northeast Passage, which was supposed to mark the discovery of the most shortcut between the Far East and the European part of what was then Russia. The research team was on the steam-sailing vessel Tetethoff. The ship was covered in ice to the northwest of Novaya Zemlya. On August 30, 1873, he moored to the shores of hitherto unknown land, which turned out to be a vast archipelago. Scientists, after thinking, gave the newly discovered territory the name of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph.
First steps
Researchers have begun to study southern part archipelago in 1873, and in the spring of 1874 they crossed it all from south to north, traveling only on sleighs. Then they made the first map. Following this, the British Frederick Johnson from 1895 to 1897 made a number of important surveys in the southwest, south and in the center of the archipelago. As it turned out, it consists of a much larger number of islands than scientists previously thought. On Payer's map, however, the archipelago was somewhat grander than Johnson later claimed. Already closer to the middle of the twentieth century, the first Soviet base for an air expedition to the North Pole was created on Rudolf Island. A polar station began to operate on the island. Today, the land of Franz Joseph I consists of 191 islands, and the total area of the archipelago is sixteen thousand square kilometers. It is 90% covered with eternal ice and is part of Arkhangelsk region. Already at the time of modern research in 2008, an expedition took place on the nuclear icebreaker Yamal. Then scientists were able to discover a new island called Northbrook. A little later, they decided to rename the object in honor of the Arctic discoverer.
At one time, even Lomonosov guessed about the existence of this territory, but then they simply did not want to pay attention to his proposal. A similar hypothesis was also expressed somewhat later famous geographer Peter Kropotkin, but no one allocated him funding for a fairly serious expedition. The Russian flag on the land of Franz Josef was hoisted only in 1914. The presence was also consolidated 15 years later, when the first Soviet scientific station began to function on the island, where expeditions went every year. Since then, the land of Franz Josef Russia ends in the north.
Huge northern area
Franz Josef Land is included in an extensive list of 191 islands, the total area of which is more than 16 thousand square kilometers. In comparison, this is more than, for example, the area of Kuwait. The archipelago is 85% covered by glaciers and is part of the Arkhangelsk region. Because of this, the region is the largest in the European part of the state. Its area exceeds the territory of Spain and France.
The last refuge for Sedov
More than a hundred years ago, back in 1913, an expedition led by Georgy Sedov reached Franz Josef Land and headed for the Pole. “Mikhail Suvorin” (it is interesting that this ship, before leaving the Arkhangelsk region, had a more sacramental name - “Holy Great Martyr Foka”) was forced to spend the winter in the bay near Hooker Island, which would later be renamed Tikhaya. The extremely difficult living conditions and Sedov's illness did not become a reason for the researcher, together with two comrades, to go towards the Pole on ordinary teams with dogs. A few days later, the crew chief died near Rudolf Island. There Sedov was buried, and the flag he carried was placed in his grave.
There is no bad weather…
The only exception is Franz Josef Land. The thing is that the territory of the archipelago is located north of 80 degrees north latitude. This means that it is characterized by polar day and night. On average, the night here lasts about 125 days, and the day - 140. It's not worth talking about the severity of winters, because the winds rage here all the time, and the temperature reaches 25 - 30 degrees with a minus sign. Only in July the temperature can reach a maximum of 1 - 3 degrees Celsius with a plus sign.
natural diversity
55 thousand birds living on one rock are not really fiction. The largest bird market lives at Rubini Rock, near Tikhaya Bay. The height of the rock reaches 174 meters and resembles, rather, a natural high-rise building. Different types feathered reaches settle at various levels.
In memory of Nansen's beloved women
Three islands in Franz Josef Land were named after the beloved women of the popular Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen. The famous polar expedition, the purpose of which was to study the North Pole, the ship "Fram" was forced to land on the northeastern shores of the archipelago for wintering. As a result, Nansen discovered the islands of Eva, Liv and Adelaide, naming them after the ladies. As a result, however, it turned out that this is all the territory of one island, because during Soviet expedition In 1932, it was renamed, giving the current name Eva-Liv. Eva is Nansen's wife. She, like her husband, loved exploration, winter sports and became the first woman in Norway to wear trousers while skiing, which caused a public "boom". The first daughter's name was Liv. She, in gratitude for the fact that he called the island after her, later wrote a book about him, where she spoke about the exploits. Adelaide is Nansen's mother.
Most northern branch Russian Post
On the website of the main postal service Russian Federation in August 2005, it was announced that it was opening a branch at Arkhangelsk 163100 station. It is located, to be more precise, on Hayes Island, which was named after the American doctor and explorer. If you believe the site, then the post office works only one day a week and then from 10 to 11 am.
Collected in a bouquet of the country
Capes and islands in Franz Josef Land are named not only after specific people, historical figures and explorers, but also after various states. If you carefully consider the map of the archipelago, you can find out that the strait between the islands of Greeley and Payer is called American, and the strait between Payer and Jackson is Italian. Also on Jackson Island there is a small piece of land called Norway.
ice dump
It's no secret that the Arctic desert should have been cleaned up a long time ago. During the forced development of the Arctic after the Second World War, the territory of the archipelago was clogged with garbage. Most of this was made up of rusty barrels of fuel and lubricants. The Russian government has allocated about 1.5 billion rubles to clean up the archipelago. Last year, a massive cleanup was carried out on Alexandra Land and Hooker Island. As a result, about 6,000 tons of waste and 1,700 tons of lubricants were sent for recycling.
Nikolay Ofitserov
WATER RIDES FROM THE TOP OF AUYANTEPUI, IN TRANSLATION MEANING "MOUNT OF THE DEVIL". Angel may not be as picturesque as the Victoria and Niagara Falls, but it is the highest in the world - to reach the ground, the Angel's water flow flies almost a kilometer. It is 20 times higher than Niagara Falls! The height of the fall is so great that, before reaching the ground, the water is sprayed into tiny particles and turns into fog, which is visible several kilometers from the waterfall.
The falling water stream rushes into the Kerep River. Access to the falls is difficult due to lack of roads and dense rainforest. You can get to the unique monument of nature only by air or by river.
The natives of Venezuela have known about Salto Angel since time immemorial, but it was discovered for the civilized world only in 1910 by the Spanish explorer Ernesto Sanchez La Cruz. secondary, already official opening waterfall took place in 1935, when the American pilot and gold prospector James Crawford Angel, flying over this area, landed on the top of a lonely mountain in search of gold. His Flamingo monoplane got stuck in the swampy jungle, and he spotted a spectacular waterfall stretching down thousands of feet. The gold digger was not too lucky - he had to get to civilization 11 miles, and the plane remained chained to the mountain, a rusting monument to his discovery. Soon the whole world learned about the waterfall, which became known as Angel Falls, in honor of the pilot who discovered it.
Jimmy Angel's plane remained in the jungle for 33 years until it was picked up by a helicopter. It is currently housed in the Aviation Museum in Maracay.
The official height of the falls was determined by an expedition from the National Geographic Society in 1949. Today, Angel Falls is considered the main attraction of Venezuela.
On December 20, 2009, at his weekly show, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez renamed the Angel Falls to Kerepakupai-meru, in accordance with one of its local names. Initially, the name Churun-meru was proposed, but the president's daughter noticed that one of the smallest waterfalls in the area had such a name, so Chavez suggested a different name. The president explained this decision by the fact that the waterfall was the property of Venezuela and part of its national wealth long before James Angel appeared, and the waterfall should not bear his name. However, it was not renamed on world maps.
Lost in the middle of the ocean, pieces of land called Tristan da Cunha are unique in their kind and are the most remote inhabited archipelago on our planet - more than 2 thousand kilometers to the nearest land - St. Helena. The archipelago is part of the British overseas territory of St. Helena, and its capital has a very romantic name - Edinburgh of the Seven Seas.
THE FIRST MENTION OF THE ARCHIPELAGO WHICH IS PRACTICALLY in the middle of the Atlantic, dated 1506, when the Portuguese navigator Tristan da Cunha sailed past its shores. This group of small islands volcanic origin, distinguished by rocky shores and mountainous terrain, the pioneer named after himself.
The human foot first set foot on the land of the archipelago only 261 years after this significant event - French sailors decided to explore the area. The first local settler was the American Jonathan Lambert. Settling on one of the islands of Tristan da Cunha in 1810, the native of Massachusetts died two years later.
The main island of the archipelago was formed about a million years ago. The highest point of the islands is also located here: a volcano called Queen Mary's Peak (2055 meters). No more than 300 people live permanently on the island. Despite the warm climate, there are no butterflies, reptiles or mammals on the islands. But here lives the smallest flightless bird in the world - the Tristan shepherd.
The main activity of the locals is fishing. Almost everything necessary for their life is provided by the ocean. The rest is delivered by passing ships. It is worth noting that from the archipelago to Africa 2816 km, to South America 3360 km, and to St. Helena 2161 km. The islands are not connected by regular passenger flights to the mainland. However, it can be reached by fishing and scientific vessels.
It is noteworthy that the islands are very popular in world literature, it was here, on the Tristan da Cunha archipelago, that the heroes of Jules Verne's novel "Children of Captain Grant" "visited" during their round-the-world trip along the 37th parallel. In addition, one of the eruptions of the peak of Queen Mary, which occurred in 1961, and its consequences are described in the novel by Herve Bazin "The Fortunate from the Isle of Despair".
This eruption was the second largest in the history of the archipelago. The first known happened in 1906. Both times, the inhabitants of the island were evacuated to South Africa and Great Britain, but when the violence of nature subsided, they returned home again.
Pitcairn Island became famous after numerous adaptations of the tragic story of the British ship Bounty, on board of which a mutiny broke out. After his "success", the instigators on a captured ship with minimal supplies of food and weapons plowed the expanses of the ocean in search of shelter.
In January 1790G ., after a four-month voyage, rebels reached the coast of Pitcairn, where they created a settlement away from British justice, sinking the ship. The population of the island consisted of the leader of the rebellion, Fletcher Christian, eight other rebels (10 people died while seeking shelter) and 18 Tahitians.
The island's capital, Adamstown, eventually grew into a neat little town populated by Christians, mostly Seventh-day Adventists, when Mayhew Folger, the captain of the USS Topaz, rediscovered Pitcairn by exploring the waters to solve the then 19-year-old mystery of the Bounty's disappearance. . The anchor "Bounty", discovered by the expedition of the National Geographic Society, now flaunts on a pedestal near the walls of the courthouse, and guns from the "Bounty" raised from the bottom of the sea are installed a little lower.
The island cannot boast of beaches. It is not safe to swim at a great distance from the coast - the currents around the island are quite strong and unpredictable.
The church service on Saturdays is the most revered event on the island. The islanders spend it with all the necessary ceremonies. Every year on January 23, the date of landing on the island of the Bounty crew is celebrated. During the celebration of this event, a burning model ship is towed across Bounty Bay through the water, staging a shipwreck. And then a noisy celebration is held with traditional folklore numbers, refreshments for all those gathered and a small fireworks display. An agreement has now been reached between the New Zealand Tourism Consortium and the Pitcairn authorities to build a tourist resort on the island.
The archipelago of Franz Josef Land is the closest to the North Pole in the Eastern Hemisphere, it is considered the territory of Russia. It was discovered in 1873. The existence of these islands to the east of Svalbard was predicted by Lomonosov.
THE ARCHIPELAGO WAS DISCOVERED TOTALLY BY ACCIDENT: The Austro-Hungarian expedition led by Karl Weyprecht and Julius Payer on the steam-sailing schooner Admiral Tegetthoff, which set off on a journey to open the northeast passage, was covered with ice to the northwest of Novaya Zemlya. Austrian travelers gave the newly discovered land the name of the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph I.
Today it is one of the rare uninhabited corners on earth. The archipelago of Franz Josef Land includes 192 islands, 83% of which are covered with eternal ice. A couple of decades ago, numerous Russian polar stations operated on the archipelago. Now they are abandoned, except for one on about. Hayes, and the entire archipelago is completely in power wildlife. Polar bears come right up to the side of the icebreaker, stand on their hind legs and carefully study people. Here you can observe numerous colonies of walruses, meet arctic foxes, beluga whales and whales, as well as many arctic birds.
The main minerals of the archipelago are brown coal, phosphorites and associated associated components - titanium, vanadium, yttrium, scandium, rare earth metals, thorium.
There is no permanent population on the archipelago. There is not a single municipality and settlement. The temporary population consists of scientists at research stations, border guards of the FSB and military personnel of the air defense unit that carries out missile defense of Russia from the north.
Most of the islands are covered with glaciers, in places free from them there are many lakes, which are covered with ice for most of the year. The flora is rather scarce, dominated by mosses and lichens. There are also polar poppy, saxifrage, grains, polar willow.
The Juan Fernandez Islands is another archipelago located in the Pacific Ocean belonging to Chile. They went down in history as the islands of Robinsons and Pirates. Their discoverer was the Spanish navigator Juan Fernandez, who accidentally came across them in 1563.
The Aleutian Islands (area 37.8 thousand km2) are scattered along an arc 1740 km long from the western tip of the Alaska Peninsula to Kamchatka. They were discovered in 1741 by a Russian expedition led by Vitus Bering and Alexei Chirikov, and
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Origin of the name of the island of Rhodes
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Origin of the name Tahiti
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Origin of the name Victoria Island
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Origin of the name of the island Tortuga
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Origin of the name Mascarene Islands
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Origin of the name Isle of Man
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Origin of the name Madeira
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Origin of the name Galapagos Islands
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Origin of the island's name Puerto Rico
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Origin of the name Samos
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Origin of the name Baffin Island
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Origin of the name of the island of San Salvador
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Origin of the name Andaman Islands
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Origin of the name Sumatra
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Origin of the name Channel Islands
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Origin of the name Azores
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Origin of the name Easter Island
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Origin of the name Saint Lawrence Island
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Origin of the name of the island of Euboea
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Origin of the name Marquesas Islands
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Origin of the name Greenland
Greenland is the largest Danish island in the world. Its area is 2.17 million km2, about 85% of the surface is covered with a glacier. The island was discovered at the end of the 10th century by the Viking Eirik Thurvaldson, nicknamed Red and
The origin of the name of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago
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Origin of the name of the island Sri Lanka (Ceylon)
Sri Lanka (Ceylon) - a large island in southern shores India. Its area is 65.6 thousand km2. Travelers called the island "an emerald suspended from Hindustan", "a paradise island", "the first refuge of Adam and Eve on earth" after the exile
Origin of the name of the island of Kalimantanu (Borneo)
The largest island of the Indonesian archipelago - Kalimantanu or Borneo - is the third largest island in the world. The name is explained as "mango country". Since 1521, Europeans have called it Borneo - after the name of the Sultanate of Brunei in the north.
Origin of the name Shetland
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Origin of the name Balearic Islands
The Balearic Islands are an archipelago in the Western Mediterranean that includes the islands of Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. The ancient Greeks explained this toponym with the word balla - "to throw, throw spears, drive out." This was facilitated by the fact that their opponents
Origin of the name Tasmania and the New Zealand archipelago
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Origin of the name Wrangel Island
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Origin of the name of the island of Cuba
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Origin of the name Hawaiian Islands
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Origin of the name Falkland Islands
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Origin of the name Maldives (Maldives)
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Origin of the name Indonesian (Malay) archipelago
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Origin of the name Hebrides
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Origin of the name Elba
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Origin of the name New Caledonia
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Origin of the name New Siberian Islands
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Origin of the name Trinidad
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Origin of the name Gilbert Archipelago
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Origin of the name Gotland
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Origin of the name South Georgia Island
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Origin of the name of the Bahrain archipelago
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Origin of the name Philippine archipelago
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Origin of the name of the island of Great Britain
The island of Great Britain is located to the east of Ireland. It is the largest island in Europe. Its area is 230 thousand km2. The name of the island is associated with the name of the Celtic tribe Britons, who inhabited the southwestern part of the island in ancient times.
Origin of the name Corsica
Corsica is the fourth largest island mediterranean sea(area 8.7 thousand km2). The name is associated with the Phoenician word chorea - "wooded"; according to another version, the island got its name from the Korsi tribe that lived on it. Corsica
The origin of the name of the archipelago New Hebrides
New Hebrides (area 14.7 thousand km2) - an archipelago of volcanic origin, stretched for almost 1 thousand km between 167 ° and 170 ° W. e. Investigated in 1774 by James Cook and named the "New Hebrides" by him.
The origin of the name of the archipelago Severnaya Zemlya
Severnaya Zemlya is an archipelago with an area of 37.6 thousand km2. Just as Nikolai Schilling predicted the existence of Franz Josef Land, the famous naturalist and revolutionary anarchist Prince Pyotr Alekseevich Kropotkin predicted the existence of an archipelago north of the Taimyr Peninsula. In "Notes
Origin of the name Virgin Islands
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Origin of the name Marshall Islands
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Origin of the name of the island of Rügen
The island of Rügen (German Rugen, area 926 km2), lying in the southern part of the Baltic Sea, was inhabited by Rügen Slavs in the 2nd-3rd centuries, and many scientists explain its name by its origin from the Slavic languages. According to one version, the original
Origin of the name South Shetland Islands
The South Shetland Islands were discovered by the English captain William Smith. This brave "sea foamer" was sailing on the brig "William" from Montevideo (Uruguay) to Valparaiso (Chile) and at Cape Horn got into a storm that threw him south.
Origin of the island's name Taiwan
The island of Taiwan (an area of 36 thousand km2) is located at a distance of 130-150 km from mainland China. Most of it is covered with mountains, on the west coast is dominated by a plain that turns into mountain terraces. These terraces gave the name
Origin of the name Ireland
Ireland is the third largest island in Europe (after Great Britain and Iceland), its area is 84 thousand km2. The name comes from the Irish Eire (Old Irish Eirinn - "Western"). Girlfriend version, the island is named after the inhabitant
Origin of the name Sardinia
Sardinia is the second largest island in the Mediterranean Sea (area 24 thousand km2). The name is associated with the Iberian tribe Sardis (XIV century BC); according to another version, it came from the Carthaginian sarado - “foot” (due to
Origin of the name Solomon Islands
Solomon islands(Solomon Islands, area - over 35 thousand km2) are located in Melanesia, include the islands of Buka, Bougainville, Choiseul, New Georgia, Santa Isabel, Guadalcanal, Malaita, San Cristobal and others. This archipelago was discovered in 1568 by the Spanish expedition
Origin of the name of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago
Novaya Zemlya is an archipelago with an area of 82.6 thousand km2 in the Arctic desert zone. It was discovered by Russian coast-dwellers in the 11th or 12th century, and by the beginning of the 16th century it was already an object of Russian fishing activity. Pomors, apparently
Origin of the name Santa Cruz
On Thursday, November 14, 1493, during the expedition of Columbus to the islands of the West Indies, the admiral anchored off the island, to which he named Santa Cruz (Holy Cross). He ordered his men to put ashore and try
Origin of the name Caroline Islands
The Caroline Islands (area 1195 km2) were discovered in 1525 Portuguese sailors Diogo di Rocha and Gomes di Siqueira, and in 1528 and 1529 explored by the Spanish navigator Alvaro Saavedra, who called them Islas
Origin of the island's name Bornholm
Bornholm Island (Danish Bornholm) in the 9th-13th centuries was called Burgunaland ("Land of the Burgundians"), Burgundarholm ("Island of the Burgundians") and was considered the ancestral home of the German tribes of the Burgundians. In the 15th century, the name was rethought by sound similarity with born - “river, stream”
Origin of the name South Sandwich Islands
South Sandwich The islands were discovered in 1775 by the famous English traveler James Cook. He named them Sandvich Land - "Sandwich Land" in honor of Lord Admiral John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich (1712-1792), who at that time headed the British Admiralty.
Origin of the name Seychelles
Seychelles is an archipelago consisting of 85 large and small islands. Discovered by the Portuguese in 1505 and named the Seven Sisters. In the XVI-XVIII centuries they served as a haven for pirates and corsairs, including La
Origin of the name Japanese islands
South of Sakhalin the Japanese islands are located: Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku and many others. Their total area is 372 thousand km2. The largest of them is Honshu; translated from Japanese, hon means "main, main", shu
Origin of the name Newfoundland
Newfoundland is a hilly Canadian island covered with coniferous forests(an area of about 111 thousand km2) owes its discovery and name to the Genoese sailor Giovanni Cabota. Around 1494 he settled in England, where he began to be called
Origin of the name of the island of Sicily
Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea (area 25.7 thousand km2). It is named after the ancient Italian tribe of the Siculi, ousted from Italy and moved around the 11th century. BC e. to Sicily. ancient greek scholar
Origin of the name of the island of Fiji
The Fiji Islands are located at the junction of Polynesia and Melanesia, the area is more than 18 thousand km2. The largest islands of the archipelago - Viti Levu and Vanua Levu - were discovered in 1643 by Abel Tasman. In Aboriginal language, the name
The origin of the name of the archipelago Franz Josef Land
Franz Josef Land is an archipelago with an area of 16.1 thousand km2, discovered in 1873 by the Austro-Hungarian polar expedition. The existence of the archipelago was predicted by the Russian naval sailor Nikolai Gustavovich Schilling in 1865. Having studied the nature of ice movement in the Northern
Origin of the name Montserrat
The island of Montserrat, located 12 leagues northwest of Guadeloupe, was named by Columbus after a mountain in the vicinity of Barcelona, on which a monastery famous among Catholics is located. It happened during the expedition of Columbus to the islands
Origin of the name Mariana Islands
The Mariana Islands (area 1018 km2) were discovered in 1521 by Magellan, who named from Islas de los Ladrones - "Islands of Thieves", "Robber Islands". Modern name associated with the activities of the Catholic missionary - Jesuit Diego Luis
Origin of the name of the island of Zealand
After wandering through the cold North Atlantic you can go through the Skagerrak, Kattegat and Øresund straits to the Baltic Sea. Here it is not difficult to find the Danish islands of Zeeland and. Bornholm, German island of Rügen, Swedish island of Gotland. The island of Zealand is the largest
Origin of the name of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
Ascension and Saint Helena lie in the middle of the Atlantic. They were discovered by the Portuguese expedition of João da Nova Castella, who was sent for spices to India with a flotilla of 4 ships. The flotilla left Lisbon in March 1501.
Origin of the name Zanzibar
The island of Zanzibar is located northwest of the Comoros. In the Middle Ages, there was the largest slave trade center in the Indian Ocean basin, from where African slaves were taken to the countries of the East. The very word "Zanzibar" is of Arab-Iranian origin.
Origin of the name Sakhalin Island
Equally mysterious is the origin of the name of Sakhalin Island (area 76.4 thousand km2). In the scientific literature, the opinion prevails that the name comes from the hydronym Sakhalyanul - "black river" (this is the Manchu name of the Amur River, opposite the mouth of which is
Origin of the name Bermuda
Bermuda- These are small coral islands discovered around 1503 by the Spanish navigator Juan Bermudez, who called them the Devil's Islands. In 1519, the islands were named after the discoverer. At the beginning of the 17th century, an English corsair's ship crashed there.
Origin of the name of the island of Malta
Malta is an island in the center of the Mediterranean Sea, lies south of Sicily, has an area of 246 km2. The name "Malta" is associated by some researchers with the Phoenician word malat, meaning "port" or "refuge" (from storms and pirates). Phoenicians,
Origin of the name of the Tonga archipelago
The Tonga (Friendship) archipelago is located in Western Polynesia and consists of 160 islands with a total area of 699 km2. The first European navigator to see these islands was the Dutchman Abel Tasman (1643). James Cook visited the archipelago in 1773 and named the archipelago
Origin of the name of the Svalbard archipelago
Svalbard (Spitzbergen) - an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, an area of 62 thousand km2. In Norway, it is called Svalbard (Svalbard - " cold edge"). The Scandinavians gave this name to some land they discovered in the North, which the polar navigator
The Franz Josef Land archipelago is a group of islands located in the high latitude Arctic - where permafrost dominates, and the average annual temperature is -12 ° C.
The archipelago is located about a thousand kilometers from the north pole.
Most of Franz Josef Land is covered by glaciers.
Although, one should not confuse FJL with the North Pole. In summer, the temperature here can still reach +12 ° C and the snow usually melts in July.
During this period, the land is exposed, which in just a couple of weeks is covered with mosses and lichens, as well as flowering polar poppies, saxifrage, polar willow and other unpretentious plants.
There are not so many birds here, but they are. These are little auks, guillemots, guillemots, kittiwakes, ivory gulls, glaucous gulls, terns, skuas, eiders, geese, etc.
From animals there is a polar bear and an arctic fox. By the way, did you know that the polar bear refers to marine mammals and even the Latin name of the polar bear - Ursus maritimus is translated as "sea bear"? There are also seals, bearded seals, harp seals, walruses, narwhals and white whales in the sea.
- a region that is part of a small natural area known as the polar desert zone. You can read about the Arctic desert here.
People have never lived in the FJL for obvious reasons - there are no firewood, no berries, no mushrooms, no deer that can be domesticated, or other animals that can be hunted. There is simply nothing to feed and keep warm here. Even the fin (logs brought by the sea) does not burn here, unlike the fin on the coast. This happens, apparently, because wet firewood simply does not have time to dry, so they are completely “saturated” with ice all year round.
Nevertheless, in the twentieth century, during the period of exploration of the Arctic, weather stations and military camps were built on Franz Josef Land, so it turned out that it was possible to live here with the complicity of civilization. True, all this costs a lot of money, given the high cost of delivering food, fuel and building materials.
HISTORY OF THE ORIGIN OF FRANZ JOSEPH LAND (GEOLOGICAL HISTORY)
In pre-Paleozoic time on the site of the modern Barents Sea was a huge mainland, extending west to the coast of Greenland. During the Paleozoic period, powerful
mountain building movements, after which most of the current Barents Sea began to represent the mainland with difficult mountainous terrain.
However, erosion and denudation processes gradually cut off mountainous relief mainland, turned it into a flat country,which in the Upper Devonian was taken by the waters of the sea.
At the beginning of the Permian time began to occur bottom lifting marine geosynclinal basins, and their shallowing. Later, mountain building movements appeared, accompanied by vigorous volcanic activity. Mountain building processes were powerful mountain ranges of Novaya Zemlya, the Urals, Kanin and separate parts of Spitsbergen were created. The uplift of the shelf is accompanied by volcanic eruptions (basalt covers of Svalbard and Franz Josef Land). According to Fridtjof Nansen, on the site of the Barents Sea in the Tertiary time there was a mountainous country, elevated above the modern sea level by 500 m.
It happened in the Quaternary placement of powerful ice sheets. In the maximum phase of glaciation, under the influence of the glacial load, the islands and adjacent areas of the sea bottom sank by 300–400 m. ice sheets die off and complex fluctuations coastline seas. The process of raising the coastline of the Barents Sea continues to this day. The rate of general uplift of the archipelago over the last 7000 years is 1-5 mm/year.
By the way, on Franz Josef Land, you can still find pieces of petrified trees, as well as deer antlers, which suggests that once upon a time, a variety of flora and fauna could grow and live here quite actively.
Deer on Franz Josef Land lived in the Middle Holocene (8-2.5 thousand years ago). Hence it follows that in the Middle Holocene the climate of the archipelago was warmer and the vegetation richer than at present.
The end of the "time of the deer" can be accurately dated. Deer antlers are not found below the 5-meter level. Consequently, the deterioration of the climate, a major advance of glaciers and the extinction of deer on the islands of the archipelago occurred when its shores were 5 m lower, i.e. about 2.5 thousand years ago.
The extinction of reindeer and a major advance of the archipelago's glaciers coincides in time with the receding of the forest zone to the south and the revival of the tundra zone along the northern coast of Russia, as well as with the departure of heat-loving fauna from the coastal waters of Svalbard.
HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE FRANZ JOSEPH LAND
Theoretical discovery of Franz Josef Land
The first thoughts about the need to explore the northern territories appeared in the 18th century. Mikhail Lomonosov, in his work entitled "A Brief Description of Various Voyages in the Northern Seas and an Indication of a Possible Passage of the Siberian Ocean to the East Indies," suggested finding islands east of Svalbard.
In the late sixties of the nineteenth century, the famous Russian meteorologist A.I. Voeikov raised the question of organizing a large expedition to explore the Russian polar seas. This idea was ardently supported by the well-known geographer and revolutionary, theorist of anarchism, Prince P.A. Kropotkin. Various considerations, and mainly observations of the ice in the Barents Sea, led Kropotkin to the conclusion that “between Svalbard and Novaya Zemlya is not yet open land, which extends north beyond Svalbard and holds ice behind it ... The possible existence of such an archipelago was indicated in his excellent, but little known report on currents in the Arctic Ocean by the Russian naval officer Baron Schilling ". In 1870, Kropotkin drafted an expedition. However, the tsarist government refused to provide funds, and the expedition did not take place.
Practical discovery of Franz Josef Land
Franz Josef Land was discovered by the Austro-Hungarian expedition of Julius Payer and Karl Weyprecht, and was not explored by anyone - the British, the Scots, and the Americans ... But we still got it.
In the photo Julius Payer and Karl Weyprecht. By the way, what kind of fur coat does one of them have? Not from the Red Book polar bear?)
In 1901, the archipelago was explored by the first Russian expedition on the icebreaker Yermak under the command of Vice Admiral Makarov. It is alleged that it was during this period that the Russian flag was first raised on the islands of the archipelago.
In 1914, Iskhak Islyamov visited the archipelago in search of G. Ya. Sedov. He also declared the FJL a Russian territory and raised the Russian flag over it.
In some sources (even in the same notorious Wikipedia) they write that it was Islyamov who declared the FJI Russian territory. Although, the flag had already been set by Makarov before him, therefore, it seems like it turns out that it was Makarov who first laid claim to Russia's rights to Franz Josef Land?
Why such a traveler arose - I do not know, but for the sake of justice I will note both facts - and you yourself decide who was the first.
Islyamov, announcing the acquisition for the country new territory, offered to immediately rename it from Franz Josef Land to the Romanov Lands, but the proposal got stuck in the bureaucratic jungle. And there, first one empire went down in history, and immediately after it another. Iskhak Islyamov became a member of the Helsingfors Muslim Executive Committee of the Army, Navy and Workers, then fought in the White Army, emigrated, and was in charge of the hydrographic part of the Russian naval base in Constantinople.
In 1926, the Central Executive Committee of the USSR adopted a decree according to which all the Arctic islands adjacent to the land borders of the state were declared Soviet territory. Three years later, in the summer of 1929, Otto Schmidt hoisted the Soviet flag on the archipelago during a polar expedition on the icebreaker Georgy Sedov.
In 1929, the Soviet government decided to establish a research station to enhance scientific work in the Arctic. At the same time, the first Soviet research station was opened in the Tikhaya Bay of Hooker Island. In 1931, the archipelago was declared the territory of the Soviet Union, from that time the development of the North Pole by Soviet researchers began. Since then, the archipelago has been visited annually by Soviet polar expeditions.
The Soviet government was going to change the name of Franz Joseph as politically inconvenient and rename the archipelago in honor of the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen or the Russian anarchist Kropotkin, but the decision was never understood.
In addition to scientists, the military settled down densely on the FJL. In 1936, the first air force base of the USSR was organized on Rudolf Island. And then it went and went ... Nevertheless, in the 90s of the twentieth century, due to well-known economic and political reasons, the military left the archipelago, leaving only the Nagurskoye frontier post located on the island of Alexandra Land to function.
The town of the border line branch of military unit 9794, which includes the northernmost airport and the frontier post, is still operating. Not so long ago, they built an excellent two-story building with all amenities: central heating, sewerage, cold and hot water, satellite TV. Inside the complex there is a "winter garden", however, the plants and trees there are artificial. The border guards call this garden "Atrium". There is always a blue sky with cumulus clouds, a playground, a fountain, benches, billiards, an aquarium with live fish, a cinema hall, and table tennis.
Only officers and ensigns serve in Nagurskoye. A third of the border guards live at the outpost with their wives. They fly here from Vorkuta and Arkhangelsk. Dense fogs, low clouds, precipitation and strong winds - this is the weather on Alexandra Land all year round. There were cases of unsuccessful landings, but an amazing thing: in the entire history, not a single person on the island died.
Although, there were victims on other islands. For example, on Graham Bell, where from the 50s to the 90s of the twentieth century there was a unique ice airfield, a couple of times there were plane crashes with victims.
And finally, near the airfield lies AN-12 No. 11994, but no information about him could be found.
On one of the forums, I found information that it was just an unsuccessful landing - the plane landed on the runway too early. But there were no victims - everything ended well.
If we talk about the victims, then, I suspect, the main danger in the Franz Josef Land Archipelago arises from polar bears.
Although, on the other hand, given the huge number of bears in the FJL, there were not many deaths due to them. It is believed that Franz Josef Land is a maternity hospital for polar bears, so it can be assumed that the servicemen met with predators constantly. This means that the percentage of accidents is actually not at all high.
Well, again, if people died at the FJL, it was solely because of their own stupidity and negligence. Everything is like everywhere else. For example, here's the story:
But enough of the sad stuff. There are also many good people in Franz Josef Land. And few tourists have the opportunity to see this.
FRANZ JOSEPH LAND IN OUR TIME - PHOTOS, DESCRIPTIONS, MAPS
FFI - the most northern territory Russia, located about nine hundred kilometers from the North Pole. Administratively, the archipelago belongs to the Arkhangelsk region. Franz Josef Land coordinates: 80.666667, 54.833333.
Wikipedia says that FJL consists of 192 islands. But it turns out that there were still certain doubts about this, and the 192nd island has not yet been officially “registered” and does not have a separate name.
The letter was sent through the Russian Embassy in Norway to the Russian Foreign Ministry, and from there an order was sent toThe Department of Navigation and Oceanography of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation - to figure out how many islands are actually in the archipelago.
At the same time, after public statements about the “appearance of a new island in Russia”, the deputies of the Arkhangelsk Regional Assembly named the island after the famous polar captain Yuri Kuchiev. And under this name, it already appears on Wikipedia, although the decision of the regional assembly on this issue is not legitimate. So now it remains to complete the opening - to officially recognize and name new geographical features, which will have to be done by the Office of Navigation and Oceanography and the Commission on Geographical Names. On Heiss Island, Vladimir Sanin wrote one of his most famous books, “Don’t Say Goodbye to the Arctic.”
Gall Island, Cape Tegetthoff
Also famous are the rocks at the tip of the island, which rise from the sea itself.
Wilczek Island
Another island associated with the tragic events of the expedition of the discoverers of the archipelago is Wilchek Island. On high island there is the grave of one of the members of the expedition on the ship "Admiral Tegetthoff" Otto Krish, who was a mechanic on the ship and died in 1873 from scurvy.
Champa Island, Cape Trieste
At Cape Trieste there are unique stone formations perfectly round shape - spherulites, or concretions. Marcasite concretions are ubiquitous on the cape, and their sizes vary from a few centimeters to several meters in diameter.
The word "nodules" comes from the Latin concretio - "growth". These are concretions, rounded mineral formations in sedimentary rocks. Its composition is sandstone. In the very center of the concretion there is an organic core, around which loose material of continental origin accumulated.
Negri Strait
Islands of Apollonov and Stolichka
These islands do not stand out in any way, and even on nautical charts usually only the larger island is marked - Stolichka, but, as often happens, all the most interesting is on the island nearby, very small and inconspicuous. In this case, it is the island of Apollo. The island is known for the fact that one of the largest rookeries of Atlantic walruses, listed in the Red Book of the Russian Federation, is located here.
Hooker Island
The abandoned Soviet polar station Tikhaya is located on Hooker Island. The station was opened in 1929 and closed in 1959, but at that time it was the largest Arctic research station in the USSR. Until today, the station has retained its appearance - you can see with your own eyes how polar explorers lived in those days.
Rubini Rock
The largest bird market, where more than 50 thousand birds nest. Among them are kittiwakes, guillemots, guillemots, burgomasters and little auks. Guillemots nest directly on ledges. They do not build nests, but lay their eggs on a bare stone surface. Kittiwake gulls build nests from grasses, lichens and other vegetation, fastening it with their own droppings.
Alger Island
Wilczek Land, Geller Cape
The island contains the remains of Fort McKinley's winter hut and the grave of Bernt Bentsen, who could not survive the winter of 1898-99. He was part of the expedition of Walter Wellman, whose main goal was to conquer the North Pole. The main camp of the expedition was at Cape Tegetthoff of Gall Island. A temporary food warehouse was organized at Cape Geller. It was built from large flat stones and covered with the skins of dead walruses and bears. The temperature inside it in winter kept below 10 degrees. In January 1899, Bernt Bentsen died. However, he was buried only in the spring. Before his death, he asked not to bury him until spring, as he feared that his body would become easy prey for arctic foxes and polar bears.
Rudolf Island, Cape Fligeli
The northernmost cape of the Franz Josef Land archipelago is the extreme island point of the Russian Federation and Eurasia.
Rudolf Island, Teplice Bay
In the Teplitz Bay there is an abandoned meteorological station, which was built in 1931–1932. It was the second station in the archipelago and it worked until 1995.
Jackson Island
Jackson Island and Cape Norway are famous for being where Fridtjof Nansen and Jamar Johansen spent the winter (1895–96). They were returning after an attempt to conquer the North Pole, as they thought, to Svalbard, but they came to Franz Josef Land. They had time to prepare for winter. They shot walruses and polar bears, built a dwelling in which they spent the winter, mostly lying down in one sleeping bag. At Christmas they turned their shirts inside out, and on New Year's Eve Nansen told Johansen that after everything they'd been through together, he could just call him Frithjof, not Mr. Nansen, and shook his hand. But they remained on "you". Installed on the cape commemorative sign and there are remnants of the winter hut.
Nordbrook Island, Cape Flora
A distinctive feature of the Franz Josef Land archipelago is the presence of a large number historical sites- the remains of the wintering camps of expeditions that planned to use the archipelago as a launching pad to reach the North Pole, and some expeditions ended up on the archipelago after unsuccessful attempts to conquer the top of the planet. Almost all expeditions to Franz Josef Land stopped at Cape Flora of Nordbrook Island.
The island was discovered by the expedition of Benjamin Lee-Smith in 1880. His second expedition of 1881-1182 also wintered here. The winter was forced. Lee-Smith originally planned to spend the winter on Bell Island. In 1894, Briton Frederick Jackson built the first settlement at Cape Flora - Elmwood. The remains of the expedition's buildings can still be seen today.
In 1896, Fridtjof Nansen and Frederick Jackson met at Cape Flora. On June 17, two men approached the cape. No one expected or met them, and they themselves did not expect to meet anyone here. They were the famous polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen and his companion Frederik Jamar Johansen. They were covered from head to toe in soot and mud, and they carried two kayaks and sleds. For three years, Nansen and his 12 satellites planned to conquer the North Pole on the Fram ship, specially built for navigation in ice and wintering.
In 1893, the Fram was frozen into the islands north of the New Siberian Islands archipelago. The ship passed much further south. After two years in the ice, the Fram reached its northernmost geographical position. 700 kilometers from the North Pole, Nansen and Johansen left the ship and set off to conquer the Pole in dog sleds and kayaks. On 8 April they reached a record latitude of 86 degrees 14 minutes north and were forced to turn south towards the Franz Josef Land archipelago. After wintering on Jackson Island in Cape Norway, they moved south and reached Cape Flora, where they met with Jackson's expedition. This meeting actually saved their lives. At one time, Nansen did not take Frederick Jackson to the Fram, as he believed that the North Pole should be conquered by the Norwegians. Jackson was from the UK.
Franz Josef Land is known to many by the songs of Yuri Vizbor, who traveled all over northern seas from Murmansk to Chukotka and further along the Far East!
And it's worth it, because Franz Josef Land (abbreviated - FJL) beats many Russian and world records: there is the most north point island land of Russia, the closest land to the North Pole, the northernmost frontier post of the Russian Federation, the northernmost post office and the northernmost airfield in the world, the northernmost theater of military operations in the Patriotic War, the most extreme of our islands!
And this list can be continued for a long time!
And, of course, the northernmost Orthodox Cross - to our heroes, explorers and travelers who, without sparing their lives, expanded the boundaries of our boundless Motherland!
Geography: island point: Cape Fligely on Rudolf Island in the archipelago of Franz Josef Land is located to the north of all - 81 ° 49 "N, the distance from Cape Fligely to the North Pole is only 900 km.
Rudolf Island is the northernmost of the Franz Josef Land islands. Cape Fligeli on the island is the northernmost point of land belonging to the Russian Federation, and at the same time the northernmost point of Europe. The island administratively belongs to the Arkhangelsk region. Area 297 km². Almost completely covered by a glacier.
The island, like the entire Franz Josef Archipelago, was discovered in 1873 by the Austro-Hungarian expedition of the explorer J. Payer, and was named after Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria. In 1936, the base of the first Soviet air expedition to the North Pole was established on the island. From there, in May 1937, four heavy four-engine ANT-6 aircraft delivered the Papanin team to the top of the world.
The military played a leading role in the development of many remote territories of our country. Somewhere on Far North and the Far East, garrisons to this day are the main type settlements. True, in the post-Soviet period, the number of such garrisons and the population in them have declined sharply. However, our geography textbooks still do not write anything about "military" development, even in cases where it has long been no longer a secret. This is a little surprising, since for many old-developed regions and regions of new development, parts of various law enforcement agencies perform the functions of city-forming enterprises.
Franz Josef Land was discovered at the end of the 19th century. by the Austro-Hungarian expedition, which set off in 1872 in search of the Northeast Passage, and perhaps to reach the North Pole, and in 1873, pressed against the coast by ice, hitherto has not known land named after the then Emperor of Austria-Hungary*. ZFI, as it is usually called in the North, has an area of approximately 16,000 km2 and consists of 191 islands.
The first permanent settlement on Novaya Zemlya appeared in 1877. It is called Small Karmakuly. In 1896, a hydrometeorological station was established in the Small Karmakuly, which still exists today and is the oldest polar station in Russia.
Straits
The Arkhangelsk Strait runs between the Polar Pilots Peninsula and the Armitage Peninsula. South of the Arkhangelsk Strait is the Cambridge Strait, which washes southern part islands.
Bays and gulfs of Alexandra Land
Shallow Bay
Bay of St. John's Wort
Topographers Bay (between Cape Melekhov and the western coast of the Polar Pilots Peninsula)
Bay Dezhnev
Severnaya Bay
Ostrovnaya Bay
Weyprecht bay
Gulf of Nordenskiöld
Capes of Alexandra Land
Enumeration from extreme western point clockwise:
Cape Mary Harmsworth
cape nimrod
Cape Strelka
Cape Nagursky
Cape Tempting
cape thomas
Cape Melekhov
Cape Double
Cape Babushkina
Cape Icy
Cape Abrosimov
Cape Finger
Cape Ludlov
cape lofley
mid-polar summer at FJL 
WILCHEK'S LAND
Wilczek Land is an island in the Arctic Ocean, the second largest island in the Franz Josef Land archipelago. It is named after Hans Wilczek, who financed the Austrian expedition of Karl Weyprecht and Julius Payer, who discovered the island in 1873.
Located in the eastern part of the archipelago. Separated from the western group of islands by the Austrian Strait, from the lying northeast of the island Graham Bell by the Morgan Strait. The surface of the island is a plateau with relative heights 400-600 m and almost completely covered by a glacier. The area of the island is about 2000 km², the highest point is 606 m.
nearby small islands
9 km south of Perseus Bay lies the island of Klagenfurt, named after the Austrian city of Klagenfurt.
Not far from the east coast are the Gorbunov Islands, named after the Russian naturalist Grigory Petrovich Gorbunov.
Four small islands lie 1.5 km to the southeast:
Wood
Dawes
McCult
tillo
Climate
The climate is harsh, arctic. In a year, on average, only 18 days are recorded with temperatures above 0 °C. The average annual air temperature is -12 °C, the maximum recorded temperature is +12 °C, the minimum is -42 °C. The average annual rainfall is 280 mm.
GREEHAM BELL ISLAND
Graham Bell is the easternmost island in the Franz Josef Land archipelago, in northern Europe. Part of the polar possessions of Russia, is part of the Arkhangelsk region. The area is 1.7 thousand km².
It was discovered in 1899 during a sledge ride by the American meteorologist Evelyn Baldwin, named after Alexander Graham Bell.
The highest point is 509 meters, the windy ice dome.
The largest lake on the island is Melkoye, the second largest is Severnoye.
The northernmost point of the island is Cape Aerial Surveys, the eastern one is Cape Seven (Sandy Cape). The easternmost point of the island and the entire archipelago is Cape Olney, to the north of which Cape Kolzat is located; extreme south point Cape Leiter.
In the west there is a large bay - Matusevich Bay. In the east there is a small bay of Ilistaya with many small sandy islands.
The nearest islands are the island of Perlamutrovy and Trekhluchevy. To the west, Graham Bell is separated from Wilczek Land by the Morgan Strait.
Cape Trieste, Champ Island 
JOURNEY TO FRANZ JOSEPH LAND
The archipelago of Franz Josef Land is not only the most remote northern part of Russia, but also, perhaps, one of the most unexplored tourist spots in the world. No, the specialists there undoubtedly worked and tried to figure out a lot, but for tourists this region of our country is still “Terra incognita”.
Indeed, firstly, the opportunity to visit these islands for domestic and foreign travel enthusiasts appeared just a couple of decades ago. Secondly, you can get there either by air, for example, by helicopter, or by sea-ocean, from Murmansk, but this is far away, or from Arkhangelsk - this, of course, is closer, but in both cases, tourist trips to the FJL area do not happen often . Thirdly, it is possible to visit them for a very limited time, about three months a year.
But there is also a fourth. A trip there by any of the acceptable methods costs decent money, in other words, well, you need a lot of money, so there are much more inquisitive foreigners from different regions of the Earth, for whom such amounts are not critical, visited the archipelago much more than Russians, although our compatriots go there began to get, and the further, the more.
Miracles in the FJL are found literally on every island, but among all there is one very amazing piece of land. And his name is also unusual - Champ, so short, but very sonorous. It turned out that it was named after William Champ, who in 1905, being the personal secretary of the American millionaire Ziegler, went as a leader rescue operation to search for the missing polar expedition, financed by the same Ziegler.
So the Arctic island named after Champa is one of the most unique places on Earth - it is all littered with strange, perfectly round stones, called "spherulites", while they range from small, pocket-size, to giants with a diameter of more than two meters and weighing many tons. The nature of their origin has not yet been explained by science. All this was told to us at one of the briefings, and even photographs were shown. Very impressive photos, I must say. Imagine how we longed to be there!
Here's to it unusual island and our ship sped off. And everything would be fine, but the closer we got to the island, the denser the fog became, and the less likely it was that we would land. The main danger in such weather was represented by bears, because the animals could approach completely silently, fog was not a hindrance to them, and it was very difficult to organize one hundred percent protection of tourists. And to inspect the island in such a fog is a very dubious pleasure.
It was decided that the "50 Years of Victory" would stay for a while near the island of Champa, and we would all wait, all of a sudden the gods would be merciful, and the fog would dissipate.
After making such a decision, tourists, in order to distract them from sad thoughts, were invited to the lecture hall for another unusual and amazing event - a Charity Auction, the northernmost of all that has ever been held in the world, all funds from it should go to fund for the protection of polar bears.
We were still a little bored, but then everyone was invited to come for dinner, and we went to a restaurant. A big surprise awaited us there - a Russian dinner, all the waitresses were dressed in Russian National costumes, on the "buffet" table, along with the usual salads and snacks, there were traditional Russian products - jars of black caviar, bottles with a variety of vodka, which was not there: Stolichnaya, and Tsarskaya, and Five Lakes, and others, and others . There was only Bad, but this does not happen in jokes.
Everything was fine, there was only one problem - both cans and bottles, as they were closed, were closed and remained until the end of dinner. Maybe they were dummies? We never understood.
After dinner, we were assured that if the fog dissipated at night, and this was expected around two in the morning, then we would be lifted up and we would go on an excursion on the “zodiacs”, there would be no darkness, because the polar day overboard does not stop at night .
We slept soundly, but then the speakerphone sounded:
- We invite everyone to an excursion to Champ Island.
While this message was dubbed in other languages, we managed to get dressed, and only at the door did we pay attention to the TV screen. What we saw amazed us, it turned out that it really was 2 am.
- They give, - burst out of us at the same time.
On upper deck we stood in a long line, it turned out that almost all the foreigners had already gathered, and the Chinese were the first, apparently, they were all sleeping without undressing, otherwise how could they get together so quickly.
Boarding began, "zodiac" after "zodiac" filled with tourists, but did not leave, but gathered nearby in a flock, we moved closer and closer to the gangway, the sixth boat filled up, and they all immediately disappeared into the fog. Yes, yes, it was in the fog, which had not diminished in the slightest, that it seemed to thicken even more.
- Maybe it's only here, around the ship, such a fog, but it's clear near the shore? - sounded someone's voice from behind.
We looked at each other, such a simple thought did not occur to us. But, after all, this is probably true, I thought, otherwise, why are we being dragged there in the middle of the night?
The boats left, we were told that we would have to wait at least an hour for their return. This means that they will reach the shore, disembark there, take a walk for a while and again sit in the "zodiacs" to return on board, and only after that we will sail. Some of the tourists left, deciding that waiting in the middle of the night was not justified, but we were so curious, so eager to see these round stones, and one, what to hide, secretly put in our pocket that we stayed, and did not lose. That's what finally happened.
We stood leaning on the railing, anxiously awaiting the return of the boats. Our eyes were directed into the foggy distance towards the stern of the ship, we were not worried about extraneous sounds, nothing distracted us, we were, how would it be more correct to say, probably fixated on the waiting process itself. Imagine yourself, they wake you up in the middle of the night and say: you have to stand and wait an hour. What would you do if you agreed to stand for an hour and wait at 2 am?
About half an hour passed, active stirring began on the yachts, apparently, they received the “Good” and began to prepare rubber boats for launching, but then our “zodiacs” emerged from the fog, and we turned our attention to them. Tourists climbed the ladder, mostly they were silent and somehow distressed and dull. One of the Russians who managed to make the first call explained to us that there was no less fog, there was nothing to look at, except for birds, they didn’t catch any of the living creatures, in general, it’s not worth swimming.
But we considered it unreasonable to refuse the trip, after we had already waited so long, and even at such a time, and were placed on the sides of the boat, which was driven by Dmitry. There was only one other boat next to us, more passengers not found. A few minutes later the icebreaker disappeared into the fog, the second boat kept nearby, but sometimes it also began to dissolve in space, and then its contours could hardly be seen through the oncoming waves of dense fog. We moved on a whim, the Zodiacs were not equipped with any navigational devices, but we were not supposed to slip past a rather large island, and we could correct our route from the icebreaker on the radio, because they saw us perfectly, or rather not us, of course , but the point that on the locator screen corresponded to our location.
The fog cleared a little, and it became clearer and farther away. Before us appeared the shore of the island, covered with a glacier, sliding into the sea, one of the icebergs, recently broken away from this glacier, floated very close by. There are many birds on the iceberg, which have chosen it as a mobile recreation base. Some of the birds were floating on the water.
Dmitry directed the boat towards the iceberg so that we could get a good look at the birds. And then two fast and agile figures appeared between the shore and the boat in the sea - they were young walruses. The animals, not paying any attention to us, dived, disappearing for a long time under the water.
Walruses once again dived and disappeared under water for a long time. Dmitry started the engine and started moving in the direction where the walruses had recently been.
We won't scare them? someone asked.
Yes, no, on the contrary. They are curious, they will come closer to the noise.
That's how it all happened. The walruses surfaced next to our boat and swam nearby for a while, as if posing so that we could get a good look at them. An interesting fact: according to evolutionary theory, a walrus is a bear that has gone underwater. We tried to find similarities between a bear and a walrus, sometimes it worked out, but more often the walrus looked like anything but a bear.
Journey through FJL - icebreaker Kapitan Dranitsyn 
GALL ISLAND
We were walking at this time cruising speed towards the island of Gall, one of the southernmost islands of the archipelago. It was there that we planned the last helicopter landing on the table mountain of Cape Tegetthoff. Table Mountain - so in a scientific way, they call all peaks with a truncated, flat top. There are an innumerable number of such mountains in the world, their formation is explained by the weathering of sedimentary rocks from which they are composed. We saw a lot of them at FJL. But it seemed to me that there the tops of the mountains were simply simply licked by a glacier, or crushed so that a flat surface was formed.
The sea was calm, the fog swirled somewhere in the distance, the visibility was very acceptable, so for a very long time we, those who were on the navigation bridge, saw huge iceberg lying alone on the surface of the sea.
The captain immediately appeared, ordering to slow down and approach this handsome man. And there was something to see. A block of blue ice lay motionlessly on the sea surface, it seemed that it just lay at the very top, stretching out in length for a good hundred meters and rising up to the height of a ten-story building, such a mountain arose in front of us.
Behind the iceberg we could already see the islands to which we aspired, but there was no time for them. We saw a real iceberg for the first time and were eager to see it from all sides. The reason for the death of the Titanic became clear, stumble at full speed on such an obstacle and nothing will survive, not a single ship, perhaps even the same as our icebreaker.
The icebreaker approached ice mountain almost close, and then lightly poked his nose into the edge of this wall, and pieces and pieces immediately fell from it, the wall turned out to be weak.
There was mass photography against the backdrop of this miracle of nature. People took the most bizarre poses, just to catch the angle they liked. We are not far behind everyone.
We stood high above the water level and looked down, so we clearly saw that the mountain goes right under the water. It was impossible to determine how far, or rather, how deep it continues under water, but it is obvious that the experts are right, and most of the ice is down there, exactly under water, but about 90%, I don’t know, it seems to me that this figure is somewhat exaggerated.
The nuclear-powered ship slowly walked around the icy mountain, it was obvious that nature knows its business well, the ice was all eaten away by the cool sun, fogs and rains. It was clear that this piece of ice in the ocean would not swim for a long time, it would soon come to an end, and the volume of sea water would not be much replenished.
We swam around the iceberg and saw it reverse side, it seemed to be the creation of human hands, such a smooth, slightly inclined, upwardly aspiring surface, appeared before us, well, just the take-off deck of an aircraft carrier, and immediately a handsome Admiral Kuznetsov appeared in my mind's eye.
That's it, the iceberg was left far behind, and we continued on our way to the island of Gall. Before us lay, it seemed, an endless strip of islands covered with snow and ice, perhaps the Austrian sailors, the discoverers of these islands, saw just such a picture.
The ship anchored near the famous Cape Tegetthoff. Well, since I wrote that the cape is famous, it is necessary to explain why. The fact is that the history of the development of the Franz Josef Land archipelago began from this cape. After all, it was precisely in the region of the island of Gall, or, to be more precise, to this very cape, on August 30, 1873, the ice brought the schooner "Admiral Tegetthoff" of the Austrian expedition - the discoverers of the FJL. In memory of their landing, a monument to a schooner was erected on the cape.
We looked from the deck of the nuclear-powered ship at sharp kekurs sticking out directly from the depths of the sea, which the famous Russian polar explorer Viktor Boyarsky figuratively called “Dragon Fangs”, and indeed they really resemble something like that, however, we did not manage to see the dragons themselves, but their fangs could be only such and no others, and the place, it would seem, is downright created for them.
There was a long wait for our turn for a helicopter tour. In fairness, the management changed the order of flights, and this time the first to fly were tourists from the very last group. The procedure was built as follows. First of all, the guard flew to the mountain, you can expect anything from the bears. By the way, the first tourists saw a white bear below, but, most likely, he was greatly frightened by the helicopter crash, and he preferred to hide, we did not see him anymore. Together with the guards, Yan and his friend also flew there, who led all the landing and disembarkation operations.
The empty helicopter returned to the ship, the Chinese comrades loaded into it, and the carousel spun - the helicopter dangled back and forth, carried the next group from the icebreaker, then took the previous group from the island, and so on until the very end, when it made last flight, taking Yana and the guards out of the island. We were now almost at the end, but the queue, no matter how slowly it crawled - after all, it took about 10-12 minutes for a two-way flight with two take-offs and landings and a change of tourists - they nevertheless reached us, and we, sitting in helicopter, this time next to the pilot, in order to better see everything, went to the island.
So, jumping from stone to stone, we moved from the landing site, perhaps the only truly flat place suitable for a helicopter, to the edge of the summit, from where we could take decent photographs of the cape, the sea and the ship, and then back to the landing site .
From above, of course, the view of the cape is even nothing, two rocks are perfectly visible - remnants, 25 and 60 meters high. There is a border at the cape - they go south, and in the north lies Surovaya Bay, which is already part of the Arctic waters, like this. It must be said that this boundary is not clearly demarcated.
Slowly moving up the mountain, we tried to find at least some signs of life, but around there were only stones, stones, ice and snow, but no, in one place there was a tiny island of greenery that pleased us with its love of life.
Everything is over, the helicopter came for us, it's time to go down to the ship, but first we need to look at the island from above.
Down from the top of the table mountain of Gall Island stretch beautiful rocks, named in memory of the outstanding Soviet geologist Academician Alexander Nikolaevich Zavarnitsky, the Zavarnitsky rocks, stretching 15 kilometers inland, reaching maximum height at 500 meters.
Well, the helicopter propeller froze, everyone returned on board, you can go further. We were surprised to hear the announcement that the icebreaker was turning around and we would go back to Champ Island. We really liked this decision, maybe we will still be able to get to the island with stone balls.
Moving on, we last time cast their eyes on the "fangs of the dragon", from this point they could be mistaken for a kind of gate blocking the path to the island of Gall and to the cape itself with two outliers decorating it.
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SOURCE OF INFORMATION AND PHOTO:
Team Nomads
Savatyugin L.M., Dorozhkina M.V. Archipelago Franz Josef Land: history, names and titles. - St. Petersburg: AARI, 2012. - 484 p. — ISBN 978-5-98364-054-2
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Franz Josef Land: Collection of articles / USSR, Nauch.-tekhn. ex. VSNKh No. 352. - M .: State Technical Publishing House, 1930. - (Proceedings of the Institute for the Study of the North; issue 47).
Mikhail N. Ivanychuk 14 months in the land of Franz Josef. Impressions of a winterer. - Kharkov: Ukrainian Robotnik, 1934. - 122, p.
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Two million barrels await Putin's partners in the Arctic
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photo V. Balyakin, O. Parshina, A. Zolotina, S. Anisimov
