Where is the island of Svalbard located on the map. Spitsbergen is a territory of strategic importance

“The crown of Europe” is often called this mountainous archipelago, lost in the icy expanses of the Arctic.

Some of its islands are located beyond the eightieth degree of northern latitude. Only the north of Greenland and the Canadian island of Ellesmere are even closer to the North Pole.

In the morning fog, sailors sailing from the south to the archipelago, it seems that the contours of the towers of medieval castles appear from the haze. It is the mountain peaks of Spitsbergen, reaching 1700 meters in height, that darken through a gray veil.

But then the ship comes closer, the fog clears, and a panorama of whimsically indented black rocky coasts topped with white glaciers opens before your eyes.

In places, ice tongues descend directly to the sea, breaking off with ledges of transparent blue ice.

Narrow winding bays are lined with foamy stripes of waterfalls. And in the depths of the largest bay - Isfjorden - the houses of the capital of Svalbard - the village of Longyearbyen glow with bright red, green and blue cubes.

More than a thousand islands are part of the archipelago. True, almost all of them are small, only five of them deserve the epithet “large”. These are Western Svalbard, Northeast Land, Edge Island, Barents Island and Prince Karl Land.

Svalbard is larger in area than Switzerland and could host two Belgiums on its islands.

The archipelago has had several names since ancient times. The Dutch called it Svalbard, the Russians - Grumant, the Norwegians - Svalbard. Modern journalists often call this region the “Islands of Mists”.

Indeed, Svalbard is one of the most “foggy” places on Earth. Even the famous African Skeleton Coast - namib desert and the Bering Sea, infamous for its rain and fog, cannot be compared with it in this respect.

More than 90 days a year (a quarter of the year!) There are fogs over the islands. And in June-October every month there are from 12 to 20 days with fogs.

The fogs on Svalbard are so dense that you can't see anything even five paces away. Sounds are muffled, the outlines of objects are distorted, so that it is impossible to recognize even the familiar area. All buildings and large stones are covered with a fluffy brush of frost.

In the spring, during fog, one can observe an unusual optical phenomenon, which in the language of scientists is called “gloria”. The low polar sun casts long shadows of objects on the veil of fog and low clouds, which are surrounded by a rainbow outline.

The famous polar explorer Amundsen, who made forced landing on a plane in the ice north of Svalbard, describes Gloria as follows:

Away from us, in the fog, I saw the full reflection of our car, surrounded by a halo of all the colors of the rainbow. The sight is amazing, beautiful and unique.

From the board of the ship going to Svalbard, from afar you can already see the intricately jagged peaks of the mountains, for which he was given such a name (Svalbard - in Dutch “Sharp Mountains”).

This name was given to the archipelago by the Dutch navigator Willem Barents, who discovered it in 1596. True, in fairness, it must be said that the Russian Pomors, two centuries before the Dutchman, used to go on their boats to the cold Grumant (as they called the archipelago).

One day, four Russian hunters, having landed here for hunting, the next morning did not find their ship crushed by ice. Russian Robinsons lived on Svalbard for six years before they were rescued by another Russian ship that accidentally entered the islands.

After Barents, many famous sailors and explorers visited the archipelago. Hudson and Chichagov, Nordenskiöld and Nansen, Amundsen and Rusanov laid their routes here.

But the main contribution to the study of Spitsbergen, no doubt, was made by the brave coast-dwellers, who for five centuries had mastered the harsh islands.

Until now, on the map of the archipelago, you can find the Russian Islands and Russkaya Bay, Mount Admiral Makarov and Cape Ermak, the Rusanov Valley and Solovetskaya Bay.

The uniqueness of the nature of Svalbard is determined by the fact that one of the branches of the warm North Atlantic current, the continuation of the Gulf Stream, approaches its western coast. The heated waters through the fjords penetrate deep into the islands and warm them.

In February, the frost here does not exceed fifteen degrees, and the average annual temperature on the islands is six degrees above zero. (And this is at latitude 80!)

Therefore, the coast of the islands in summer is covered with a green carpet of tundra, full of bright colors.

Purple saxifrages, yellow polar poppies, blue forget-me-nots and purple carnations delight the eyes of the inhabitants of Loggyir and other Svalbard villages: Barentsburg, Pyramiden, Ny-Ålesund, Longyearbyen and Sveagruva on a long polar day.

And the snowy fields on the slopes at this time turn pink in places due to the appearance of microscopic algae on them.

The wide valleys that go high into the mountains are filled with glaciers here. Their silent, dirty white rivers slowly (usually at a speed of a meter a day, no more) move towards the sea.

At the confluence of glaciers in the fjords, the ice slides into the water and breaks off. This is how icebergs are formed.

In some valleys, where glaciers end before reaching the shore, short but turbulent rivers flow from under them, the longest of which is only 48 kilometers. In winter, they all freeze to the bottom.

worn out by glaciers Mountain peaks islands take the most fantastic forms. Thus, Mount Skansen resembles an ancient fortress, Mount Tempel is an ancient Indian temple, and Mount Pyramid looks like a stack of giant neatly folded bales of hay.

The most famous mountain - Tre Kruner - has three peaks. Their names: Svea, Nora and Dana symbolize the brotherhood of the three Scandinavian countries - Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The truncated pyramidal contours of the three peaks are colored with clear horizontal stripes of yellow limestone and red sandstone.

Ancient Scandinavian legends represented Svalbard as a gloomy country of cold, darkness, snow and ice. The Vikings believed that this is the most inhospitable land in the world. But it's not fair. Compared to other Arctic islands such as Ellesmere or Severnaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land, Svalbard looks like a real oasis in the icy polar desert.

It is inhabited by three thousand people, mostly scientists and researchers of the North and, oddly enough, miners. Coal deposits were formed here hundreds of millions of years ago, when Svalbard was one with Europe and its climate was incomparably warmer than today. Now Russian miners, in agreement with the Norwegians, are engaged in coal mining here.

But life on the islands can be found not only in human settlements. Reindeer and arctic foxes, nimble rodents-lemmings and white partridges are found here.

Silently circling over the valleys snowy owl, and in the summer thousands of migratory birds fly here: ducks, geese and swans.

Most of the noise and splash on the coast. With a warm current, flocks of cod and herring, halibut and haddock come to the island, followed by seals: harp and sea hare.

On the pebbly beaches under the rocks, fanged walruses arrange their rookeries, and in the open sea you can often see fountains of whales.

There are still many of the latter in the waters of Spitsbergen to this day, although whaling fleets have hunted in these places since the time of the Barents and Hudson. Most of all are white whales and killer whales, but the famous narwhal unicorn is also found.

The head of this whale ends with a sharp two-meter bone outgrowth, similar to a horn.

They say that Ivan the Terrible had a staff made of a beautiful, twisted narwhal horn (probably brought by Russian coast-dwellers from Grumant).

The chief seal hunter also comes to the islands -.

The largest predator of the polar basin is now under the protection of the law and is not at all afraid of humans.

Sometimes meetings with him end sadly for polar explorers, especially on distant islands.

And it happens that desperate radio messages like the following fly to Barentsburg or Longyearbyen from researchers working somewhere on the Prince Charles Islands:

Immediately send a helicopter for evacuation. Surrounded by nine hungry bears. We do not dare to leave the house.

The musk ox, brought here in the 1920s from Greenland, also took root in the archipelago. The herd of these mighty squat ungulates, covered with thick and long hair down to the ground, has grown noticeably in recent years, since there are no wolves on Spitsbergen, their main enemies.

In severe winters, female musk oxen hide small cubs under their belly, where in any snowstorm it is warm and cozy in a canopy of wool. Now there are more than a hundred musk oxen in Svalbard, but in the beginning there were only 17.

The decoration of Svalbard is its wonderful bird colonies. Tens of thousands of kittiwakes, guillemots, guillemots, fulmars, puffins and cormorants rumble and bustle about on tiny ledges of sheer cliffs that break off to the sea. And predatory burgomaster gulls soar above the rocks, looking for prey.

There are enough fish in the sea for both seals and gulls, especially since West Bank even in winter, under the action of a warm current, the boundary of floating ice forms a deep bend, like a bay with ice shores, facing north.

In the old days it was called Kitolov's Bay, since it was here that the whaling center was located. In other winters, there is no ice at all off the western coast, and Isfjord is covered with ice cover only for a month and a half.

However, the North is the North, and from October to February polar night reigns over Svalbard. However, the archipelago does not become a "country of eternal darkness" at this time. In clear weather, it is illuminated by the moon.

As the great polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen wrote, “instead of the sun, the most delightful radiance of the moon remains: it circles the sky day and night ...”.

Moonlight is reflected by myriads of snow and ice crystals and allows not only to move freely without a lantern, but also to distinguish distant mountains. It is especially bright during the full moon.

And in December-January, in frosty weather, auroras blaze in the sky. Against the backdrop of a flaming sky, light patterns of the most fantastic kind appear, continuously changing their shape and color.

You can stand for hours, forgetting to put on your hat, in the bitter cold, unable to take your eyes off the amazing play of colors in the cold sky.

Words are powerless to describe this truly grandiose spectacle. What a pity that at this time there are no tourists on the islands!

And all of them could not forget its severe beauty, dazzling white mountain peaks and the blue expanse of fjords, the deafening hubbub of bird colonies and humble charm tundra flowers, greenish-transparent walls of coastal glacial cliffs and colors of the northern lights ...

And when the winterers, returning to native land, sail away from the shore, then from the side of the ship they traditionally throw old boots into the water - as a sign that someday they will return to this icy, but beautiful land.

Svalbard archipelago - harsh northern edge, lying beyond the Arctic Circle just a thousand kilometers from the north pole. The archipelago is under the jurisdiction of Norway, but for most countries, including Russia, a visa is not required to enter here.

Svalbard attracts many who want to get acquainted with the pristine nature of the Arctic. A significant part of the archipelago has been given the status of a national park. The landscapes of the archipelago amaze the imagination, the snow-covered plains break off at the sea with majestic fjords, and mighty glaciers rise on the pointed mountains.

extraordinarily rich and animal world Svalbard. Noisy bird colonies are located here on the coastal stones, reindeer roam the tundra, and of course, here you can meet a polar bear - the symbol of Svalbard.

There are practically no roads in the archipelago, so tourists are usually offered to take a boat cruise around the archipelago.

Arctic Ocean

The Arctic Ocean is one of the smallest oceans on Earth. It is located in the northern hemisphere of the earth between North America and Eurasia. The ocean takes over with total area 14.75 million square kilometers. Average depth ocean is 1.225 meters, and the largest - 5.527 meters in the Grenada Sea. The volume of water in the ocean is 18.07 million square kilometers.

Visually, the ocean can be divided into three natural areas: the Arctic Basin, the North European Basin, and the Canadian Basin. Thanks to favorable geographic location in the central part of the ocean, the ice cover remains intact throughout the year, while being in a mobile state. Given that the water in the ocean is very cold, only those who are resistant to cold temperatures can live here. Marine life- such as whales, penguins, fur seals and many others.

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Longyearbyen

Longyearbyen is the largest settlement on the island of Svalbard in Norway. Founded in 1906 as a mining community, the town got its name from the owner of a coal mining company, John Longyearbyen. Today, coal has ceased to play an important role in the life of the city, Longyearbyen has become a research and tourist center.

Longyearbyen's rows of one-story houses, painted in bright colors, look almost festive against the backdrop of the monochrome nature of Svalbard. There is a University Center in the city, a satellite station has been built that receives and processes data from orbiting satellites. Also here is the World Seed Vault - millions of crop seeds are stored here in case of a worldwide catastrophe.

Longyearbyen attracts many tourists who want to get to know the unique polar nature of Svalbard. There are several hotels in the city, there is a city museum.

This island with a stunning natural landscape is located in the eastern part of the Spitsbergen archipelago between the islands of Edge and West Svalbard. It is named after the famous Dutch navigator William Barents. Experts say that the island was created due to rocks of the Paleozoic age, with limestone and shales prevailing among other rocks.

Its total area is 1288 km². Most of the island, approximately 558 km², is covered by glaciers, while the rest of the island is arctic tundra. The Barents Island represents a unique natural ecosystem for scientific research on climate change and possible glacier movements. But, according to recent studies, one should not expect a general melting and change of glaciers on this island.

Svalbard airport

Svalbard Airport is the world's northernmost civilian airport serving Svalbard. The airport is located at the foot of the Platoberge mountain.

In 2009, the passenger traffic of the airport amounted to about 139 thousand people. From this airport you can fly to Oslo, Tromsø, Ny-Ålesund, Svea and even to Barentsburg, so the airport is considered international. Since Norway is part of the Schengen area, Russians flying to Barentsburg do not go through passport control.

Svalbard is the largest building with 200 parking spaces, a taxi rank and car rental. The airport has one paved runway 2,323 meters long and 45 meters wide. Under the strip there are two culverts that drain melt water from the mountain.

Abandoned mining village Pyramiden

Pyramiden is an abandoned Soviet mining village located on the island of Svalbard in Norway. The settlement was built in the second half of the twentieth century near the northernmost coal mine in the world. Its population reached a thousand people. But in the nineties, coal production fell sharply and the village was mothballed.

Now the Pyramid is a ghost village that has preserved not only buildings, but also a lot of personal belongings of its inhabitants, left here as if in a hurry. The territory of the village is open to the public, but it is not recommended to enter its buildings without an escort - in order to avoid accidents. The pyramid is still the record holder for many of the northernmost things in the world - among such records are a monument to Lenin, a pool and even a piano.

The unusual disturbing and sad atmosphere of the abandoned city, as well as the extraordinarily beautiful nature surrounding the village, attracts tourists here in the summer. Especially for them in the village arranged small hotel and a tour guide.

Barentsburg

Barentsburg is a mining town on the Norwegian island of West Svalbard, in the archipelago Svalbard. It was named after the Dutch navigator V. Barents. Now more than 300 Russians and Ukrainians live and work in this settlement.

The village is isolated, with autonomous life support. The industrial and social complex of Barentsburg includes a mine, a thermal power plant, a hospital, a kindergarten and other facilities. The residential settlement, housing and communal and auxiliary facilities are maintained by the Arktikugol company. Coal mined in the mine is used for the village's own needs, and is also exported. For tourists, a hotel with a bar and a gift shop is open in the village.

Here you can visit the museum "Pomor", founded in 1995. The museum, which tells about the history of the Svalbard archipelago from ancient times to the present day, has a geological exposition containing more than 33 types of minerals and rocks, whose age ranges from 1-2 billion years to 5-6 thousand years.

Northeast Land

Northeast land is desert island in the Svalbard archipelago, in the Northern Arctic Ocean. Refers to the territory of Norway. It occupies an area of ​​14.5 thousand square kilometers.

The surface of the island is a plateau, up to 637 meters high. Of the entire surface of the island, 11,135 square kilometers are occupied by glaciers. Mosses and lichens grow in ice-free areas. There are a significant number of fjords on the northern coast of the Northeast Land.

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Svalbard(German: Spitzbergen), also Svalbard(Norwegian Svalbard), spitsbergen(Dutch. Spitsbergen), Grumant- a vast polar archipelago located in the Arctic Ocean, between 76 ° 26 "and 80 ° 50" north latitude and 10 ° and 32 ° east longitude. Northernmost part. The administrative center is the city. The archipelago and coastal waters are a demilitarized zone.

Significant, by Arctic standards, economic activity in the archipelago, in addition to Norway, according to the special status of the archipelago, is carried out only by a Russian settlement on the island of Western Svalbard - a village, as well as the mothballed villages of Piramida and Grumant.

Etymology

The Russian name "Svalbard" is borrowed from the Dutch niderl. Spitzbergen - this name was given to the archipelago in 1596 by the Dutch navigator V. Barents, literally it means " sharp mountains"(Dutch spitz - "sharp", Dutch bergen - "mountains"). The Russian Pomors used the name "Grumant", which is considered a distorted transfer of the toponym "Greenland", - according to medieval ideas, Svalbard in the north connected with Greenland, and its name is known in the forms "Gruland, Grutland". In Norway itself, the name "Svalbard" (Norwegian Svalbard) is accepted - " cold edge", which the Scandinavian navigators of the XII century gave some kind of discovered by them northern land, later identified by F. Nansen with Svalbard.

Geography

Map of the Svalbard archipelago

The area of ​​the archipelago is 61022 km².

Consists of three major islands- Western Svalbard, Northeast Land and Edge Island; seven smaller islands - Barents Island, White, Prince Karl Land, Kongsoya (King's Island), Bear, Svensköya, Wilhelm Island; as well as groups of islands, small islets and skerries, with a total area of ​​621 km².

The largest islands:

natural conditions

Mountain relief. The highest point of the islands is Mount Newton (1712 m) in Western Svalbard. Glaciers occupy 35.1 thousand km² - more than half of the area of ​​the archipelago. The coast is cut by fjords. Permafrost - layer thickness up to 200 m. Natural thawing of soils in summer ranges from 0.5 to 2.6 m.

Tundra vegetation - dwarf birch (lat. Bétula nána), polar willow (lat. Salix polaris), mosses, mushrooms, lichens and more than 170 species of vascular plants.

Of the mammals on the islands, only polar bear, the Svalbard reindeer (the smallest of the reindeer species), and the arctic fox. Attempts to introduce other land mammals to the archipelago, in particular polar hares and musk oxen from Greenland, were unsuccessful. Also, narwhals can occasionally be found near the coast of Svalbard. Marine animals are abundant on the archipelago - seals, harp seals, bearded seals, walruses, beluga whales, whales. All of the listed animals (except for polar bears) are quite often found in close proximity to settlements.

There are about 90 species of birds on Svalbard, of which 36 constantly nest in the archipelago. The only species that lives in Svalbard all year round is the polar (white) partridge (lat. Lagopus mutus hyperboreus). The rest of the birds fly away to the southern countries for the winter, and return to the archipelago only in the spring to nest and breed.

About half of the territory is occupied by nature protection zones: 3 reserves and 3 sanctuaries.

Large deposits of high-calorific coal are estimated at 10 billion tons. A unique feature of Svalbard is also a significant number of rocks with fossilized remains of plants and animals. In 2007, a Norwegian group of paleontologists managed to discover the remains of the largest pliosaurus in the archipelago. Pliosaurus funkei. The high diversity of geological rocks of the archipelago is explained by its long migration through the Earth's mantle, during which Svalbard visited different climatic zones.

The climate is arctic, in the west it is significantly softened by the warm Svalbard Current (part of the Gulf Stream). average temperature air on the coast from +4…+6 °C (July) to −10…−14 °C (January). Due to the influence of the Gulf Stream, winter temperatures in Svalbard are on average 20 degrees higher than in other places of comparable latitude. The maximum recorded temperature is +24.5 °C (July 1978), the minimum is -46.3 °C (March 1986).

The archipelago is located in a seismically active zone, earthquakes with a magnitude of 4-5 points on the Richter scale were noted, the possibility of earthquakes up to 6-7 points is expected.

Nature

National parks of Svalbard

The climate is harsh, the vegetation is not rich, the plants are low and cold-resistant. At the beginning of summer, the tundra is heavily swamped due to snowmelt, and the water level in the rivers is high. Basically, the southern part of Svalbard (zero zone) is free of snow in summer, although glaciers are found in the vicinity of all settlements. Red algae are often found on glaciers, giving the snow and ice a pinkish tint. Despite the round-the-clock polar day, the temperature difference between day and night in summer is noticeable and can reach 5-10 degrees Celsius. The first snowfalls occur in September, although snow is not uncommon at the end of August. Due to the relatively mild climate, Svalbard is also popular with tourists during the polar night, when stable snow and ice coverage makes snowmobiling possible.

As a rule, Caledonides participate in the structure of the archipelago. But they are more like the Caledonides of Greenland than Scandinavia. However, both are products of the Early Paleozoic Iapetus Ocean, which opened around the beginning of the Cambrian, about 550 million years ago. This ancient ocean was located in equatorial latitudes in the submeridional direction from 30° S. sh. (ancient coordinates) to the north, between the ancient continents Baltica and Canada-Greenland. Svalbard also includes more ancient rocks (Baikal folding). Apparently, this is a part of the Barents Sea Plate, which is of Proterozoic-Early Cambrian age. Most of the basement of Svalbard was formed somewhere on the active margin of the ancient Iapetus Ocean about 500 million years ago in the early Ordovician and is an island-arc igneous formation, strongly folded during the collision of the continents in the Silurian. By the beginning of the Silurian, the Iapetus Ocean began to shrink, carrying the Baltic towards Canada-Greenland, (450-440 million years ago) the British Isles, the island of Newfoundland and Svalbard, which experienced strong uplift and volcanic eruptions by the middle to the end of the Silurian. Then there was the final collision of the Baltic (Scandinavia), the British Isles, Greenland, Newfoundland and North America (Lawrence). The remains of ancient island arcs, limestones, clastic oceanic rocks of the Iapetus Ocean were crushed and lifted up to 9-11 thousand meters. At the point of collision of these parts of the world, a mountain range rose higher than today's Himalayas. 400 million years ago, Scandinavia was already connected to Greenland, and Svalbard was somewhere between them. The British Isles, Newfoundland and North America were also joined together. In the Late Paleozoic, granitoids were intruded in places. The current deposits of copper, chromium, nickel, titanium, iron, zinc, uranium and other metals, which are now located on the Kola Peninsula, in Scandinavia, Greenland, Svalbard, on the British Isles and on the east coast of North America, were formed precisely in that era.

Legal status of Svalbard

In 1920, as part of the Peaceful Paris Conference, the Svalbard Treaty was concluded, which consolidated Norway's sovereignty over the archipelago, but at the same time, all states parties to the Treaty had the right to carry out commercial and research activities on the basis of full equality and the demilitarized status of the archipelago (Article 3). According to article 2 of the Treaty, Norway received the right to protect and restore flora and fauna, although concern for the ecological situation was not typical for that time. In Article 8, Norway undertook to create a Mining Charter regulating economic activity in Svalbard, while the charter should not give privileges, monopolies and benefits to any country, including Norway. In 1925 the Mining Charter for Svalbard was adopted along with the National Svalbard Law.

Military significance

The geographical location of Svalbard is extremely beneficial from a military point of view, it allows you to control shipping and air traffic in the Arctic Ocean, provided that the necessary military infrastructure is located on the island (navy bases, airfields, radar and hydroacoustic stations).

The Soviet Union, in its negotiations with Norway, repeatedly raised the issue of sharing the territory of Svalbard to ensure the defense of the island, in particular, to deploy Soviet military bases on the island both during the Second World War, under the pretext of the need to protect northern convoys from land, and at the dawn of the Cold War. war, against the background of the emerging confrontation with the United States. The Norwegian Storting has repeatedly considered the issue of granting the territory of the USSR for military needs, but always rejected these projects by a majority vote. One of the last votes on this issue dates back to the summer of 1947, when the majority of parliamentarians once again refused the USSR to create military base on the island (out of 112 voters, 11 voted "for", 101 "against" the construction of a Soviet military base).

Story

Presumably, Russian Pomors and Vikings discovered the archipelago in the 12th century. Svalbard was first mentioned in the Icelandic Annals in an entry under 1194, reporting that “Svalbard was found” ( Svalbardi funnin). The name "Svalbard" is translated as "cold shores".

The Svalbard expedition of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, led by V.F. Starkov, believes that Pomor settlements existed in Svalbard in the middle of the 16th century. In total, more than eighty Pomeranian monuments are known.

In 1596, the islands were discovered and documented by the Dutchman Willem Barents, who gave the main island the name "Spitsbergen", which means "sharp mountains". Barents discovered a large number of walruses and whales on the island and in its adjacent waters, which gave rise to numerous fishing expeditions. Around the same time, the archipelago appeared on maps under the name "Santi Rustene". A few years later, their claims to these lands were declared by and.

Whaling

Used in the 17th and 18th centuries different countries as a whaling base until the whales were almost completely extirpated from the region. The center of Dutch whaling since 1614 was the village of Smeerenburg. , along with and, today continues this fishery, despite the moratorium of the International Commission on the Regulation of Whaling and the ban on the export of whale meat.

In 1743, on the island of Edge (Maly Brun) in the southeastern part of the archipelago, four Russian hunters from Mezen landed, led by feeder Alexei Khimkov, whose ship was ice-covered not far from its shores. Having practically no supplies, they managed to spend more than 6 years on the island, hunting bears, walruses and seals, catching arctic foxes and harvesting skins. In August 1749, three surviving winterers were discovered by a Russian merchant ship and taken to.

In 1760, the French scientist Pierre Ludovic Leroy, who became interested in their history, published in German in and an essay reprinted in 1766 in French in , and in the Russian translation of 1772 called “The Adventures of Four Russian Sailors, Brought to the Island of Ost-Spitsbergen by a Storm, Where they lived for six years and three months.”

In 1765-1766, Mikhail Lomonosov organized two marine scientific expeditions to Svalbard under the command of V. Ya. Chichagov, but the harsh climate did not allow the organization of permanent settlements on the archipelago, and until the beginning of the 20th century Svalbard had no official Russian presence. Nevertheless, the Pomors maintained a seasonal hunting presence in the archipelago, and the most desperate of them regularly stayed for the winter.

After the decline of whaling and fur trade at the end of the 18th century, over the next hundred years Svalbard was actually abandoned and was considered terra nullius - no man's land, that is, despite the nominal claims of different countries to it, it was actually not controlled by anyone. New wave interest began only at the end of the 19th century, when year-round access to ports and a relatively mild climate made Svalbard the main base for polar expeditions and Arctic tourism.

Many famous explorers have visited the archipelago, including Fridtjof Nansen, Roald Amundsen and Ernst Shackleton. The northern part of the island of Western Svalbard is named Andre Land, in honor of Solomon Andre, who made an attempt to reach the North Pole in a balloon in 1897. In 1912, Western Spitsbergen was also described and mapped in detail as part of the last expedition of the famous Russian Arctic explorer and pioneer of the Northern Sea Route V. A. Rusanov. Svalbard was also visited by the first Arctic tourists - wealthy Europeans, including the representative of the royal family of Monaco, Prince Albert.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the economic situation on the islands has also gradually changed. Coal mining by American, British, Norwegian, Russian and Swedish enterprises led to the establishment of permanent settlements. Norway's sovereignty over the archipelago was recognized in 1920, when Italy signed the Svalbard Treaty in Paris. The Norwegians were in a hurry to secure the disputed lands for themselves in the absence of their main rival, the Russian Empire, which determined the unprecedented terms of the treaty. By agreement, all countries participating in the treaty retained the right to extract and develop minerals in the archipelago. On May 7, 1935, the USSR also joined it, which by that time already had several workers' settlements on Svalbard. The USSR was interested not only in local coal, but also in fish. Already in 1934, an expedition was sent to Svalbard on the hunting boat "Nikolai Knipovich", which discovered herring. It was followed by a voyage to the islands of the Avangard ship, which returned to Murmansk with 25 tons of catch after an 18-day voyage.

Since the mid-1920s, Svalbard has become world famous as a base for polar aviation - for example, Roald Amundsen's flights on seaplanes with the money of the American millionaire Lincoln Ellsworth. On May 21, 1925, Amundsen leaves Svalbard for the North Pole, but does not fly and returns to Svalbard. May 11, 1926 starts from Svalbard Amundsen-Ellsworth-Nobile expedition on an airship designed by Umberto Nobile. Having flown over the Pole (piloted by the airship Nobile), the expedition landed in Alaska. Under Mussolini, Umberto Nobile, already a general and an honorary member of the ruling fascist party, on May 23, 1928, decided to repeat the flight to the North Pole. Starting from Svalbard, he reached the Pole, but on the way back the airship crashed. Amundsen, who flew out in search of Nobile, died, and the surviving crew members of the airship were saved on July 12 by the Soviet icebreaker Krasin.

During the Second World War, Svalbard could not act as a full-fledged military base, so its population was evacuated, and the presence of German troops on the archipelago was limited to weather stations thrown from aircraft and submarines, correcting the work of German aviation in the Arctic. To eliminate them in 1942, a small Norwegian detachment was abandoned in the Longyearbyen area on two ships Isbjørn and Selis. Despite the fact that both ships were destroyed, the Norwegians managed to gain a foothold on the shore. In 1943, to destroy this detachment, the Germans sent a detachment of ships from the battleships Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and nine destroyers to Svalbard, which destroyed most of Longyearbyen and Barentsburg with artillery fire (one of the coal mines set on fire at that time was extinguished only in 1960). The landing of the Germans on the coast was less successful. The Norwegians in the Barentsburg region resisted coastal artillery fire and retreated into the mountains to the village of Grumant.

In the post-war years, coal mining in the archipelago was resumed by Norwegian companies and Arktikugol, which also acted as the main representative of the Soviet Union in the Arctic. The gradual depletion of proven reserves in the mines of the archipelago led to a reduction in production everywhere except the Norwegian Sveagruva. As a result, the Norwegian government began to focus Spitsbergen on the development of tourism and expeditionary and scientific base. Arktikugol could not cope with the task of diversifying economic activities and in the post-Soviet period is subsidized from the state budget. In 2006 alone, the costs of maintaining the activities of the former Soviet concessions in Spitsbergen amounted to 395.6 million rubles.

Also, since 1949, Soviet fishing voyages to Svalbard for fish were resumed. The first major expedition in 1949 caught 462 tons of herring.

Current state

Ropeway for transporting coal

Although the Svalbard archipelago is controlled by the Kingdom and has been officially part of it since 1925, there are differences related to taxation (tax-free zone), protection environment, protection of the rights of the local population and military activities (demilitarized zone).

There are two official languages ​​on the islands - Norwegian and Russian; Russian citizens do not need a visa to visit the archipelago.

Coal mining in the mines is carried out by the Norwegian company Store Norske, as well as under concession by the Russian state trust Arktikugol (formerly the Soviet trust). Here (the Barentsburg mine) is the northernmost operating railway in the world, which is almost completely underground. Previously, there were several railways and they passed along the surface. All mined coal goes to heating Barentsburg itself, that is, the Russian enterprise is a planned unprofitable and partly an image project.

The Svalbard airport operates with regular flights to Norway (,) and irregular (charter) flights of Arktikugol to Moscow. One of these flights caused the largest tragedy in the history of Svalbard - on August 29, 1996, a Russian Tu-154M aircraft of Vnukovo Airlines crashed while landing directly opposite. 141 people were killed: 129 passengers and 12 crew members.

Currently, Svalbard is one of the centers of polar and circumpolar tourism; cruise ships from northern Europe, and specialized tourist ships ice class for excursions in the Arctic. The city has several hotels (including SAS Radisson), bars and restaurants with arctic cuisine (for example, the Kroa restaurant "On the edge of the earth"). There is a polar museum and the Svalbard International University, and significant scientific work is being done to study climate, geology and glaciology. in summer and winter time Hiking, water (kayaks and boats), snowmobile excursions and expeditions depart daily from the city.

In the 2000s, with the money of the Norwegian government, the World Seed Vault was built on the island, the so-called "storage doomsday". This vault contains a seed bank of both cultivated and wild plants, designed to survive even in a nuclear war. In addition, the Berget Plateau hosts the antennas of the SvalSAT satellite station, the EISCAT incoherent scatter radar, and the KHO aurora observatory. Svalbard is connected to the mainland by a submarine fiber optic cable, within Barentsburg, Kolesbukhta and Longyearbyen, there is a cellular connection of both Russian (MegaFon) and Norwegian operators.

Population

The population of the archipelago is about 2600 people (as of January 1, 2009). Of these, 69.9% are Norwegians, 18.3% are Russians and Ukrainians, and 0.4% are Poles. The island has a completely visa-free regime, that is, representatives of all nations that signed the Svalbard Treaty of 1920 have the right to live and work. From a practical point of view, despite the lack of immigration and customs controls, the harsh climate and high cost of living in Longyearbyen effectively limit the labor migration of service and tourism workers. After the collapse of the USSR, a number of former Arktikugol employees moved permanently to Longyearbyen, while the population of Russian mining villages continued to decline in proportion to the fall in coal production.

The largest settlement is about 2000 people, the majority are Norwegians. It is also the administrative center of the archipelago. Other settlements:

• Russian mining villages: (470 people), Pyramiden (3-4 people in winter, about 15 in summer, for the most part mothballed) and Grumant (mothballed);
• Norwegian International Research Center Ny-Ålesund (about 30 people, more than 100 in summer);
• the Norwegian mining village of Sveagruva (90 people, with more than 300 workers from Longyearbyen);
• Polish research station Hornsund (10 people).

There is also a mothballed settlement-port of Kolesbukhta, which was previously connected with Grumant by rail along the coast. At present, the road has fallen into disrepair, and the tunnel near the village of Grumant is backfilled as a result of ground movements.

Religion

Longyearbyen has the only active Lutheran church with its own clergyman. In Barentsburg - an Orthodox chapel. In agreement with the Russian Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church in Norway, the Lutheran pastor ministers to the faithful of these churches.

Economy

Since the beginning of the 20th century, coal mining has become the basis of the economy in Svalbard. At the same time, local coal seams, as a rule, have access directly from the slope of the mountains, and many places of coal occurrence are visible to the naked eye. This geological formation has given rise to numerous small mines and coal cuts along coastline, which opened and closed as the reservoirs were depleted and explored. The size of the settlements on Svalbard usually corresponded to the thickness of the nearby coal mines.

As coal reserves were depleted, the Norwegian authorities tried to diversify the island's economy through the development of tourism, in order to reduce the region's subsidies, and expand the research sector. Due to the collapse of the USSR, a similar diversification of the Russian segment of the economy began belatedly due to financial difficulties.

see also

• Svalbard ruble
• Franz Josef Land

Notes

1. Pospelov, 2002, p. 475.
2. Kovacs K.M., Lydersen Ch. Birds and mammals of Svalbard. Polarhandbok No. 13. - Oslo, 2006, 203 p.
3. V.V. Slavinsky. Thermal regime of the lithosphere of passive continental margins on the examples of North-Western Spitsbergen and South-Eastern Australia // Proceedings of the XLII Tectonic Conference. - Moscow: Geological Institute (GIN) RAN, 2009. - V. 2. - S. 191-195.
4. A.I. Konyukhov. How much was Atlantic Oceans?. Retrieved February 11, 2012. Archived from the original on June 3, 2012.
5. About Svalbard. Story. Website of the Russian Embassy in Oslo, Norway.
6. Norway: Spitsbergen Decision. // Military Review. - July 1947. - Vol. 27 - no. 4 - P. 68.
7. Essays on the history of the development of the Arctic. Volume I. Svalbard. Pre-barents period in the history of Svalbard
8. Pomors from Grumant Island // Magazine "Around the World". September, 1983
9. Abraham Ortelius: Septentrionalium Regionum Descrip. (English) . Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc. Retrieved January 5, 2015.
10. Tsetlin M. Polar Robinsons // Science and Life. - 1973. - No. 2.
11. Peter Ludovic Le Roy. Adventures of four Russian sailors brought to the island of Svalbard by a storm.
12. Portzel A.K. The first Soviet fishing expeditions to Svalbard and Iceland (1946-1952) // Arctic and North. - 2015. - No. 18. - P. 97
13. Svalbard's history - the cruise book from Svalbard. Norsk PolarInstitute. Retrieved November 2, 2010. Archived February 17, 2012.
14. S. Patyanin // Operation Citronella. tsushima.org.ru. Retrieved November 10, 2010. Archived from the original on February 17, 2012.
15. Presence Russian Federation on the Svalbard archipelago: political, legal, economic and humanitarian aspects // Problems of the North and the Arctic of the Russian Federation: scientific information bulletin / Federation Council, Committee on Northern Affairs and Small Numbers. peoples / otv. for issue V. Ya. Streltsov. - M.: Ed. Federation Council, 2007. - Issue. 6. - S. 127. Archived from the original on February 17, 2012.
16. Portzel A.K. The first Soviet fishing expeditions to Svalbard and Iceland (1946-1952) // Arctic and North. - 2015. - No. 18. - P. 102
17. The Russian Federation will continue its presence in the Norwegian Svalbard. Look (March 24, 2009). Retrieved 5 January 2015.
18. Order of the Ministry economic development Russian Federation (Ministry of Economic Development of Russia) dated April 4, 2011 N 142 Moscow "On approval of the Rules for granting subsidies from the federal budget to the federal state unitary enterprise State trust Arktikugol" Rossiyskaya Gazeta
19. Nikolai Nepomniachtchi, Mikhail Kurushin. [Book. 4: Disasters in the air, Ch. 2: Chronicle of the last decades] // great book disasters. - M. : Olma media group, 2007. - 255 p. - ISBN 978-5-373-01023-8.
20. Population in the settlements. Svalbard

Literature

• Belov M.I. In the footsteps of polar expeditions. - L.: Gidrometeoizdat, 1977. - 144 p.: ill. With.
• Shokalsky Yu. M. -. Svalbard // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.
• Natalya Kozlova. Island of arrested ships // Russian newspaper: newspaper. - 2005. - No. 3904.
• Hope Sorokina. Moscow will not weaken its position on Svalbard // Rossiyskaya Gazeta: Gazeta. - 2006. - No. 4024.
• Le Roy P. L. Adventures of four Russian sailors brought to the island of Svalbard by a storm / Prev. M. I. Belova. Note. V. Yu. Vize. - 4th ed. - M.: Thought, 1975. - 56 p.: ill.
• Zinger E. M. Country of mountains and glaciers // Nature: journal. - 1997. - No. 8.
• Savatyugin L. M., Dorozhkina M. V. Spitsbergen archipelago: Russian names and titles. - St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2009. - 272 p.
• Gnilorybov N. A. Coal mines in Svalbard. - Moscow: Nedra, 1988. - 191 p.
• Zinger E. M. Svalbard is an ice archipelago. - M. : Penta, 2006. - 302 p.
• Science in Svalbard: a history of Russian research. - St. Petersburg. : GAMAS, 2009. - 408 p.
• Chernyshev F. N. Russian expedition to Svalbard. - Peace of God. - 1901. - 261 p.
• N. E. Koroleva, N. A. Konstantinova, O. A. Belkina, D. A. Davydov, A. Yu. Likhachev, A. N. Savchenko, I. N. Urbanavichene. Flora and vegetation of the coast of the Grenfjord Bay (Spitsbergen archipelago). - Apatity: Ed. K & M, 2008. - 132 p.
• Mikhailov I. A. Archipelago Spitsbergen: crossroads of events and destinies. - M. : Scientific world, 2004. - S. 226. - 1000 copies. - ISBN 5-89176-256-0.
• Kokin O.V. Relief and deposits of the marginal zones of the glaciers of Western Svalbard.
• S. V. Radzievskaya. Island of Courage.
• Pospelov E. M. place names peace. Toponymic Dictionary/ resp. ed. R. A. Ageeva. - 2nd ed., stereotype. - M.: Russian dictionaries, Astrel, AST, 2002. - 512 p. - 3,000 copies. - ISBN 5-17-001389-2.
• David Roberts. Four Against the Arctic: Shipwrecked for Six Years at the Top of the World. (2003). Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-2431-0.

• Starkov V.F. Essays on the history of the development of the Arctic. Volume 1: Svalbard / Ed. dr ist. Sciences A. K. Stanyukovich; Reviewers: Dr. ist. Sciences V. P. Darkevich, Ph.D. ist. Sciences V. I. Zavyalov. Institute of Archeology RAS. - Ed. 2nd. - M. : Scientific world, 2009. - 96 p. - 300 copies. - ISBN 978-5-91522-101-6.

Links

• Svalbard // Great Soviet Encyclopedia: [in 30 volumes] / ch. ed. A. M. Prokhorov. - 3rd ed. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1969-1978.
• Svalbard in the "Modern Encyclopedia"
• Svalbard in BES
• Svalbard // Small Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 4 volumes - St. Petersburg. , 1907-1909.
• Sysselmannen.no - Website of the Governor of Svalbard
• Svalbard Tourism - website of the official tourist board
• TopoSvalbard- interactive map, Norwegian Polar Institute
• The history of one city: Longyearbyen (Svalbard) on the "Echo of Moscow"
• Russian site - Svalbard. RU
• V. N. Anchishkin. arctic romance

Svalbard - Svalbard

Svalbard (German Spitzbergen), other Russian. Grumant, Norwegian Svalbard (Svalbard) - a vast polar archipelago located in the Arctic Ocean, between 76 ° 26 "and 80 ° 50" north latitude and 10 ° and 32 ° east longitude. The northernmost part of the kingdom of Norway. The administrative center is Longyearbyen. The archipelago and coastal waters are a demilitarized zone.
Significant, by Arctic standards, economic activity in the archipelago, in addition to Norway, according to the special status of the archipelago, is also carried out by the Russian Federation, which has a Russian settlement on the island of Western Svalbard - the city of Barentsburg.

Geography

The largest islands:
Western Svalbard - 37,673 km²
Northeast Land - 14,443 km²
Edge (island) -0 5,074 km²
Barents Island -0 1,288 km²
White Island -000682 km²
Bear Island -000178 km²

The total area occupied by the islands is approximately 64,200 km² (according to other sources, 61,723 km²)

natural conditions

Mountain relief. The highest point of the islands is Mount Newton (1,712 m) in Western Svalbard. Glaciers occupy 35.1 thousand km² - more than half of the area of ​​the archipelago. The coast is cut by fjords. Permafrost - layer thickness up to 200 m.

Tundra vegetation - dwarf birch, dwarf willow, mosses, lichens. Of the mammals on the islands, only the polar bear, reindeer, arctic fox, field mouse and the musk ox resettled from Greenland; marine animals - seals, harp seals, whales. About 90 species of birds, during the flight season - more than 110 species.

About half of the territory is occupied by nature protection zones: 3 reserves and 3 sanctuaries.

Large deposits of high-calorific coal are estimated at 10 billion tons.

Arctic climate, moderated in the west by the warm Svalbard Current (part of the Gulf Stream). The average air temperature on the coast is from +4.4 °C (July) to -10 ... -14 °C (January). The maximum recorded temperature is +24.5 °C (July 1978), the minimum is -46.3 °C (March 1986).

The archipelago is located in a seismically active zone, earthquakes of 4-5 magnitudes on the Richter scale are noted, the possibility of earthquakes up to 6-7 magnitudes is allowed.

It was supposedly discovered by the Vikings or Pomors in the 12th century. It was known to the Pomors under the name Grumant, now this is the name of one of the villages on the islands. The Svalbard expedition of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences under the leadership of V.F. Starkov proved that in the middle of the 16th century. Pomor settlements existed on Svalbard. The discovery of the archipelago is attributed to the Dutchman Willem Barents in 1596, but around the same time, the archipelago appeared on Russian maps under the name "Holy Russian Islands". A few years later, England and Denmark declared their claims to the islands.
Whaling

In the 17th and 18th centuries, it was used by various countries as a whaling base until the whales were almost completely exterminated in the region. The center of Dutch whaling since 1614 was the village of Smeerenburg. Norway, along with Iceland and Japan, continues this fishery, despite the moratorium of the International Commission on the Regulation of Whaling.

In the 20s of the 19th century, Norway claimed the island, where coal was already being mined by American, British, Norwegian, Russian and Swedish enterprises. On February 9, 1920, the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Norway, the Netherlands and Sweden signed the Svalbard Treaty in Paris. The USSR joined in 1935. All countries participating in the agreement (39 countries) have the right to freely carry out economic activities there. But only Norwegian and Soviet settlements survived the Second world war and it is Russia and Norway that do most of the economic activity, mostly on the island of West Spitsbergen.

Polar expeditions were also carried out from here, for example, flights by Roald Amundsen on seaplanes with the money of the American millionaire Lincoln Ellsworth. On May 21, 1925, Amundsen leaves Svalbard for Alaska via the North Pole, but does not fly and returns to Svalbard. On May 11, 1926, the Amundsen-Ellsworth-Nobile expedition starts from Svalbard on an airship designed by Umberto Nobile. Having flown over the Pole (piloted by the airship Nobile), the expedition landed in Alaska. Under Mussolini, Umberto Nobile, already a general and an honorary member of the ruling fascist party, on May 23, 1928, decided to repeat the flight to the North Pole. Starting from Svalbard, he reached the Pole, but on the way back the airship crashed. Amundsen, who flew out in search of Nobile, died, and the surviving crew members of the airship were saved on July 12 by the Soviet icebreaker Krasin.

On August 29, 1996, a Russian Tu-154M aircraft of Vnukovo Airlines crashed while landing near the city of Longyearbyen. 141 people were killed: 130 passengers and 11 crew members.

Although the Svalbard archipelago is controlled by the Kingdom of Norway and is part of it (officially since 1925), there are restrictions related to taxation (tax-free zone), environmental protection, protection of the rights of the local population and military activities (demilitarized zone).

There are two official languages ​​on the islands - Norwegian and Russian; Russian citizens do not need a visa to visit the archipelago. Coal mining in the mines is carried out under a concession by the Russian concern Arktikugol, formerly the Soviet trust.

There is a small tourism business in the archipelago. In the 2000s, the World Seed Vault was built on the island.

Population

The population of the archipelago is about 2,400 people (as of 2005), including:

* 1,645 Norwegians;
* 747 Russians
* 8 Poles.

The largest settlement is Longyearbyen, 2,075 people, the majority are Norwegians. It is also the administrative center of the archipelago.

Other settlements:

* Russian mining villages: Barentsburg (850 people), Grumant and Piramida (mothballed)
* Norwegian International Research Center Ny-Ålesund (about 30 people, more than 100 in summer)
* Norwegian mining village Sveagruva (90 people, with workers from Longyearbyen more than 300)
* Polish research station Hornsund (9 people).

Population by years
Year Total Norwegians Russians Poles
1990 3 544 1 125 2 407 12
1995 2 906 1 218 1 679 9
2000 2 376 1 475 893 8
2005 2 400 1 645 747 8

Svalbard, also known as Svalbard, is a polar archipelago located in the Arctic Ocean at a distance of 1,050 km from the North Pole, the northernmost part of the kingdom of Norway. Here is the northernmost year-round settlement on Earth (2,200 people).

We will walk along the polar archipelago of Svalbard.

1. Sunset on the Kongsfjord glacier, Svalbard, Norway, April 9, 2015. In general, the highest point of the islands is Mount Newton (1712 m) in Western Svalbard. (Photo by Jens Büttner | dpa | Corbis):

3. The Svalbard reindeer is the smallest of the reindeer species. (Photo by Paul Souders | Corbis):

4. Colorful houses in Longyearbyen - the northernmost settlement in the world with a population of over a thousand people. (Photo by Chris Jackson):

5. Solar eclipse on Longyearbyen, Svalbard, March 20, 2015. (Photo by Jon Olav Nesvold | NTB scanpix | Reuters):

6. Significant, by Arctic standards, economic activity in the archipelago, in addition to Norway, according to the special status of the archipelago, is carried out only by Russia, which has a Russian settlement on the island of Western Svalbard - the village of Barentsburg, as well as the mothballed villages of Piramida and Grumant.

And here is the Russian sentry near the mothballed mining village of Piramida. The village got its name because of the pyramidal shape of the mountain, at the foot of which it is based on the shores of Petunia and Mimer bays. The village is located at a distance of about 120 km from Barentsburg. The terrain in the area of ​​the Pyramid - mountains, valleys, glaciers. Opposite the Pyramid is large glacier Nordenskjöld, huge blocks of which, hovering above the water, break off from time to time with a roar to start their journey in the form of icebergs. (Photo by Dominique Faget):

Since the beginning of the 20th century, coal mining has become the basis of the economy in Svalbard. At the same time, local coal seams, as a rule, have access directly from the slope of the mountains, and many places of coal occurrence are visible to the naked eye. (Photo by Michael Narten | dpa | Corbis):

8. Grandfather Lenin in the abandoned Russian village of Piramida on Svalbard, July 19, 2015. (Photo by Dominique Faget):

9. The beautiful Kronebrin glacier, located in the western part of the island of Western Svalbard (Spitsbergen archipelago). (Photo by Dominique Faget):

10. Is on polar archipelago Svalbard and Arctic foxes of two species (common and blue). Attempts to move other land mammals to the archipelago, in particular polar hares and musk oxen from Greenland, were unsuccessful. (Photo by Paul Souders):

11. There are about 90 species of birds on Svalbard, of which 36 constantly nest in the archipelago.

This is Bear Island in the western part of the Barents Sea, south of the island of Western Svalbard. It belongs to Norway, but, like the entire Svalbard archipelago, whose southern part is Bear Island, it has a special status within the kingdom. (Photo by Michael Nolan | Robert Harding | Corbis):

12. Stacked remains of a whale on the west coast of Svalbard, August 3, 2013. (Photo by Juan-Carlos Muñoz | Biosphoto | Corbis):

14. Local resident - walrus. (Photo by Steven Kazlowski | Nature Picture Library | Corbis):

15. Nordenskiöld Glacier. Both the bay and the glacier are named after Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, a Swedish geologist, explorer and navigator. He is known for being the first to cross the Northern sea ​​route from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean back in 1878-1879. (Photo by Dominique Faget):

16. Curious white bear. (Photo by Michael S. Nolan | Robert Harding | Corbis):

Svalbard is a meeting point of cold polar air with soft and humid sea air from the south. This creates areas of low pressure and contributes to extreme weather changes and strong wind gusts, especially in winter. In winter, 17% of all time in the archipelago blows strong wind. (Photo by Chris Jackson):

18. Meet the World Seed Vault in Svalbard, the so-called "Doomsday Vault". This is a storage tunnel on the island of Svalbard where samples of seeds from major crops are placed for safe storage.

The World Seed Bank for Planting Material was established in 2006 under the auspices of the UN to preserve the planting material of all agricultural plants existing in the world. The project was financed by Norway and cost it $9 million. Each country received its own compartment in this bank of plants. The task of such a seed storage is to prevent their destruction as a result of possible global catastrophes, such as the fall of an asteroid, nuclear war or global warming. There is enough space inside for 4.5 million seed samples. (Photo by John McConnico):

19. Radar of the European Incoherent Scattering Research System. (Photo by Anna Filipova | Reuters):

20. Isfjorden is the second longest fjord in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. It lies on the western side of Svalbard, an island in the Arctic Ocean halfway between Norway and the North Pole and the largest in the archipelago. (Photo by Juan-Carlos Muñoz | Biosphoto | Corbis):

21. The third mammal on the islands, apart from the Svalbard reindeer and arctic fox, is the polar bear.

22. The Russian settlement of Barentsburg is the second largest settlement in the Svalbard archipelago - 435 inhabitants. Barentsburg got its name in honor of the Dutch navigator Willem Barents, who visited Svalbard in 1596-1597. At present, Russia is the only country, apart from Norway itself, maintaining its economic presence on Svalbard. The consulate of the Russian Federation is located in Barentsburg. (Photo by Svalbardposten):

23. Old wooden ship. (Photo by Ho New | Reuters):

24. Sign warning about the danger of meeting with polar bears. (Photo by John McConnico):

25. And this danger is real. True, polar bears prefer harp seals for dinner. (Photo by Peer von Wahl | NIS | Minden Pictures | Corbis):