In which ocean is the island new land. Novaya Zemlya excursion

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

It is included in the Arkhangelsk region of Russia as the administrative district of Novaya Zemlya and, within the framework of local government, in the status of the urban district Novaya Zemlya.

Geography and climate

The archipelago consists of two large islands - North and South, separated by a narrow strait (2-3 km) Matochkin Shar and many relatively small islands, the largest of which is Mezhdusharsky. The northeastern tip of the North Island, Cape Flissing, is the most eastern point in Europe.

The archipelago stretches from southwest to northeast for 925 km. The northernmost point of Novaya Zemlya is the eastern island of the Big Oran Islands, the southernmost point is the Pyniny Islands of the Petukhovsky Archipelago, the western one is an unnamed cape on the Gusinaya Zemlya Peninsula of the South Island, the eastern is the Cape of Flissing Island Severny. The area of all islands is more than 83 thousand km²; the width of the Northern Island is up to 123 km, the South Island - up to 143 km.

On the South Island, occurrences of native copper and cuprous sandstones are known.

All known ore fields require additional study, which is difficult natural conditions, insufficient economic development and the special status of the archipelago.

In the waters of the seas washing the archipelago, a number of geological structures have been identified that are promising for the search for oil and gas deposits.

Presumably Novaya Zemlya was discovered in the XII-XIII centuries by Novgorod merchants, but there is no convincing historical and documentary evidence of this. Failed to prove primacy in the discovery of the archipelago and the ancient Scandinavians. In any case, the name of the island is of purely Old Russian origin.

Of the Western Europeans, the first to visit the archipelago in 1553 was the English navigator Hugh Willoughby, who, by decree of King Edward VI (1547-1553), led the expedition of the London Moscow Company to “find the North-East Passage” and establish relations with the Russian state.

On the map of the Flemish scientist Gerardus Mercator in 1595, Novaya Zemlya still looks like a single island or even a peninsula.

During his third expedition, Barents circled the northern tip of Novaya Zemlya in 1596 and spent the winter on the eastern coast of the Northern Island in the Ice Harbor area (1597). In 1871, the Norwegian polar expedition of Elling Carlsen discovered the preserved Barents hut in this place, in which dishes, coins, Wall Clock, weapons, navigational tools, as well as a written wintering report hidden in chimney.

The famous Dutch natural scientist Nikolaas Witsen in the book "Northern and Eastern Tartary" (1692) - the first scientific work in Western Europe about Siberia and the Russian North - reports that Peter the First intended to build a military fort on Novaya Zemlya.

The first two were carried out by him at the Malye Karmakuly station on Yuzhny Island, which was then the only Russian settlement on the archipelago. Its elimination could lead to the loss of control by Russia over the islands and the capture of them by the Norwegians.

Arriving on the coast of Moller Bay on June 19, 1887, KD Nosilov settled in the house of the Water Rescue Society station. Together with the priest Father Iona, sent on a mission to the Arkhangelsk diocese, sailors and several Samoyeds, he restored an Orthodox chapel damaged by a hurricane in Malye Karmakuli, which helped to attract Russian industrialists from Arkhangelsk to the island. During these winters, KD Nosilov explored the coast of the island itself and the mountain range that crossed it, the local flora and fauna, the direction of migration of animals, and also studied the language and everyday culture of the Samoyed families resettled there.

KD Nosilov's third wintering in -1891 took place on the shores of the Matochkin Shar Strait, where he founded the first meteorological station on the archipelago.

New Earth. View from space.

Since March 27, 1927, Novaya Zemlya, like other islands of the Arctic Ocean, were ruled under the special Regulations of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR. In 1929, they came under the direct jurisdiction of the executive committee of the Northern Territory.

After the eviction of the Nenets to the mainland, by the decision of the executive committee of the Arkhangelsk Regional Council of Working People's Deputies of July 15, 1957, the Novaya Zemlya Island Council was abolished from August 1, 1957 in accordance with the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR No. 764 of 08/27/1956.

From 1988 to 2014, the Marine Arctic Complex Expedition (MAKE) of the Russian Research Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage named after V.I. D.S.Likhachev under the command and scientific guidance of P.V. Boyarsky.

In 2015, the hydrographs of the Northern Fleet recorded the formation of seven capes and four straits, and nine islands were discovered in the Russian part of the Arctic.

Population

Flora and fauna

The main role in the formation of phytocenoses belongs to mosses and lichens. The latter are represented by types of cladonias, the height of which does not exceed 3-4 cm.

Arctic herbaceous annuals also play a significant role. Plants characteristic of the sparse flora of the islands are creeping species, such as creeping willow ( Salix polaris), opposite-leaved saxifrage ( Saxifraga oppositifolia), mountain lichen and others. The vegetation in the southern part is mostly dwarf birches, moss and low grass; in areas near rivers, lakes and bays, many mushrooms grow: milk mushrooms, honey agarics, etc.

On the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, according to the combined data of various authors, 6 species of bumblebees have been identified. 6 species of diurnal butterflies were found on the South Island of the archipelago. The seaside location of the regions can significantly limit the number of species in the local faunas of butterflies due to unfavorable climatic conditions. The flight time of Lepidoptera is usually very short and falls on the warmest period, while the flight time can significantly shift depending on weather conditions.

Among animals, Arctic foxes, lemmings, ptarmigan, and reindeer are common. Polar bears come to the southern regions with the onset of cold weather, posing a threat to local residents. Sea animals include the harp seal, seal, sea hare, walruses, and whales.

Nuclear test site

However, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the creation of the landfill on Novaya Zemlya, the head of the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency, Alexander Rumyantsev, said that Russia intends to continue to develop the landfill and maintain it in working order. At the same time, Russia is not going to conduct nuclear tests on the archipelago, but intends to carry out non-nuclear experiments to ensure the reliability, combat effectiveness and safety of storing its nuclear weapons.

Disposal of radioactive waste

In addition to nuclear weapons tests, the territory of Novaya Zemlya (or rather, the water area adjacent directly to its eastern coast) in 1957-1992 was used for the disposal of liquid and solid radioactive waste (RW). Basically, these were containers with spent nuclear fuel (and in some cases, entire reactor plants) from submarines and surface ships of the Northern Fleet of the USSR and Russian Navy, as well as icebreakers with nuclear power plants.

Such radioactive waste disposal sites are the bays of the archipelago: Sedov Bay, Oga Bay, Tsivolki Bay, Stepovoy Bay, Abrosimov Bay, Blagopoluchiya Bay, Techeniy Bay, as well as a number of points in the Novaya Zemlya depression stretching along the entire archipelago. As a result of such activities, many underwater potentially hazardous objects (POCOs) were formed at the bottom of the Kara Sea and the bays of Novaya Zemlya. Among them: the entirely submerged nuclear submarine "K-27" (1981, Stepovoy Bay), the reactor compartments and assemblies of a number of other nuclear submarines, the reactor compartment of the atomic icebreaker "Lenin" (1967, Tsivolki Bay).

Since 2002, the areas where the PCPO is located have been subject to annual monitoring by the Ministry of Emergencies of Russia. In 1992-1994, international expeditions were carried out (with the participation of specialists from Norway) to assess the degree of pollution environment, since 2012 the activities of such expeditions have been resumed.

Notes (edit)

Regional law of September 23, 2009 N 65-5-OZ "On the administrative-territorial structure of the Arkhangelsk region"
Charter of the Arkhangelsk region
Knipovich N.M., Shokalsky Yu.M.// Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
Maze
New Earth. Book 2. Part 1. Under total. ed. P.V. Boyarsky. M., 1998.
Unknown Arctic // Novaya Zemlya Vesti, Friday, December 06, 2013. No. 49 (417)
Charnock, Richard Stephen... Local Etymology: A Derivative Dictionary of Geographical Names. - London: Houlston and Wright, 1859. - P. 192.
Alexandrova V.D., Zubkov A.I. Physico-geographical sketch of Novaya Zemlya.
Georges Blond. The great hour of the oceans. Polar seas. - M., 1984 .-- S. 22.
Tsiporukha M.I. Seas of the Russian Arctic
Pierre Martin de Lamartiniere. Travel to the Nordic countries
Everything about the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. Mastering the New Earth
Everything about the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. Settlement of Novaya Zemlya
Sosnovskiy I.V. The most submissive report on the state of the Arkhangelsk province for 1909. Arkhangelsk, 1911 (unspecified) . Project "Electronic Memory of the Arctic"... emaproject.com. Retrieved January 30, 2013. Archived February 1, 2013.
Nature and People, 1912, no. 21
About the municipality
Boyarsky P. Russian Arctic is unique (unspecified) ... // Internet edition "Vesti.ru"(June 27, 2009). Retrieved April 23, 2016.
Donskikh, Ekaterina. Adventurer in the Arctic. How a unique scientist grew out of a romantic // Arguments and Facts. - 2014. - No. 9 (1738) of February 26... - S. 62. (Retrieved April 23, 2016)
Hydrographers of the Northern Fleet discovered an island in the area of Novaya Zemlya (Russian), TASS... Retrieved October 12, 2017.
Novaya Zemlya - history of settlement (unspecified) ... arhangelsk.allnw.ru. Retrieved January 30, 2013. Archived February 1, 2013.

Map of the islands of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago.

Novaya Zemlya is an island archipelago, located practically at the junction of the Barents, Kara and Pechora seas of the Arctic Ocean, about 50 kilometers distant to the north from Vaigach Island by the Kara Gates Strait. It is generally accepted that the islands of the archipelago received their general name "Novaya Zemlya" from Novgorod merchants and explorers, who considered the lands they saw beyond the strait to be new.

The Novaya Zemlya archipelago consists of the two largest islands in terms of area, South and North, separated by the narrow Matochkin Shar Strait, as well as many small islands and rocks located nearby. Among other smaller islands and island groups, the Mezhdusharsky islands (the third largest in the archipelago), Bolshoi Oransky, Petukhovsky, Pyniny, Pastukhov and Gorbovy islands are distinguished.

The total area of the islands of the archipelago exceeds 83 thousand square kilometers.

Archipelago Novaya Zemlya territorially belongs Russian Federation and is administratively included in the Arkhangelsk region in the status of a territorial municipality.

View of the Severny Island from the plane.

Story.

In ancient times, the islands of Novaya Zemlya were inhabited by representatives of unknown tribes who belong to the Ust-Poluisk culture. The reasons that led to the decline of this tribe are not known. Scientists argue that the climate on Novaya Zemlya over the past 1000-1200 years has become much harsher than it was before.

It is believed that Novgorodian merchants and explorers, who, reaching the Yugorsky Peninsula, saw new lands in the distance beyond the Vaygach Island, opened the Novgorod Archipelago, which had been deserted and depopulated by the 10th century, during the 12th-13th centuries. This name was later assigned to the islands of the archipelago.

In the summer of 1553, the Englishman Hugh Willoughby, who led an expedition to open the northern routes to India, was the first among Europeans to see the islands of the archipelago.

According to Hugh Willoughby's notes, the Dutch geographer and cartographer Gerard Mercator published a map in 1595 on which the New Earth was plotted as a peninsula.

The Dutch expedition of Willem Barentsz in 1596 circled the Novaya Zemlya archipelago from the north, and also overwintered in the Ice Harbor of the North Island.

The Frenchman Pierre-Martin de la Martiner visited Novaya Zemlya with Danish merchants in 1653 and discovered on the coast of the South Island the local Samoyed tribes, who had arrived on the island in search of a fur-bearing animal.

Cape Desire (North Island).

The Russian Tsar Peter I had plans to build a fort on Novaya Zemlya in order to indicate the Russian presence in these lands.

In the period 1768-1769, the first Russian explorer and traveler Fyodor Rozmyslov visited Novaya Zemlya.

In the 19th century, Russia officially announced territorial claims to the islands of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago and began to forcibly populate them with the Nenets and Pomors.

In 1910, on the Severny Island, the village of Olginsky was founded, which at that time became the northernmost settlement in Russian Empire.

On September 17, 1954, a Soviet nuclear test site was created on the Novaya Zemlya Islands. Its center was in Belushya Guba, and it included three more sites in different parts of the archipelago.

In 1961, the most powerful explosion of a 58-megaton hydrogen bomb in the history of mankind was made at the Novaya Zemlya test site.

At present, the nuclear test site on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago is the only nuclear test site in Russia.

View of the Kruzenshtern mountain.

The origin and geography of the island.

The Novaya Zemlya archipelago is quite impressive in area, so its geographical coordinates it is customary to determine by the approximate geographic center: 74 ° 00 ′ s. sh. 56 ° 00 ′ east etc.

The islands of the archipelago stretch in a wide arc 120-140 kilometers wide from southwest to northeast for about 925 kilometers. The northernmost point of the Novoaya Zemlya archipelago is the Eastern Island of the Great Oran Islands, the southernmost point is the Pyniny Island in the Petukhovsky Archipelago, the westernmost point is Cape Bezymyany on the Goose Land peninsula on Yuzhny Island, and the easternmost point is Cape Flissing on the Northern Island, which is the most eastern point of Europe.

The coastline of the islands of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago is rather winding and forms many bays and fjords that cut deep into the land. The largest bays are considered on the western coast - Mityushikha Bay, Krestovaya Bay, Mashigina Bay, Glazov Bay, Borzova, Inostrantseva, Russkaya Gavan and Nordenskheld, on the east - Rusanova, Oga, Bear, Unknown and Schubert.

The relief of the islands of the archipelago is mountainous, and the shores are rocky and mostly inaccessible. Towards the central part of the islands, the height of the mountains increases. The highest point of the archipelago is an unnamed mountain on Severny Island, 15 kilometers south of Nordenskjold Bay (sometimes called Mount Kruzenshtern), 1547 meters above sea level. Most of the North Island is covered with glaciers, which, going down to the coast from the mountains, can even form small icebergs.

On the islands of the South and North, in the mountainous regions, many small rivulets originate, flowing into the Kara and Barents Seas. Among the lakes, it is worth noting Lake Goltsovoye, located in the southern part of Severny Island, and Gusinoe, located in the west of Yuzhny Island.

By their origin, the islands of the archipelago are classified as mainland islands. Most likely, they were formed during the movement of continents in a period distant from us by 26 million years, and are the same age as the Ural Mountains, the continuation of the system of which they are. There is a hypothesis that the islands (at least the South Island) were a peninsula until about the middle of the 16th century (it was originally designated as such on the maps of that time), and then, when the seabed subsided in the Kara Gates Strait, it became an island. Opponents of this theory argue that the islands are part of a powerful ancient geological platform, and the likelihood of such cataclysms in this area is negligible.

The geological structure of the islands of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago consists mainly of basalts and granites. Of the minerals, there are large deposits of manganese and iron ores, in addition to them there are small deposits of tin, silver and lead, as well as rare earth metals.

Lake Gusinoe (South Island).

Climate.

The climate on the Novaya Zemlya islands is harsh; it should be classified according to its type, as arctic. Winter here is long and cold enough, with strong gusty winds, the speed of which sometimes exceeds 40-50 meters per second. Blizzards and snowfalls are also frequent in winter. Frosts during this period can reach -40 ° C. In summer, the air temperature never rises above +7 degrees.

View of the Belushya Guba village from the plane.

Population.

After the creation of a Soviet nuclear test site on Novaya Zemlya, the indigenous population that had settled here since the time of the Russian Empire was taken to the continent. In the deserted settlements, military and technical personnel settled, who ensured the life of the landfill facilities. Currently, there are only two settlements on the Yuzhny Island - Belushya Guba and Rogachevo; there is no permanent population on the Severny Island and other islands of the archipelago.

The total population of the archipelago currently does not exceed two and a half thousand people. These are mainly meteorologists, military and technical personnel of military installations.

Administratively, Novaya Zemlya as a closed territorial municipal entity is assigned to the management of the Arkhangelsk region of the Russian Federation.

Residential buildings in the village of Belushya Guba.

Flora and fauna.

The ecosystem of the Novaya Zemlya islands is classified as a biome inherent in arctic deserts (northern part of Severny Island) and arctic tundra (Yuzhny Island).

Under these conditions, only mosses and lichens survive well from plants on the islands. In addition to them, especially in the southern regions of the archipelago, arctic herbaceous annual grasses also grow, most of which are classified as creeping species. Among them, naturalists in these places distinguish creeping willow (Salix polaris), opposite-leaved saxifrage (Saxifraga oppositifolia), as well as mountain lichen. On the Yuzhny Island there are also quite frequent dwarf birches and low grasses. In river valleys and in the lake area, mushrooms are found, among which honey mushrooms and milk mushrooms stand out in their number.

In the lakes and rivers of the islands, fish are found, among which the overwhelming majority of the Arctic char.

The fauna of the islands is represented by such mammals as arctic fox, lemming and reindeer. In winter, there are always a lot of polar bears on the southern coast of Yuzhny Island. Of the marine mammals on the coast of the islands, harp seals, seals, bearded seals and walruses arrange their rookeries. Whales enter the coastal waters and even the inner bays of the islands.

The bird world on the islands is represented by guillemots, puffins and gulls, which form here almost the largest bird colonies in Russia. The non-sea birds nesting on the islands include the ptarmigan.

Typical landscape of the Novaya Zemlya islands.

Tourism.

The islands of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago continue to remain closed to a large number of visitors. The presence of a mothballed nuclear test site and other military facilities of the Russian army make tourism to these places almost impossible. Visits to the islands of the archipelago are carried out exclusively with special permissions from the Russian authorities with the strictest observance of secrecy. The entry of scientists and naturalists to the islands also at the moment remains practically impossible, which causes a lot of complaints about this from the world community. Environmental organizations are seriously concerned about the ecological situation on the islands of the archipelago, which has become much more complicated during the period of nuclear tests. On this occasion, UNESCO tried to create a special commission on environmental problems in Novaya Zemlya, but the decision was categorically blocked by the Russian side.

South coast of the South Island.

It stretches from southwest to northeast for 925 km. The northernmost point of Novaya Zemlya is the eastern island of the Big Oran Islands, the southernmost point is the Pyniny Islands of the Petukhovsky Archipelago, the western one is an unnamed cape on the Gusinaya Zemlya Peninsula of the South Island, the eastern is the Cape of Flissing Island Severny. The area of all islands is more than 83 thousand km2; the width of the Northern Island is up to 123 km, the South Island - up to 143 km.

In the south, it is separated from the Vaygach Island by the Karskiye Vorota Strait (50 km wide).

The climate is arctic and harsh. Winter is long and cold, with strong winds (the speed of katabatic (katabatic) winds reaches 40-50 m / s) and snowstorms, in connection with which Novaya Zemlya is sometimes called the "Land of Winds" in the literature. Frosts reach? 40 ° C. The average temperature of the warmest month - August - ranges from 2.5 ° C in the north to 20 ° C in the south. In winter, the difference reaches 4.6 °. The difference in temperature conditions between the coasts of the Barents and Kara Seas exceeds 5 °. This temperature asymmetry is due to the difference in the ice regime of these seas. There are many small lakes on the archipelago itself; under the rays of the sun, the water temperature in the southern regions can reach 18 ° C.

About half of the area of the North Island is occupied by glaciers. On an area of about 20,000 km? - continuous ice cover, stretching for almost 400 km in length and up to 70-75 km in width. The ice thickness is over 300 m. In a number of places the ice descends into the fjords or breaks off into the open sea, forming ice barriers and giving rise to icebergs. The total glaciated area of Novaya Zemlya is 29767 km2, of which about 92% are ice sheets and 7.9% are mountain glaciers. On the South Island there are sections of the Arctic tundra.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Something about the geology and climate of the archipelago

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

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

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

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

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

The highest frequency of occurrence of the Novaya Zemlya bora is observed in November - April, with a duration not infrequently of 10 days or more. During bora, all visible air is filled with thick snow and resembles smoking smoke. Visibility in these cases often reaches its complete absence - 0 meters. Such storms are dangerous for people and equipment; they require prudence and caution from residents when moving in case of emergency.

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

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

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

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

Modern life on Novaya Zemlya

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to get to Novaya Zemlya

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

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

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

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

History of Novaya Zemlya

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

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

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

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

Discovery of Novaya Zemlya by foreign sailors

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

First unsuccessful expedition:

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

The following unfinished expeditions, but without casualties:

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

Expeditions with victims, but also achieved goals:

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

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

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

Subsequent expeditions:

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

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

Exploration of Novaya Zemlya by Russians

It all started with two unsuccessful expeditions:

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

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

Finally, relative luck:

In the years 1760-1761. Savva Loshkin first sailed from south to north along the eastern coast of Novaya Zemlya, spending two years on it. One of his winter quarters, apparently, was built at the mouth of the Savina River. Loshkin skirted the northern coast and went down south along the western coast.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Commercial development of Novaya Zemlya

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Population of Novaya Zemlya (its inhabitants)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These Samoyeds were sent here by one Pechora industrialist, and were supplied with by good means for crafts, but squandered them and, not risking returning to their homeland, completely got used to the New Earth. Finding themselves in complete economic dependence on one of the industrialists-Pomors, who supplied them with the necessary supplies, instead of this - of course, at fabulously cheap prices - taking away their handicrafts, the Samoyeds asked Tyagin to include them in the Samoyed artel brought with the funds of the Society for Rescue on Waters. " ... A.P. Engelhardt. Russian North: Travel notes. St. Petersburg, publishing house A.S. Suvorin, 1897

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

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

The first known inhabitant of Novaya Zemlya - Foma Vylka

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mastering the New Earth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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