Voronina Island
Encyclopedia
The main Voronina Island is about 9 km long and 6 km wide and is covered with tundra vegetation and ice. The northern islet is narrow, about 5 km in length and little more than 500 metres in width. These islands are located in the northeastern regions of the Kara Sea
Kara Sea
The Kara Sea is part of the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia. It is separated from the Barents Sea to the west by the Kara Strait and Novaya Zemlya, and the Laptev Sea to the east by the Severnaya Zemlya....
, about 130 km west of Severnaya Zemlya
Severnaya Zemlya
Severnaya Zemlya is an archipelago in the Russian high Arctic at around . It is located off mainland Siberia's Taymyr Peninsula across the Vilkitsky Strait...
's shores and 72 km NNE of Kirova Island of the Kirov
Kirov Islands
The Kirov Islands or Sergey Kirov Islands , also known as Kerova Islands, is an archipelago of small islands covered with tundra vegetation...
group.
The sea surrounding these lonely two islands is covered with pack ice in the winter and there are numerous ice floes even in the summer, which lasts barely two months. The climate is so severe that there are years where at Voronina Island's latitude the surrounding waters of the Kara Sea don't melt and remain frozen solid through the summer.
This island group belongs to the Krasnoyarsk Krai
Krasnoyarsk Krai
Krasnoyarsk Krai is a federal subject of Russia . It is the second largest federal subject after the Sakha Republic, and Russia's largest krai, occupying an area of , which is 13% of the country's total territory. The administrative center of the krai is the city of Krasnoyarsk...
administrative division of the Russian Federation. Voronina is also a breeding ground for polar bear
Polar Bear
The polar bear is a bear native largely within the Arctic Circle encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the world's largest land carnivore and also the largest bear, together with the omnivorous Kodiak Bear, which is approximately the same size...
s and a wildlife refuge part of the Great Arctic State Nature Reserve
Great Arctic State Nature Reserve
The Great Arctic State Nature Reserve is a nature reserve in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia...
, the largest nature reserve of the Russian Arctic.
The Voronina Islands have been named after Soviet Navy
Soviet Navy
The Soviet Navy was the naval arm of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy would have played an instrumental role in a Warsaw Pact war with NATO, where it would have attempted to prevent naval convoys from bringing reinforcements across the Atlantic Ocean...
Captain Vladimir Voronin. Since "Voronina" is a Russian genitive, the combination "Voronina Islands" is technically incorrect. Even so, the name "Voronina Island" (or "Islands") has become popular and its use has been widespread in this manner for many decades and in many modern maps and atlases. "Voronin Islands", which would be the grammatically correct way of naming these islands in English, is very rarely used.
See also
- Kara SeaKara SeaThe Kara Sea is part of the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia. It is separated from the Barents Sea to the west by the Kara Strait and Novaya Zemlya, and the Laptev Sea to the east by the Severnaya Zemlya....