The Arctic is the land of Franz Joseph. Journey to Franz Joseph Land (45 photos). Dog Street and Aircraft Hangar of the Museum Island

Geographical position

Franz Josef Land- an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, in northern Europe. Part of the polar possessions of Russia, part of the Primorsky region Arkhangelsk region.
The archipelago consists of 192 islands. total area 16,134 km². It is divided into 3 parts: the eastern part, separated from the others by the Austrian Strait, with the large islands of Wilczek Land (2.0 thousand km²), Graham Bell (1.7 thousand km²); the central one - between the Austrian Strait and the British Channel, where the largest group of islands is located, and the western one - to the west of the British Channel, which includes the largest island of the entire archipelago - George's Land (2.9 thousand km²).

The surface of most of the islands of the Franz Josef Land archipelago is plateau-like. Average heights reach 400-490 m (the highest point of the archipelago is 620 m).

The coast west of Cape Fligeli on Rudolf Island is the northernmost point of Russia and Franz Josef Land. Cape Mary Harmsworth is the westernmost point of the archipelago, Lamont Island is the southernmost, and Cape Olney on Graham Bell Island is the easternmost.

How to get there


Since Franz Josef Land is an uninhabited area, there is no established transport communication not with him. Since the times of the Soviet Union, there have been several airports on the islands, serving primarily military purposes. But they are currently mothballed, like most Arctic airports.

Expeditions and tourist cruises to Franz Josef Land are carried out on icebreakers starting from Murmansk. At the same time, covering the distance from the edge of the continent to the first southern islands of the archipelago can take more than a day.

Climate


The climate on Franz Josef Land is typically arctic. It's always frosty and cold here. However, summer is still different from winter. In June, the maximum temperature is set on Hayes Island and reaches +1.6 °C. At the same time, average summer temperatures converge at −1.2 °C. January is characterized by a temperature of −24 °C, but sometimes there are much more severe frosts. Winds in the archipelago can reach speeds of up to 40 m/s.

Video

Population


There is no permanent population. The temporary population consists of scientists at research stations, FSB border guards and military personnel of the air defense unit carrying out missile defense of Russia from the northern direction.

On Hayes Island in 2005, according to press reports, the world's northernmost post office, Arkhangelsk 163100, was opened, which was supposed to work for 1 hour, from 10 to 11 a.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. As of September 2013, under the index 163100 there is a post office “Arkhangelsk - o. Hayes Franz Josef Land”, which is open from 10 to 11 o’clock on Wednesdays.

Nature


Flora and fauna. The vegetation cover is dominated by mosses and lichens. There are also polar poppy, saxifrage, grains, and polar willow. Mammals include the polar bear and, less commonly, the arctic fox. The waters surrounding the islands are home to seals, bearded seals, harp seals, walruses, narwhals and beluga whales. The most numerous birds (26 species) are: little auks, guillemots, guillemots, kittiwakes, white gulls, glaucous gulls, etc., forming so-called bird colonies in the summer. There are polar stations on the islands of Alexandra Land and Rudolf Island. On Hayes Island there is a geophysical observatory named after E. T. Krenkel (since 1957).
Most of the islands are covered with glaciers; in places free from them there are many lakes, covered with ice most of the year. Permafrost.

Lakes. Many lakes still do not have names; the following have acquired their own designations: Kosmicheskoe, Ledyanoe, Melkoe, Severnoe, Utinoe, Shirshova.
Glaciers.The study of glaciation on the archipelago began especially intensively with the beginning of the International Geophysical Year. As a result of two years of field work, the participants of this Russian expedition of the USSR Academy of Sciences received the first summary of the glaciology of the territory, which was published in the collective monograph “Glaciation of Franz Josef Land” (authors M. G. Grosvald et al., 1973). It contained characteristics of the morphology of glacial complexes, glacial climate, ice formation zones, temperature conditions, structure and tectonics of glaciers. Russian glaciologist M. G. Grovald and his colleagues were the first to make an important conclusion that glaciation in the FJL is decreasing: over the past 30 years, the archipelago has lost an average of 3.3 km³ of ice per year. Before these works, the world scientific community was of the opinion that glaciation in the FJL was stationary, or even growing.

Glaciers cover 87% of the archipelago's territory. Ice thickness ranges from 100 to 500 m. Glaciers descending into the sea produce a large number of icebergs. The most intense glaciation is observed in the southeast and east of each island and the archipelago as a whole. Ice formation occurs only on the top surfaces of ice domes. The glaciers of the archipelago are rapidly shrinking, and if the observed rate of degradation continues, the glaciation of Franz Josef Land may disappear in 300 years.

Where permafrost prevails and the average annual temperature is −12 °C.

The Archipelago is located approximately a thousand kilometers from the North Pole. Most of Franz Josef Land is covered by glaciers.

Although, one should not confuse FJL with the North Pole. In summer, temperatures here can still reach +12 °C and the snow usually melts in July.

During this period, the ground is exposed, which in just a couple of weeks is covered with mosses and lichens, as well as flowering polar poppies, saxifrage, polar willow and other unpretentious plants.

There are not that many birds here, but they are there. These are little auks, guillemots, guillemots, kittiwakes, white gulls, glaucous gulls, terns, skuas, eiders, geese, etc.

Animals include polar bear and arctic fox. By the way, did you know that the polar bear is a marine mammal and even the Latin name for the polar bear - Ursus maritimus - translates as “sea bear”? In the sea there are also seals, bearded seals, harp seals, walruses, narwhals and beluga whales.

Franz Josef Land is a region included in a small area natural area, known as the polar desert zone.

People have never lived in the FJL for obvious reasons - there is no firewood, no berries, no mushrooms, no deer that can be domesticated, or other animals that can be hunted. There is simply nothing to feed and keep warm here. Even driftwood (logs brought by the sea) does not burn here, unlike driftwood on the coast. This happens, apparently, because wet firewood simply does not have time to dry, so it is completely “saturated” with ice all year round.

However, in the twentieth century, during the development of the Arctic, weather stations and military camps were built on Franz Josef Land, so it turned out that with the complicity of civilization it was possible to live here. True, all this costs a lot of money, given the high cost of delivering food, fuel and building materials.

History of the emergence of Franz Josef Land (geological history)

In pre-Paleozoic times on the site of the modern Barents Sea there was a huge continent, extending west to the coast of Greenland. During the Paleozoic period, powerful mountain-building movements began to occur, after which most of the current Barents Sea began to represent a continent with difficult mountainous terrain.

However, erosion and denudation processes gradually cut off mountainous terrain mainland, turned it into a flat country,which in Upper Devonian time was captured by the waters of the sea.

At the beginning of the Permian time it began to happen raising the bottom marine geosynclinal basins and their shallowing. Later, mountain-building movements appeared, accompanied by energetic volcanic activity. Mountain-forming processes were powerful mountain ranges Novaya Zemlya, Urals, Kanin and parts of Spitsbergen. The rise of the shelf is accompanied volcanic eruptions(basalt covers of Spitsbergen and Franz Josef Land). According to Fridtjof Nansen, on the site of the Barents Sea in Tertiary times there was Mountain country, elevated above modern sea level by 500 m.

In Quaternary time there was placement of powerful ice sheets. During the maximum phase of glaciation, under the influence of glacial load, the islands and adjacent areas of the seabed sank by 300-400 m. In late and post-glacial times, loss of ice sheets and complex fluctuations coastline seas. The process of raising the coastline of the Barents Sea continues today. The rate of general uplift of the archipelago over the past 7000 years is 1-5 mm/year.

By the way, on Franz Josef Land you can still find pieces of petrified trees, as well as deer antlers, which suggests that once upon a time a variety of flora and fauna could have actively grown and lived here.

Reindeer lived on Franz Josef Land in the Middle Holocene (8-2.5 thousand years ago). It follows that in the Middle Holocene the climate of the archipelago was warmer and the vegetation richer than at present.

The end of the "time of the deer" can be precisely dated. Deer antlers are not found below the 5-meter level. Consequently, climate deterioration, a major advance of glaciers and the extinction of deer on the islands of the archipelago occurred when its shores were 5 m lower, i.e. about 2.5 thousand years ago.

The extinction of deer and the major advance of glaciers on the archipelago coincides with the movement of the forest zone to the south and the revival of the tundra zone along north coast Russia, as well as with the departure of thermophilic fauna from the coastal waters of Spitsbergen.

History of the discovery and development of Franz Josef Land

Theoretical discovery of ZFI

The first thoughts about the need to explore the northern territories appeared in the 18th century. Mikhail Lomonosov in his work entitled " Short description various voyages through the northern seas and an indication of the possible passage of the Siberian Ocean to East India,” intended to find islands east of Spitsbergen.

At the end of the sixties of the nineteenth century, the famous Russian meteorologist A.I. Voeikov raised the question of organizing a large expedition to explore the Russian polar seas. This idea was warmly supported by the famous geographer and revolutionary, anarchist theorist Prince P.A. Kropotkin.

Various considerations, but mainly observations of the ice of the Barents Sea, led Kropotkin to the conclusion that “between Spitsbergen and Novaya Zemlya there is not yet open land, which extends to the north beyond Spitsbergen and holds the ice behind it... The possible existence of such an archipelago was indicated by the Russian naval officer Baron Schilling in his excellent but little-known report on currents in the Arctic Ocean.” In 1870, Kropotkin drew up a project for the expedition. However, the tsarist government refused funds, and the expedition did not take place.

Practical opening of the FFI

Franz Josef Land was discovered by the Austro-Hungarian expedition of Julius Payer and Karl Weyprecht, and it was explored by everyone - the British, the Scots, and the Americans... But we still got it. In the photo are Julius Payer and Karl Weyprecht. By the way, what kind of fur coat does one of them have? Not from the Red Book polar bear?)

In 1901, the archipelago was explored by the first Russian expedition on the icebreaker Ermak under the command of Vice Admiral Makarov. It is alleged that it was during this period that the Russian flag was first raised on the islands of the archipelago.

In 1914, in search of G. Ya. Sedov, Ishak Islyamov visited the archipelago. He also announced the FFI Russian territory and raised the Russian flag over it.

Some sources (even in the same notorious Wikipedia) write that it was Islyamov who declared ZFI as Russian territory. Although, Makarov had already raised the flag before him, so it seems that it was Makarov who was the first to claim Russia’s rights to Franz Josef Land?

Why such a wayfarer arose - I don’t know, but for the sake of fairness I will note both facts - and you decide for yourself who was first.

Considering that the Barents Sea shelf adjacent to the FFI is promising for the discovery of hydrocarbon deposits here, the Archipelago can become a very profitable “acquisition”.

Islyamov, having announced the acquisition of a new territory for the country, proposed to immediately rename it from Franz Josef Land to the Romanov Lands, but the proposal was stuck in the bureaucratic jungle. And there, first one empire went down into history, and immediately after it another. Iskhak Islyamov became a member of the Helsingfors Muslim Executive Committee of the Army, Navy and Workers, then fought as part of the White Army, emigrated, and headed the hydrographic part of the Russian naval base in Constantinople.

In 1926, the USSR Central Executive Committee adopted a decree according to which all Arctic islands adjacent to the land borders of the state were declared Soviet territory. Three years later, in the summer of 1929, Otto Schmidt, during a polar expedition on the icebreaking steamer Georgiy Sedov, hoisted the Soviet flag on the archipelago.

In 1929, the Soviet government decided to establish a research station to enhance scientific work in the Arctic. At the same time, the first Soviet research station opened in Tikhaya Bay on Hooker Island. In 1931, the archipelago was declared territory of the Soviet Union, from which time development began North Pole Soviet researchers. Since then, the archipelago has been visited annually by Soviet polar expeditions.

The Soviet government was going to change the name of Franz Joseph as politically inconvenient and rename the archipelago in honor of the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen or the Russian anarchist Kropotkin, but the decision was never understood.

In addition to scientists, military personnel have settled heavily in the FJL. In 1936, the first USSR military air base was established on Rudolf Island. And then off we went... However, in the 90s of the twentieth century, due to well-known economic and political reasons, the military left the archipelago, leaving only the Nagurskoye border post, located on the island of Alexandra Land, to function.

The town of the border linear department of military unit 9794, including the most northern airport and the border post - it still works. Not long ago, an excellent two-story building was built there with all the amenities: central heating, sewerage, cold and hot water, satellite TV. There is a “winter garden” inside the complex, although the plants and trees there are artificial. The border guards call this garden the “Atrium”. There is always a blue sky with cumulus clouds, a children's playground, a fountain, benches, billiards, an aquarium with live fish, a cinema hall, and table tennis.

Only officers and warrant officers serve in Nagurskoye. A third of the border guards live at the outpost with their wives. They fly here from Vorkuta and Arkhangelsk. Dense fogs, low clouds, precipitation and strong winds - this is the weather in Alexandra Land all year round. There were cases of unsuccessful landings, but an amazing thing: in its entire history, not a single person on the island died.

Although, there were victims on other islands. For example, on Graham Bell, where from the 50s to the 90s of the twentieth century there was a unique ice airfield, there were plane crashes with casualties a couple of times.

The crew of the 254th flight detachment took off from the Nagurskaya airfield at 08:20 Moscow time with the aim of reconnaissance of the ice conditions of the northern approaches to ensure the withdrawal of the icebreaker "Indigirka". The connection stopped after 3 hours 40 minutes. after takeoff. On October 23, an Il-14 aircraft was discovered on the northwestern slope of the glacier. Graham Bell destroyed and burned. During the fire at the disaster site, the ice partially melted and therefore the debris was found frozen into the glacier. Only 4 bodies were found.

In the last report, the crew reported their coordinates, true heading and flight altitude. From Fr. Hoffman's plane passed north of the island. Graham Bell and, having flown around it from the south, entered the Morgan Strait. During the flight, the crew repeatedly requested the actual weather of the Graham Bell and Sredny airfields, but the data was not transmitted due to their absence. Despite the presence in the area of. Graham Bell weather was below the minimum for flights in the area of ​​islands and straits, the crew continued to carry out the mission and encountered severe weather conditions in the Morgan Strait.

At 11:50 the crew inquired whether the Graham Bell airfield drive was operating. Having received a negative answer, the crew requested a press on the communication transmitter to determine the bearing. Having determined the bearing, the crew considered that they had already passed the dangerous bottleneck of the strait. Heading for Graham Bell airfield, the crew believed that the flight was passing over the fast ice of the strait. Due to design flaws, neither the radio altimeter nor the radar provided true indications of the flight altitude and the actual picture of the terrain flown when flying over glacial massifs. In fact, the flight took place over the rising slope of a glacier. At an altitude of 150 m in horizontal flight, the plane collided with the slope of a glacier. Having separated, it flew 750 m, once again collided with the slope of the glacier at an altitude of 200 m, collapsed and burned. In memory of the victims, the westernmost cape of the island was named Cape of the Seven.

During the day, in normal weather conditions, while landing at the Ice Base airfield, 53 km from Graham Bell Island, an accident occurred with An-12 aircraft No. 12962 of the Krasnoyarsk Civil Aviation Administration. The crew of the Norilsk OJSC consisting of the ship's commander A.D. Ulagashev, co-pilot A.I. Menzhulin, crew navigator V.P. Chikhachev, flight mechanic E.A. and flight radio operator A.A. Kalachev carried out a transport flight to service the high-latitude expedition “North-86”.

On the pre-landing straight, due to the general whiteness from the freshly fallen snow, the ship's commander was unable to determine the distance to the snow-covered ice surface, but continued the approach, allowing the vertical rate of descent to be exceeded. Before reaching the start of the runway, the plane collided with a snow parapet and suffered a breakdown. The cause of the accident was the ship's commander's error in calculating the landing and in determining the moment of leveling due to his incomplete preparation for flights for this type of work, as well as the violation by the flight command staff of the standards for crew admission to flights to service high-latitude expeditions. As a result of movement and hummocking of the ice, on May 12, 1986, the fuselage of the aircraft, prepared for evacuation, sank.

And finally, near the airfield lies AN-12 No. 11994, but no information about him could be found.

On one of the forums I found information that it was just an unsuccessful landing - the plane landed on the runway too early. But there were no casualties - everything ended well.

If we talk about casualties, then I suspect that the main danger on the Franz Josef Land Archipelago arises from polar bears. Although, on the other hand, considering great amount bears in the Polar Region, there were not many deaths due to them. It is believed that Franz Josef Land is a maternity hospital for polar bears, so it can be assumed that the servicemen encountered predators constantly. This means that the percentage of accidents is actually not high at all.

Well, again, if people died at the Polar Field, it was solely because of their own stupidity and negligence. Everything is the same as everywhere else. Here's an example story:

“The next day we flew to Naguria and back, it’s about two and a half thousand kilometers. And then an urgent medical flight to Osir Grem-Bell, to ZFI. There's some kind of communications company there. The soldier took a sip of alcohol, got it somewhere, and he felt very bad. We took him, and while we were going to Dixon, he died in the arms of our nurse.

We arrived, and they told us: guys, we need to fly there again, urgently. It turns out that when they found out there, a whole line lined up to see the doctor: and we tried it! We went there again, and it was already the second day that we went, what kind of scientific and technical establishment is there? Let's go to the soldiers: brothers, we say, whoever tried at least a little, don't hide it, we're flying with us, we won't be able to do it a third time! In the air, two of them became very ill, one of them died in the hospital. It turned out that there was another one there, but we couldn’t, it was the third day. An ice scout was resting on Dikson, he was urgently picked up and flew off. And like this for a whole month. We flew one hundred and eighty hours.

Memoirs of polar aviation navigator Mark Solomonovich Edelshtein.”

Although, enough about the sad things. There are also many good things in Franz Josef Land. And few tourists have the opportunity to verify this.

Franz Josef Land in our time - photos, descriptions, maps

FJL is the northernmost territory of Russia, located approximately nine hundred kilometers from the North Pole. Administratively, the archipelago belongs to the Arkhangelsk region. Frankz Josef Land coordinates: 80.666667, 54.833333.

Wikipedia says that FJL consists of 192 islands. But it turns out that there were still certain doubts about this, and the 192nd island has not yet been officially “registered” and does not have a separate name.

The bottom line is that Northbrook Island in the southwest of the archipelago is two pieces of land separated by a strait. Moreover, initially it was considered a single island, but consisting of two parts connected by a narrow isthmus. However, due to the intensification of coastal processes, retreat sea ​​ice In the summer and the thawing of the permafrost, the isthmus was washed away, and a strait formed between the two sections of the island.

In the summer of 2007, the Norwegian Borge Ousland, together with a fellow athlete from Switzerland, Thomas Ullrich, made a memorial expedition - they followed in the footsteps of Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen and, in the process of exploring Northbrook Island, discovered the strait. They did not keep silent about their find, and sent a letter to the Russian Embassy in Norway with a statement about the discovery of a new island in the FJL. The letter was transmitted through the Russian Embassy in Norway to the Russian Foreign Ministry, and from there they sent an order to the Navigation and Oceanography Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense to figure out how many islands there actually are in the archipelago.

At the same time, after public statements about the “appearance of a new island in Russia,” deputies of the Arkhangelsk Regional Assembly named the island after the famous polar captain Yuri Kuchiev. And under this name it already appears on Wikipedia, although the decision of the regional assembly on this issue is not legitimate. So now all that remains is to complete the discovery - to officially recognize and name the new geographical objects, which will have to be done by the Office of Navigation and Oceanography and the Commission on Geographical Names.

Sights of Franz Josef Land

The northernmost branch of the Russian Post, weather station - Hayes Island

On August 25, 2005, Russian Post announced that it was opening the northernmost post office in the world, Arkhangelsk 163100. It is located on Hayes Island. The post office is open one day a week: Wednesday from 10 to 11 am. And what is important - without interruption.

Since the summer of 1957, the Krenkel Observatory has been located on the island.

Interesting information:

  • On Hayes Island, Vladimir Sanin wrote one of his most famous books, “Don’t Say Goodbye to the Arctic.”
  • On February 12, 1981, an Il-14 plane carrying equipment and scientists for the observatory crashed while landing on Hayes Island. The crashed plane can still be seen today.

Gallya Island, Cape Tegethoff

Cape Tegethoff Hall Island – iconic place. The Franz Josef Land archipelago was discovered here. On August 30, 1873, the ship Admiral Tegetthoff arrived here with the expedition of Julius Payer and Karl Weiprecht.

The remains of the winter quarters of Wellman's expedition are also located here.

Also famous are the cliffs at the tip of the island, which rise out of the sea itself.

Vilcek Island

Another island associated with the tragic events of the expedition of the discoverers of the archipelago is Vilcek Island. On the high island there is the grave of one of the expedition members on the ship Admiral Tegethoff, Otto Krisch, who was a mechanic on the ship and died in 1873 from scurvy.

Champa Island, Cape Trieste

Cape Trieste has unique rock formations ideal for... round shape– spherulites, or concretions. Marcasite nodules are found everywhere on the cape, and their sizes range from a few centimeters to several meters in diameter.

The word “concretions” comes from the Latin concretio – “accretion”. These are nodules, rounded mineral formations in sedimentary rocks. Its composition is sandstone. At the very center of the concretion is an organic core, around which loose material of continental origin has accumulated.

Strait of Negri

A narrow strait between Gall Island and McClintock Island. Some of the largest glaciers in the archipelago are located here. The strait is often literally clogged with icebergs.

Apollonov and Stolichka Islands

These islands do not stand out in appearance, and even on nautical charts Usually only the larger island is designated - Stolichka, but, as often happens, all the most interesting things are located on the island nearby, very small and inconspicuous. In this case, it is Apollo Island. The island is famous for the fact that it is home to one of the largest rookeries of Atlantic walruses, listed in the Red Book of the Russian Federation.

Hooker Island

On Hooker Island there is an abandoned Soviet polar station "Tikhaya". The station was opened in 1929 and closed in 1959, but at that time it was the largest Arctic research station in the USSR. Until today, the station has retained its appearance - you can see with your own eyes how polar explorers lived in those days.

Rubini Rock

The largest bird market, where more than 50 thousand birds nest. Among them are kittiwakes, guillemots, guillemots, glaucous guillemots and little auks. Guillemots nest directly on ledges. They do not build nests, but lay eggs on bare stone surfaces. Kittiwake gulls build nests from grasses, lichens and other vegetation, holding it together with their own droppings.

Alger Island

Here in 1901 the base camp of the expedition was located, which arrived in the archipelago on the steam yacht America. The expedition was financed by millionaire William Ziegler.

Wilczek Land, Cape Heller

The island contains the remains of the Fort McKinley winter quarters and the grave of Bernt Bentsen, who was unable to survive the winter of 1898-99. He was part of Walter Wellman's expedition, the main goal of which was to conquer the North Pole. The main camp of the expedition was located at Cape Tegetthoff on the island of Hall. A temporary food warehouse was organized at Cape Geller. It was built from large flat stones and covered with the skins of killed walruses and bears. The temperature inside it in winter remained below 10 degrees. In January 1899, Bernt Bentsen died. However, he was buried only in the spring. Before his death, he asked not to bury him until spring, as he feared that his body would become easy prey for arctic foxes and polar bears.

Rudolf Island, Cape Fligeli

Most northern cape archipelago Franz Josef Land - the extreme island point Russian Federation and Eurasia.

Rudolf Island, Teplitz Bay

In Teplitz Bay there is an abandoned meteorological station, which was built in 1931–1932. This was the second station on the archipelago and it operated until 1995.

Jackson Island

Jackson Island and Cape Norway are famous for the fact that Fridtjof Nansen and Jamar Johansen spent the winter here (1895–96). They were returning after an attempt to conquer the North Pole, as they thought, to Spitsbergen, but they came to Franz Josef Land. They had time to prepare for winter. They shot walruses and polar bears and built a dwelling in which they spent the winter, mostly lying down in one sleeping bag. On Christmas Day they turned their shirts inside out, and on New Year Nansen told Johansen that after everything they had been through together, he could just call him Fridtjof, and not Mr. Nansen, and shook his hand. But they remained on “you”. There is a memorial sign on the cape and the remains of a winter hut.

Northbrook Island, Cape Flora

A distinctive feature of the Franz Josef Land archipelago is the presence of a large number historical places– the remains of wintering camps of expeditions that planned to use the archipelago as launch pad to reach the North Pole, and some expeditions ended up in the archipelago after unsuccessful attempts to conquer the top of the planet. Almost all expeditions to Franz Josef Land stopped at Cape Flora of Northbrook Island.

The island was discovered by Benjamin Lee-Smith's expedition in 1880. His second expedition of 1881–1182 wintered here. Wintering was forced. Lee-Smith originally planned to spend the winter on Bell Island. In 1894, Briton Frederick Jackson built the first settlement on Cape Flora, Elmwood. The remains of the expedition's buildings can still be seen today.

In 1896, a historic meeting between Fridtjof Nansen and Frederick Jackson took place at Cape Flora. On June 17, two people approached the cape. No one was waiting for them or meeting them, and they themselves did not expect to meet anyone here. These were the famous polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen and his companion Frederik Jamar Johansen. They were covered from head to toe with soot and dirt, and they had two kayaks and sleds with them. For three years, on the Fram ship, specially built for navigation in ice and wintering, Nansen and his 12 companions planned to conquer the North Pole. In 1893, the Fram froze into the islands north of the New Siberian Islands archipelago. The ship passed much further south. After two years in the ice, the Fram reached its northernmost geographical location. 700 kilometers from the North Pole, Nansen and Johansen left the ship and set off to conquer the Pole on dog sleds and kayaks. On April 8, they reached a record latitude of 86 degrees 14 minutes north and were forced to turn south towards the Franz Josef Land archipelago. After wintering on Jackson Island at Cape Norway, they moved south and reached Cape Flora, where they met Jackson's expedition. This meeting actually saved their lives. At one time, Nansen did not take Frederick Jackson with him on the Fram, because he believed that the North Pole should be conquered by the Norwegians. Jackson was from Great Britain.

The Russian Arctic archipelago of Franz Josef Land lies east of Spitsbergen and northwest of the Novaya Zemlya Islands, far above the Arctic Circle and less than a thousand kilometers from the North Pole. Almost all of the 196 islands of the archipelago are located north of 80° N. w. The duration of the polar night in these places is 125 days, and the polar day is about 140.
The entire archipelago is divided into three groups. Eastern - the islands of Wilczek Land and Graham Bell - separated by the Austrian Strait. Central - many small islands, including Rudolph, Jackson, Salisbury and Hooker Islands, is located between the Austrian Strait and the British Channel. Western - largest islands archipelago George's Land with a height of 620 m and Alexandra Land - separated by the British Canal.
The straits and channels 500-600 m deep, separating the islands, are wide crevices cut through the basalt mass by powerful glaciers. Glaciers appeared on Franz Josef Land about a million years ago, when a period of cooling began in the Northern Hemisphere.
The relief of the islands of Franz Josef Land is represented by hills that form clusters in the form of a basalt plateau and reach an average height of 400-500 m above sea level. The plateau is covered with ice domes with tongues of glaciers leading to a cliff on the seashore, where icebergs break off from the glacier. On average, the glaciers of the archipelago lose up to 3.3 km 3 of ice in the form of icebergs per year. Glaciers cover over 85% of the archipelago's surface, and the ice thickness reaches 100-500 m.
The small ice-free surface is represented by rocky “oases”, bare capes and nunataks - rocks protruding above the surface of the ice sheet. Where there is no ice, permafrost reigns, and numerous nameless lakes can be seen. There are more than a thousand lakes here, some of which are quite large: up to 2 km2 in area and up to 10 m deep. Most of the year the lakes are covered with ice.
The entire archipelago is located in a zone of typical Arctic climate. In winter, the temperature drops to -52°C, stormy winds blow continuously, and snowstorms rage. The temperature could drop even lower, but in winter the force of the frost is to a large extent mitigated by the warm waters of the current.

History of discovery

This northern archipelago was discovered completely by accident, although assumptions about its existence were made by Russian naval officer N. G. Schilling in 1865 and the famous Russian geographer P.A. Kropotkin in 1870
In 1872, the ship of the Austro-Hungarian expedition of J. Payer and K. Weyprecht (researchers were looking for the Northeast Passage, the northern sea route from Atlantic Ocean in Tikhii) was covered with ice northwest of Novaya Zemlya. Drifting in the ice westward, in August 1873, the Austrian ship found itself off the coast earlier unknown land. The Austrians explored the shores, mapped the archipelago and named it in honor of Franz Joseph I, the ruler of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Subsequently, the archipelago was visited by the British in 1881-1882 and 1895-1897. They examined almost the entire archipelago and became convinced that it was much larger than the Austrians thought. The famous polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen visited the islands in 1895 and proved that the archipelago does not go further to the northeast, towards the pole. This was also confirmed by the American-Norwegian expedition of 1898 at the cost of the lives of people who died during wintering.
Starting from 1901, Russian expeditions began to come here regularly, in particular the expedition of G. Ya. Sedov in 1913-1914, which wintered near Hooker Island. Sedov tried to get to the North Pole, but died and, according to one version, was buried on Rudolf Island.
In 1914, the Russian expedition of hydrographic officer I. Islyamov dropped anchor in the waters of Franz Josef Land, declared the archipelago to be Russian territory and raised the Russian flag over it.
IN geographically Franz Josef Land is notable for the fact that Cape Fligeli on Rudolf Island is the most northern point Russia. In addition, the archipelago is located on the edge of the continental shelf and is the northernmost landmass of Eurasia.
As a legacy from ancient times, when the islands were warm and ferns grew here 200 million years ago, brown coal remained among the clay shales and sandstones of the archipelago at Cape Flora, which was used by polar explorers in their wintering grounds. However, due to the harsh natural conditions There is no industrial activity on the islands.
IN Soviet times Research stations operated here, there were stationary stations for radio engineering air defense forces, and even a separate detachment serving the ice airfield. Currently, the territory and facilities are abandoned; one observatory named after Ernst Krenkel operates on Hayes Island, and the islands themselves are visited only by individual tourist groups.

Flora and fauna

This land has a unique position and nature, formed at a distance from the mainland, and a natural reserve of federal significance “Franz Josef Land” with an area of ​​4.2 million hectares has been created here. The reserve serves the purpose of preserving the unique landscapes of the archipelago, as well as protecting the breeding areas of polar bears, marine mammals and mass nesting areas of birds. Among the especially valuable natural objects are the paleovolcano of Cape Bryce (Ziegler Island), non-freezing lakes, and Atlantic walrus rookeries.
The flora of the archipelago is poor in species, vegetation covers no more than 5-10% of the surface. Mosses and lichens predominate here - bright and multi-colored. Although rare, arctic flowers are also found: polar poppy, saxifrage, and buttercups.
Polar bear permanently lives on the archipelago; the arctic fox comes here much less frequently. But the waters surrounding the archipelago have become home to mammals: seals, bearded seals, harp seals, walruses, narwhals and beluga whales. Birds have chosen these places because no one is stopping them from breeding here.
There are 26 species of birds on the archipelago, the most numerous being guillemot, guillemot, ivory gull, and glaucous gull. Birds form gigantic bird colonies: in total, more than 5 million seabirds nest on the islands. The largest bird colony within the archipelago, the Rubini Rock, numbers approximately 55 thousand individuals. Thick-billed guillemots, kittiwakes, auks, glaucous guillemots, and common guillemots nest here. On southern islands archipelago you can meet arctic foxes that live under bird colonies.
On Franz Josef Land, many historical attractions have been preserved in the form of the remains of wintering camps of expeditions that used the archipelago as a springboard to reach the North Pole. Memorable places marked with tablets, crosses and stone obelisks. At Cape Flora, a ship's cabin from 1894 has been preserved, which was used by participants in many polar expeditions.
One of the most amazing and mysterious in the archipelago is Champ Island. There are many stone balls of almost ideal shape scattered across the entire surface of the island, ranging in size from a few centimeters to several meters. Such balls are found in other areas of the world, but such large and round ones cannot be found anywhere else. There is no definite answer to the question of their origin, although the balls are undoubtedly created by nature itself.

general information

Large islands: Wilczek Land, Graham Bell, George Land.
Distance: 900 km from the North Pole, 1220 km from the mainland.

Origin: tectonic.

Largest lakes: Cosmic, Ice, Shallow, Northern, Utinoe, Shirshova.

Numbers

Area: 16,134 km2.

An archipelago of 196 islands.

Length: 375 km from west to east, 234 km from south to north.

Total area of ​​glaciation: 13.7 thousand km 2.

The most high point: Mount Wiener Stadt (Forbes Glacier. 620 m).

Climate and weather

Arctic.

Average January temperature:-24°C.

Average temperature in July: down to -1.4°C.

Average annual precipitation: 200 mm on coasts, up to 500 mm on ice domes.

Wind speed: up to 40 m/s.

Attractions

■ Cape Wings (Rudolph Island).
■ Nature reserve federal significance "Franz Josef Land".
■ Stone balls of Champ Island.
■ Ernst Krenkel Geophysical Polar Observatory (Hays Island).
■ Bird markets (Tikhaya Bay, Hooker Island, Rubini Rock).
■ House "Eira" (Bell Island, site of 1914 V.I. Albanov).
■ Walrus rookeries (Nordbrook Island, Stolichki Islands, Apollonov Islands).
■ Sedov Glacier (Hooker Island).
■ Fridtjof Nansen's Hut (Jackson Island, 1895-1896).
■ Wooden structure of the Wellman expedition of 1898-1899. (Alger Island).
■ Polar station “Tikhaya Bay” 1929-1957. (Hooker Island).
■ Ship's cabin in 1894 (Cape Flora, Kuchieva Island).

Curious facts

■ The total volume of ice in the Franz Josef Land archipelago is 2500 km 3, which contains up to 2250 billion tons of pure fresh water, which is more than in Lake Baikal.
■ Tourists are taken to Franz Josef Land in summer time, on icebreakers, and they get to the shore aboard a helicopter. At the same time, all tourists are required to wear bright yellow-orange jackets so that people do not get lost among the ice.
■ Cape Wliegeli on Rudolf Island is named after the Austrian cartographer August von Fliegeli; was discovered on April 12, 1874 by the Austrian polar expedition on the ship "Tegetthof" under the leadership of J. Payer and K. Weyprecht.

■ The most powerful glaciation can be traced in the southeast and east of each island and the entire Franz Josef Land archipelago. Ice forms only at the tops of ice domes. The glaciers of the archipelago are steadily shrinking. If the rate of glacier reduction continues, all glaciation on Franz Josef Land will disappear within 300 years.
■ Geophysical Polar Observatory named after Ernst Krenkel (formerly called “Druzhnaya”) on Hayes Island in the Franz Josef Land archipelago - the only observatory in Russia in the region of the geomagnetic polar cap.

■ Austria-Hungary, which fought on the side of Germany in the First world war, was too busy with problems in Europe and did not protest against the declaration of Franz Josef Land as Russian territory.
■ freshwater lake Space on Hayes Island received its name on October 22, 1957 in connection with the first launch of weather rockets from the surface of the lake.
■ From the 1930s to the mid-1990s. The Franz Josef Land archipelago was a closed territory on which military installations of defense significance were located.
■ According to some reports, during the Second World War, in the western part of the island of Alexandra Land there was a German weather station and a base for laying and refueling submarines.
■ According to various sources, up to one million empty barrels of fuel and lubricants have accumulated on the islands of the Franz Josef Land archipelago, the removal of which may take at least eight years.

■ Since there are so many birds on the islands, they often get caught in helicopter blades. In this case, tourists have to return to the icebreaker using a boat.
■ In the late 1970s. Hydrographers of the Ministry of the Navy found a letter from one of the leaders of the Austro-Hungarian expedition of 1873-1874 on the island of Lamont in Franz Josef Land. Karl Weyprecht. The letter, wrapped in wax paper and foil, lay in a wooden cylinder for more than a hundred years. It reported on the plight of the expedition. Kept in the Museum of the Arctic and Antarctic in St. Petersburg.

■ In 1929, an expedition on the icebreaking steamer “Sedov” under the leadership of O.Yu. Schmidt, the future head of the Main Northern Sea Route and an academician, planted a Soviet flag made of iron on Hooker Island and declared the islands to be the territory of the USSR.

 

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