Shard Islands
Small Kuril ridge, Sakhalin region, Pacific Ocean, Russia.
Description:
The Small Range of the Kuril Islands includes the Shard Islands. They belong to the South Kuril urban district of the Sakhalin region. Japan includes them in the Nemuro district of Hokkaido Prefecture, challenging their Russian affiliation.
The fragments include two groups of islands – Shishka and Lisya and a large cave rock. The group of islands includes 4 small rocky islands. Their name appeared in 1946, thanks to the Kuril research expedition, which noticed that the islands look like playing checkers, but due to an error of editors and cartographers, the name was distorted into Shishki. The foxes of the island got their name from the many foxes that inhabited their territory in the past decades.
The Spanberg Strait separates the Shards from Shikotan Island, which is located 20 kilometers northeast, the Polonsky Strait from the Green Island, which is located 16 kilometers southwest, and the Polonsky Island is located approximately 6 kilometers from the Oskolki Islands.
The territory of Oskolkov is included in the state nature reserve "Kurilsky".