Spitsbergen

 

Polar archipelago (Arctic Ocean). The islands are part of the Kingdom of Norway in the north.

The island of Svenskøya in the east of the archipelago belongs to Sweden, it is part of the Nordaust-Svalbard reserve, and landing on it is prohibited.

The Russian Federation is present in the archipelago - the village of Barentsburg and the preserved settlements of Grumant and Pyramid belong to the territory of Russia.

The Russian Federation has a coal mine and is fishing.

"Svalbard", that is, "sharp mountains" (Dutch spitz - "sharp", bergen - "mountains") - borrowing from the Dutch, so called the island navigator Willem Barents.

A variant of Russian pomors - "Grumant" - a distorted place name "Greenland".

In Norway, Svalbard is called “Svalbard” (Norwegian Svalbard) – “cold land”, its Scandinavian navigators of the XII century gave the northern land they discovered, its oceanographer and navigator Fridtjof Nansen identified with Svalbard.

Population.

Human activity is concentrated in West Svalbard, its population is more than 3,000 people.

About 2,500 people live in the administrative center of Longyearbyen.

Climate: Arctic, in July the air warms up to + 4 C ... + 6 C ..., in January -10 C ... -14 C. The climate softens the warm Spitsbergen current (part of the Gulf Stream). In the daytime and at night, the temperature varies by 5-10 degrees.

The polar night lasts 120 days and the polar day 127 days.

Svalbard is located in a seismically dangerous zone, so earthquakes up to 6-7 on the Richter scale are possible.

Flora and fauna: approximately 180 species of vascular plants, mosses and algae, dwarf birch, polar willow.

It is believed that vegetation originated on the archipelago relatively recently and is endemic due to the fact that they were under the ice during the Vistula glaciation (it ended about 11.7 thousand years ago).

On the territory of Svalbard there are seven national natural parks and ornithological reserves: they are found Spitsbergen reindeer, foxes, polar bears, and in the ocean - seals, beluga whales, walruses, blue whales, sea hares, Greenland seals, narwhals.

The archipelago is home to almost a hundred species of birds, but only the white partridge lives here year-round, others fly to winter south, and return only in the summer to breed.

Tourism. Svalbard is considered a visa-free zone, and there is no need to issue a document when the flight is non-stop. In other cases, a Schengen visa is required.

The main reason why travelers come to the archipelago is the glaciers, which can be observed at any time of the year, day or night. For example, the picturesque glaciers Esmarck, Fridtjofbrin, Paulabrin.

There are also tours to the unique preserved village of Pyramid, which turned into a museum of Soviet life: you can see the building of the sports complex, schools, residential buildings. Some of them preserved furniture and other artifacts of the time.

Fans of fishing can go on a fishing tour for cod, haddock, tooth, halibut, char on fishing boats or sea boats for several days.

Tent tours are possible for several days.

Other Arctic attractions: the mine of the existing Barentsburg mine, the ice waterfall Ebbadalen, Cape Starostin (pomor Ivan Starostin spent 39 winters on the archipelago), Olaf mountain, the historical object of Isfjord Radio, husky farm.

Travelers often come to the archipelago during the polar night, when it is possible to travel by snowmobile. The rest of the time you can move between the islands by boat. During water trips, tourists are given special wetsuits.

Guides move around the archipelago with weapons to protect themselves from possible polar bear aggression.

In the village of Longyearbyen, under the auspices of the UN, a world bank-storage of seeds of agricultural plants (Doomsday Vault), which exist in the world, has its own compartment for each state.

The main task of the project is to preserve the planting material after possible disasters that threaten humanity: atomic war, the fall of an asteroid, global warming.

 

Photo: wikiway