Where is the island of Spitsbergen. The island of Spitsbergen belongs to whom?

The island of Spitsbergen remains for most Russians a kind of "terra incognita" - an unexplored land. Some people even find it difficult to answer the question of the nationality of this territory. Most only know that Spitsbergen is located somewhere far to the north, beyond the Arctic Circle, and the Russian Federation has some right to it.

Is it worth comparing this island with the Kuriles? We will explain this issue below. Despite the location "near the North Pole," trips to Spitsbergen are quite popular. About that, when to go to a polar plot of land, where to stop and what to see, we will tell in this article.

Where is the island of Spitsbergen

Let's start with a small correction. The fact is that the definition of "island" as applied to Spitsbergen will be incorrect. This is an archipelago. He lies just one and a half hours of summer from the North Pole. That is why a typical landscape is a boundless snow desert, permafrost, polar bears.

The archipelago, with a total area of sixty-one thousand square kilometers, consists of three large islands, seven small and a large number of very small. We really live only the largest - Western Spitsbergen (37 673 km ² ). There is the only airport and the capital of the region, the city of Longyearbyen.

In addition to it, there are settlements in West Spitsbergen: Barentsburg, Ny-Alesund, Grumant and Pyramid. The last two are now depopulated. On other islands (the Northeast Earth, Edge, Barents, White, Kongsoya, Wilhelm, Svenskoya) people live no more than a dozen, and even then only in the summer. The population of the entire archipelago does not exceed three thousand people.

Climate

The island of Spitsbergen lies in the Arctic Ocean between 76 and 80 degrees north latitude and 10 ° -32 ° east longitude. However, such an arrangement does not at all mean that the archipelago is a continuous arctic desert. Thanks to the Spitzberg Current (the Gulf Stream branch), the sea near the coasts never freezes. The climate in the archipelago is not as severe as in other places on the same latitudes. For example, the average air temperature in January here is only 11-15 degrees below zero. In July the column of the thermometer rises only to +6 ° С.

Tourist seasons here are two: from March to May come amateurs of winter fun and wishing to join the severe polar winter. They ride snowmobiles, admire the northern lights. From June to August the archipelago is visited by a completely different audience. Tourists enjoy the polar day, kayaking among the icebergs, watching the polar bears. There are also those who view this archipelago as a trans-shipment base on the way to the conquest of the North Pole.

Nature

The Norwegians call the island of Spitsbergen Svalbard, which means "junior edge". And the Dutchman Barents called the archipelago not on climatic characteristics, but on the relief - "Peaked mountains". In the language of the discoverer, it sounds like Spitz-Bergen. The highest point is Newton Peak. He is in West Svalbard. Its height is not too large - 1712 meters, but the geographical position of the mountain turns it into a snow-covered block.

By the way, glaciers cover more than half the area of the entire archipelago. Even in summer you can meet the islets of snow. The coasts of the islands are rugged, there are many fjords. Vegetation here is typically tundra. There are dwarf birch, polar willow, lichens and mosses. The most common beast is a polar bear. The fox and the Spitsbergen deer inhabit here (the shortest of all northern species). Birds mostly arrive in summer. For the winter there is only a polar partridge. But the sea around the shores of Spitsbergen teems with a variety of livestock. There are whales, walruses, beluga, seal.

History

Most likely, the archipelago was opened by medieval Vikings. In the chronicle of 1194, a certain province of Svalbard is mentioned. Approximately from the XVII century the island of Spitsbergen became known to the Pomors. They called it Grumant. For the world, the archipelago was opened by Dutch navigator Wilhelm Barents in 1596, although around the same time on the maps of our country appeared islands, called the Saints of Russia.

Since Barents described that he saw in the local waters a huge number of whales, a lot of fishing boats rushed to the banks. Soon, their claims to the islands began to show Denmark and the United Kingdom. In the sixties of the eighteenth century, two scientific expeditions were organized, organized by M. Lomonosov.

Despite the fact that the Russians did not build a village here, some Pomors came here in the summer for fishing. When the animals in the archipelago remained critically small, the islands were abandoned for a hundred years. A new surge of interest in Spitsbergen emerged at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when mankind set out to reach the North Pole. Ice-free waters and the relatively mild climate of the island were used by Arctic expeditions. Svalbard became the main starting point.

Svalbard: who belongs to?

When the archipelago was found powerful coal deposits, interest in the lost behind the Arctic Circle islands again escalated. But in 1920, the question of the state ownership of lands was finally decided by the world. In Paris, the so-called Spitsbergen Treaty was signed, according to which the archipelago departed under the sovereignty of Norway. However, according to this agreement, all parties to the treaty (the United Kingdom, the USA, France, Japan, Sweden, Italy, the Netherlands and later the USSR) retained the right to develop minerals.

Do I need a visa to visit the archipelago?

Theoretically not. After all, it does not matter whose island Spitsbergen, citizens of all the above signatory countries can freely visit the archipelago. However, in practice to get to Spitsbergen straight from Russia is not so easy. Only in the season there are occasional charter flights departing, and places in planes are reserved for polar explorers or civil servants. Therefore, tourists are forced to fly through Oslo (SAS companies and "Norwegian Airlines"). And this requires a multiple Schengen visa to enter Norway. You can visit the archipelago and during a luxury cruise on the ocean liner "Captain Khlebnikov".

Tourism

The authorities of Norway very quickly reoriented the economy of the archipelago in the conditions of a decrease in the number of whales and polar bears and the fall in prices for coal. Now the main bet on ecotourism. The direction is new. So far, only two thousand tourists visit the cold islands every year. Do not contribute to the development of this industry and prices. Everything is expensive here: from the hotel room (the simplest economical option will cost one hundred dollars per night) before meals. However, rich tourists do not stop. Ascent to glaciers, sea rafting, dog sledding, collection of fossils (there are a lot of them on the archipelago) - all this is included in the compulsory program.

The islands are a duty-free zone of trade. Thanks to it, the population of the archipelago lives more prosperous than the Norwegians on the continent. The island of Spitsbergen is protected from labor migrants. Work at many mines is stopped and they are converted into museums. Do not stop the production of coal only Russian miners. Although this extraction is unprofitable and is on state subsidies.

Money scandal

In 1993, the Moscow court was minted the commemorative coin "Spitsbergen Island". It depicted a polar bear and a map of the archipelago. Since the money had the inscription "The Russian Federation", Norway took it as an encroachment on its territory. The diplomatic scandal was exhausted only when this money was withdrawn from circulation. The coins remaining in the hands of collectors are in high demand.