Uyedineniya Island

Uyedineniya Island (also Uedinenia, Остров Уединения; Ensomheden) is an island located in the central part of the Kara Sea, roughly midway between Novaya Zemlya and Severnaya Zemlya. Its latitude is 77° 29' N and its longitude 82° 30' E. It is often labelled as Einsamkeit Island (from the German Insel der Einsamkeit) as well as Lonely Island or Solitude Island in English maps. The island is barren and icy throughout the winter months, but some tundra vegetation grows on it in the summer. Its length is and its total area is . Compared to other Arctic islands it is flat and low-lying, with some swamps and small lakes and a long spit of land on its NE side. Its highest point is only about . Owing to its extreme northerly location the weather is bleak and severe and the sea surrounding Uedineniya is covered with pack ice in the winter. Ice floes are commonly found even in the summer. The nearest landmasses are the Izvestiy TSIK Islands, located about 150 km to the south-southeast, while the distance to mainland Siberia to the south-southeast some and to the northern tip of Novaya Zemlya straight west about . Uyedineniya belongs to the Krasnoyarsk Krai administrative division of the Russian Federation. The island was discovered on 26 August 1878 by Norwegian explorer Captain Edvard Holm Johannesen from Tromsø. He named the island Ensomheden—"solitude" in Norwegian—due to its desolate appearance and isolated location in the Arctic. Soviet polar explorer Professor Vladimir Yulyevich Vize advanced the hypothesis that there was an extensive shallow area and perhaps more undiscovered islands near Uyedinenya. This was based on certain observations made by polar explorers: The discovery of that solitary island called Einsamkeit, by Captain Johannesen... is of the greatest importance and significance, as indicating the presence of land hitherto unknown in that direction. Although it received the name it now bears from Captain Johannesen, a name signifying "lonely" or "solitary," it seems exceedingly unlikely that it will prove to be so isolated as is supposed.