Where are the Commander Islands located. Who discovered the Commander Islands and when: features of the northern lands. Population of the Commander Islands

The Commander Islands is an archipelago located to the east of Kamchatka, 250 km from it. These islands belong to the Aleutian region of the Kamchatka Territory. The archipelago includes four islands: the largest - Bering and Medny, the other two - Toporkov and Ariy Kamen - are much smaller. They were all discovered by Vitus Bering on his last expedition. This navigator died and was buried here on the island named after him. Today, there is only one settlement on the islands - the village of Nikolskoye, which is home to about 700 people, of which about half are Aleuts.

The nature of the Commander Islands is typical for this area. It is represented by the dull landscape of the seaside tundra, which combines small hills, lakes, rivulets, bays and capes. Of the trees, only dwarf birches can be found here. This is explained by the harsh local climate: cloudy, cold and windy summers, and snowy, harsh winters.

However, despite such a climate, this archipelago has a very rich fauna. It is home to pinnipeds, various species of birds, sea mollusks and other inhabitants of the polar seas. In the coastal zone, there are jellyfish, sea urchins, sea anemones, bolyanus and others. Among the birds you can find here cormorants, crows and many different small ocean birds such as gulls, puffins, axes, loons, terns and others. On the shores of the islands there are rookeries chosen by large pinnipeds: fur seal, walrus, seal, sea otter. There is also a sea lion. Arctic fox is found among land animals on the islands. The migration routes of whales, sperm whales, killer whales and other aquatic life pass by the shores of the Commander Islands.

In addition, some species of endemic animals that are listed in the Red Book of the World and Russia live here. Since the middle of the last century, economic activities and commercial fishing of fish and marine life have been prohibited in this area.

It could even be called paradise, if not for the cloudy cold weather almost all year round: I do not think that the righteous in paradise are as cold as the inhabitants of Bering Island.

So here's my new address:

Pacific Ocean
Commander Islands
Bering Island

Write, I will be glad.

The nature here is very harsh and majestic. Tundra plains, hills and mountains covered with snow even in summer, clean ice lakes, rivers, waterfalls, streams and marshes, the Pacific Ocean, the Bering Sea, sandy beaches, rocky cliffs, bird colonies, seal rookeries - here it is, an island reserve, a place where people live in harmony with nature (as far as possible in our country).
The power of the primordial elements is felt on the island: ebb and flow, cyclones, thick fog that can descend at any moment; tremors are felt several times a year. The only village on Bering Island, Nikolskoye, is not threatened by a tsunami, since, firstly, new houses are built on hills high above sea level, and, secondly, two islands at the entrance to the bay, Ariy Kamen and Toporkov, serve as natural breakwaters.

The northern part of the island is hilly tundra with wide river valleys and large lakes surrounded by table-like mountains.

It is more often cloudy and foggy here than in the south. Here is the main rookery of fur seals and the main spawning ground for salmon - Lake Sarannoe.

The southern part of the island is a mountain range cut by narrow river valleys, and you can get to many places only by laida (a beach along which you can move on an ATV or an all-terrain vehicle at low tide).

There is a nature reserve here, and there are much more sunny days than in Nikolskoye. Here numerous rivers rush towards the ocean and fall down from the high rocky shores.


The waterfall on the ocean shore is an unforgettable sight.

The most important wealth of the Commander Islands is the fauna.
Along the coast of the Bering and Medny islands (the second largest island, to which, if I'm lucky, I will go this summer, then I will describe) there are seals,


sea ​​otters (sea beavers with the best fur in the world),


anthurs (seals) and sea lions (sea lions).
Near the islands there are feeding grounds and seasonal migration routes of sperm whales, humpback whales, minke whales, their fountains can be seen in the sea distance with good visibility. In search of prey, family groups of killer whales often swim close to the shore.
Pacific salmon return to spawning in the Commander rivers and lakes. In June there is sockeye salmon, from the beginning of August - pink salmon, and at the end of August - coho salmon.


Char (also belonging to the salmon family) inhabits most rivers and lakes all year round, it is the simplest "folk" fish, like gobies in Kerch.
Countless numbers of seabirds, migratory and tundra birds live in bird colonies, nesting grounds and in the interior of the island. The most impressive bird colonies are located on the Toporkov and Ariy Kamen islands. The island Ariy Kamen got its name from the guillemots nesting there (the local name for guillemots is ara), and Toporkov - from funny and very beautiful birds - hatchets.
The only four-legged aboriginal of the Commander Islands is the blue arctic fox.


The animal, I must say, is still the same. First, a creepy beggar: if she sees you eating or smells something edible in you, she will spin around until she gets her share. Secondly, the Arctic fox is a very grateful animal. If he already eats, he will definitely shit on your ATV or things left unattended: to thank him is a matter of honor. And when you go along the lide in the reserve, these pranksters run away from you in a very funny way, moving mechanically, like characters from old computer games, and at the same time look a little like pirates from the movie "Waterworld" with Kevin Costner.
Also at the end of the 19th century, reindeer were brought to Bering Island, which, according to local residents, upset the eco-balance of the tundra, and an American mink ran away from the local animal farm, ran wild and also bred.

By the way about the tundra. In August and September, it is completely covered with herbs, berries and mushrooms. But I like the way it looks now at the beginning of summer: gray-brown-green, dull, with islands of snow - snowfields, streams and lakes at every step.

You can talk a lot about the Commander's weather, but you can describe it in one word - cheesy. And this is the softest word: during the month of my life on the island, I saw the sun four times, and each time it came out from behind the clouds for an hour or two. And so - eternal +2, +4, wind and various precipitation: fog, beads (raindrops hanging in the air like fog), drizzle, rain. Just imagine the life of a native commander: born - beads, escorted to the army - rain, married - beads, and lay down to die, but outside the window all the same beads. The longing is green. It seems to me that getting used to this, even if you are a native of the islands, is completely impossible. The climate on the islands is oceanic, with relatively mild winters and cold summers, high rainfall and frequent winds. In the book "Commander Islands" by Yu. B. Artyukhin it is written that "here you can feel the breath of the cold current from the Arctic Ocean and the warmth of the Kuroshio tropics." Where are you, warmth of the tropics ?! Hey!
This is what he is, Bering Island, after the first acquaintance.

Why go to Commander:

• One of the most remote and inaccessible places on the entire planet, the true End of the Earth, where you have the opportunity to get to a real desert island.
• The nature of the marine tundra with the abundant and not frightened fauna of the Bering Sea: pinnipeds, seabirds, invertebrates.
• Places associated with the activities of Vitus Bering's expedition and the discoverer's grave.

Nature

The Commander Islands belong to the natural country of Beringia, and their nature is typical for the entire coast of the Bering Sea. Island landscapes- seaside tundra, and the landscapes on the Commander Islands at first glance are rather dull: low hills, gentle ravines, lakes and rivers, numerous convenient bays and sharp capes. There is not a single tree on the islands, except for dwarf birches. The climate of the islands is maritime subarctic, and in summer it is constantly cloudy, windy and about 10 ° С, in winter the islands are covered with snow to the tops of the hills. The Bering Sea washing the Commanders from the north and the Pacific Ocean from the south are constantly cold, gray and inhospitable. Storms are frequent.

But on the other hand, the Commander Islands are exceptionally rich in polar marine fauna... Here in natural conditions you can see ocean birds, pinnipeds, sea molluscs and coelenterates. There are huge rookeries and rookeries on the islands. At low tide the bottom is exposed, where you can see various jellyfish, anemones, ascidians, sea urchins, bolyanus and others.

Among the birds on the islands, the most interesting is the cormorant, which is also very common off the coast. In the inland areas of the islands, crows live in large numbers. And besides, there are a lot of small seabirds: axes (the most common), puffins, terns, loons, sea gulls.

Rookery of large pinnipeds can be seen near the coast. On the islands, seals, sea otters and fur seals feel completely free, walrus is often found, but the most common large mammal of the Comador Islands is the sea lion, pinniped, similar to a walrus, but only without tusks. Some rookeries on Bering Island can be reached on foot in one day, and the animals are not afraid of humans. Arctic fox is common among land mammals on the islands, but in summer it is a rather miserable sight. The Commander Islands are practically safe for the traveler - there are no large predators, and therefore (if you do not climb the rookeries), you can bypass any of the islands alone. In the surrounding waters (if you're lucky) you can see whales.

Bering Island is the largest (area - 1660 km 2) and the only inhabited island of the archipelago. Strongly stretched from north to south (90 kilometers, width up to 40 kilometers), the "capital" of the archipelago is the village of Nikolskoye, located in the north, and there is a kind of "hotbed of civilization" of the Commander Islands. This part of the island is notable for several lakes, the largest of which is Saranoye. Nikolskoye, located on the very shore of the Pacific Ocean, is a typical village in the Far North-East - housing is very poor, half of the apartments are abandoned. Nevertheless, the village has its own Aleutian Museum of Local Lore and a memorial cross, which is often confused with Bering's grave, and in the lower part of the village there are preserved large wooden houses built at the beginning of the twentieth century by the Americans. Not so long ago, two Danish-made wind generators appeared in the village - a gift from Denmark in memory of the Danish Vitus Bering. When there is a shortage of fuel, the wind turbines ensure the survival of the village.

Copper. Autumn.
Painting by Ekaterina Vladimirovna Solokhina

The southern part of the island is quite mountainous, and if you still could not get to Medny, the southern half of Bering Island can at least partially compensate for this. Here there are hills up to 500 meters high, among which the Steller Mountain (755 m) and nameless hill in the extreme south of the island (601 m). On the east coast of the island, about 30-40 kilometers from Nikolskoye in the Komandor Bay, there is the only historical attraction of the Comador Islands - grave of Vitus Bering, which is a thin black cross made of metal rods against the background of the sea, named after the person buried here.

Toporkov Island is a low (about 2 meters) flat land mass on which numerous hatchets actually live. The island is visible from Nikolskoye.

Ariy Stone Island- the smallest and most western in the archipelago, also visible from Nikolskoye. It is a lonely sheer cliff about 200 meters high.

Medny Island is the second largest (180 km 2), the eastern island of the Commander archipelago. It is also strongly stretched from north to south (60 km, width - no more than 8 km). In Soviet times, only scientists working in expeditions and 18 military men from the border military unit lived here. Now scientists do not visit the island, and we have no information about the existence of a military unit. It is quite possible that Copper is now a real Desert Island. The landscapes of Medny are much more picturesque than the landscapes of Bering - sheer cliffs above the sea, boulders and boulders, deep gorges between steep and high hills, grottoes carved by waves, numerous small but powerful waterfalls. The island is especially rich in fauna, there are real bird colonies on rocky walls, and rookeries on sandy beaches, and the underwater world of Medny is extremely beautiful. If you still manage to reach Mednoye (and get out of it!), The impressions of an uninhabited island on the border of Eurasia and America, the Arctic and the Pacific, will remain for a lifetime.

Commander Islands- an archipelago of four islands in the southwestern Bering Sea of ​​the Pacific Ocean. Administratively they are part of the Aleutian region of the Kamchatka Territory of Russia. The islands are named after the explorer Commander Bering Vitus Bering, who discovered them in 1741. The Commander Islands are a place where Russian and Aleutian cultures mix. They have great potential for the development of northern tourism.

Commander Islands Map

The Commander Islands, which are part of the Aleutian ridge, are located 90 miles northeast of Kamchatka. The islands include: the largest one - Bering, a little smaller - Medny and two very small - Toporkov and Ariy Kamen. The nearest islands from the Aleutian ridge are located 190 miles to the east, well, this is already the territory of the United States.

Discovery history

On the map of Russia, east of Kamchatka at the latitude of Moscow, two small dots with the name "Commander Islands" are marked in the Pacific Ocean. These islands were discovered in 1741 by the expedition of the outstanding Russian navigator, Commander Vitus Bering, after whom they got their name.

Commanders are actually two large islands separated by the strait, Bering and Medny. Only in the northern part of Bering Island, where the only village of Nikolskoye is located, the relief is more or less smoothed, with gentle hills, wide valleys and large lakes.

The second Expedition lasted 10 years. Most of this period was painful for Bering: a sailor, a commander, he had to sit in Yakutsk, then in Okhotsk - he quarreled with local officials, fought off their denunciations, thwarted attempts to pinch off expeditionary supplies: Bering ensured the actions of numerous detachments of his expedition , he understood that he would cope with this task better than others, but he could not come to terms with the fact that he was sending others on dangerous routes. He will lead the last voyage himself. "St. Peter" and "St. Paul", two packet boats, built at the Okhotsk shipyard under his command, are ready to sail. There is a march to the east, to the shores of America, and to the north, to the strait. But first, it is necessary to clarify, according to the order of the Senate, the coordinates of the land of Juan de Gama, which lies southeast of Kamchatka.

On June 4, 1741, from the Kamchatka harbor of the "Holy Apostles Peter and Paul" to the unknown shores of America, the packet boats "St. Peter" under the command of the head of the second Kamchatka expedition, Captain-Commander Vitus Jonassen Bering, and "St. Paul" under the command of Fleet Captain Alexei Ilyich Chirikov. Chirikov was the first to reach America on July 15, but the tragic incident mixed up all his future plans: the only two boats sent to the coast in the Tahanys Bay did not return and the fate of 15 Russian sailors remains unknown to this day. On the way back, Chirikov discovered a number of islands in the Aleutian ridge and on October 9 entered his native Avacha Bay. His voyage is assessed as a triumph of Russian maritime art.

Bering saw America a day and a half later, approached the island, gave it the name of St. Elijah (now Kayak Island), allowed the expedition naturalist Georg Steller to go ashore, and Sofron Khitrovo managed to go on boats to fetch water.

Meeting with the Americans - from the diary of Georg Steller

After standing for less than a day, they turned back: autumn was approaching. The way back turned out to be stormy and difficult. Scurvy broke out, and Bering himself fell ill. The first to die was the sailor Shumagin and was buried on the island (this group of islands is still called the Shumaginsky islands). When, according to all reports, they were already approaching Kamchatka, the packet boat was practically uncontrollable and sailed "like a piece of dead wood."

When they saw the land on November 4, 12 people on the ship had already died, 34 were sick. Bering decided to land on an unknown land. We anchored, But the storm wave broke the anchor rope, and "St. Peter" was carried to the reefs bordering a small cove, around which the water was boiling white foam. Having jumped literally 20 meters from the entrance reef, the packet boat found itself on calm water. We got on the two remaining anchors, began to take the sick to the shore; many of them, taking a breath of fresh, clean air, died.

A valley adjoined the bay, surrounded by low mountains, already covered with snow. A small river with crystal clear water ran along the valley. They began to build dwellings on its bank. Patient Bering was transferred to a separate dugout specially dug for him. Arctic foxes were scurrying around, the abundance of seals and sea otters was surprising. Soon in a storm the packet boat "St. Peter", torn from anchors, was thrown ashore; the sick continued to die; Bering died on December 8. Unlike the others, he was buried, tied to a board. By the spring, they looked around - they found out that they were on a treeless, uninhabited island (from Steller's diary), and decided to build a small ship from the remains of the packet boat in order to get to Kamchatka on it. They ate the meat of a discarded whale, beat seals, sea otters. In the spring, grasses, and most importantly, a sea cow, saved the situation.

On August 14, 1742, on the built one-mast gukor "St. Peter", the remaining 46 people (out of 77 who set sail) left the island, giving it the name of Bering.

A wooden cross was placed on the commander's grave. In the Komandor Bay, 14 crew members of the St. Peter packet boat, who could not withstand the illnesses and hardships of the voyage, remained forever, as well as a store with ship's equipment and 14 cannons - silent and eternal evidence of an expedition that made a great geographical discovery. Truly, this place is the shrine of the Russian fleet.

In 1874, representatives of the Russian-American Company, having estimated where the grave of the great navigator could have been, erected a wooden cross. Later, the present monument was erected by local historians. It consists of two superimposed stone rectangles, covered with a cast-iron plate on top. The headstone is crowned with a 3.5 m high iron cross. The monument is majestic, austere and simple. In the only one on Bering Island, the village of Nikolskoye, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, three more monuments to Vitus Bering have been erected on a historical site.

In 1991, the 250th anniversary of the voyage of Bering and Chirikov to the shores of Northwest America was celebrated, and the Underwater World International Society, together with the Institute of Archeology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, organized an expedition to the Commander Bay of Bering Island. At the suggestion of the head of the expedition A. K. Stanyukovich, the Leningrad society "Memory of the Baltic" formed an underwater archaeological detachment, which included experienced Leningrad submariners-scuba divers V. N. Polyakov, M. E. Mikhailova, D. Yu. Stolbov, A. P Rubailo, I. A. Pyaterichenko and V. A. Dronov from the Voronezh club "Rif". The main tasks of the expedition: a comprehensive study and preservation of the historical and cultural heritage of the Commander Islands, the search for Bering's grave, underwater archaeological work to find the anchors of the St. Peter packet boat in the Komandor Bay.

Geography

The Commander Islands are located in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean, bordering the Bering Sea in the south, and are the western end of the Aleutian island arc. The archipelago includes about 15 islands of various sizes, the largest of which are Bering Island and Medny Island. The islands are located in a rather compact group and lie at a distance of about 175 kilometers east of Kamchatka between 55 ° 31 "north latitude and 165 ° 04" and 168 ° east longitude. The Bering and Medny Islands are stretched from northeast to southwest, separated by a 49 km wide strait. In this strait, the sea is rarely calm - currents and winds do their job. The passage of the strait on small vessels is not a safe event. And for the same reason it is extremely difficult to approach the very island, Medny, for the same reason.

The length of the Bering Island is 90 km, the average width is 18 km, and the area is 1667 sq. Km. Medny Island is 53 km long, its average width is 5 km, and the area is 186 sq. km. Low (average height 9 m) and flat Toporkov island with an area of ​​about 0.5 sq. Km. is located at a distance of 4 km to the west of Cape Vhodnoy Reef (village Nikolskoye, Bering Island) and has a circumference of 2 km. Another island - Ariy Kamen - is located 10 km west of Nikolskoye and is a rock 53 meters high and 1 km in circumference. The rest of the islands are much smaller free-standing rocks, which are located in the immediate vicinity of the shores of the Bering and Medny islands. The Commander Islands are the top of the underwater ridges. The heights of Bering Island are 150-755 meters above sea level, the highest point is Mount Steller (755 m); Medny Island is slightly lower - 360-647 meters, the highest point is Mount Steineger (647 m). Both islands are broken by faults.

Due to the abundance of atmospheric precipitation, inland waters are widely represented by short rivers, rivers and streams; there are many lakes and swamps. Large lakes reach depths of up to 20 m, being the former sea bays. The largest lake on the Bering Island is Lake Sarannoe. The largest number of sockeye salmon comes here for spawning.

The coastal-sea zone is characterized by great depths, which is typical of island arcs. This contributes to the abrasion activity of waves, which is also favored by small ebbs and flows, which expand the zone of manifestation of the wave factor. In addition, ice does not form in the coastal zone, with the exception of a narrow fast ice near the low-lying coast of the northern part of Bering Island, where temporary ice drift from the Kamchatka coasts is possible.

Geological structure

Like other island arcs, the Commander-Aleutian arc is composed of volcanic rocks - basalts and andesites. The volcanic island of this arc protrudes above sea level in the form of separate groups of islands in the Aleutian archipelago. For its most part: modern volcanism and intense earthquakes are characteristic. By their origin, the Commander Islands belong to the mainland - oceanic type. There are no modern manifestations of volcanism on them, but earthquakes are observed quite often in the form of aftershocks, although their strength is insignificant (occasionally it is 5-6 points). According to the latest data, thanks to the installed modern equipment, the island is moving towards Kamchatka at a speed of 6-7 mm per year. That is, in about 162 million years, the island will connect with Kamchatka (these are the assumptions of the author of this site :-)). Tsunami waves are associated with the seaquakes on the Commanders. There are no volcanoes or hot springs on the island. There is no oil and gas either. Only on about. Copper ore reserves were discovered, after which it was named so.

Currently, there is no single point of view on the geological history of the Commander Islands. Reconstruction of the development of the relief is possible only in general terms due to the incompleteness of geomorphological and paleogeographic data. Therefore, there is no exact data on the origin of the islands.

Climate

The Commander Islands are located in the oceanic sector of the temperate zone in the southern non-icy part of the Bering Sea (the southern border of the floating ice runs along the 56th parallel, not reaching the Commander Islands). The islands' climate is mainly influenced by the circulation processes developing over the North Pacific Ocean. The climate of the Commander is influenced by the cold current from the Arctic Ocean and the branches of the warm Kuroshio current. As a result of the interaction of these factors, a rather peculiar climate is formed here with relatively mild winters and cool summers. Transitional seasons are shorter than summer and winter (some researchers figuratively call the islands "the land of eternal autumn"). The ocean does not freeze in winter.

A clear manifestation of interconnected zonal components in the island nature - climate, soils, vegetation - led to the formation of a subarctic natural zone on the Commander Islands. It is noticeable that to a large extent this natural zone was formed under the influence of the subarctic climate. In the conditions of the Commander, such a climate receives moisture all year round, and in winter it also receives heat from the Pacific Ocean. As mentioned, the subarctic oceanic climate determined the nature of the soil and vegetation cover of the tundra and forest-tundra types. The influence of the azonal factor - the intra-island features of the mountainous relief - affects the peculiar features of the microclimate and in the placement of cultivated plants. So, on the Medny Island in the Korabelnaya Bay, they successfully cultivated many vegetables and potatoes. But on the same island in the village of Preobrazhenskoye, the inhabitants failed: here the vegetables did not have time to ripen. Again, the peculiarities of the valley relief explain the emergence of a forest-tundra landscape in it. A tundra landscape forms on the surface of mountains, plateaus and hills.

Permanent meteorological observations on the Commander Islands have been conducted since 1889. The only weather station is now located in the village of Nikolskoye on the Bering Island. Until the mid-60s, observations were carried out in the village of Preobrazhenskoye on Mednoye Island, but then the village and the meteorological station ceased to exist. The average annual temperature on Bering Island is 2.1 degrees Celsius, on Medny Island - 2.8 degrees Celsius. The average annual wind speed on the Commander Islands is 7.1 m / s. Almost every month there are days when the wind speed reaches hurricane force - more than 30 m / s (108 km / h). Most of these days are in March and December. You sit in the house and think - will it squeeze out the glass in the windows, or not? The dishes are tinkling softly, the house is wooden. So far, everything is going well, not counting the sheets of slate torn from the rooftops in some places. In general, we are used to this weather. The number of days with winds over 15 meters per second is about 80 per year.

Animal world

The intermediate position between Northeast Siberia and the northern part of the Pacific seas favored the formation of a rich animal world on the Commander Islands. Fish, birds, mammals are widely represented here. Among fish, salmonids are of the greatest importance - sockeye salmon, coho salmon, pink salmon and others. Numerous birds form bird colonies of gulls, fulmars, axes, cormorants, guillemots and others (more than 170 species of birds in total). Amphibians and reptiles are completely absent here. Simply put: we don't have dragons, dinosaurs, crocodiles, snakes, lizards and frogs.

The main wealth of the Commander is a unique animal world. The islands have become an invaluable treasure trove of a wide variety of animals and birds, including rare, endangered and endemic ones that are not found anywhere else in the world. The history of the development of the Commander Islands from the moment of their discovery is inextricably linked with the hunting of fur animals. On the island beaches there were extensive seals rookeries, among which the sea lions stood out for their yellow-brown color. Many blue foxes lived in their neighborhood, and the world's most valuable fur-bearing animals - sea otters - took refuge in the complex labyrinths of coastal rocks.

In the course of a long interaction of zonal, azonal and paleogeographic factors, the diverse and rich nature of the Commander Islands was created. This is the main reason why over the past two and a half centuries since the discovery of the Commander, they have undergone increased development. The "development" of the Commander Islands began literally the next year after the return of V. Bering's expedition members to Kamchatka. Their stories about the innumerable wealth of fur-bearing animals of the islands attracted the attention of Kamchatka industrialists. Temporary raids of industrialists continued until 1825, when Aleuts were resettled to the Commanders for permanent residence. It is possible to trace the "efficiency of management" according to the information received from industrialists about the fishing of marine animals. Thus, in 1754, P. Yakovlev, who overwintered on the Bering Island, reports that there were still many sea cows, and industrialists "are making heavy waste and death for those cow herds that are found near the shore in the sea." He was the first to advise the authorities to prohibit the harmful fishing of sea cows. However, the extermination of sea cows continued, and already during the wintering on Bering Island in 1760-1761. the industrialist A. Tolstykh left very few of them, so the team ate the meat of fur seals and sea lions. As you know, the last sea cow was killed seven years after this report. The improvement of the fishing industry was facilitated to a certain extent by scientific research, which began to be carried out in the second half of the 19th century. and continue to this day.

Much has been done by domestic and, in part, foreign scientists to study the flora and fauna of the Commander. Numerous scientific materials, mainly on seals, sea otters and arctic foxes, have been published in various publications. It is significant that the cognition of animals was carried out, as a rule, in connection with the requests of the fishing industry. Among the researchers, one cannot fail to mention N.A. The famous zoologist E.K. Suvorov studied the fur trade on the Commander Islands, who published a book about it (1912). Among foreign researchers, the American biologist L. Steineger is known, who visited the Commanders from 1882 to 1922; he has written several books about the islands. Many works were carried out on various biological issues, including the problems of animal husbandry.

Scientific research has led to the limitation of the slaughter of fur seals and blue foxes since 1924, and a ban on the production of sea otters. On a scientific basis, since 1954, Arctic foxes have been breeding in cages, and since 1969, sea otters began to migrate to Bering Island from Mednoye, where they were still preserved.

Currently, the Commanders are once again famous for seals, the number of which has grown so much that it became possible to resume their rational fishery. There are many Arctic foxes on Bering Island, and in winter they are hunted for the sake of valuable skin (now they are almost never hunted - it is not economically profitable).

The Commander Islands are a place of mass nesting of seabirds, stopping places during the migration of charadriiformes and anseriformes. Here, Mednovsky blue fox, northern sea otter, anthur, gyrfalcon, peregrine falcon, gray-winged gull, and red-footed talker, included in the Red Book of the Russian Federation, breed. About 300 thousand marine mammals are concentrated along the coastal strip of the islands. Several species, such as sea otter, antur, commander's belttooth, minke whale are listed in the IUCN Red List. There are also killer whales and beaked whales. How many whales there used to be - can be judged by the article, which tells about the planned whale fishing near the Commander Islands.

Compared to the coast, where in the summer months life is seething and bubbling, not abating for a minute, the inner tundra regions of the islands are rather deserted and poor in living creatures. Only the Lapland plantain - a modestly colored bird reminiscent of our sparrow - can be called truly numerous here. In the mountains, on passes covered with yellow gravel, you will be met and will be accompanied for a long time by a couple of Mongolian plovers, and on the descent into the river valley, their place will be taken by other little kulichi - Beringian sandpipers. But all these birds, having raised their babies, will gradually move closer to the sea, and then the tundra will be completely empty. The only bird that can be found here at any time of the year is the tundra partridge.

There are even fewer four-legged inhabitants in the tundra than birds. Wild reindeer, American mink, red vole and ... rats. They were brought here by a man in the recent past. Deer and voles first appeared on the island in the 19th century. Rats, and at the same time mice, "faithful friends" of man, most likely came with the first goods brought here by people. They live both in the village and on the island.

Vegetable world

Due to frequent strong winds and low summer temperatures, the islands are treeless, although they are located at the same latitude as, say, Tula or Ufa. All attempts to grow the brought trees invariably ended in failure. In the commander species of mountain ash, birch and willow, shrub and dwarf shrub forms predominate, and very rarely, in gullies protected from the winds, small, strongly curved trees can be found. Common willow thickets along river valleys rarely exceed 1.5 m in height. Most of the territory is occupied by various types of tundra and herbaceous communities. In general, the Commander communities are characterized by strong mosaicism, depending on microclimatic conditions, soil, exposure and slope slope.

The soil and vegetation covers of the tundra type islands. The soils are shallow, slightly podzolized, with a predominance of loamy and sandy loamy fine earth. On rocky slopes, primitive soils are slowly formed. Only on the coasts more fertile soils with a peat-humus layer are formed. The tundra vegetation covering such soils owes its existence to the subarctic features of the oceanic climate. Excessive moisture, low air temperature during the growing season and strong winds are to blame for this. Therefore, low-grass carpet vegetation is developed here, as well as creeping forms of tree and shrub vegetation. On open surfaces, shoots of juniper and dwarf pine are common. Only in the valleys there are thickets of willow, mountain ash, stone birch with a height of 1-2 m. In the same place, in the lower tier, lush large grasses of cow parsnip and shelamine are striking. The harsh natural conditions explain the fact that there are almost 2.5 times less land plants on the Commander Islands than on the Kuril Islands. But in the coastal relatively warm waters of the Commander Islands, an exceptional abundance of various algae (about 200 species) is observed, that is, almost half of all types of terrestrial vegetation.

EF Guryanova, a well-known specialist in seaweed, who worked for the Commanders, believes that it is difficult to find similar areas in the entire World Ocean, comparable in their flora with the algae of the Bering Island. Isn't this one of the reasons explaining the localization on the Commanders of sea cows? Moreover, their enemies were absent here until a man appeared who unreasonably destroyed numerous herds of these animals in just a little over two decades.

Commanders are located at the junction of floristic areas - gravitating in their species composition to Kamchatka, they also bear the features of the flora of the Aleutian ridge. Suffice it to say that almost a quarter of the species are located at the boundaries of their ranges (11 species have western and 93 eastern boundaries of ranges on the islands). This transition can be traced within the Commander archipelago itself - on Copper Island, "American" species have become more widespread, a vivid example of this is the abundance of the curved buttercup, and literally carpets of Siberian claytonia. On both islands, the endemic of the Commander Islands is quite common - island wormwood. Due to this uniqueness, Commanders often stand out as a separate floristic area.

About 40 species have been introduced to the islands by humans. Most of them appeared in the 70-80s. 20th century during the period of intensive agricultural work. Annual sowing was carried out on numerous mows. In the future, this work was identified as unprofitable and further management was abandoned. Some of the introduced species have disappeared, some can still be found, but almost all populations are small and in a depressed state, many of them bloom only by September, and cannot reproduce by seeds. Some species, like caraway, wild garlic and golden root, were specially planted by residents in different years in the northern and middle parts of the island, but they are all not in the best condition.

There are a lot of berries on the islands, but only "according to the list" - many species, but of little use, a harvest year in our country can be safely equated with a lean one on the mainland. The most collected are mountain ash and shiksha, followed by cloudberries, prince and blueberries, and also lingonberries. The rest are present in "trace amounts". But there are really a lot of mushrooms. From the Red Data Book species, the following can be named: a lover of small clean lakes abounding on Bering Island, an unobtrusive seaweed, a fairly common dull slipper Yatabe, a really rare and in need of strict protection, a handsome large-flowered slipper and a real slipper known only from Steller's list. Arnica Lessing and Trillium Kamchatka, which are rare for the islands, are also included in the Red Book of Kamchatka.

Storm petrels and hatchets nest in burrows made in the tussock caps of the rocks, and cracks in rocky cliffs, niches and voids under stones fell to guillemots, Ipatoks and white-bellies. Cormorants have perched somewhere on the edge and, stretching out snake necks, are watching with interest the noisy life of numerous neighbors. And prim guillemots are sitting nearby. Fulmars - sea pigeons - perched on the steep cliffs. The peregrine falcon, which is capable of overtaking the chosen prey with a swift throw, regularly collects tribute from bird colonies. By the way, do not mind eating bird eggs or chicks and blue foxes. Coastal cliffs also serve as a haven for various feathery little things - wrens, finches, snow buntings. Simple but melodic songs of these birds are extremely pleasing after the incredible cacophony prevailing in the colonies of seabirds.

The indigenous inhabitants of the islands - the Aleuts

Until 1825, there was no permanent population on the Commander Islands. On about. Bering and to Medny Island, the Russian-American Company (R.A.K.) imported replaceable consignments of Russian industrialists (miners) for the fur extraction of sea cats and beavers (sea otters). The first artel was landed on Medny Island in 1805; it consisted of 13 people. This group of sea hunters stayed on the islands for a long time. Other artels were also brought in, some of whose members were married to Aleuts. Documents dated 1819 indicate that at that time 15 people lived (a temporary settlement) in the south of Medny Island, and 30 in the north of Bering Island.

Then both islands were part of the Atkha department of R.A.K. By the decision of the Main Office of the Russian Colony of America, the ruler of the department, Mershenin, organized in 1825 the delivery of the first batch of Aleuts with families from Atkha Island to Bering Island. In 1826, another batch of Aleuts and Creoles * was resettled from the islands of Attu and Atha.

Together with the first Russian artels, the imported natives of the Aleutian Islands and Creoles became the first permanent residents of the present Aleutian district of the Kamchatka region. In 1827, 110 people lived on Bering Island (Russians - 17, Aleuts - 24, Creoles - 13; women - 21 Aleuts, 35 Creoles). In subsequent years, Russian pensioners (who had ended their contracts with R.A.K.) and workers brought from Kamchatka, Fox and Andreyanovsk Islands, Kadyak Island, Sitka and California settled on the islands. Among them were Eskimos, several Indians, individual representatives of different peoples of Russia, including the indigenous inhabitants of Kamchatka - Kamchadals and Ainu.

After the sale of Russian America and the Aleutian Islands, the Commander Islands were transferred to the Petropavlovsk District. A feature of life on the islands is isolation from the outside world and the islands themselves from each other. In 1879 (B. Dybowski) 168 people lived on both Aleut islands (including 100 on Medny Island), Creoles a total of 332 people, among the rest there were 10 percent of Russians and other nationalities. Considering that the Creoles spoke Russian and adhered to the national traditions of their mothers, scientists attribute the majority of their population to Aleuts.

At the end of the XIX - beginning of the XX century. the entire population of the islands converted to Orthodoxy.

The name of the people - Aleuts - was invented by the Russians. The self-names of the indigenous population of the islands are different: Sasignan or Saksinnan (Bering Island), Unangan (Medny Island), etc. Then, mixing with the Creoles and representatives of other peoples, the population adopted the self-designation of the Aleuts. However, the language on Bering Island and Medny Island did not become common: two dialects developed.

The writing of the Aleutian language, created by the Bishop of Kamchatka, Aleutian and Commander Innokenty (Veniaminov), who was also a prominent ethnographer and linguist, did not spread on the Commander Islands.

The writing system was not created on the Commanders in Soviet times, although there were prerequisites for this: the alphabet was approved, and also the "Aleutian-Russian, Russian-Aleut dictionary" (E. Golovko) was published.

The main reason was the small number of Aleuts compactly living on Bering Island (the village of Preobrazhenskoye on Mednoye Island was closed in the 1960s) - 370 people.

Despite a very strong assimilation, the Aleuts have retained their genetic structure, and science recognizes them as Aleuts. Worse with culture: with the withering away of the language (fewer and fewer of its speakers), many national customs and traditions have been lost, oral folk art - folklore - fades away.

The Aleutian intelligentsia and old-timers are doing their utmost to revive and preserve the national culture. For these purposes, a small people in the regional center - the village of Nikolskoye - created two dance and folklore groups - "Unangan" and "Chiyan".

Around the island with a backpack

Of greatest interest for travelers is the northeastern coast of Bering Island from Cape Monati to Cape Northeast, since Cape Nepopusk, Komandor and Buyan bays, and the highest waterfalls are located on this coast.

Cape Monati(54 ° 41 "North latitude, 166 ° 40" East longitude) is the southeastern tip of Bering Island. He is tall and rocky. To the north of the cape, the terrain rises to mountains without vegetation, more than 500 m in height. Not everyone has been able to visit there. The fastest and relatively safest way is by sea by boat.

Cape Nepopusk 48 meters high, it is located 5.5 km north of Cape Monati and is a sheer rocky cliff. two and three kilometers south of Cape Nepopusk there are two waterfalls, falling from a height of 26 and 68 meters.

Peregrebny Cape is located 13 km north of Cape Nepopusk. 4 km to the north of it stretches a high steep coast with magnificent waterfalls, dropping their waters from a height of 65, 93 and 69 meters.

Cape Tolstoy is located approximately 8 km north-west of Cape Peregrebny and is formed by a rocky outcropping of land with a height of more than 180 meters. There is an all-terrain road along the laida.

Cape Commander juts out slightly from the coast and is located just over five kilometers from Cape Tolsty. The cape is formed by a hill that descends to the sea with sand and pebble talus, in places overgrown with grass. In the area of ​​the cape in 1741 the St. Peter packet boat crashed. Captain-Commander Vitus Bering died here. Here are the graves of the rest of the crew. There is an all-terrain road along the laida.

Cape Polovinny. Polovina bay, Polovina river. It is 8 km away from Cape Commander. To the south of it, a noticeable low-lying valley extends across the island to the coast. There is an all-terrain road along the laida.

Cape Buyan located to the north-west of Cape Polovinny at a distance of 14 km. It is formed by a sharp turn of the low coast and protrudes slightly into the sea. In Buyan bay, Buyan river washes away semi-precious stones - jasper, opal, agate. There is an all-terrain road along the laida. You can also get there by motorcycle, but it's hard.

Old Harbor Bay- "The Old Woman" among the people. It juts out into the northeastern coast of Bering Island, 16-17 km from Cape Buyan. It is formed by a small bend in the coast and two reefs. Located as we say "on the other side". South coast of the Bering Sea. Local resort. For some reason, the weather here is always better than in the village. More sunny days, warm. On weekends, sometimes decent people gather, relax, sunbathe. If you're lucky, take a dip in the bay, which is very shallow. Go fishing.

Rookery North-West... "Home" rookery, located 16 km from the village. Seen from the window of the house. The road is rolling, although the road can be called a stretch. The most accessible to visit. True, the observation deck is almost completely destroyed.

Rookery Severnoye, Cape Yushina. Approximately 25 km on the road from the village. A new observation overpass with a length of approximately 300 meters has been built. The road to the rookery is also badly bumpy. But there are no problems for walking. You can walk along the coast from the North-West rookery.

Photo

East of Kamchatka, at a distance of 200 km. from the mainland there is a beautiful place called Commander Islands, in honor of the discoverer Commander Vitus Bering... Bering first visited them in 1741. The great navigator died in the same year on the islands he discovered. His ship was washed ashore, and 29 people died during the forced wintering, including Vitus Bering, who was 60 years old. The remaining members of that expedition were able to survive and in the summer of 1742 arrived on the mainland on a boat built from the wreckage of the commander's ship "St. Peter".

Sailors left without a livelihood suffered greatly from scurvy. Most of the crew died due to this disease. Give credit to the German naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller, who was in the command of the commander. He forced sailors to eat seaweed, which restored an acute lack of vitamin C in the body, which allowed half of the crew to survive.

Not least of all, the discovery of a new animal from the squad of sirens played a role in survival - Steller's sea cow, a relative of modern dugongs. This animal, which grows up to 10 meters in length and weighs 4 tons, possessed a large supply of meat and fat. The catch of one such large animal allowed sailors to eat normally for several weeks.

The irony is that the Steller cow, which helped the pioneers survive, was subsequently completely destroyed by humans. This sluggish animal simply could not hide from a person who began to hunt her because of the large volume of fat and meat. In a quarter of a century, he completely destroyed Steller's cow. Now in the hands of a person there is only a small piece of animal tissue, through which it is possible someday it will be possible to clone an innocent mammal.

Geography

The Commander Islands consist of 4 main large islands. First of all, these are the two largest - Bering and the island Copper... Smaller ones - Toporkov Island and Arius stone island... It is believed that these 4 islands form the Commander Islands, although not far from Bering and Medny there are several unnamed rocks protruding above the water. But they are not taken into account, since they are absolutely lifeless stones. For example, Arius stone is a high rocky island with a kilometer diameter. It is favored by many birds nesting on its ledges. Toporkov looks the same - a low rock, where, according to ornithologists' estimates, about 50 thousand birds - cormorants, gulls, and hatchets - have found their home.

Bering Island is the largest among the Commander Islands. There is the only residential village on it - Nikolskoe... In the 20th century. there were several settlements on the Commander Islands, including on about. Copper. But at present there is only one village left. The population in Nikolskoye is declining. The last population census in 2010 showed that 613 people remained on the islands, and 20 years ago the number exceeded 1,300 people. Aleuts mainly live in Nikolskoye, who founded the village, having sailed here from the island of Attu, which is now under the jurisdiction of the United States.

The second largest Medny Island is located east of Bering. Until 2001, there was a border outpost on it, which is now no longer functioning, and its inhabitants have been resettled to Nikolskoye or to the mainland.

Fauna of the Commander Islands

The waters of the islands are an important feeding ground for large mammals. Sperm whales, killer whales, some species of whales, etc. winter or migrate here. The Berenga and Mednoye rivers are rich in freshwater fish. These are mainly valuable salmon species. Such rare species as arctic char, sockeye salmon, chinook salmon, Dolly Varden char, pink salmon, etc. live here.

The vegetation on the islands is poor. There are no forests at all. Moss, lichen, marsh grasses and shrubs, dwarf trees prevail. Arctic fox, American mink, wild deer feel good about the terrestrial fauna in such conditions. Various rodents are widespread.

More widely, the fauna of the Commander Islands is represented by birds. The coastal cliffs are home to huge colonies of gulls, cormorants, horned and crested puffins and many others. Among the birds of prey, there is a gyrfalcon and a Steller's sea eagle. In total, there are 180 bird species on the islands, some of which are listed in the international Red Book.