Gurkovska Cove ( bg, залив Гурковска, ‘Zaliv Gurkovska’ \'za-liv 'gur-kov-ska\) is the 3 km wide cove indenting for 2.5 km the east extremity of

Elephant Island Elephant Island is an ice-covered, mountainous island off the coast of Antarctica in the outer reaches of the South Shetland Islands, in the Southern Ocean. The island is situated north-northeast of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, west-so ...

in the

South Shetland Islands The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands with a total area of . They lie about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, and between southwest of the nearest point of the South Orkney Islands. By the Antarctic Treaty of 195 ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

. It is entered southwest of Boyadzhiev Point and northeast of Walker Point. Its southwest side is occupied by

Slavyanka Beach Slavyanka Beach ( bg, бряг Славянка, bryag Slavyanka, ) is the mostly ice-free 2.2 km long beach forming the southwest coast of Gurkovska Cove in eastern Elephant Island, South Shetland Islands in Antarctica. It is bounded by ...

. The feature was formed as a result of the retreat of

The Stadium A stadium ( : stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand o ...

(a glacier feeding the cove's head) in the first decade of 21st century. The cove is named after Yuliya Gurkovska (1945–2001), participant in the Second Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition 1993/94 (while serving as chief of staff of the Bulgarian President

Zhelyu Zhelev Zhelyu Mitev Zhelev ( bg, Желю Митев Желев; 3 March 1935 – 30 January 2015) was a Bulgarian politician and former dissident who served as the first non-Communist President of Bulgaria from 1990 to 1997. Zhelev was one of the mos ...

at that time), for her support for the Bulgarian Antarctic programme. Gurkovska was an experienced explorer who sailed several times together with her husband Doncho Papazov in the course of a

plankton Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms found in Hydrosphere, water (or atmosphere, air) that are unable to propel themselves against a Ocean current, current (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are called plankt ...

research programme carried out onboard various lifeboats in the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Roma ...

, the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

and the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. Eventually, accompanied by their daughter Yana (then 6 years old), they circumnavigated the world in the yacht ''Tivia'' in 1979–1981.Plankton V: A cruise around the world with the yacht ''Tivia''.
Strashimir Dimitrov Geological Institute. Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 2005

Location

Gurkovska Cove is centred at . British mapping of the area in 1822,1972 and 2009.

Maps

from the exploration of the sloop Dove in the years 1821 and 1822 by George Powell Commander of the same. Scale ca. 1:200000. London: Laurie, 1822.
British Antarctic Territory.
Scale 1:200000 topographic map. DOS 610 Series, Sheet W 61 54. Directorate of Overseas Surveys, Tolworth, UK, 1972.
South Shetland Islands: Elephant, Clarence and Gibbs Islands.
Scale 1:220000 topographic map. UK Antarctic Place-names Committee, 2009.
Antarctic Digital Database (ADD).
Scale 1:250000 topographic map of Antarctica. Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). Since 1993, regularly upgraded and updated.

Notes

References

Bulgarian Antarctic Gazetteer.

Antarctic Place-names Commission The Antarctic Place-names Commission was established by the Bulgarian Antarctic Institute in 1994, and since 2001 has been a body affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria. The Commission approves Bulgarian place names in ...

. (details in Bulgarian
basic data
in English)
Gurkovska Cove.
SCAR

Composite Antarctic Gazetteer The Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica (CGA) of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) is the authoritative international gazetteer containing all Antarctic toponyms published in national gazetteers, plus basic information about t ...

External links

Gurkovska Cove.
Copernix satellite image Coves of the South Shetland Islands Bulgaria and the Antarctic Elephant Island {{ElephantIsland-geo-stub