Kotlin (russian: Ко́тлин) ( sv, Reitskär) is a Russian

island An island or isle is a piece of subcontinental land completely surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island in a river or a lake island may be ...

, located near the head of the

Gulf of Finland The Gulf of Finland ( fi, Suomenlahti; et, Soome laht; rus, Фи́нский зали́в, r=Finskiy zaliv, p=ˈfʲinskʲɪj zɐˈlʲif; sv, Finska viken) is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland to the north and E ...

, west of

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

in the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and fr ...

. Kotlin separates the Neva Bay from the rest of the gulf. The fortified city of

Kronstadt Kronstadt (russian: Кроншта́дт, Kronshtadt ), also spelled Kronshtadt, Cronstadt or Kronštádt (from german: link=no, Krone for " crown" and ''Stadt'' for "city") is a Russian port city in Kronshtadtsky District of the federal city ...

is located on the island and forms part of a

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for ...

that is ''Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments''. The island serves as a gateway to Saint Petersburg and as such has been the site of several military engagements. The Kotlin programming language is named for the island, much as the

Java programming language Java is a high-level, class-based, object-oriented programming language that is designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. It is a general-purpose programming language intended to let programmers ''write once, run an ...

shares its name with an Indonesian island.

History

The city of Kronstadt was founded on Kotlin island by

Peter the Great Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...

, who took it from the Swedes in 1703. In March 1921, Kotlin was the site of the

Kronstadt rebellion The Kronstadt rebellion ( rus, Кронштадтское восстание, Kronshtadtskoye vosstaniye) was a 1921 insurrection of Soviet sailors and civilians against the Bolsheviks, Bolshevik government in the Russian Soviet Federative Soci ...

, which resulted in over 11,000 casualties.

Geography

In general outline, the island forms an elongated triangle; long by about broad, with its base towards St Petersburg. The eastern or broad end is occupied by the city of Kronstadt, and

shoal In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body of water to near the surface. It ...

s extend for from the western point of the island to the rock on which the Tolbaaken lighthouse is built. The island thus divides the seaward approach to St Petersburg into two channels; that on the northern side is obstructed by shoals which extend across it from Kotlin to Lisiy Nos; the southern channel, the highway to the former capital, is narrowed by a spit which projects from opposite Lomonosov on the Russian mainland, and, lying close to Kronstadt, has been historically strongly guarded by

batteries Battery most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source *Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...

. The naval approach to Saint Petersburg was greatly facilitated by the construction in 1875–85 of a

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface fl ...

, deep, through the shallows, whereas cars can travel overland to the island by using the Saint Petersburg Dam from the north and south shores of the

. Started in 1980, but delayed by political upheaval in the 1990s, the dam project was completed in 2010 and officially commissioned in 2011.

Transportation

Low level of water in Neva Bay was an incentive for building Sea Canal to accommodate transportation of big vessels, this canal provides the possibility of movement of vessels with a draft of 11 meters (to fresh water), a length of 320 meters and a width of 42 meters.Водные_объекты/961/Морской_канал_Санкт-Петербурга

References

External links

Google Earth view of Kotlin Island
{{Islands in the Baltic Sea Islands of Saint Petersburg Russian islands in the Baltic Gulf of Finland Saint Petersburg Ring Road