Matochkin Strait or Matochkin Shar (russian: Ма́точкин Шар) is a

strait A strait is an oceanic landform connecting two seas or two other large areas of water. The surface water generally flows at the same elevation on both sides and through the strait in either direction. Most commonly, it is a narrow ocean channe ...

, structurally a

fjord In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Ice ...

, between the Severny and

Yuzhny Island Yuzhny (russian: Южный остров, lit. southern island) is the southern island of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, lying north of Russia. It has an area of , which while smaller than the northern island of Severny, makes it one of the larg ...

s of

Novaya Zemlya Novaya Zemlya (, also , ; rus, Но́вая Земля́, p=ˈnovəjə zʲɪmˈlʲa, ) is an archipelago in northern Russia. It is situated in the Arctic Ocean, in the extreme northeast of Europe, with Cape Flissingsky, on the northern island, ...

. It connects the

Barents Sea The Barents Sea ( , also ; no, Barentshavet, ; russian: Баренцево море, Barentsevo More) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territo ...

and the

Kara Sea The Kara Sea (russian: Ка́рское мо́ре, ''Karskoye more'') is a marginal sea, separated from the Barents Sea to the west by the Kara Strait and Novaya Zemlya, and from the Laptev Sea to the east by the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago. ...

Geography

The Matochkin Strait is one of the largest fjords in the world. The banks along the strait are high and steep. Its length is approximately and its width in its narrowest part is approximately . The strait is covered with ice for the most of the year. There are abandoned fishing settlements along the strait (Matochkin Shar, Stolbovoy).

History

The

Tsar Bomba The Tsar Bomba () ( code name: ''Ivan'' or ''Vanya''), also known by the alphanumerical designation "AN602", was a thermonuclear aerial bomb, and the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created and tested. Overall, the Soviet physicist Andrei Sa ...

was detonated on October 1961 in the vicinity of Matochkin Strait in 1961, over the

Novaya Zemlya archipelago Novaya Zemlya (, also , ; rus, Но́вая Земля́, p=ˈnovəjə zʲɪmˈlʲa, ) is an archipelago in northern Russia. It is situated in the Arctic Ocean, in the extreme northeast of Europe, with Cape Flissingsky, on the northern island, ...

. It is also the site where, from 1963 to 1990, about 39 underground

nuclear test Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine nuclear weapons' effectiveness, yield, and explosive capability. Testing nuclear weapons offers practical information about how the weapons function, how detonations are affected by ...

s took place in a vast array of tunnels and shafts under

Mount Lazarev Mount Lazarev (Гора Лазарева, "Gora Lazareva") is a massif on the northern portion of Yuzhny Island, Novaya Zemlya, in Russia. It was used for many Soviet nuclear tests, starting with the first underground nuclear test Undergr ...

and other massifs. After 2000,

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

started to reactivate the test site by enlarging old tunnels and starting construction work. Each summer since then various subcritical hydronuclear experiments have taken place. In 2004,

Rosatom Rosatom, ( rus, Росатом, p=rɐsˈatəm}) also known as Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation, the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom or Rosatom State Corporation, is a Russian state corporation headquartered in Moscow that speciali ...

reportedly performed a series of subcritical hydronuclear experiments with up to of weapon-grade plutonium each.

References

Fjords of Russia Bodies of water of the Barents Sea Bodies of water of the Kara Sea Bodies of water of Arkhangelsk Oblast Novaya Zemlya Straits of the Arctic Ocean Russian nuclear test sites {{ArkhangelskOblast-geo-stub

Geography

History

See also

References