Big Diomede or Ratmanov Island (Chuk. Imelin, Inuit. Imaqliq) is
an island in the Diomede Islands in the Bering Strait, the most
eastern point of the territory of the Russian Federation.
Administratively it belongs to the Chukotka region of the Chukotka
Autonomous Okrug. There is no permanent population on the island;
the base of the Russian border guards is located here.
Named after the
Russian navigator M.I.Ratmanov.
The highest point is Mount Krysha/ Roof, 505 meters.
It is located slightly south of the geographical center of the
island.
Depths off the coast reach 43 meters.
The
coast is rocky, in boulders, with a narrow strip of coastal beach,
only the northern coast is relatively gentle. There is also a polar
station. There are several rivers, two of them flow from the center
of the island to the north, one flows from the top of Mount Krysha
to the southeast. The length of the island from north to south is
8.7 km, from east to west - 4.7 km. From Big Diomede Island to the
Chukotka coast 35.68 km. The extreme northern point of the island is
Cape Horseman, east of which is Cape Skalisty. The southernmost
point of the island is Cape Yuzhny.
In line of sight from the
island, there is a smaller island, Krusenstern Island, owned by the
United States.
In the center of the strait between the
islands is the state sea border of Russia and the United States,
which was formed after the sale of Alaska. The date change line runs
along this strait: the day begins on the Ratmanov island, and ends
on the Kruzenshtern island.
The infrastructure of the island
is relatively developed, there is a polar station, a border post and
many different buildings on the coast and south of the center of the
island.
The island was first visited
by the Europeans by the expedition of Semyon Dezhnev, about which
there is a written report dated April 15, 1655.
In the summer
of 1728, Vitus Bering approached the island, who gave it the name
Big Diomede - in honor of the saint, on whose day, August 16, the
expedition arrived at the island. Four years later, I. Fedorov and
M. S. Gvozdev, it was mapped. Prior to this, the local Eskimos
called the island Imaklik (Chukot. Adap. Imelin) - “surrounded by
the sea”. There were two settlements here - Kunga and Imaklik with a
population of approx. 400 people.
In 1816, the Russian polar
explorer Otto Kotzebue, while exploring the Bering Strait,
mistakenly discovered another island in the archipelago of the three
Diomede Islands, which he named after his colleague, officer Makar
Ratmanov, a member of a previous naval expedition. When a mistake
was discovered, the name was transferred to one of the islands of
the Diomede archipelago.
On March 30, 1867, the sale of
Alaska to the United States divided the archipelago into two parts:
the Russian-American maritime border passed along the strait between
the two islands.
Since 1916, due to the weak protection of
the northern borders, an American trading post was illegally
operating on the island, which did not pay customs duties. In
September 1925, the frontier patrol ship Vorovskiy arrived at Big
Diomede Island, after which the Americans were forced to leave
Soviet territory. In 1941, a frontier post was established on the
island.
From 1905 to 1933, a gradual migration of indigenous
people to the neighboring American island of Kruzenstern took place
from Big Diomede Island. The inhabitants of the settlement of Kunga,
which existed in the north of the island, completely moved to Little
Diomede from 1905 to 1915. With the beginning of the Cold War, in
1948, through the efforts of the Soviet side, the remaining
residents (about 30 people from the settlement of Imaklik, located
in the south of the island) were forcibly resettled to the mainland
of Chukotka, to the village of Naukan, which was also resettled ten
years later as part of the policy of “enlargement ".
In 2005,
a seven-meter Orthodox cross was erected on the highest hill of the
island (Mount Krysha), which is clearly visible to residents of
neighboring Alaska and ships passing through the Bering Strait.
In September 2016, the island was visited by Patriarch Kirill of
Moscow and All Russia.
At various times, it was planned to
pass a tunnel through the island, which would connect Eurasia and
North America.
One of the largest bird colonies in
the region is located on Ratmanov Island, with a total of 11 species
of seabirds with a total population of over 4 million individuals.
In June 1976, an ocher hummingbird was observed here - the only
hummingbird species recorded in Russia.
There is a large
walrus rookery on the island, and massive migrations of gray whales
take place in the coastal waters.