ATLAS OF REMOTE ISLANDS
Lonely Island

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(Russia)

Arctic Ocean | Kara Sea

77° 29' N | 82° 30' O

NORWEGIAN Ensomheden

RUSSIAN Ostrov Uyedineniya ['Retreat Island']

20 km² | uninhabited

LONELINESS lies in the centre of the Kara Sea in the northern Arctic Ocean. This island is worthy of its name: it is cold and barren, trapped in pack ice all winter, with an average annual temperature of 16 degrees; at the height of summer the temperature sometimes rises to just over freezing. // No one lives here. A former polar observatory has sunk into the snow, and abandoned buildings doze in the belly of the bay, facing the narrow spit of land beyond the frozen marsh. // A prehistoric dragon's skeleton was found here. Some years later, a German submarine fired grenades at the weather station, destroying the barracks and killing the garrison. Firing at Lonely Island was one of the final manoeuvres of the German navy's 'Operation Wunderland' in the Second World War. // The observatory – one of the Soviet Union's largest – was rebuilt during the Cold War. The name that the Norwegian captain from Tromse had given the island was forgotten in Russian, Lonely Island became Solitude Island. The visitor to the island was now not a prisoner but a hermit, sitting out the years in an icy wasteland until he could return to the mainland a saint. The provisions that have been left behind are in deep freeze in the green wooden barracks, all crusted with ice, as are the instruments once used to measure air pressure, temperature, the direction of the wind, the height of the clouds and the radiation from the skies. The rain gauge lies buried in the snow. A photograph of a goateed Lenin hangs against palm-patterned wallpaper. The logbook contains precise records of the chief mechanic's maintenance work: the levels of oil and petrol in every machine. The final entry in red felt-tip spills over the confines of the columns: 23 November 1996: The evacuation order came today. Pouring the water out. Turned off diesel generator. The station is ... The final word is illegible. Welcome to Lonely Island.