Dikson Island
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dikson Island (Russian: Ди́ксон), initially Dickson, is the name of an island in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, situated in the Kara Sea near the mouth of the Yenisei River. A nearby urban-type settlement of Dikson, which functions as a port and hydrometeorological centre is located at . It is served by the Dikson Airport.
Diksonsky District covers an area of 200,419 km²; its population in 2004 was around 1,100. Dikson is a port-of-call on the Northern Sea Route from Murmansk to the Bering Sea. It lies only two hours' flight from the North Pole.
In the 17th century the island was known as Dolgy ("long") island, or Kuzkin, after its Pomor discoverer. In 1875, the Swedish explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld renamed it for the wealthy Scottish-Swedish merchant and philanthropist Oskar Dickson, one of the sponsors of his expedition. The name, like many other Russian place names around this time (compare Petrograd), was soon Russified, by dropping the "c". Dikson has been the official name of the island since 1884.
In 1915 the island became the site of the first Russian radio station in the Arctic. The seaport on the mainland was built in 1935, and in 1957 the two settlements were merged into one.
During World War II the town was bombarded by the German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer in August 1942.
Little else is known about this town beyond the fact that the weather (even in August) is notoriously unpleasant. Winter in Dikson lasts ten months, and for two of those months the sun never rises.
 |
||
|
|
|
|
||
