Zemlya Georga Zemlya Georga Zemlya Georga, or Prince George Land (; "Zemlya Georga", "George Land"), is an island in Franz Josef Land, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russian Arctic. Zemlya Georga was named by Benjamin Leigh Smith after Prince George. With a total surface of , Zemlya Georga is the largest island of the Franz Josef Archipelago. It is also the longest, with a distance of between its northernmost and its southernmost ends. The highest point of the island is the summit of Brusilov Ice Dome, the northeastern ice dome, at . The island has a complex coastline, with many bays, deep inlets and capes.
Novaya Zemlya lost more than three-fourths of the merchant ships committed to the convoy — more than one fourth of the losses to American shipping in all convoys to northern Russia. The destruction of PQ-17 significantly affected the people dependent on supplies carried by the ill-fated merchant ships. Karlo Stajner, a Gulag prisoner in Norilsk in 1942, wrote “the German cruiser’s attack on Novaya Zemlya and the sinking of the food transports had catastrophic consequences…the population was left without provisions…supplies in the warehouses of Norilsk [were] distributed among the NKVD, the guards, and the few free civilians that lived in the town.”