Severnaya Zemlya but currently there are no human inhabitants in Severnaya Zemlya except for the Prima Polar Station near Cape Baranov. The largest glacier in the Russian Federation, the Academy of Sciences Glacier, is located in Severnaya Zemlya. The archipelago is notable as well in connection with the ongoing multiyear Arctic sea ice decline. Until recently, ice joined the islands to Eurasia, even at its smallest extent during the late summer melt season, blocking the Northeast Passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific. By the late summer of 2012, however, the permanent ice had reached a record low extent and open water
Environmental inequality in Europe by the Russian Empire to prevent Norwegian expansion. The traditional Nenets name for the archipelago, which lies within European continental borders, is Edey Ya. According to the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, during the Cold War approximately 500 Indigenous persons were relocated from Novaya Zemlya to make way for nuclear testing. The reindeer living on the island either died or were relocated to the mainland. Between 1954 and 1990, 132 nuclear test explosions, ninety four percent of the aggregate yield of nuclear testing in the former Soviet Union, were conducted on the islands. On October 30, 1961,