Reindeer in Russia Reindeer in Russia Reindeer in Russia include tundra and forest reindeer and are subspecies of "Rangifer tarandus". Tundra reindeer include the Novaya Zemlya ("R.t.pearsoni") and Lapland ("R.t. tarandus") subspecies and the Siberian tundra reindeer ("R.t. sibiricus"). The subspecies of reindeer, the Novaya Zemlya ("R.t.pearsoni"). on the islands of the Novaya Zemlya, were herded by the Nenets. Novaya Zemlya is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean in the North of Russia and the extreme Northeast of Europe, the easternmost point of Europe lying at Cape Flissingsky on the Northern island. The indigenous population (from 1872 to the 1950s when it was
Novaya Zemlya detected by German U-boats and visually confirmed by German reconnaissance aircraft. On the night of July 4, the German battleship "Tirpitz" and the heavy cruisers "Admiral Scheer", "Lutzow", and "Hipper," closed on PQ-17 and sank four allied merchant ships. The British Admiralty responded by diverting the convoy’s escort vessels to the west to engage the German warships, and ordered the now-vulnerable merchant vessels to scatter. Seeking the hoped-for sanctuary of Matochkin Strait, several of the ships headed toward Novaya Zemlya at flank speed. S.A. Kerslake, a crew-member aboard the British Trawler "Northern Gem", recorded in his diary: …we were making