Severnaya Zemlya any traces of land to the north of the wide strait between the Kara Sea and the Laptev Sea that they navigated. The archipelago was not put on the map until the 1913–1915 Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition of icebreakers "Taimyr" and "Vaigach". The chief organiser and first captain of the Vaygach was officer Aleksandr Vasiliyevich Kolchak of the Imperial Russian Navy. The expedition was privately financed and was launched in 1910, being led by Boris Vilkitsky on behalf of the Russian Hydrographic Service. This venture accomplished its goal of exploring the uncharted areas of the continental side of the Northern
Severnaya Zemlya The Krasnoflotskiye Islands were first sighted and mapped in August 1932 by the expedition of the All-Union Arctic Institute on icebreaker Rusanov. There is an Arctic Station in the Krasnoflotskiye Islands (AS-042), which has been operating since 1953. This is a small group including two main islands located in the Laptev Sea, off the far southeastern end of Bolshevik Island. Maly Taymyr, the largest island, has a land surface of and is at . Maly Taymyr was discovered by Boris Vilkitsky during the Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition in 1913 and was named "Tsarevich Alexei Island" (), after the son of