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
Novaya Zemlya left a hundred dead and wounded. Whether the attack on Menshikov’s battery occurred on Dikson Island or on Novaya Zemlya, Stajner’s account illuminated the fate of a Soviet officer imprisoned by his countrymen for the “crime” of suffering defeat at the hands of the enemy. Not surprisingly, Menshikov’s arrest was never announced in the Soviet press. In August 1943, a German U-boat sank the Soviet research ship "Akademic Shokalskiy" near "Mys Sporyy Navolok", but the Soviet Navy, now on the offensive, destroyed the German submarine U-639 near "Mys Zhelaniya". In July 1954, Novaya Zemlya was designated the Novaya Zemlya Test