A Ridge in the Urals to be Named after Russian Geographical Society
The one-year long historical landscape expedition “The Urals – the border of Europe and Asia” is in its full swing. Its members have already treaded along the suggested border between the two continents from the Mangyshlak Peninsula in the Caspian Sea to the Kara Sea. Following the completion of this stage of the expedition, its leader, Alexander Chibilev, Chairman of the Orenburg branch of the Russian Geographical Society, has come up with two propositions:
- to name the northernmost ridge of the Urals after the Russian Geographical Society. This is the ridge that stretches from the southern foot of Mount Great Manyasei (643 m) to the northern foot of Mount Konstantinov Kamen (483 m);
- to name one of the peaks in the ridge (552 m) after E.A. Gofman, pioneer explorer of the Polar Urals, in order to perpetuate his achievements and his memory.
“During our expedition we came across an unnamed peak, which we are planning to name after Ernst Gofman, leader of the first expedition of the Russian Geographical Society to the region and explorer of the Northern Urals”, said Chibilev. He added that members of this year’s expedition had an idea to name the northernmost ridge of the Urals, which comprises five peaks, after the Russian Geographical Society in order to commemorate the Society’s first expedition to the region. If this proposition gets official support, the Society’s Orenburg branch will file an application to the Topographical Commission of the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy.
Members of the expedition have also planted the Russian Geographical Society’s blue flag on top of Mount Konstantinov Kamen – the northernmost peak of the Ural Mountains. The Mount was explored during the first expedition of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society to this region, launched in 1848. Quite evidently, it was named after the Grand Duke Konstantin – the first Chairman of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society.
Project overview
The Russian Geographical Society allocated a grant to support the expedition in March 2010. The expedition’s objectives include exploring the remote ridges of the Polar Urals in order to find scientific evidence, justifying designation of the area from the northernmost peak of the Urals to the Kara Sea coast as the border between Europe and Asia. Geographers from Orenburg, together with local historians and tourists from Western Kazakhstan, Bashkortostan, the Perm region, the Sverdlovsk region, and the Republic of Komi walked along the hypothetical course of the border between Europe and Asia from the Mangyshlak Peninsula in the Caspian Sea to the Kara Sea.
By the end of the project scientists and researchers expect not only to show a complete and contemporary course of the border between Europe and Asia from the Caspian Sea to the Kara Sea, but also to ensure that contemporary textbooks and encyclopedias reflect those changes. We will also develop a travel guide giving a comprehensive overview of travel along the border. We will place markers on the southern and northern ends of the Ural Mountains, and make recommendations for establishing new reserves, national parks and tourist routes along the border between Europe and Asia in the territory of the Russian Federation and Kazakhstan. We hope that our efforts will also create a positive social environment for the local peoples (Nentsi, Khanty, Mansi, Bashkirs, and Kazakhs) and attract investment to the region.
Historical background
Ernst Gofman
The first expedition to the Urals was launched on January 17, 1847. Ernst Gofman, Head of the Mineralogy Department at the Saint-Petersburg University, had been studying the Urals for 20 years by that time. He put together a team of reputable experts, including astronomer Kovalsky, mining engineer Strazhevsky, nature scientist Brandt and topographers Bragin and Yuriev. The aim of his expedition was to explore the border between Europe and Asia along the course of the Northern Urals.
Three years of working in the field allowed the scientists to explore in detail the area from 60º 30 north latitude to the Arctic Ocean. They collected numerous specimens of local rocks, flora and fauna. In 1952 the Russian Geographical Society published a “Map of the Northern Urals and the Pai-Khoi Ridge”, which was constructed on the basis of 186 astronomical points, determined by Kovalsky. For his outstanding accomplishments, Kovalsky was awarded the Konstantinovskaya Medal by the Imperial Russian Geographical Society and got a substantial monetary reward.
The first to regard the axial part of the Urals as the border between Europe and Asia was V.N. Tatishchev in the mid-18th century. Before him, the border between the two continents was drawn along the Tanais River – present-day Don (Herodotus), the Volga and Kama Rivers (Arabic sources), and even the Ob River (Delille). At present, scientists consider that the boundary between Europe and Asia goes along the eastern foot of the Urals and the Mugodzhar Hills, and further along the Emba River, the northern Caspian Sea coast, the Kumo-Manych Depression and the Kerch Strait. The total length of the border in Russia amounts to 5,524 km (with 2,000 km along the Ural Mountains, 2,534 km along the Ural River and 990 km along the Caspian Sea).Конец формы
