Maria Pronchishcheva Bay is a deep gulf in the Laptev Sea

Laptev Sea

The Laptev Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is located between the northern coast of Siberia, the Taimyr Peninsula, Severnaya Zemlya and the New Siberian Islands. Its northern boundary passes from the Arctic Cape to a point with co-ordinates of 79°N and 139°E, and ends at the Anisiy...

. It is located about 75 km north of the mouth of the Khatanga Gulf

Khatanga Gulf

The Khatanga Gulf or Khatanga Bay is a large tidal estuary in the Laptev Sea. It is relatively narrow, its length being 220 km with a maximum width of 54 km....

, on the eastern side of the Taymyr Peninsula

Taymyr Peninsula

The Taymyr Peninsula is a peninsula in the Far North of Russia, in the Siberian Federal District, that forms the northernmost part of mainland Eurasia and Asia...

.

Maria Pronchishcheva Bay is narrow (about 4 km in average) and long (about 60 km from the mouth to its deepest recess). Lat 75° 45' and long 113°.

This gulf has the Byrranga Mountains

Byrranga Mountains

The Byrranga Mountains are a mountain range in the middle of the Taymyr Peninsula, Siberia, Russia, located north and west of Lake Taymyr. They run for about 1,100 km, forming a looping curve that runs roughly in a southwest to northeast direction...

 in the west, so that quite a few rivers, two of them of considerable size, flow into it from the west and the southwest.

The climate in the area is exceptionally severe, with prolonged, bitter winters, so that this gulf is covered by ice most of the year.

Maria Pronchishcheva Bay and its surrounding area belongs to the Krasnoyarsk Krai

Krasnoyarsk Krai

Krasnoyarsk Krai is a federal subject of Russia . It is the second largest federal subject after the Sakha Republic, and Russia's largest krai, occupying an area of , which is 13% of the country's total territory. The administrative center of the krai is the city of Krasnoyarsk...

 administrative division of the Russian Federation.

This bay is named after pioneering Russian explorer Vasili Pronchishchev

Vasili Pronchishchev

Vasili Vasilyevich Pronchishchev was a Russian explorer.In 1718, Vasili Pronchishchev graduated from Moscow School of Mathematics and Navigation and was promoted to naval cadet...

's wife Maria

Maria Pronchishcheva

Maria Pronchishcheva - a Russian explorer.In 1735 with her husband, Vasili Pronchishchev, went down the Lena River on Vasili's sloop Yakutsk, doubled its delta, and stopped for wintering at the mouth of the Olenek River. Unfortunately many members of the crew fell ill and died, mainly owing to...

.

History

In 1933 icebreaker Rusanov, commaded by Captain Yerokhin brought a party led by S. P. Zhuravlev to Maria Pronchishcheva Bay and unloaded men, women and materials there. The plan was to establish a permanent base camp in the shores of this gulf in order to exploit the resources of this area of the Soviet Arctic. The men were experienced in trapping and the idea was that they should get their own food.

In the spring of the following year, several of the 21 people of the base (ten men, four women and seven children) were afflicted with scurvy

Scurvy

Scurvy is a disease resulting from a deficiency of vitamin C, which is required for the synthesis of collagen in humans. The chemical name for vitamin C, ascorbic acid, is derived from the Latin name of scurvy, scorbutus, which also provides the adjective scorbutic...

. They were healed by Dr. Urvantseva, who travelled by dogsled from the provisional wintering station that had been set by her husband scientist Nikolay Urvantsev

Nikolay Urvantsev

Nikolay Nikolayevich Urvantsev was a Soviet geologist and explorer. He was born in the town of Lukoyanov of Nizhny Novgorod Governorate, Russian Empire to the family of a merchant...

 at the Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands

Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands

The Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands are a group of islands covered with tundra vegetation, shingle and ice. They were known as Ostrova Samuila before the 1917 Russian Revolution and then they were renamed after Komsomolskaya Pravda, being for a while the only island group in the world named after a...

 the same year. The doctor stayed 11 days at the Bukhta Marii Pronchishchevoy camp until she could see clear signs of improvement as a result of the dietary changes prescribed by her.

During the 1930s the whole area surrounding Maria Pronchishcheva Bay experienced a limited boom owing to the first icebreaker convoys plying the Northern Sea Route

Northern Sea Route

The Northern Sea Route is a shipping lane officially defined by Russian legislation from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean specifically running along the Russian Arctic coast from Murmansk on the Barents Sea, along Siberia, to the Bering Strait and Far East. The entire route lies in Arctic...

. Tiksi Bay

Tiksi

Tiksi is an urban locality and the administrative center of Bulunsky District of the Sakha Republic, Russia, situated on the Arctic Ocean coast. Population: It is one of the principal ports for accessing the Laptev Sea...

 and Mys Shmidta

Mys Shmidta

Mys Shmidta is an urban-type settlement in Iultinsky District of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. The settlement is located about southeast of the cape of the same name. The cape, but not the settlement, was formerly known as North Cape or Cape North. Cape Billings is located to the west of...

 had become airports and nearby Nordvik

Nordvik (Laptev Sea)

Nordvik was a harbor-port in the Khatanga Gulf at the mouth of the Khatanga River. It was located on the Uryung Tumus Peninsula, west of a bay called Nordvik Bay . Formerly there was a small town and a penal colony next to the harbour, called Nordvik...

was "a growing town."