The Minina Skerries are located in the Kara Sea

Kara Sea

The Kara Sea is part of the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia. It is separated from the Barents Sea to the west by the Kara Strait and Novaya Zemlya, and the Laptev Sea to the east by the Severnaya Zemlya....

, in the northwestern shores of Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

. They stretch between the Mikhailov Peninsula

Mikhailov Peninsula

The Mikhailov Peninsula is a small peninsula in the eastern shores of the Kara Sea on the western side of the Taymyr Peninsula...

 and the mouths of the river Pyasina. Their latitude is between 74° and 75° N, and their longitude between 84° and 87° 30' E.

These skerries

Skerry

A skerry is a small rocky island, usually defined to be too small for habitation. It may simply be a rocky reef. A skerry can also be called a low sea stack....

 are a complex system of islands, channels and small peninsulas on the bleak tundra

Tundra

In physical geography, tundra is a biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes through Russian тундра from the Kildin Sami word tūndâr "uplands," "treeless mountain tract." There are three types of tundra: Arctic tundra, alpine...

 coast 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...

. Winters are long and bitter, so the coast and the islands are merged together as an icy whole for the greatest part of the year. The summer thaw typically lasts only about two months in an average season.

The Minina Skerries include the Kolosovykh Islands

Kolosovykh Islands

The Kolosovykh Island is a island, in the Kara Sea off the coast of Siberia.This coastal archipelago, is located north of the small Kolosovykh peninsula, which is almost an island itself. This island group is located between 74° 45' and 75° N and between 85° and 87° 30'E...

, the Kolosovykh Peninsula, and the Plavnikovyye Islands

Plavnikovyye Islands

The Plavnikovyye Islands is a group of islands, in the Kara Sea eastern region, off the coast of Siberia.These islands are covered with tundra vegetation and there are many lakes and swamps...

, as well as other minor coastal islands and deep inlets. They all belong 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.

There is a great variety of Arctic fauna in the Minina Skerries and the whole area is part of the Great Arctic State Nature Reserve

Great Arctic State Nature Reserve

The Great Arctic State Nature Reserve is a nature reserve in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia...

, the largest nature reserve of Russia.

History

This cold region was first explored by Fridtjof Nansen

Fridtjof Nansen

Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen was a Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In his youth a champion skier and ice skater, he led the team that made the first crossing of the Greenland interior in 1888, and won international fame after reaching a...

 and then, more in depth, by Baron Eduard von Toll

Eduard Toll

Eduard Gustav von Toll was a Baltic German geologist and Arctic explorer in Russian service. Often referred to as Baron von Toll or as Eduard v. Toll, in Russia he is known as Eduard Vasiliyevich Toll . Eduard Toll was born on and he died in 1902 in an unknown location in the Arctic Ocean)...

 during his last venture, the Russian Arctic Expedition of 1900-1903 on ship Zarya

Zarya (polar ship)

Zarya was a steam- and sail-powered brig used by the Russian Academy of Sciences for a polar exploration during 1900–1903.Toward the end of the 19th century, the Russian Academy of Sciences sought to build a general-purpose research vessel for long-term expeditions. The first such Russian...

. Eduard Toll and Zaryas captain Nikolai Nikolaevich Kolomeitsev

Nikolai Nikolaevich Kolomeitsev

Nikolai Nikolaevich Kolomeitsev, also spelt Kolomeytsev was a Ukrainian Russian naval officer and explorer of the Arctic.-Biography:...

 were quite frustrated with the navigation through the tortuous waters of these skerries. In his writings Toll described this whole area as a labyrinth.

The Zarya took a week to negotiate these complicated waters and it ran aground three times. Despite some inaccuracies in the measurements of positions and identification of islands, Toll and the scientists of his expedition went ashore at many islands and headlands, naming them and contributing useful scientific data on this relatively unknown area of the Arctic.
The name of the entire Minina Skerries was first given by Toll and his expedition members. They were named after Russian polar explorer Fedor Alekseyevich Minin

Fyodor Minin

Fyodor Alekseyevich Minin was a Russian Arctic explorer.In 1730s, Minin participated in the Second Kamchatka expedition. In 1736, he joined the unit led by Dmitry Ovtsyn. In 1738, he was in charge of a group of explorers, that would chart the Arctic Ocean coastline east of the Yenisei river...

.