The New Siberian Islands (; ) are an archipelago in the Extreme North of Russia, to the north of the East Siberian coast between the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea north of the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic. History The first news about the existence of the New Siberian Islands was brought by a Cossack, Yakov Permyakov, in the beginning of the 18th century. In 1712, a Cossack unit led by M. Vagin reached the Great Lyakhovsky Island. In 1809–10 Yakov Sannikov and Matvei Gedenschtrom went to the New Siberian Islands on a cartographic expedition. Sannikov reported the sighting of a "new land" north of Kotelny in 1811. This became the myth of Zemlya Sannikova or Sannikov Land. In 1886, Russian polar explorer and scientist Eduard Toll, during his first visit to the New Siberian Islands, thought that he had seen an unknown land north of Kotelny Island. He guessed that this was the so-called Zemlya Sannikova. Toll paid a further visit to the island group in the spring of 1892, accompanied by one Cossack and three natives. He traveled over the ice in sleds drawn by dogs and reached the south coast of Great Lyakhovsky Island. Along the southern coast of this island he found well-preserved bones, ivory, peat, wood, and even a tree within high sea cliffs that expose Late Pleistocene sediments. These sediments are cemented by permafrost and have accumulated periodically over the last 200,000 years. In September 2014, the Russian Navy re-established a Soviet era naval base on Kotelny Island which had lain abandoned since 1993. Geography The New Siberian Islands proper, or Anzhu Islands (острова Анжу, Sakha: Анжу арыылара), covering a land area of about 29,000 km, consist of: Kotelny Island (о. Коте́льный) 11,700 km and Faddeyevsky Island (о. Фадде́евский) 5,300 km. Bunge Land (земля́ Бу́нге) 6,200 km (occasionally submerged by sea) links Kotelny Island and Faddeyevsky Island. Very close to Bunge Land's northwestern coast lie two smaller islands: Zheleznyakov Island (Ostrov Zheleznyakova), right off the NW cape and east of it, Matar Island (Ostrov Matar). Both islands have a length of about 5 km. Nanosnyy Island is a small island located due north off the northern bay formed by Kotelny and Bunge. It is C-shaped and only 4 km in length, but its importance lies in the fact that it is the northernmost island of the New Siberian group. Novaya Sibir (о. Но́вая Сиби́рь)