The Diomede Islands

Two islands, two countries

The Diomede Islands sit in the middle of the Bering Strait, about 2.5 miles (4 km) apart. The larger, Big Diomede or Ratmanov Island, covers about 10 km² and belongs to Russia’s Chukotka district. Little Diomede, to the east, is part of Alaska. The first European to see them was the Danish navigator Vitus Bering, on St. Diomede’s Day, 16 August 1728.^[1]

The line between them dates from 1867, when Russia sold Alaska to the United States. The treaty ran the western limit of Alaska through the Bering Strait along the meridian midway between the island of Krusenstern, or Ignalook, and the island of Ratmanoff, or Noonarbook, the Russian name for Big Diomede.^[2][1]

“the meridian which passes midway between the islands of Krusenstern, or Ignalook, and the island of Ratmanoff, or Noonarbook”^[2]

Tomorrow and yesterday

The US–Russian boundary between the islands coincides with the International Date Line.^[1] So although you can see one island from the other, Big Diomede, on the Asian side of the line, is a calendar day ahead of Little Diomede.^[1]

The Ice Curtain

For hundreds of years Indigenous people travelled freely between the two islands. That ended with the Cold War. In 1948, when the political “ice curtain” came down, Soviet authorities ordered the 25 to 30 remaining people on Big Diomede to move to the Yup’ik village of Naukan in Chukotka. Naukan was closed a decade later and they were scattered again.^[3]

Big Diomede has no permanent population today; it hosts a Russian weather station and a border guard post.^[1][3] Across the strait, Little Diomede residents such as Robert Soolook, an Inupiaq, can see the island where their relatives once lived. In 2015 the village was working with National Park Service grants to reconnect with families on the Russian side.^[3]

A swim across the line

On 7 August 1987, as the Cold War thawed, the American swimmer Lynne Cox swam from Little Diomede to Big Diomede in water just above freezing, wearing only a swimsuit. She was in the water for 2 hours and 16 minutes and crossed the date line on the way: the first recorded swim from the United States to the Soviet Union.^[4]

At the White House signing of the INF treaty, Mikhail Gorbachev mentioned her swim, saying it had taken one brave American just two hours to swim from one of their countries to the other.^[4]