Big Diomede Island is located about 45 kilometres (28 mi) southeast of Cape Dezhnev on the Chukchi Peninsula and is Russia's easternmost point by direction of travel.

Vitus Bering landed on the Diomede Islands on August 16, 1728, the day on which the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates the memory of the martyr St.

[5] After World War II, the native population was forced off Big Diomede Island to the mainland in order to avoid contacts across the border.

[8][9] During the Cold War, the section of the border between the U.S. and the USSR separating Big and Little Diomede became known as the "Ice Curtain".

He and President Reagan lifted their glasses and Gorbachev said: "Last summer it took one brave American by the name of Lynne Cox just two hours to swim from one of our countries to the other.

The island, along with its surrounding waters, has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because of its significant seabird colonies, including those of horned puffins, and of parakeet, least and crested auklets.

For mammals, pinnipeds (e.g. ringed and bearded seals, walruses[14]) and cetaceans (e.g. gray and rarer bowhead whales) inhabit the waters around the island.