Kara Strait

The Kara Strait or Kara Gates (Russian: Карские Ворота, romanized: Karskiye Vorota) is a 56 km (35 mi) wide channel of water between the southern end of Novaya Zemlya and the northern tip of Vaygach Island.

The coastline on both sides of the Kara Gate is high and rocky.

Along its middle part there is a hollow no more than 5 km wide with depths of over 100 m. The water temperature in the strait does not exceed 13.5 °C.

To the west of the Kara Gate is the southeastern part of the Pechora Sea, which freezes in winter when the influence of Atlantic cyclones and warm currents in the Barents Sea weakens.

Due to its location south of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, the Kara Gate Strait is one of the passages of the Northern Sea Route, but due to the highly curved shape of this group of islands, with their western coast usually ice-free, passage through it may be less convenient compared to the northern one route to Cape Chelyuskin, including due to the greater length of the route in this case.