Matochkin Strait

Matochkin Strait or Matochkin Shar (Russian: Ма́точкин Шар) is a 323 km2 (125 sq mi) strait, structurally a fjord, between the Severny and Yuzhny Islands of Novaya Zemlya.

There are abandoned fishing settlements along the strait (Matochkin Shar, Stolbovoy).

[citation needed] The Tsar Bomba was detonated in October 1961, in the vicinity of Matochkin Strait, over the Novaya Zemlya archipelago.

[2] It is also the site where, from 1963 to 1990, about 39 underground nuclear tests took place in a vast array of tunnels and shafts under Mount Lazarev and other massifs.

In 2004, Rosatom reportedly performed a series of subcritical hydronuclear experiments with up to 100 grams (3.5 oz) of weapon-grade plutonium each.