The small Myachina Islands are located 3 km (1.9 mi) off Cape Vilda, further west from the bay along the coast.

[1] The climate in the area is severe, with long and bitter winters and frequent blizzards and gales.

This desolate bay is frozen for about nine months in a year and even in summer it is never quite free of ice floes.

The Middendorff Bay and adjacent islands belong to the Krasnoyarsk Krai administrative division of the Russian Federation and the whole area is part of the Great Arctic State Nature Reserve, the largest nature reserve of Russia.

It was named after Alexander Theodor von Middendorff, a Russian zoologist, historian and explorer of Baltic-German origin.