The station is located at Schirmacher Oasis, Queen Maud Land, 75 km (47 mi) from the Antarctic coast, from which it is separated by Lazarev Ice Shelf.

Novolazarevskaya has an airstrip (ICAO:AT17) that serves both research-related and commercial flights.

In 2010 GLONASS differential reference station started to work in Novolazarevskaya.

Novolazarevskaya is 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) east of India's Maitri research station.

In April 1961, Dr Leonid Ivanovich Rogozov, the 27-year-old Soviet surgeon, performed an appendectomy on himself after developing acute appendicitis.