Big Diomede (Bering Strait)

Where it rises the new year

A lot of people were picked up by the fever of the last night of the Millennium. Various tour operator and governments of the islands of the Pacific have instigated real competitions to offer the first 2000 dawn.

The first ones that have entered the third Millennium were those people who were found to the western limit of the Conventional Line of the Change of Date. They heve takings of assault the islands Figi, Tonga and Kiribati. The Kiribatis are rechristened "Islands of the Millennium". This has already happened in 1995, when with wise foresight Kiribati moved to east of 30 degrees, around 1.600 km, the border of the new day. In this way it is found in 95 minutes before Tonga. The game of the fake line of change of date has immediately been rejected by the authoritative Royal Geographical Society by the Observatory in Greenwich and so many other geographical institutions.

From the careful studies it unquestionably results that the point clou for the passage of the Millennium was found on the Great Diomede island, 40 km offshore Cape Deznev in the Strate of Bering, that divides Russia from the United States.

Jacek Palkiewicz has visited her a few days before 2000.

The island is the last edge of Russian earth (169°15' long.west) to 11 fused schedules from Europe. It's one of the two islands of the archipelago Diomedea (the other one is Krusenstern and it belongs to the United States). On the island (surface of 28 kmsq) of extraterrestrial loneliness with the wild panorama, forgotten from Moscow and from God, lives 25 soldiers of border guard. The waters that surround it are populated from whales, walruses and seals.

Island on the edge of the third millennium

On top of all the red tape, our trip in Chukot has now run into bad weather, and Provideniya airport is closed.

My friend Victor Burstein informs us that in this part of the world you can even be grounded for anything up to five or ten days. Which is a problem in a province twice the size of Italy, almost completely covered in tundra with no roads. Here the only means of transport is the helicopter. We have come to the very edge of Russia to reach the island of Big Diomede.

Called Ratmanova by the Russians, it lies slap in the middle of the Bering Strait, forty kilometers on each side from the mainlands of Asia and America, right on the International Date Line, where they will toast the arrival of the third millennium eleven hours earlier than in Italy. Hyped up by commercial ventures, the millennium festive fever has been raging in Polynesia since last year. The major tour operators and governments of the coral atolls have been vying to lure guests seeking the thrill of popping the first bottles of champagne, and so winning a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

In actual fact the first day of 2000 is only the beginning of the last year of the twentieth century, given that there was no year zero. The nice round figure of 2000 has, however, captured the imagination as a symbol for a new era.

The first people to enter the third millennium will be those on the Western edge of the Date Line, established by the International Convention of Washington in 1884. This demarcation between East and West basically follows the 180° meridian, but in some areas the line deviates to avoid splitting a country in two. If you go westwards beyond the Date Line, you add on a day, whereas by going the opposite direction you "lose" twenty-four hours and have to repeat the same day.

From the careful studies it unquestionably results that the point clou for the passage of the Millennium was found on the Great Diomede island, 40 km offshore Cape Deznev in the Strate of Bering, that divides Russia from the United States.

The Republic of Kiribati, including the Gilbert Islands, Phoenix and the Line Islands scattered along the equator, resorted to a gigantic publicity stunt. With remarkable foresight, seven years ago the government moved its border for the new day 30° eastwards, that is by 1,600 kilometers. Overnight the natives of the Caroline Islands found themselves ahead of the others. This ploy of shifting the Date Line was immediately condemned by the authoritative Royal Geographical Society, the Greenwich Observatory, and many other geographical institutions. A careful examination of the globe, however, reveals that the key place for the turn of the millennium is the little-known island of Big Diomede: 169° longitude West, where the Date Line swerves eastwards by as much as 11° towards the 180° meridian, thus avoiding Chukot being divided into Saturday and Sunday. The furthest point east from Greenwich, this is where the new dawn will break. And here the celebrations will take place nineteen minutes before the islands of Tonga and forty-four minutes before Fiji. Our helicopter skims low under the thick ceiling of heavy cloud. On the right are the waters of the Bering Strait, on the left, the green tundra with low hills still capped in old snow. An hour and a half ago we left the town of Provideniya and more recently Lorino and Lavrentiya. According to our American map, we should now be over Naukan, but there is no sign of it. The pilot explains that the Eskimo village, built around 1400, was abandoned forty We reach Cape Dezhnev, the easternmost Russian point, known in Europe as East Cape. At the centre of a rocky promontory, about 700 metres up, a white obelisk with a bust of the discoverer stands out from the cloudy grey background.

Only four kilometers of sea separates the island from the United States island of Little Diomede, less than three kilometers long. On Big Diomede it is Thursday, but over there, beyond the imaginary Date Line it is still Wednesday. Whereas the Russians on Big Diomede will be the first to see in the new millennium, the Americans and the neighbouring island will only raise their glasses twenty-four hours later. From the east coast you get a good view of Ingaluk, the tiny Eskimo village whose eighty inhabitants have tidily arranged houses, a little school, a shop and a Catholic church. From Big Diomede you can see the seaplanes or helicopters coming in to guarantee a decent way of life for the neighbouring islanders. In 1926, in this area the explorer Diamond Jenness found some remarkable items from the ancient Okvik Eskimo culture, dating from the third century BC.

There is no question of any fun or entertainment. There is no leave and the soldiers never see their family during the two years of conscription. Free time is spent watching television - only one channel with terrible reception. Anyone wishing to work out by training with weights in the improvised gym will burn up the calories, and they are never in any great abundance. So the favourite pastime is simply sleeping.

Every now and then, an America submarine surfaces offshore, but no sirens sound, because no one believes in the enemy threat any more. One of the soldiers asks why we have come. I try to explain that I wanted to explore and film the place where day begins. He stares at me incredulously, probably wondering if I have some fresh bread or an apple. But more likely, he is dreaming of the day when he will finally leave this forsaken island at the edge of the world.

JACEK PALKIEWICZ