Map B.04 - Ob Gulf

Sub-arctic region spanning from 77.22°N south to 62.96°N, encompassing the northern provinces of Magloshkagok, Biyetia, and Ostyakia. The map also depicts the lower Ob River and the vast Ob Gulf estuary, flanked by the Yamal and Yavey peninsulas.

To the east and southeast of the Northern Ural Mountains, the land known to Europeans as "Siberia" stretches beyond the limits of the map, extending for thousands of miles into the interior. The lower Ob River, though largely remote, serves as a minor trade route, its waters carrying goods through sparsely settled lands. In particularly warm summers, European whalers occasionally venture into the Kara Sea, though such journeys remain rare and perilous.

Hexes are 20 miles in diameter. Total area depicted equals 403,095 sq.m.

Physiographic Features

The northernmost reaches of this land are defined by a harsh and unyielding geography, where the tundra stretches toward the Arctic Ocean, and the mountains rise like a final barrier between the western plains and the endless expanse of the Siberian interior. Ice-bound rivers carve through the landscape, their sluggish waters feeding vast estuaries and frozen gulfs, while the land itself is shaped by permafrost, relentless winds, and the slow grinding of time.

Yamal Peninsula

A vast, wind-swept expanse of tundra and permafrost, the Yamal Peninsula juts into the cold, ice-strewn waters of the Kara Sea. Covered in low-lying marshes, countless lakes, and braided river channels, the land remains waterlogged in the brief summer before freezing solid in the relentless grip of winter. The peninsula's treeless terrain is shaped by permafrost heaving and thawing, creating rolling, uneven ground where only mosses, lichens and hardy sedges cling to life. In some areas, great frozen mounds, known as palsas, rise from the tundra, while in others, sudden collapses in the permafrost create deep sinkholes that further disrupt the landscape. The Yamal Peninsula remains the domain of migratory wildlife and nomadic reindeer herders, its desolation broken only by seasonal movements and the distant howling of Arctic winds.

Yavey Peninsula

Extending eastward into the Kara Sea, the Yavey Peninsula is a land of rugged coastline and shifting tundra, where low cliffs and eroded headlands break against the ice-choked waters. Less hospitable than Yamal, Yavey is more exposed, with relentless Arctic winds scouring its surface, leaving little more than frost-shattered rock and thin layers of soil that barely support even the hardiest plant life. Lakes and wetlands are fewer here, and the coastline is marked by gravel beaches and frozen mudflats, where the sea ice lingers deep into summer. Though barren and desolate, the Yavey Peninsula still serves as a resting ground for migrating seabirds, while polar bears occasionally prowl its shores in search of stranded prey.

Northern Ural Mountains

These rise in a series of low, weathered ridges, their bare summits and steep valleys shaped by countless ages of glaciation and frost. Unlike the towering peaks of the central range, these northernmost Urals are rounded and subdued, often hidden beneath layers of snow and ice for most of the year. Rivers cut through the valleys, their waters sluggish and cold, meandering through frozen bogs and vast stretches of taiga that fringe the mountain bases. The tree line thins as the range extends northward, giving way to stony tundra where patches of lichen-covered rock and permanent ice dominate the landscape. The winds here are ceaseless, funneling through the passes and along the ridges, their force carving deep ravines into the exposed rock. Though largely uninhabited, these mountains form a natural divide, a stark and desolate boundary between the lands of the west and the endless Siberian wilderness beyond.

Hydrographic Features

These are defined by the slow movement of water through an unforgiving landscape, where vast stretches of land drain toward the Arctic in a long, steady course. Here, the meeting of inland waters with the open sea is shaped by the freeze and thaw of the seasons, creating a region where rivers, estuaries, and coastal flats shift with the passage of time. In summer, the land releases its waters in a widening flood, while in winter, the surface seals over, forcing the currents beneath to find hidden paths through ice and permafrost.

Nimdobayek Swamp

A vast, waterlogged expanse stretching south of the Ob Gulf, this is a labyrinth of shallow lakes, braided streams, and permafrost-laden bogs, shaped by the seasonal thaw and freeze of the northern tundra. The land is uneven and unstable, covered in thick peat deposits, with clusters of stunted willows and dwarf birch rising from the soggy ground. During the summer, meltwater collects in the countless depressions, forming a patchwork of swampy basins and slow-moving channels that shift with the land’s subtle movements.

The swamp is fed by the lower Ob River, whose sluggish tributaries meander through the saturated soil before dispersing into the Ob Gulf estuary. In winter, the surface hardens into a frozen plain of frost-cracked earth and icebound pools, but as the warmer months return, the permafrost weakens, giving rise to a maze of half-submerged hummocks and boggy flats. The waters are dark and often still, occasionally stirred by the wind or the movement of unseen creatures beneath the surface.

Lower Ob River

Flowing through a desolate landscape, the river here is wide and shallow, broken into countless braided channels that weave through an expanse of floodplains, marshes, and peat bogs. These form a labyrinth of waterways that shift with the seasons. In summer, the melting permafrost and seasonal rains swell its banks, sending its waters spilling into surrounding lowlands, creating a region of slow-moving currents and flooded tundra. Despite its remoteness, the lower Ob serves as a minor trade route, its waters navigable for only a brief window each year, when the thaw allows passage.

As winter takes hold, the river freezes solid, its surface locked beneath thick ice that halts all movement above, while unseen currents persist in narrow channels beneath the frozen crust. The land surrounding the river is flat and treeless, shaped by millennia of water carving through the permafrost, leaving behind countless oxbow lakes, backwaters, and cut-off tributaries. The river's course is erratic, shifting over time as sediment builds and channels redirect, ensuring that the path it takes today is not the one it will follow in the distant future.

Ob Gulf

This vast, funnel-shaped estuary where the lower Ob River meets the Arctic is a broad, brackish expanse before merging with the Kara Sea. The gulf is shallow and slow-moving, shaped by the steady northward flow of the river and the encroaching influence of the tides. In summer, the waters are cold and murky, laden with silt and sediment carried from the distant interior, dispersing into the open sea in swirling currents of fresh and saltwater. Icebergs and drifting floes, calved from the greater ice fields to the north, move unpredictably across the gulf, drawn by the shifting currents and the seasonal melt.

In winter, the Ob Gulf freezes over completely, its surface forming an unbroken sheet of ice that extends far beyond the river’s mouth. Beneath the ice, the waters remain in motion, slowly pushing toward the sea, carving unseen paths through channels long hidden from view. The tidal reach of the Arctic is weak here, its influence dampened by the gulf’s sheer breadth, though the shifting ice and periodic surges from the north ensure that the region is never fully still.

A place of great emptiness, the Ob Gulf is rarely traveled except by those who know its ways. In warm summers, European whalers may venture into its waters, following the migrations of marine life that briefly enter the estuary. But for much of the year, it remains a lonely, icebound threshold, where the last great river of the west spills into the endless reaches of the Arctic.

Bajdarat Gulf & Kara Sea

The Bajdarat is a shallow, ice-bound inlet of the Kara Sea, where the frigid waters of the Arctic press against the western shores of the Yamal Peninsula. This gulf is narrow and elongated, its waters channeled between low, barren headlands and a coastline shaped by frost, wind, and the slow retreat of ice. The sea floor here is flat and silty, built from centuries of sediment carried northward by rivers that empty into the Kara, their currents dispersing in the sluggish, brackish tides of the gulf.

Beyond the Bajdarat Gulf, the adjacent waters of the Kara Sea stretch westward, forming a turbulent meeting ground between the continental runoff and the colder, heavier Arctic currents. This region remains choked with pack ice for much of the year, and even in summer, the waters are dark and unwelcoming, broken by drifting ice floes and the shifting edges of the frozen north. Unlike the deeper parts of the Kara Sea, this coastal expanse is shallow and uneven, shaped by submerged sandbanks, relic ice ridges, and the slow-moving outflow of inland waters.