Chersky (urban-type settlement)


Chersky is an urban locality and the administrative center of Nizhnekolymsky District of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located on the Kolyma River, east from Yakutsk, the capital of the republic. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 2,857.
It was previously known as Nizhniye Kresty .

History

It was founded as Nizhniye Kresty in 1931. In 1963, it was granted urban-type settlement status and renamed Chersky, after Jan Czerski, a Polish geographer who organized several expeditions in the surrounding area in the 1880s. From the 1950s to the early 1990s, Chersky hosted logistical wing for drifting ice stations, which ran a supply route via the Zhokhov Island.

Administrative and municipal status

Within the framework of administrative divisions, the urban-type settlement of Chersky serves as the administrative center of Nizhnekolymsky District. As an administrative division, it is, together with one rural locality, incorporated within Nizhnekolymsky District as the Settlement of Chersky. As a municipal division, the Settlement of Chersky is incorporated within Nizhnekolymsky Municipal District as Chersky Urban Settlement.

Economy

It is served by the Chersky Airport. Chersky is the home of the Northeast Science Station. In 1981, Sergey Zimov established here the Pleistocene Park, a place for studies of global warming, pleistocene ecology, and permafrost.

Climate

Chersky has a subarctic climate.