Dead Kultuk and Durnev Islands

From the 17^th to 20^th century, Dead Kultuk has had a three different names: Blue Bay, Tsesarevich Bay and Komsomolets Bay. At the entrance of the 70 km-wide bay are the Durnev Islands. For unknown reasons many online reports make it sound like there’s only one island off of Buzachi’s northern coastline. However, if you whip open a 1970s Soviet map – or Google Earth – you’ll see that there are at least five substantially-sized islands, some of which are more than 6 km wide and most of them are heavily covered in reeds.

According to Kaspika, a Caspian seals conservation agency, Durnev Island, the largest in the chain, had 30,000 seals in 2011. Though, in the following years the number began to decrease rapidly as the Caspian’s falling sea level made it difficult for them to access the island. By 2018 the seals totally abandoned their Durnev Island hang out. But in late 2020 a Central Asian Institute for Environmental Research expedition recorded a total of 1,000 seals in two rookeries.