The Laptev Sea shore of present-day Severnaya Zemlya was discovered by
Boris Vilkitsky in 1913 during the
Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition on behalf of the
Russian Hydrographic Service, but he was unaware that there was a strait west of the cape between what is now Bolshevik Island and the islands further north, for the straits are frozen most of the year, forming a compact whole. This cape was named during the 1930–1932 expedition to the archipelago led by
Georgy Ushakov and
Nikolay Urvantsev after Soviet scientist
Fedor Baranov (1886–1965). Located near Cape Baranov, roughly to the SSE of the cape, the
Prima Polar Station of the
Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute closed down in 1996 and reopened in June 2013 as a private venture. This is currently the only
Arctic research facility operating in Severnaya Zemlya. ==Geography==