Akademik

   / Dolgan-Nenets Municipal District

   An administrative district of Krasnoyarsk Krai. Formerly a federal subject of the Russian Federation known as the Taymyr Dolgan-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (AOk), the region (along with the Evenk AOk) was merged with Krasnoyarsk Krai on 1 January 2007, following a 2005 referendum. In the poll, 70 percent of registered voters gave their support for the merger, slightly less than in neighboring Evenkiya. The last governor of the region was Oleg Budargin, who was formerly mayor of Norilsk. Mostly tundra, the region accounts for 40 percent of Krasnoyarsk’s territory. The Taymyr Peninsula is washed by the Kara and Laptev seas and includes the Severnaya Zemlya islands; Cape Chelyuskin is the northernmost point on the Eurasian continent. Dudinka (pop. 25,000) was the administrative capital of the region when it was an AOk. The region’s two titular groups—the Turkic-speaking Dolgans and Uralic-speaking Nenets—make up 14 percent and 8 percent of the population, respectively; ethnic Russians form a majority at 57 percent.