Two Small Specks of Islands in Bering Sea

choi

汉佛里·霍克斯利, 记者来鸿：'令人心碎' 的一段美俄边界
BBC Chinese, Sept 2, 2015
http://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp ... ily_russian_cousins

, which is translated from

Humphrey Hawksley, The Ice Curtain That Divides US Families from Russian Cousins. BBC Chinese, Aug 31, 2015.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34066393

Note:
(a) Diomede Islands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diomede_Islands
("about 2 km (1.2 mi) from" each other; Danish navigator Vitus Bering, re-discovered the Diomede Islands while leading a Russian expedition, on Aug 16 (OS [Old Style], Aug 26 NS [New Style]) 1728, the day when the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates the memory [ie, feast day--Aug 16] of the martyr St Diomede (hence, the name of the islands)
(b) photo caption: "Her daughter Rebecca takes after the Russian side of the family"

take after: "to resemble in features, build, character, or disposition"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/take

(c) "It [the US-Russia border separating Little and Big Diomede Islands] was first drawn up in 1867 when America bought Alaska from a cash-strapped Tsarist Russia. But no-one took much notice then. Families lived on both islands and criss-crossed back and forth until 1948 when the border was suddenly closed. The Soviet military moved on to Big Diomede and the civilians were forcibly resettled on the Siberian mainland. * * * All of the 80 people who live on this [American] remote island have relations somewhere in Russia. * * * Robert Soolook, another Diomede tribal leader, took part in an expedition that travelled through the Siberian east-coast province of Chukotka looking for lost relatives."
(i) relation (n): "a person connected by consanguinity or affinity : RELATIVE"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/relation
(ii) Chukotka Autonomous Okrug
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chukotka_Autonomous_Okrug
(A) The Okrug is named after the penninsula of the same name. See Chukchi Peninsula
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chukchi_Peninsula
(or Chukotka Peninsula)

* In this Web page, only the third map shows Diomede Islands (in the first two maps, these two islands are too small in the scales 比例尺).
* The word "Chukchi" is the adjective for proper noun "Chukotka."  See Chukchi
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Chukchi
* I fail to find the meaning of Chukotka.
* okrug
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okrug
(B) "resettled on the Siberian mainland"

"Siberian mainland" here alludes to Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, or even the peninsula.  If you look at the map, it is not so far away, compared to Siberia near Mongolia.

(d) "I found relatives on my mother's side in three villages, and her [my mother's] favourite cousin - Luda - she was in Uelen. It was very special. I was with family again."

Uelen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uelen
(e) "Other pictures show him as a sergeant in the elite army unit, the Eskimo Scouts - in Alaska, unlike Canada or Greenland, the term 'Eskimo' is considered [politically] correct."

Eskimo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo
("In Canada and Greenland, the term 'Eskimo' has fallen out of favor as pejorative and has been widely replaced by the term 'Inuit,' 'Alaska Natives' * * * Under US and Alaskan law, however, as well as the linguistic and cultural traditions of Alaska, 'Alaska Natives' refers to all indigenous peoples of Alaska"/ section 2 Nomenclature, section 2.1 Origin)
(f) "Col Patrick Carpentier of the North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad), the joint US-Canadian operation tasked with protecting the border"

English dictionary:
carpenter (n; Old French and Modern French charpentier)
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=carpenter
(g) "The much shorter northern shipping routes which go through the Bering Strait are also opening up. "

View the map in Arctic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic