Tuesday March 11, Arthur Chilingarov (who planted the Russian flag at the bottom of the Ocean at the North Pole) held a meeting initiating the work of the Barneo annual drifting ice camp. Image courtesy of the organizers (Click to enlarge).
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Arctic 2008 kicking off: Barneo in progress
Posted: Mar 19, 2008 09:38 pm EST
(ThePoles.com) The Arctic list of expeditions will go up tomorrow (Thursday) but already last Wednesday, action started on the Russian side of the ice.
Tuesday March 11, Arthur Chilingarov (who planted the Russian flag at the bottom of the Ocean at the North Pole) held a meeting initiating the work of the annual drifting ice camp BARNEO.
Chilingarov was there as a special representative of the President of the Russian Federation for International Polar Year.
The next day, a prayer service was held in the Church of Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin to bless the start of the Barneo camp. 2 Mi-8 Taimyr air helicopters took off enroute Norilsk – Dikson – Sredniy Island – Cape Arcticheskiy – North Pole; while an Iljusin Il-76 airplane lifted from Moscow enroute to Murmansk to perform future landing of equipment, fuel and other load.
August 2nd 2007, veteran Arctic explorer Artur Chilingarov, 67, descended 14,000 feet below the NP ice cap in a deep sea submersible and dropped a Russian tricolor cast in titanium onto the seabed, staking a claim to the oil and gas riches beneath the Arctic Ocean.
Artur Chilingarov said his main concern was to resurface at the ice hole they dived through. The mini-sub used was not strong enough to break through the polar ice and there was a danger it might be trapped beneath the ice caps. Chilingarov describe "a soft landing" and nothing but "yellowish gravel down here."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, "the aim of this expedition is not to stake Russia's claim but to show that our shelf reaches to the North Pole."
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