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Rogozin and Arctic commission members reach North Pole

Rogozin stayed on the North Pole for about 30 minutes

NORTH POLE, April 19 /TASS/. Russian Vice-Premier Dmitry Rogozin and other members of the State Commission for Arctic Development have reached the North Pole by helicopters.

The vice-premier, accompanied by Artur Chilingarov, the president’s special representative for the Arctic and Antarctic; Russian Minister of Natural Resources Sergei Donskoi; Minister of Economic Development Alexei Ulyukayev and other members of the State Commission for Arctic Development, disembarked on an ice floe near the North Pole and walked several meters on foot. When they reached the nominal point, members of the Russian Geographic Society temporary installed a direction sign. Then, Rogozin and his team posed for pictures first with the Russian national flag and the banner of Victory; the St. Andrew’s flag of the Russian Navy as well as the flag of the Russian Military-Historical Society.

Rogozin stayed on the North Pole for about 30 minutes.

Earlier, Rogozin and the commission’s members opened a new Russian drifting station - North Pole - 2015.

The station will function for several months, scientists said. Artur Chilingarov, the Russian president’s special representative for international cooperation in the Arctic and the Antarctic. The station’s opening marks the revival of Russia’s programme of drifting stations that was suspended in the summer of 2013 after the North Pole-40 Russian drifting station had been evacuated.

The world’s first drifting station North Pole-1 was officially opened 20 kilometers away off the North Pole on June 6, 1937. The expedition headed by well-known polar explorer Ivan Papanin lasted for 9 months. The ice floe covered more than 2,000 kilometers.

Until last year, the Barneo drifting base had opened in the Arctic annually. It operated on the 89th degree of north latitude approximately 100 kilometers off the North Pole.

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