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Tourists to travel to North Pole via Krasnoyarsk region instead of Spitzbergen

The first trip could be arranged in 2018

© Sergey Savostyanov/TASS

KRANOYARSK, November 16. /TASS/. A tourist route from Khatanga to the North Pole, that will rival Norway’s Spitzbergen, is being developed in the Krasnoyarsk region, regional Deputy Minister of Culture Olga Vasilenko said on Wednesday at a meeting with a delegation of China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

“Local tour operators and the regional office of the Russian Geographical Society have been busy developing the route. Tourists will be able to travel to the North Pole via Khatanga (a settlement in the north of the Krasnoyarsk region) instead of Spitzbergen,” the deputy minister said.

According to Vasilenko, the first trip could be arranged in 2018. “We know that a group of at least 400 Chinese tourists has expressed a wish to use this route,” she said.

Tourists travelling to the North Pole usually arrive on Norway’s island of Spitzbergen (the Svalbard archipelago), then an Antonov An-74 plane takes them from Spitzbergen to Russia’s Barneo ice base and finally they take a Mil Mi-8 helicopter to go to the North Pole.

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