ARKHANGELSK, June 26. /TASS/. An expedition, which will begin work to organize the world’s northernmost museum, left Murmansk heading for Franz Josef Land. The 50 Let Pobedy nuclear-powered icebreaker will bring the expedition to the Hooker Island, the Russian Arctic National Park’s Director Alexander Kirilov told TASS on Tuesday.
"The expedition of ten specialists will work to organize in the Hooker Island’s Tikhaya Bay the world’s northernmost museum," he said. "The specialists will restore the unique airplane hangar, where the museum will be."
The group unites restoration experts, historians and rescuers. The National Park’s specialists, who are at the bay now, will also take part in the work. They all will cover the hangar with water-proof plywood panels, will clear the hangar’s facades and enforce the wooden beams. All materials for the restoration were delivered to the bay a year earlier on board the Mikhail Somov vessel during a scientific expedition.
The works are organized by the Arctic Museum-Exhibition Center (St. Petersburg), which cooperates with the Russian Arctic National Park. The new museum will be devoted to exploration and development of the Arctic and the North Pole.
The Tikhay Bay polar station worked on the Hooker Island between 1929 and 1957. The wooden hangar for airplanes was built there in 1932. As a new station on the Heiss Island opened, the station on the Hooker Island was closed. The station on the Heiss Island in 1972 was called to commemorate Ernst Krenkel, who worked on the North Pole-1 drifting ice station.
The Russian Arctic National Park is Russia’s northernmost and biggest nature reserve, which takes the area of 8.8 million hectares. It was organized on June 15, 2009. The Park includes a northern part of the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago’s Severny Island and the entire Franz Josef Land Archipelago.