ARKHANGELSK, July 5. /TASS/. The Russian Arctic National Park will open the country’s northernmost visitor center in September in the Tikhaya Bay on the Hooker Island, the Franz Josef Land Archipelago, the Park’s Director Alexander Kirilov told TASS.
The Tikhaya Bay polar station was opened on Franz Josef Land’s Hooker Island on August 30, 1929. It was the first ever settlement on the archipelago. The bay was named by Russian polar explorer Georgy Sedov, whose expedition stayed there over the winter in 1913-1914. Nowadays, the national park’s base is located in the station’s territory.
"On the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the first, Tikhaya Bay, polar station on Franz Josef Land, we shall open in September the national park’s visitor center on the Hooker Island," the director said. "It will be the country’s northernmost visitor center."
Exposition in Russian, English and Chinese
The visitor center will be in a building which remains on the island since 1954. It used to be a pavilion to fill balloons for meteorology tests. "The ceilings are high," the park’s Head of the Historic and Cultural Heritage Department Evgeny Yermolov said, "the building is big and it would be ideal for a visitor center."
In 2019, the park’s staff will clean the building from ice, will renovate it and will make an exhibition there. The task is not easy, as the park is limited in staff. "Our project has several stages. Right now, we shall make a one-level exposition, and further on we shall add certain objects - this will happen in the coming years."
As the polar station used to work most actively in the 1930s, the visitor center will be decorated in the style of Soviet posters. "The Soviet avant-garde and constructivism [styles] will be there, the historic content fits fine, unlike the nature," he said. "But our designer has managed even to have a polar bear fit there well."
The exhibition will tell about geology, climate, flora and fauna on the Hooker Island and on the entire Franz Josef Land. The exhibition will focus on the archipelago’s history - both Russian and Soviet. "The exposition is targeted mostly at Western tourists, and our task is to tell visitors about how the USSR and Russia have explored the Arctic. Everyone knows Norway’s Fridtjof Nansen, some know about Frederick Jackson or Benjamin Leigh Smith, but foreigners know nothing about [Ivan] Papanin, or [Georgy] Sedov. Thus, the task was to present our history. We have paid respect to Nansen and the like, and then we proceed to the grands: Sedov, the station’s founder, [Ernst] Krenkel, Papanin, the war - we have our own landmarks."
All explications are in three languages: Russian, English and Chinese. "This is because we know where visitors come from," the director said. "Every third visitor comes from China. Russians make about 6%."
A leaflet
The national park has been working on a leaflet for tourists. It is devoted to the Tikhaya Bay, and besides it is the exhibition’s guide. "It will contain historical information, pictures showing what and how happened here over the history, and what and where is now," the director said. "Plus brief information on Franz Josef Land’s geology, biology, climate and history." The leaflet will be published in English.
The "Blue Book"
The history department’s head told TASS about the so-called Blue Book - a guestbook "which, strange as it may seem, has a green cover. Nobody can say how it began, but the polar explorers told about it practically from the station’s first years. Papanin, for example. All guests to the station, ship captains, pilots, outstanding scientists used to leave notes in it. It is the station’s history in comments."
The book continued through the Tikhaya Bay Station’s term, and when the station was closed it was given to an employee of the Arctic and Antarctic Institute. "The book contains a note the station is closed," the expert continued. "Later on, the book got lost and then appeared on the black market. The Arctic Museum and Exhibition Center found the book on the Internet and bought it. It was a coincidence. This artefact was just on the surface. It’s great nobody else has bought it, or even burned it as a useless book."
The park now has the book’s reprint, and the original remains with the Arctic Museum and Exhibition Center in St. Petersburg. "They have copied thoroughly the cover, the locks there," the expert said. "They have copied the paper, its color, texture, and all the texts."
The original book consisted of a few notebooks, it was 150-200 pages thick. "We now can see two or three notebooks only, the rest has been torn out; thus, we have texts dated 1932-1936: Ivan Papanin’s winter, he writes: "We are leaving the station, have completed the second International polar year 1932-1933," there are a few texts from 1956-1957, but, for example, we miss texts from the time of the Great Patriotic War (World War II)," he said. "But anyway, it is a very interesting and valuable historical source."
The Blue Book will be used like in the past - for notes by guests, visiting the national park. "The polar station nowadays begins the second life, and we are reviving the tradition," he added.
The Russian Arctic National Park is Russia’s northernmost and biggest nature reserve, which unites the Franz Josef Land Archipelago and the northern part of the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago.