TASS, August 15. The Clean Arctic - Vostok-77 expedition kicks off from the Murmansk port. Over 12 months, experts from the Academy of Sciences' 20 research institutes and from some universities will cover more than 12,000 km in the least explored Northern regions to conduct scientific research.

"We also expect geographical discoveries. A hundred plus natural objects, which would become tourist centers, after the expedition will receive projects to have their ecological improvement and the development of road networks. Those objects would become Russia's centers for eco and ethnic tourism in the 21st century. Quite possibly, as we survey routes to new objects, we will assign names to new valleys and passes through which trails and roads will run to the discovered locations," the expedition's press service quoted an expert of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Geography, Boris Kochurov, as saying.

The expedition's scientific program includes surveys in ecology, sociology and anthropology of indigenous peoples and residents of the country's northernmost settlements. The expedition will examine some 500 objects of the USSR industrial heritage, will determine whether to preserve or to demolish the remaining equipment, barrels and other objects of the 19th-20th centuries. The researchers will do a great job to study the Arctic's current conditions - more than 700 people will conduct about 200 important scientific studies throughout a year. The participants will cover 12,000 kilometers and cross eleven time zones.

TASS correspondents will be working next to the scientists, thus developing the tradition that is almost a hundred years old. The agency's correspondents and photographers have participated in all the USSR high-latitude continental expeditions, and this time TASS is the expedition's general information partner.

On Tuesday, the Klavdiya Elanskaya will depart from Murmansk to take the first team of researchers to the Kola Peninsula's hard-to-reach southeastern coast, from where the expedition's land route will begin. The group will walk 120 km - a part of the route, which runs through the tundra and bays of the Kola Peninsula's Tersky Coast. Another team will join that group in the village of Umba - sociologists and anthropologists will begin to collect data for sociological surveys in locations, where the Sami live; and representatives of the Moscow Arctic Library No. 77 will be looking for audio, video content and books in languages of the Sami and Izhma Komi indigenous peoples. This route will cross Revda, Lovozero and Apatity.

The expedition's seven routes will run in the continental Arctic. The expedition will also survey conditions of the tundra and permafrost soils, will map the USSR industrial heritage and modern transport infrastructures, will conduct microplastics studies in northern reservoirs and in locations of future carbon polygons, as well as sociological research.

Clean Arctic Project

The project's purpose is to attract volunteers from Russia and abroad to cleanup missions in the Arctic - to remove the waste, accumulated there since the active development period. The Clean Arctic - Vostok-77 expedition is the project's new stage.