TASS, September 4. The Northern Fleet's Romuald Muklevich hydrographic survey vessel on September 2 departed for a complex expedition, organized by the Northern Fleet and the Russian Geographical Society. The expedition is dubbed Remember War. The voyage is devoted to the 290th anniversary of the Northern Fleet, to the 150th anniversary of Franz Josef Land's discovery, the 110th anniversary of Severnaya Zemlya's discovery, and to the 100th anniversary of the Northern Hydrographic Expedition, the Northern Fleet's press service said.
"The vessel will be involved in the expedition's third season to search the waters of the Barents and Kara Seas for the Brilliant patrol ship, minesweepers T-120, T-911, T-896, transports the Kuibyshev, the Dixon, the Arkhangelsk, the Sergey Kirov, as well as for four transports of convoy PQ-17: the Olopana, the Hatlebury, the John Witherspoon, the Alcoa Ranger. Due to tragic circumstances of those vessels' sinking, their exact locations remain unverified to date," the press service said.
"The scientific groups, featuring the Northern Fleet and the Russian Geographical Society experts, in addition to the searches, will also have a wide range of scientific and survey tasks," the release reads.
In order to update the oceanographic data banks, the expedition will study hydrological regimes in the Laptev, the Barents and the Kara Seas. Experts will take pictures of the bottom relief in poorly explored areas of the Arctic archipelagos, will face a number of tasks related to the World Ocean studies, will collect information to make modern and accurate nautical charts, and navigation manuals. Additionally, the expedition participants plan to test new oceanographic equipment, initiated by Russian developers, as well as to study the signals of radio navigation and satellite systems in the Northern Sea Route waters, the press service said.
"The expedition participants will go ashore at iconic locations, associated with the discoverers: the hydrographic expedition of the Arctic Ocean, the famous explorers of Severnaya Zemlya - Nikolay Urvantsev and Georgy Ushakov, as well as the Austro-Hungarian expedition on board the Tegetthoff," the press service said.
A film group led by famous director Leonid Kruglov will be completing work on a large-format documentary, which has a working title To the Arctic! The documentary will touch upon several episodes related to earlier expeditions to the Arctic archipelagos conducted by the Northern Fleet and the Russian Geographical Society. A well-known historian and author of several books on the Arctic history, Nikita Kuznetsov, is also on board the expedition ship.
The expedition is supported by the Russian Geographical Society, the People of the Sea Foundation for the Promotion of the Study and Preservation of the History of Human Maritime Activity, Fertoing LLC, and the Paulsen Publishing House. The scale of research will depend on ice conditions, which are quite complicated this year. The voyage is expected to continue to mid-October.