MOSCOW, September 28. /TASS Correspondent Kirill Verigo/. The Russian Geographical Society (RGS) has been cleaning the Arctic for a few years. In 2022 all cleanup missions were united under one brand - Arctic. Great Cleanup. Cleanup missions are over on the Kildin and Wrangel Islands in Chukotka, from where 300 tons of scrap metal have been removed. This year, RGS' mission is in Khatanga - a 398-year-old settlement in the Krasnoyarsk Region, on the Khatanga River that flows into the Laptev Sea.
The expedition's first stage was in late summer. Experts and volunteers studied the surroundings, took samples for further tests, and, together with the Defense Ministry personnel and local residents, removed from the coastline the waste that had been there for decades. Next year, the Russian Geographical Society team will continue the cleaning afresh, and meanwhile the specialists will be involved in preparatory works.
The plans are not just to clean Khatanga from man-made waste, but, literally, to revive the village that used to be a prosperous place: to protect the coast from collapses, to develop the scientific and tourist potential - the village will be on the routes to nearby attractions and to the North Pole. Important infrastructure facilities are being built there. The intermediate result that RGS is striving for is to have Khatanga a backbone Arctic settlement and to have its long-term development plan implemented.
Waste: where from and what to do about it?
Khatanga used to be a prosperous village. A military unit and geological expeditions had bases there. The village clubs organized big festivals, the seaport received cargo, reindeer herders stored meat in local glaciers - special storages in the permafrost, the fish factory processed rich catches of Arctic cisco and nelma, air flights connected villages and shipped everything necessary from the mainland.
"Presently 2,400 people live in Khatanga, while earlier, in the 1980s, the population was 12,000. Planes from Moscow arrived twice a week, and every day from Krasnoyarsk," said Igor Spiridenko, the expedition leader and the head of the Russian Geographical Society's branch in Krasnoyarsk. "In Soviet times, the Arctic zone was developing very actively, the resources were clearly unlimited. Barrels of fuel, various structures of metal, concrete were only growing. But in the 90s, this process, like many others, stopped. In the Arctic, everything, if left without support, declines very quickly due to the climate. In fact, everything was only brought there, because taking it back was very expensive and too far."
Nowadays, Khatanga, according to RGS representatives, is "a big accumulated environmental damage object": the coastline and tundra are littered with scrap metal and rusting containers with hazardous petroleum products. Environmentally friendly cleanup is to process the waste on the spot or to ship it by sea to the mainland.
"We have negotiated the Khatanga commercial seaport. The ships sail unladen to Arkhangelsk, and laden only on the return voyage - [carrying] the Northern Supplies. They are happy to help us with the waste shipment," Spiridenko said. "Of the nine landfills here, only one is on the registrar. There is an incineration complex here, but it is in the middle of the tundra, which restores not quickly, and if to eye the options - to burn or to recycle - we tend to prefer the second."
RGS experts have suggested a comprehensive project that will help not only to recycle scrap metal, but also to solve the problem of the river banks that are constantly collapsing due to washouts. The solution is to bring a small advanced ferrous metallurgy workshop to Khatanga in order to make a gabion mesh from scrap to enforce the shore, and to fill it with stones.
"This work may be done within the next season, when everything necessary is delivered in the winter season by winter roads. During that season we will begin to make rods and fittings, and after the next year's ice breaking (in spring), we will be putting local stones into the gabion mesh," said Yaroslav Lebedev, the expedition's scientific curator, representing the Geomatics Center at the Kovalevsky Institute of Biology of the South Seas. Research for implementation of these ideas will begin in 2024.
Great cleanup
The expedition's reconnaissance took place in August, where 70 volunteers, specialists and military from the environmental unit cleaned about 3 km of the coastline - they removed about 200 tons of waste. RGS scientific volunteers studied the area and took soil samples for geo-chemical studies.
"The soils will be tested at a special laboratory," said Svetlana Shatskova, the scientific group volunteer, a geo-ecologist student from the St. Petersburg State University. "This is one of the areas we are engaged in. We also describe the flora that is here - it may indicate pollution. This is done to see the most environmentally risky spots. The analysis will show to us how polluted they are, and we will make a map with recommendations for a cleanup plan."
Svetlana is in the Arctic for the first time. Her focus is to study the environment of the polar regions, and the Arctic to her is an important practical part.
"The choice (of participants) was in several directions: some with technical skills and experience in cleaning the Arctic, and others - young scientists who have participated in the RGS youth club meeting. It takes place right here," said Anton Yurmanov, Director of the RGS Youth Policy Department. "The third block is media volunteers, the girl is making documentaries. The fourth block - inclusive volunteers, this year we have three of them - they are those already trained and experienced in earlier expeditions."
The Russian Geographical Society is the first in Russia to work with inclusive volunteering - people with disabilities are involved in work equally with other expedition participants. Over five years, 25 people with disabilities have participated in RGS projects.
RGS specialists and the Center for Environmental Industrial Policy every day delivered lectures and classes for volunteers on ecology and environmental protection. During free time, they were shown local attractions and even had a basketball tournament - teams of volunteers competed with local residents in the village club's gym.
The expedition realized it is most important to attract local residents to the cleanup. In fact, the organizers did not have to persuade anyone - the villagers were happy to clean the coast from the accumulated waste.
"It's great our residents have been shown an example of how important it is to clean. Some of our people are still on vacation, really. But every year, I think, people will be joining," said Nadezhda Kotelnikova of the local administration, who is also a tour guide. Nadezhda is Nganasan - she represents an ancient and very low-numbered ethnic group that, along with Dolgans, Nenets and Evenks, lives in Khatanga.
What's the future?
By November 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin expects a list of the Russian Federation Arctic zone's backbone settlements, that is, towns and villages located in key places for ensuring security, and that have raw materials and infrastructure potentials. By July 2024, will be ready master plan for their development for 10 years. Khatanga, according to Igor Spiridenko, may receive such a status, and it will give an impetus to its social and economic growth, to the housing stock development, and consequently to an increase in the number of residents. However, Khatanga must show its best features right now: for this, RGS has developed a master plan to develop tourism, a scientific and educational cluster, and infrastructures there.
"We have a new airport, a powerful runway, we have about 300 flight-friendly days a year - unique weather conditions. Plus the 400th anniversary [of the village is due] in two years, and for it we will attract a lot of money from the Krasnoyarsk Region's budget (the local administration has adopted a program to the end of 2026 to develop the settlement - TASS). If we manage it all, then we will happily apply for Khatanga's status of the Russian Federation Arctic zone's backbone settlement," Igor Spiridenko said.
In 2023, the Russian Geographical Society opened several tourist routes from Khatanga in the footsteps of outstanding Russian pioneers: a trip to the Anabar Plateau with fishing, a tour to learn the culture of indigenous peoples and to have a photo safari, as well as a route along the Kotui River. The village plans to open a mammoth museum and an ice hotel, cut in the permafrost, and an ethnic village.
However, the Russian Geographical Society sees as the main tourist project the routes through Khatanga to the geographical point of the North Pole. In the past, a route there crossed the Spitsbergen Archipelago in Norway, and from 2024 flights to the revived Barneo ice camp will go via Khatanga - this route is much more convenient. This year, test flights have been successful.
"We have had a few test tourist flights. Together with our partners we have equipped the runway on Cape Baranov on the Bolshevik Island, the Severnaya Zemlya Archipelago. To there, planes have come for the first time in recent 30 years - due to this initiative. It was the opening of a route via Khatanga," Spiridenko said.
The Defense Ministry plans to work in Khatanga, too. Environmental units of the Central Military District have planned to clean up unused military camps.
The Russian Geographical Society does not limit itself to Khatanga. The cleanup at the village and its surroundings would be a testing ground for the large-scale project - Arctic. Great Cleanup, and the practiced approaches will be used throughout the Russian Arctic - there is still a lot to do to make it clean.