TASS, November 20. The Clean Arctic - Vostok-77 expedition participants at the autumn route's most complicated part crossed at night a fast ice-covered river to test two Russian Arkhant all-terrain vehicles, the expedition's press service told TASS.

"At this stage of the route, we are testing the vehicles that will become the main transport in hard-to-reach territories in the Arctic and Siberia. The task the manufacturers faced was that the vehicles must work on any hard or water surface with a slope of up to 35 degrees at any temperature and in any visibility. The Arkhant vehicles meet such requirements as we have seen in this expedition," the press service quoted the expedition's test group leader Tatiana Zikunkova as saying.

In addition to the vehicle testing, the expedition has sampled soils in hard-to-reach areas of peat bogs. The expedition's another stage was due to finish on November 19 by the Khibiny mountain range. The tests' conditions were: the vehicles with scientists and pilots were to cross a swampy forest tundra passage within three days, where the people were to sleep in the cars, and the Arkhant all-terrain vehicles were to cross a few medium and small rivers with high flows in the Khibiny foothills. One of the rivers was to be crossed at night. The testers picked the widest place, as they wanted to see how the vehicles would behave when they are hit by split ice floes and by the current.

"We realize that a good owner would never choose such a place for crossing, no matter how reliable the car is. But we are to test the vehicles in the most difficult conditions. And that's what we have done - the lead car immediately broke through the ice and floated among the ice floes, but in the middle of the river, the strong current began to throw ice floes into Arkhant's side. The vehicle withstood them all, and one large ice floe managed to hit the main gas tank's lid and tore it off. Waves were flooding into the tank, and 10 meters from the shore the engine stalled, as the water mixture from the tank had got into it," the expedition's participant Pavel Norkin said.

The vehicles have been designed for operation in the Arctic conditions, and access to their all units is guaranteed directly from the warm interior. The crew was able to drain the water mixture from the main tank, and refilled that tank from other tanks located in the wheels. The crossing has not affected the vehicles' survivability and driving qualities in any way, the testers concluded.

About expedition

Clean Arctic - Vostok-77 is the biggest scientific expedition in terms of the number of participants in continental high-latitude scientific expeditions over the history of the North's studies. It will have 77 expedition teams. The route has been structured to meet the objectives, set by the Russian Academy of Sciences' research centers, and in accordance with due studies under university grants. Over a year-long term, 700 participants from more than 20 research centers and federal universities, as well as the Russian Geographical Society volunteers, will conduct 200 studies at routes that will be as long as 12,000 km. one of the tasks the expedition has is to research and preserve the North's rare languages. TASS is the expedition's general information partner.