TASS, June 21. The Clean Arctic - Vostok-77 expedition finalized work in Yakutia and moved to the Chukchi Peninsula, where experts will map the USSR industrial heritage objects in the continental Arctic, the expedition's press service told TASS.
"By now, the scientists have mapped objects in the Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Nenets and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Regions, on the Taymyr and in Yakutia," the press service quoted the expedition headquarters' representative Stanislav Lachininsky as saying. "Now, our task is to collect and mark the cartography data on objects in Chukotka."
In Chukotka, researchers will collect data on abandoned industrial and infrastructure facilities of the Soviet times, which require recycling or additional conservation to cut their impact on the environment. The map will be used by state corporations, Rosatomflot (the nuclear fleet authority) and the Northern Sea Route's Directorate to plan loading and routes of vessels that will be able to remove several hundred thousand tons of equipment from the coastal facilities, identified by the expedition.
The Clean Arctic - Vostok-77 expedition is the largest mission in terms of the number of participants among continental high-latitude scientific expeditions in the entire history of the North's studies. It kicked off from Murmansk in August, 2023, and over one year its 700 participants from more than 20 centers of the Russian Academy of Sciences and from federal universities as well as volunteers of the Russian Geographical Society will conduct 200 studies on routes stretching for 12,000 kilometers. One of the tasks the expedition has is to study and preserve the North's rare languages.