MOSCOW, October 21. /TASS/. A team of volunteers during an expedition to Cape Chelyuskin will restore monuments to polar explorers, the Clean Arctic project's press service said.
"The cemetery site is on the coast - between the polar station and the border outpost. Cape Chelyuskin is known for an interesting feature - there is no ice by the shore, so real Arctic storms are raging the place, plus permafrost," the press service quoted the expedition's leader Vitaly Kalinichev as saying. "All these factors, of course, have a devastating effect on the monuments, and we will have to choose optimal reconstruction materials so that they lasted as long as possible."
The expedition team took measurements to renovate memorial plaques and fences. The monuments will be restored next summer - during the project's another expedition to Cape Chelyuskin. The work will feature specialists of the Taymyr Museum of Local History and the Russian Geographical Society. The Clean Arctic volunteers will pay special attention to the restoration, since the peninsula is home to Eurasia's northernmost airfield, from where the Russian polar aviation has begun.
The harsh weather destroys the monuments, and inscriptions on some tombstones have become unreadable. The cemetery has five graves of polar explorers, who died in the 1930s and 1940s. Back then, the North's transport system was only developing, and it was impossible to transport the bodies from the cape. The propeller of a crashed plane is at the foot of the monument to fallen pilots.
Cape Chelyuskin has six monuments: "To participants in the Lena-Yenisei detachment of the Great Expedition who discovered Eurasia's northernmost tip in 1733-1743", a pillar with the "directions" sign, a cross of worship, a memorial cemetery of polar explorers, the Cape Chelyuskin astronomy point, a border post, and a 61-K Soviet cannon of World War II times.
"What is [Cape] Chelyuskin? It is the extreme northern point of this country. Getting there requires decades of preparation, research, and personal heroism of polar explorers. This is a kind of indicator for the country's scientific maturity. The Far North is a region of special importance. As we know, the development of the Arctic and the Northern Sea Route did not stop even during World War II," Clean Arctic's leader Andrey Nagibin said.
About the expedition
The expedition to Cape Chelyuskin is the most difficult mission in Clean Arctic's history. It is supported by the Rosatom State Corporation. Organizers plan to make missions to the cape annual. The Clean Arctic Public Environmental Project has been cleaning northern territories since 2021, focusing on the USSR heritage. Waste disposal is a complex technological task, taking into account the Arctic's natural features. Over three seasons, the project's volunteers have collected 12,000 tons of waste.