MOSCOW, December 10. /TASS Correspondent Sergey Rybakov/. The world's first drifting polar station, North Pole - 1, started working on June 6, 1937. Back then, the Soviet polar explorers, led by Ivan Papanin, managed to work on the ice floe for 274 days, and, having collected most valuable scientific data, they returned home as national heroes. Now, 87 years later, we went to the Arctic to open the North Pole - 42 drifting polar station (its official name is the North Pole scientific expedition vessel). Here is a story about how life and work on ice-resistant self-propelled platforms have changed over decades.

Fuel is life

The platform's single cabin has a shower, air conditioning, a work desk, and a comfortable bed. The view from the porthole is thousands kilometers of ice and nothing else. Right now it is a time to rest: it's quite the time after lunch - salad, pickle soup, mashed potatoes with fried chicken - to read about how Papanin's team survived in a tent. My task in this expedition is to determine what, besides a rich menu, warmth and comfort, researchers have gained over almost 90 years.

Somebody knocks on the door. Here is Sergey Sharonov, senior mechanic at the current NP (North Pole) - 42 expedition, who participated also in the NP-40 and NP-41 expeditions. Mechanics are usually terse. With Sergey we kind of became friends, so I ask him to tell me what is most important in long Arctic drifts.

"Fuel," he said without hesitating a second. Then he explains that in the past, the heart of any NP ice camp used to be a diesel power plant - two generators, between which normally was placed a sauna - an additional heating for the "heart". Nowadays, the platform supplies power on its own - one power cable goes to the main switchboard, and from it a small spider web transmits power to the ice camp's every corner.

"Normally, a helicopter unloads fuel in the very beginning, with a large margin. Onto specially identified points. The ice floe may break, thus there are several fuel bases, scattered in a certain way throughout the ice field. This time, everything in one place, on the platform, and this makes our work incredibly easier," he says.

Both in the past and now, fuel is the power that feeds all electrical appliances, communication, research, hygiene, hot food and, of course, the warmth.

"Inside my cabin the temperature used to be maximum +14 degrees, and I couldn't afford more - to save fuel. At that time, we lived in houses with drip furnaces, fueled with whatever we had. The problem was very big, we had to save fuel," leader of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute's High-Latitude Arctic Expedition, Vladimir Sokolov, said describing the NP-30 expedition, where he was the third shift's leader. Vladimir has created and visited all Russian drifting stations (from NP-32 to NP-40), has visited five Soviet NPs during the North high-latitude air expeditions.

Ice is alive

It seems that over the entire history of the Arctic drifting stations, every ice camp had to be moved, at times to unimaginable distances. This does not surprise polar explorers, and any explorer would say - ice is alive, it always cracks. For example, Vladimir Sokolov said the NP-30 ice floe got broken more than 130 times. With time, such a crack starts "breathing" — it may converge and diverge. Sergey Ovchinnikov, leading aerologist of the NP-42 expedition, who participated also in NP-36, NP-38 and NP-40, has seen many cracks. One day, he said, they had to sail on boats to get to the galley for lunch.

"Those cracks develop slowly, like a human step, though a hundred times more powerful - more frightening than a tank's tracks. Ice cracks — it's like a fired rocket. The rumble and an icy shaft that is 2-2.5 m high. And it roars to your tent, to your workplace, and here you're absolutely on your own, in the darkness, and there's nothing you can do. Just stand and shout: "Stop… Please do!" Then you see how it breaks the racks - and then, all of a sudden... it stops. Well, then - you just step over and return to the workplace to continue," he waves arms as if he is back there, once again.

Such cracks are most dangerous when they run through fuel depots, and thus the old Russian saying "Don't put all your eggs in one basket" has been like a binding rule here for a long time, head of NP-39 and NP-42, participant in NP-34 and NP-36, Alexander Ipatov, tells me.

"If, God forbid, a crack runs close to the fuel base, of course, we have to drag away the fuel. I've never told anyone, but it's my biggest honor as NP-39 leader that over the entire term we lost only one barrel of fuel. If we take NP-35 (which he helped evacuate - TASS) one fuel storage was lost for good, and over there we managed to rescue only one barrel," Ipatov says. At the platform nowadays, this risk is practically close to nil.

Polar aviation's role

In a story about North Pole expeditions, it is impossible to leave alone the North high-latitude air expeditions, due to which the powerful polar aviation developed in the USSR.

"Every year for almost four decades, the North expeditions were working. The aviation used to 'drop' for short terms not stations but groups of researchers, who thus managed to cover vast areas. Due to this, we could realize ice conditions where stations may be organized," said Kirill Filchuk, head of the NP-41 expedition.

The polar aviation operated side by side with drifting stations - to transport people, food and medicines. In the 1990s, the equipment and the polar pilot school were lost, and this topic is particularly painful for polar explorers. The self-propelled ice-resistant platform is unable to compensate fully for this loss, though due to its autonomy, it makes air supplies less important.

Anyway, landing an aircraft on an ice floe requires the highest skill. Another aspect is how to equip a runway where the ice field is clearly not suitable for this? According to Sergey Ovchinnikov, in the USSR times, the strip was to be as smooth as a hockey field, but making it was not the most difficult thing, as the biggest trick was to maintain the runway.

"A runway means a lot of trouble - it needs to be cleaned all the time, gnawed (laughs) sometimes, and sandpapered. The worst thing is when you do it all, polish it, and next day it cracks and your job is lost. A thin crack is no big deal, you can fill it in again, but at times we had to start from scratch. In the frost. Day and night," Ovchinnikov says. In Soviet times, polar explorers, Vladimir Sokolov adds, used chainsaws or electric jackhammers to clear runways.

Safe even without dogs

No best friends of humans, dogs, have been planned for NP-42. Kirill Filchuk says, earlier, the NP-41 expedition, did without them, despite regularly encountered bears: the platform is equipped with a special thermal imaging radar and a completely different detection and warning system.

"This is due to a new scheme, a new approach. It's one thing when a camp consists of cabins, and people keep moving around and remain on the ice practically all the time. It's a different thing when we are on a ship: whenever people go onto the ice, there is always support from the bridge - a person there stands at a height of more than 20 meters to watch what is happening around, and during the polar night the camp is illuminated. The risk is much less," Filchuk explained.

Many participants in the current expedition are upset, because to them a dog is not just a means of safety, but first of all it is a friend with whom you will never quarrel. Anyway, the current conditions of the platform may be harmful for dogs, because to live in the Arctic they need to be useful companions, not just beloved pets.

"People are compassionate creatures, and dogs should not be allowed on the ship. For them, to live actively and work, to perform their functions, they need to be on the ice only," Vladimir Sokolov said.

Medicine and international participation

On board the platform, there is a person to take care not only of psychological, but of physical health conditions - Denis Rudenko, the ship's doctor, receives me in his office. It is his first trip to the Arctic, after three trips to the Antarctic. In his opinion, we have gone incomparably far in providing medicine, and not only thanks to new medicines and modern equipment - it's about the process' organization, because back in the 1960s and 1980s, doctors were assigned, in addition to medical and research duties, certain cooking duties. The doctor is highly satisfied with his office, and separately highlighted the modern dental unit.

"What they used in the past to treat teeth left much to be desired - outdated, barely working equipment. Plus, no digital video system - a portable digital X-ray for teeth. Nowadays there's no need to develop, no need for a solution, a fixative, to dry, withstand - just put a matrix and turn on a directed beam with low and harmless radiation onto the tooth, and here you can see on the screen what's wrong with the tooth," the doctor said.

At this moment, I think about leader of NP-42, Alexander Ipatov, who during expeditions suffered pulpitis twice.

"The tooth was dying, it hurt terribly - hurt, and hurt, and hurt. What to do? No one can cure it. No painkillers either. Right, painfully it was. But who would work for me? I did manage to fall asleep, though not for long," Ipatov says calmly.

Clearly, there are diseases that may be dealt with on the mainland only. Or some other needs. The NP history knows cases where foreigners offered help. They showed genuine interest and respect for our drifting stations. Some cases were truly funny - for example, the book "History of organizing and conducting research off drifting ice" contains a story of how during NP-4' first shift a Canadian aircraft mistook a sledge with an emergency supply of food and equipment for anti-aircraft installations, as the sled shafts were lifted up.

"Canadian observers examined them very carefully and decided those were paired anti-aircraft guns. Therefore, after one of the flights over NP-4, the Canadian press published a photo and an article, which said that the NP-4 camp was circled with anti-aircraft installations (clearly, the sleds with emergency supplies were exactly around the station in well-ventilated areas), adding the Russians had not opened fire on the flying plane," the book reads.

As time went by, the interest faded away, said Vladimir Sokolov, who has colleagues and friends in the West.

"I can say that we are greatly envied and many wish they could participate in this work. Because people, seriously focused on this topic, whose brains are tuned to research and understanding of how it all develops and what needs to be done to apply this knowledge further on, - well, they do exist in the global community. However, they are unable to get here. But Russia can," the scientist stressed.

New Era. New League

When Soviet science was booming, drifting stations were organized almost every year - quite often even two Arctic stations were working at a time. From the first NPs till now, a set of studies has hardly changed, unlike ice fields that are getting smaller and thinner, and the drift time has shrunk as well.

The last truly annual drifting station was the NP-40 station, which completed work in June, 2013, and in 2015 the NP-2015 seasonal station operated for four months.

Drifting stations were revived only with the newly-built North Pole platform - the maiden expedition was in 2022. Vladimir Sokolov pointed to another difference: while in the early years of drifting stations the ice had to be at least 3 m thick, and in post-Soviet times - at least 2 meters, then the thickness of ice floe into which LNP-42 froze was just a little more than a meter.

"Back then we were not aware of active climate changes in the Arctic Ocean, we did not realize we were on the edge of another climatic epoch and that the ice situation in that era would get only worse," he said about NP-30.

These changes are well illustrated by Alexey Tryoshnikov, a legendary polar explorer and head of the NP-3 expedition. At that time, the polar explorers had enough ice to make an ice palace for one of the main communist holidays - May 1.

"Having entered the house, the guests were pleasantly surprised: no windows, and a soft blue light streaming through the walls and from below through the ice. Shcherbakov told us at the festive table: "People who manage to celebrate their favorite holiday so solemnly, beautifully and cheerfully in the kingdom of eternal ice are capable of a heroic feat," Tryoshnikov wrote in the book "At the Poles of the Earth."

...As we dock, the leader, Ipatov, rushes to the ice to help assemble the first house for meteorologists, and the former leader, Filchuk, who volunteered to accompany the NP-42 expedition, although he had stayed with his family for at most three months since the last 20-months drift, helps with mooring - directs and points.

"Of course, that was a different level in terms of lacking support from outside, in terms of communication, navigation, etc. We are in completely different conditions, and thinking about it, I realize that despite our own risks and difficulties, they cannot be compared. That's a different league, everything is different - that heroic era is probably gone," he tells me as we both leave the station, and it's clear he wished he could stay.

- Would you want to be in that league? - I ask seriously.

- I would. It was absolutely real.