MOSCOW, June 17. /TASS Correspondent Eduard Tur/. Russia's Clean Arctic environmental project continues for the fifth season. This year, it will focus on memorial places related to the Great Patriotic War paying tribute to the 80th anniversary of the Victory. The movement's volunteers landscaped three mass graves in Karelia, where the mission was timed to coincide with the Russia Day. A TASS correspondent joined volunteers to participate in the Arctic cleanup and to learn why so many people want to participate in the environmental Arctic missions and what other locations the organizers have for this season.

The ecological expedition's start

The distance between Karelia's capital, Petrozavodsk, and the destination, the city of Segezha, is more than 250 km. Getting there by car along a good paved road will take about 3-3.5 hours with optional breaks - the route has all necessary infrastructures travelers may need.

I arrived there early, and spent the night in the city. The next morning I headed for the mass grave, which was about 90 km away. The trip was less than an hour.

On the morning of June 12, fifty volunteers lined up near a memorial on the 49th km of the Kochkom-Reboly road in the Segezha District. In a mass grave there are buried more than 1,100 soldiers of the Karelian Front's 26th Army. The grave appeared during the Great Patriotic War, and further on, in the post-war time, bodies found nearby in scattered single and group graves were re-buried there.

In that grave is buried Hero of the Soviet Union Nikolay Varlamov. He died not far from the location in July, 1943 during an assault on an enemy stronghold. At a critical moment of that battle, the sergeant got close to the enemy bunker and closed the embrasure with his chest. Inspired by his heroism, the fighters attacked and defeated the stronghold.

The project's organizers decided to devote the current season to improvement of such mass graves, memorials and memorable historical sites of the Great Patriotic War in the Arctic. The missions are expected to attract at least 2,000 volunteers from across the country.

"When planning the new season, which takes place in the year of the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory and the Year of Defender of the Fatherland, we realized that the idea of cleaning and beautifying mass graves is only relevant. In the North, there are still many unidentified graves, and search teams still find dead soldiers and have them laid to rest as unidentified soldiers. Therefore, this is our way of thanking those who gave their lives for us," the project's leader Andrey Nagibin said at the mission opening, adding the event was especially important to him: his two grandfathers fought on the Karelian Front and were wounded near Medvezhegorsk, which is some 100 km away from the location where the volunteers worked.

Why many seek to go to the Arctic

In order to go on an expedition to another region, an applicant needs to apply for a position. About 40 people apply for one place, said Dmitry Fedoseev, the project's administrative director. The organizers give preference to those who have active social life, dream of the Arctic, and show interest in its history and future.

Applications come from people of absolutely different occupations and ages. For them, expeditions is a chance to see the country, meet people in other regions, learn about their culture, and see how different the Arctic can be. Expedition participants are provided with food, accommodation, and a majority of necessary things. Everything else is on a special checklist.

Most often, volunteers have interesting sightseeing programs, visit industrial facilities. For example, in Chukotka, they visited the Akademik Lomonosov floating nuclear thermal power plant.

Environmental missions' ambassadors

Sofya Shmakotina came to Karelia from the Trans-Baikal Region. She's been a volunteer since high school. The girl learned about the Clean Arctic mission from friends and filed an application. A few days later, she set off on a big trip among five members of the expedition to Karelia.

Other volunteers, who traveled with Sofia, come from the Irkutsk, Vladimir, Volgograd and Tula regions.

"We've been to a museum in Segezha, went sightseeing around the city, learned its architecture. We've talked to the locals. Everything is different here! Karelia is a region far from us, everything here surprises and inspires," Sofia said.

The organizers hope that in future participants in such expeditions will be Clean Arctic's ambassadors to their regions, expanding the range of potential volunteers.

Shovels and brushes

Local residents, including students of the Northern College, representatives of the Segezha House of Culture and other volunteers also participated in the mass grave's landscaping, like the local team that searches and buries those who died in the Great Patriotic War. The searchers have been taking care of military graves for many years.

During the past clean-up, the participants repaired and painted the memorial's base, updated the inscriptions, covered the surrounding area with rubble, and collected litter around it. A few days earlier, work was on another two mass graves that are on the 25th and 33rd km of the same road.

"We've been working in Karelia for the fifth year and we see can how actively local residents and volunteers have been involved. Without them, of course, the Clean Arctic project could not have been effective," Andrey Nagibin said.

In memory of those who died in the Great Patriotic War, the activists planted 12 lilac bushes near the memorial under the Garden of Memory international action.

After Karelia, missions are due in the Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and Krasnoyarsk Regions. Over the project's term, about 7,700 people have collected 19.8 tons of waste and cleaned more than 700 hectares of Arctic land.

About the Clean Arctic Project

Clean Arctic is a large-scale project to clean up the Arctic territory from waste accumulated there since Soviet times. The missions have brought together public and volunteer organizations, scientists, regional leaders and businesses. The idea belongs to Dmitry Lobusov, captain of the 50 Years of Victory nuclear icebreaker, and Gennady Antokhin, Soviet and Russian captain of the icebreaker, Hero of Labor of the Russian Federation.

Clean Arctic's general partner is the Rosatom State Corporation. TASS is the project's general information partner.