ARKHANGELSK, November 11. /TASS/. An exhibition about the Novaya Zemlya archipelago and its exploration will be organized at the Cape Zhelaniya station, the Russian Arctic National Park's researcher at the Department of Historical and Cultural Heritage Conservation Alexander Khatanzeysky told TASS.

Cape Zhelaniya in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago is an inaccessible area that can only be reached by water transport in summer, and difficult ice conditions may affect going ashore. Thus, the exhibition timing is to be advised.

"We will focus on the territory's development in the 1930s, as well as on the Great Patriotic War years. Photos have been preserved, and we have material to present," he said.

The Cape Zhelaniya hydrometeorology station was founded in 1931, where still are buildings from those years, including residential buildings and other wooden structures, as well as all-metal unified blocks. These are cylindrical mobile homes without corners that were used for living in the North's extreme conditions. In the mid-1980s, about 30 people lived and worked at the station. In 1997, after a fire, the station was mothballed, and nowadays automatic weather equipment is operating at the cape.

The Great Patriotic War in the north of Novaya Zemlya

The Great Patriotic War defensive structures, more than 50 of them, have been preserved at Cape Zhelaniya - bunkers, pillboxes, and firing positions in different parts of the cape. They appeared after August 25, 1942, when a German submarine approached the Cape Zhelaniya weather station and opened fire, destroying the station, the library and the archive of previous years. Polar explorers were not injured. After the attack, they made fortifications of wood and stone. The structures are still in good condition.

"The objects have been preserved, the nature preserves them quite well. An Arctic cleanup mission has been at the cape, and everything was put in order there. We try not to touch the wooden structures and dugouts not to harm them. At low temperatures, the wood is well preserved. In fact, everything is authentic, everything has been preserved since those years. For example, specialists from the Ugra National Park had to reconstruct objects using archival data. Unlike them, here, everything is from the time of the war," the historian said.

The history of the Great Patriotic War in the Arctic remains little-known. Information about the Arctic battles is available at the national park's visitor center at Cape Zhelaniya. "For example, about the battle between Soviet S101 and German U639 submarines on August 28, 1943, where the German submarine sank. The submarine is still lying somewhere near Sprory Navolok. The exact location has not been identified," he added.

Sprory Navolok is the southern cape of the Ledyanaya Harbor Bay, washed by the Kara Sea. On July 27, 1943, a German submarine sank the Akademik Shokalsky hydrographic vessel nearby. The exact location has not been identified either.

The Russian Arctic National Park is Russia's northernmost and largest specially protected natural area. The park takes the northern part of the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago's Severny Island, and the entire Franz Josef Land Archipelago. The national park is a most inaccessible territory in Russia and in the world.