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Contact established with missing expedition in Siberia

The group was last seen near the town of Krivlyak on September 11 and did not reach its next stop

TOMSK, September 18. /TASS/. Contact with a group of scientists that went missing during an expedition in Siberia’s Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk regions has been established, a spokesperson for a region office of the Russian Geographical Society told TASS.

"The wife of the expedition’s head Alexei Gaponov managed to contact [the group]. She reached them via a satellite phone. They are in good health and are expected to reach [the village of Kataiga] soon," he said.

The group of nine geographers and archaeologists was supposed to move along an ancient migration route, known as the Tunguska path. The aim of the expedition was to find out why Ketsky Ostrog, a fortification that served as a starting point for the Russian exploration of Siberia, was moved to another location. The group was last seen near the town of Krivlyak on September 11 and did not reach its next stop, Faktoriya Sym.

Ketsky Ostrog was a strategically important fortress, vital for the Russian exploration and development of Siberia in the 16-18th centuries. The fortification was relocated several times, and its latest location was established in 2019. Earlier sites of Ketsky Ostrog are known only from written sources and have never been examined by archaeologists.