MOSCOW, July 24. /TASS/. Fyodor Konyukhov, a celebrated Russian traveler, has spent two weeks drifting on an ice floe in the Arctic, thus breaking his record of staying at the world’s first solo drifting polar station previously set by him in 2021, when his drift lasted ten days, the Fyodor Konyukhov International Travel Center told TASS.
"Fyodor Konyukhov has broken his own record of staying at the world’s first solo research station set in 2021. Then, the drift lasted 249 hours and 25 minutes or ten days. During the drift, Fyodor Konyukhov traveled more than 175 kilometers, separating the route between the western and eastern hemispheres. Fourteen days have gone by at the solo polar station in the Arctic Ocean," the statement said.
The press service said that at this time of year, the weather near the North Pole is usually bleak, with low clouds, dense fogs and heavy precipitation, including wet snow, sleet or hail. The sun has peeked through the clouds only twice during his stay. Konyukhov feels well and keeps in touch with the 50 Let Pobedy nuclear-powered icebreaker twice a day. This year, polar bears are not approaching the polar station.
At the station, Konyukhov keeps doing a scientific program of the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The primary objective is to study possible deformation of solid ice sheets caused by the ocean surface gravity and infra-gravity waves.
"The second objective is to record earthquake signals very close to tectonic structures in the Earth’s crust along the underwater Gakkel Ridge, where a huge number of earthquakes occur. The ground-based seismic stations that are used for monitoring this activity are located too far away from the ridge to record weak earthquakes which carry additional essential information about the seismic regime," the statement said.