BUENOS AIRES, November 20. /TASS/. The expedition led by Fyodor Konyukhov arrived on Smolensk Island in Antarctica and began deploying the world's first single-person research station, where the Russian traveler will spend almost four months, his son and expedition headquarters manager Oscar Konyukhov told TASS.

"We have started building the station and will be working for two days. So far, everything is going according to plan," he said.

The day before, the expedition, which set sail on a two-masted schooner on November 14 from the Argentinian city of Ushuaia, visited the Russian Antarctic base Bellingshausen. The team members talked with polar explorers and attended a service at the southernmost Orthodox church, the Church of the Holy Life-Giving Trinity. After visiting the station, the expedition set off for the uninhabited Smolensk Island (Livingston Island).

About expedition

While on the island, Konyukhov will conduct scientific studies and experiments to determine the level of air pollution and the amount of microplastics in the coastal waters of the Antarctic Peninsula. It took two years to get the project approved by international bodies, but ultimately, all countries studying Antarctica signed the permit. The expedition's scientific partners are the Russian Academy of Science’s P.P. Shirshov Oceanology Institute and the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute.

If the single-station experiment is successful, Konyukhov plans to return to Antarctica in the winter for nine months, including during the polar night, when it will be impossible to deliver supplies.The headquarters hopes this experience will subsequently pave the way for establishing a new year-round Russian Antarctic station.

According to the expedition headquarters, the project aims to remind the global community of the history of Russian sailors' discovery of Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic islands. The Russian Antarctic expedition, led by Faddey Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev on the sloops Vostok and Mirny, mapped a significant part of the South Shetland Islands in 1819-1820. The islands were originally given Russian names: Smolensk, Polotsk, Berezina, and Borodino. However, they later received English names that now appear on international maps.