Clean Arctic's first expedition to Spitsbergen departs from Murmansk

MURMANSK, June 5. /TASS/. The Clean Arctic public environmental project's first expedition to Spitsbergen departed from Murmansk. A group of 15 people went to the Norwegian archipelago, the project headquarters told TASS.

"The Professor Molchanov scientific expedition vessel will take the volunteers to the archipelago. This is the project's first environmental mission to the island. It was two years ago that the volunteers planned to go to Spitsbergen, but back then the geopolitical situation did not allow them doing so," the headquarters said.

The project's leader Andrey Nagibin noted it was the biggest challenge to get to the archipelago. "We attempted getting there three years ago, but at that time there was no direct flight from Murmansk to Spitsbergen, and we would have travelled via Norway. Not a single person from our team was given a Schengen visa. This time, everything has turned out well. In four days, we will go ashore Spitsbergen to start cleaning up Russian villages," he said.

The team to Spitsbergen features volunteers from Moscow, Kaluga, Lipetsk, Murmansk, Belgorod, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Yakutia Regions and from the Republic of Belarus. They will have to clean up the environmental damage accumulated during the Soviet period of the island's development, mainly scrap metal. Cleanup missions will be in the Russian villages of Barentsburg and Piramida, and additionally the volunteers will clean up the coastline.

A technical group will supervise all the cleaning, as there is a threat of encountering a polar bear in the archipelago. The team members have been insured. Corporate volunteers from the Arktikugol State Trust Company and a group of the Murmansk Region's United Volunteer Center will join the Clean Arctic team.

"Our volunteers have got an opportunity to contribute to the conservation of the Arctic nature, as well as to proving the importance of Russians on Spitsbergen. This is a special territory where Russia has maintained its presence for many decades. Our team is going there not as just volunteers, but as representatives of Russia in the Arctic," the Murmansk Region's United Volunteer Center's leader Evgenia Chibis said.

About Spitsbergen and about Clean Arctic project

Russia's operations on Spitsbergen continue for more than 90 years. The Arktikugol State Trust Company was founded in 1931. It produces 120,000 tons of coal per year. The company owns an area of 251 square kilometers.

The Clean Arctic Public Environmental Project has been cleaning the northern territories since 2021. Waste removal is a complex technological work, where the movement teams work carefully minding the Arctic nature. Over all seasons, the project's 9,923volunteers have collected 22,045 tons of waste and cleaned 1,101 hectares of land.

The project's general partner is the Rosatom State Corporation, and TASS is the general information partner.