Expeditions Completed of EC "Polus"

2007

Arctic region (Barneo).
The ice camp Barneo worked from 2 till 30 April in 2007. This year 293 persons visited the base Barneo during the drift. It was tourists, skiers, parachutists and scientises.

Polar Marathon.
On the 8th of April on the ice base Barneo the Pole Marathon was held. There were 52 sportsmens at distance.

International Pole Year
We accommodated on Barneo three groups of scientists working on the programs of International Polar Year. There were group of French scientists led by Dr. Jean Louis Etienne, group of Russian scientists led by Prof. Igor Melnikov and traditional for Barneo group of NASA specialists led by Dr. Jemmy Morisson. So we had real International team on the ice.

2006

Arctic region (Barneo).

The support of the expedition of Monaco Prince Albert II.
On the 12th of May ruling Monaco Prince Albert arrived at ice base Barneo, where from on the 13th of April Russian-Monaco aristocratic expedition started on sledge dogs to the North Pole. There were eight persons in the expedition and among them were Monaco Prince Albert II, aide-de-camp of Prince Bruno Fillipone, Albert’s II personal doctor Michael Maknomara, Russian traveler Matvey Shparo and famous British mountain-climber Anabel Bond.
The expedition’s staff including the Federation External Affairs Deputy Chairman of the State Duma (elective legislative assembly) of Russian Federation Leonid Slutski, is placed on Barneo as well as evacuation and supporting helicopters, the center of connecting and coordination.
The expedition reached the North Pole on the 16th of April, wherefrom the helicopters brought people on Barneo. After that Monaco Prince flew away to Moscow on the meeting with President of Russian Federation V.V. Putin.

Polar Marathon.
On the 8th of April on the ice base Barneo the Pole Marathon was held. There were 44 men and 10 women from 12 countries at 16.2 miles distance. The winners were an Irishman Michael Kollins among men with result of 4 hours 28 min. 35 sec. and Alice Hamlet, England, among women with result of 5 hours 52 min. 56 sec. Sportsmen were staying at base for three days, on the 9th of April An-74 brought them to Shpitsberg.

Supporting of the expedition with Borge Ousland and Mike Horn.
On the 23th of January EC Polus provided the landing of Borge Ousland and Mike Horn on Arctic Cape, wherefrom at night they started on skis to the North Pole.
On the 23th of March Borge Osland and Mike Horn reached the North Pole. Then they were ferried to the ice camp Barneo that was situated in latitude 80°30ў. It was their first meeting with the civilization after the long passage on ski.
On the 5^th of April after the meeting with journalists on Barneo Ousland and Horn flew to Longyear.

EC Polus made several resupplies for the groups who went from the Cape Arcticheski to the Pole and then to Canada (Bettina Aller, Martin Harvey, Georgy Karpenko). EC Polus picked up from the Pole to Barneo - Karpenko (dog sledge), the group of 7 Finnish skiers and group of 3 Norwegian skiers (Cecilie Skog, Rolf Bae, Per-Henry Borch) who came unsupported from Canada.

Besides EC Polus had numerous groups of tourists, one degree and half degree skiers, Rick Sweitzers’ groups who made almost 2 degrees trip and successfully reached their goal, a group of 3 brave Spanish parachutists who made a jump from the height of three thousand meters right on the North Pole, a group of divers from Poland who made their activities on the North Pole.

Scientific programs.
In 2006 State Oceanographic Institute took the samples of ice (on the different level) and made the takeoff of particulate pollutant for analyzing the content of heavy metal and oil hydrocarbons.
According to Senior Researcher of the Laboratory of Applied Hydrochemistry Michael Kolesnikov, “all the pollution ingressing in the sea fall onto the bottom or go up to the air and the air masses carry it to the shore in the form of particulate pollutant. The worked out in the laboratory plant allows determining the level of pollution.
The researches showed that the clearest seas are northern seas (White, Barentsevo, Red) and Caspian Sea. The frequency of occurrence of oil hydrocarbons in Black Sea is one time in 7 days, on Baltic Sea it is one time in 5 days and in Mediterranean Sea it is one time a day.
The very set can be used in monitoring of seas’ pollution.

2005

Arctic region (Barneo).
The ice camp Barneo worked from 29 till 30 April in 2005. During the drift the camp excepted 20 flights of An-74 and 9 flights within the scientific project NPEO. The tourist extreme and scientific programs were held.

During the drift of the ice camp An-74 made 15 passenger and 5 technical flights: Longyear – the base Barneo – Longyear. The landing strip of the base Barneo was used for 5 landings of H-748 and 4 landings of Twin Otter planes of the scientific project of NPEO of Washington University.

This year 293 persons visited the base Barneo that is more then in previous year.

The following programs were held on the base Barneo-2005:

Tourist program of visiting the North Pole and of resting on the base Barneo.

Extreme programs (On skis on the last grade, parachutist, submergence without aqualung, competition of radio-controlled of planes’ moulds, flight on heat balloon, trip on draught dogs).

Scientific programs.
1. Research institution of Arctic and Antarctic regions (Russia, St. Petersburg) made some changes in staff of drifting station “North Pole-33” and replenished supplies.
2. Supplying the project NPEO with fuel, helicopters and landing strip.
3. Using the base Barneo as a platform for teaching the staff of International Scientific Station (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus).

All the works were finished by the 30th of April in 2005.

2004-2005

Antarctic regions. The evacuation of An-3 plane from the South Pole.

2004

Franz-Josef Land:

2002

Arctic region (Barneo)