A Year with the Russians in Antarctica

The russians have a great deal of experience of living in the Arctic, but they never wintered in the Antarctic until 1956. Since then they have done their best to make up for lost time. Today, four wintering stations house a total of 150 men. Compared with the eleven other countries, including the United Kingdom, which maintain stations in the Antarctic, the scale of Soviet work is second only to that of the United States. The Antarctic Treaty of 1959 states that '... to the greatest extent feasible and practicable ... scientific personnel shall be exchanged in Antarctica between expeditions and stations.1 As early as 1958 I had begun trying to join the Soviet Antarctic Expedition as a member of their scientific staff. However it was not until 1963, as a result of an agreement between the Royal Society in London and the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow, that I was able to join the 9th Soviet Antarctic Expedition as glaciologist and first British exchange scientist. As our part of the exchange, the British Antarctic Survey took Dr. Garrik Grikurov, a geologist, to Stonington Island station on the Antarctic Peninsula. My principal reasons for wanting to join the expedition were twofold: as a glaciologist, I was interested in making precise measurements of ice movement near the westernmost Soviet station?Novolazarevskaya?the only station in the Antarctic at the junction between a grounded and a floating ice sheet. I also wanted to learn Russian, and isolating myself for 18 months with a party of Russians seemed the easiest way of doing it. It was my fifth trip to the Antarctic and third winter on the continent. I managed to visit all four Soviet wintering stations, travelling out and back in Soviet ships. The expedition was carried in two ships. Ob carried the bulk of the cargo and did all the icebreaking while Estonia carried 140 men bound for the stations. Estonia, z 4720-ton Baltic passenger liner, spends the northern summer carrying tourists between Leningrad, Tilbury, and Le Havre. In the southern summer, therefore, she can be made available to carry the annual relief expedition for the Antarctic stations. I was picked up by Estonia at Le Havre on 7 December 1963. We went via the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean, calling at Fremantle, where everyone was given a day ashore. Though foreign currency is strictly rationed to Soviet citizens, each man was allowed ?10 to spend ashore. One man told me that one of his reasons for volunteering for Antarctic work was that it was the only practicable way for him to see a little of foreign countries. During the long voyage south, though struggling with the language, I was able to get acquainted with the 13 men?12 Russians and one Czech?with whom I was to

Geography · Physical geography · Arctic and Russian Policy Studies · Geology · Oceanography · Polar Research and Ecology

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