Barentsburg (Russian Баренцбург) is the second largest settlement on Svalbard, with about 850 inhabitants, almost entirely Russians and Ukrainians. The Russian-owned Arcticugol Trust has been mining coal here since 1932, and during the Cold War Barentsburg was a veritable hotbed of activity as the Russians attempted to expand their zone of control over the islands.
Although Svalbard is under Norwegian sovereignty, the unique Svalbard Treaty of 1920 allows citizens of signatory countries equal rights to exploit natural resources. Currently, Russia is the only country to maintain such a presence. Russia maintains a consulate in Barentsburg.
Russian explorers have planted their country's flag on the seabed 4,200m (14,000ft) below the North Pole to further Moscow's claims to the Arctic.
The rust-proof titanium metal flag was brought by explorers travelling in two mini-submarines, in what is believed to be the first expedition of its kind.
One of the two vessels has completed the difficult journey back to the surface, Itar-Tass news agency reports. Melting polar ice has led to competing claims over access to Arctic resources.
Russia's claim to a vast swathe of territory in the Arctic, thought to contain oil, gas and mineral reserves, has been challenged by other powers, including the US.
The mission's leader, explorer and parliamentarian Artur Chilingarov, earlier told Itar-Tass news agency that his mini-submarine had a "smooth" landing on the seabed. "The yellowish ground is around us, no sea dwellers are seen," he said. 'Heroic mission' The mini-submarines, Mir-I and Mir-II, were brought to the North Pole by the two ships in the Russian expedition - a nuclear-powered ice-breaker and a research vessel. The expedition set off last week from the port of Murmansk in search of geological evidence to back up Moscow's claims to the resource-rich Arctic seabed. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6927395.stm#map
Russia ahead in Arctic 'gold rush'
The Russians are leading a new "gold rush" in the high north, with a bold attempt to assert a claim to oil, gas and mineral rights over large parts of the Arctic Ocean up to the North Pole.
Both Russian mini-subs surface after symbolic North Pole dive
02/ 08/ 2007
MOSCOW, August 2 (RIA Novosti) - Two Russian mini-submarines have surfaced after a more than eight-hour dive to the North Pole seabed, in a symbolic Russian expedition to claim Arctic territory, the Vesti-24 TV channel reported Thursday.
[color=red]Russian researchers in submersibles Mir-1 and Mir-2 traveled 4,200 meters (14,000 feet) below the Pole, and planted a titanium Russian flag on the seabed.
The dive is designed to bolster Russia's claim to 1.2 million sq kilometers (about 460,000 sq miles) of energy-rich territory - the underwater Lomonosov and Mendeleyev Ridges named after Russian scientists - which the country says is the continuation of its continental shelf.[/color]
As man-made climate change melts the polar ice, vast reserves of oil and gas under the seafloor are likely to become accessible in future decades.
[color=red]Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking from the Philippines, said: "The goal of this expedition is not to stake Russia's claim, but to prove that our shelf spreads to the North Pole." The minister said he hoped the expedition would "allow us to acquire additional scientific proof" of this claim.[/color]
Boris Gryzlov, speaker of the upper house of Russia's parliament, said the dive marked a new stage in exploring Russia's polar resources.
"These are large-scale projects to explore and develop the shelf, which meet Russia's strategic interests," the speaker said. "I am proud that our country has retained leading positions in Arctic exploration."
Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay, whose country also has a large section of Arctic territorial waters, dismissed Russia's symbolic flag-planting as a meaningless gesture that does not strengthen its territorial claim.
Russian Arctic mission aims to scientifically prove shelf claim
02/ 08/ 2007
MANILA, August 2 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's foreign minister said the Arctic expedition currently underway is designed to demonstrate scientifically that the energy-rich shelf near the North Pole is an extension of Russian territory.
Russian researchers in two mini-submarines dove 14,000 feet under the Pole Thursday to take soil and fauna samples on the seabed, leave a Russian flag and a message to future generations in a capsule, and establish a video link with the International Space Station (ISS), mission organizers said.
"The goal of the expedition is not to reserve Russia's rights but to prove that our shelf reaches the North Pole," Sergei Lavrov said.
A senior U.S. official said Tuesday Washington would ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in order to join a commission to examine Russian and other states' claims to Arctic waters. The U.S. also plans to send its own icebreaker to the Pole, also for research purposes, August 6.
Lavrov said Russia would proceed from international law in the shelf decision. Under international law, the five countries with territory inside the Arctic Circle - Russia, the U.S., Canada, Norway, and Denmark, which controls Greenland - can claim only a 200-mile economic zone around their coastlines.
The U.S. geological survey suggested the Arctic seabed contained up to 25% of the world's oil and natural gas reserves, and other mineral riches made accessible as the ice cap melts due to global warming.
Canada rejects Arctic flag-planting as a 'just a show by Russia'
AFP Thursday, August 2, 2007
Canada's top diplomat ridiculed Russia's flag-planting at the North Pole on Thursday, saying the "15th century" stunt does not bolster its disputed claim to the resource-rich Arctic. "Look, this isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and plant flags and say, 'We're claiming this territory'," Foreign Minister Peter MacKay told broadcaster CTV.
Earlier, according to reports, a Russian mini-submarine reached the bottom of the Arctic Ocean under the North Pole at a depth of 4,261 metres (13,980 feet), to carry out scientific tests and leave a Russian flag.
The dive is believed to be the first of its kind and is part of a voyage that started on July 24 and aims to advance Russian claims to a vast swathe of the Arctic sea bed thought to be rich in oil and gas.
"Our claims over our Arctic are very well-established," MacKay commented.
"There is no threat to Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic and as you know, we've made very strong commitments, the prime minister has been there recently, may be there again (soon), so we're not at all concerned about this.
"It's basically just a show by Russia."
A spokesman for Canada's foreign affairs department added: "Canada's sovereignty over the lands and waters of the Canadian Arctic is longstanding, well established and based on historic title."
There is growing international rivalry in the region as energy reserves grow scarce in other parts of the world and the melting of the polar ice caps makes the area more accessible for research and economic activity.
The Russian expedition hopes to establish that a section of sub-sea territory known as the Lomonosov Ridge, which includes the North Pole, is in fact an extension of Russia.
The expedition set off last week from the northern Russian port of Murmansk.
A Russian expedition planted the country's flag on the seabed under the North Pole on Thursday, capping a mission to claim the mineral riches of the Arctic and drawing ridicule from abroad.
"The Mir-1 submarine successfully reached the bottom of the Arctic Ocean... at a depth of 4,261 metres (13,980 feet)," veteran Arctic explorer and expedition leader Artur Chilingarov told the Vesti television channel.
A Russian flag made of rust-proof titanium was deposited on the seabed as a symbol of Russia's claims over a vast swathe of Arctic territory, the ITAR-TASS news agency reported.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has called for greater efforts to secure Russian interests in the Arctic, congratulated the explorers by phone late Thursday, news agency ITAR-TASS reported.
But the foreign minister of Canada, which has also talked up the need to defend its national interests in the Arctic, ridiculed the flag-planting.
"Look, this isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and plant flags and say, 'We're claiming this territory'," MacKay told Canadian broadcaster CTV.
Chilingarov, who is also a member of parliament, was joined by five others for the mission, including fellow parliamentarian Vladimir Gruzdev, Swedish pharmaceuticals tycoon Frederik Paulsen, and Michael McDowell, an Australian explorer.
The six explorers made the descent in two Mir mini-submarines.
The Mir-1 had to search for a hole in the ice for 40 minutes to resurface after spending eight hours and 40 minutes underwater and it was soon followed by the Mir-2, Russian media quoted expedition officials as saying.
Billed as the first to reach the ocean floor under the North Pole, the expedition aims to establish that a section of seabed passing through the pole, known as the Lomonosov Ridge, is in fact an extension of Russia's landmass.
Speaking during a trip to the Philippines on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he hoped the expedition "would provide additional scientific evidence for our aspirations," in comments broadcast on Vesti-24.
The voyage reflects growing international interest in the Arctic partly due to climate change, which is causing greater melting of the ice and making the area more accessible for research and economic activity.
The US Geological Survey, a US government agency, said in a report earlier that some 25 percent of world oil reserves are believed to be located above the Arctic Circle.
In 2001 Russia made a submission to a United Nations commission claiming sub-sea rights stretching to the pole. That claim was rejected and the current Russian expedition is looking for evidence to support a new application.
If the UN accepts Russia's claim to the territory, "we will wind up with about two-thirds of the hydrocarbon reserves in the Arctic Ocean," Interfax quoted Russian Geological Institute researcher Nikolai Osokin as saying.
The expedition comes as several countries try to extend their rights over sections of the Arctic Ocean floor. Both Norway and Denmark are carrying out surveys to this end.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently called for measures to defend the country's interests in the Arctic, including by boosting the number of ice-breakers patrolling Canada's waters.
US politicians, including Senator Richard Lugar, have urged defence of their country's Arctic interests to stand up to Russian claims over large stretches of the seabed.
"Unless the United States ratifies the treaty, Moscow will be able to press its claims without an American at the table," Lugar said in May, referring to the Law of the Sea treaty, a complex agreement on territorial sovereignty.
Russian media reported a US expedition that set off from Norway on July 1 to study another part of the Arctic seabed, the Gakkel Ridge, was part of a race between Moscow and Washington for the Arctic's mineral riches.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which was organising the voyage, said in an email to AFP that the "expedition is in search of hydrothermal vents and new biological life."
On Thursday a second Russian expedition was to be launched from the northern port of Arkhangelsk for a 100-day research mission to Russia's Arctic seas, the Arctic and Antarctic Institute in Saint Petersburg said.
Putin made a speech on a nuclear ice-breaker earlier this year urging greater efforts to secure Russia's "strategic, economic, scientific and defence interests" in the Arctic.
Russia answers: "I don't give a damn what all these foreign politicians there are saying about this," Artur Chilingarov told a throng of well-wishers. "If someone doesn't like this, let them go down themselves ... and then try to put something there. Russia must win. Russia has what it takes to win. The Arctic has always been Russian." http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-08/08/content_6495673.htm
Russian flag on Arctic seabed
Russian researchers in submersibles Mir-1 and Mir-2 traveled 4,200 meters (14,000 feet) below the Pole, and planted a titanium Russian flag on the seabed.
The dive is designed to bolster Russia's claim to 1.2 million sq kilometers (about 460,000 sq miles) of energy-rich territory - the underwater Lomonosov and Mendeleyev Ridges named after Russian scientists - which the country says is the continuation of its continental shelf.
As man-made climate change melts the polar ice, vast reserves of oil and gas under the seafloor are likely to become accessible in future decades.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking from the Philippines, said: "The goal of this expedition is not to stake Russia's claim, but to prove that our shelf spreads to the North Pole." The minister said he hoped the expedition would "allow us to acquire additional scientific proof" of this claim.
Boris Gryzlov, speaker of the upper house of Russia's parliament, said the dive marked a new stage in exploring Russia's polar resources.
Russia launches ballistic missile into the North Pole
Russia test launches sea-based ballistic missile in Pacific
07/ 08/ 2007
MOSCOW, August 7 (RIA Novosti) - Russia has conducted a successful test firing of a submarine-launched ballistic missile [color=red]from the Pacific Ocean to a target in the Arctic[/color] , a Navy spokesman said Tuesday.
The missile was launched from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, a Delta III class nuclear missile submarine, across Russia to hit a designated target at testing grounds on an island in the Barents Sea off the coast of northern Russia.
The Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy is one of the four Russian nuclear submarines of Delta III class in Russia's Pacific Fleet. Each submarine is armed with 16 SS-N-18 Stingray missiles.
BEIJING, Aug. 8 (Xinhuanet) -- The United States and Canada have ridiculed the Russian submarine expedition that planted a Russian flag on the seabed under the North Pole, but the famous polar scientist who led the effort responded with blunt words after returning Tuesday.
"I don't give a damn what all these foreign politicians there are saying about this," Artur Chilingarov told a throng of well-wishers. "If someone doesn't like this, let them go down themselves ... and then try to put something there. Russia must win. Russia has what it takes to win. The Arctic has always been Russian."
Thursday's dive by two small submarines was partly a scientific expedition. But it could prompt a fierce legal battle for control of the seabed among nations that border the Arctic, including Russia, the United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark, through its territory Greenland.
The United States promptly dismissed the Russian move as legally meaningless whether it planted "a metal flag, a rubber flag or a bedsheet." Canadian Foreign Minister Peter Mackay said the voyage was "just a show" and that Russia could not expect to claim territory under the rules of "the 15th century."
Russian officials said the expedition was more about gathering evidence for the case that nation hopes to make for ownership of the Lomonosov Ridge, a 1,240-mile underwater mountain range that crosses the polar region. A U.N. commission, which has rejected Moscow's claims in the past, will ultimately make the decision.
Canada answered the Russian move with a clear message, highlighting plans to spend up to 7.12 billion U.S. dollars to build and operate eight patrol ships to help protect its sovereignty in the Arctic.
Moscow has sought to position itself as a force to be reckoned with in international disputes from Middle East peacemaking to U.S. plans for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, seeking to reclaim much of the influence it had when it was the capital of the Soviet Union.
Russia answers: "I don't give a damn what all these foreign politicians there are saying about this," Artur Chilingarov told a throng of well-wishers. "If someone doesn't like this, let them go down themselves ... and then try to put something there. Russia must win. Russia has what it takes to win. The Arctic has always been Russian." http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-08/08/content_6495673.htm
Danish researchers plan to set sail for the North Pole on Sunday to collect geological data, on a mission similar to Russia's one last week. The month-long Danish expedition will study the Lomonosov Ridge. Russia believes the underwater feature is linked to its territory. Denmark will investigate the ridge to see if it is geologically connected to Greenland, a Danish territory.
Canada fired a warning shot in a new Cold War over the vast resources of the far North by announcing last night that it will build two new military bases in the Arctic wilderness.
A week after Russia laid claim to the North Pole in what is rapidly becoming a global scramble for the region’s vast oil and gas reserves, Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, said that Canada would open a new army training centre for cold-weather fighting at Resolute Bay, and a deep-water port at Nanisivik, on the northern tip of Baffin Island. The country is also beefing up its military presence in the far North with 900 Rangers.
“Canada’s Government understands that the first principle of Arctic sovereignty is use it or lose it,” Mr Harper said. The move comes a week after Russia planted a rustproof titanium flag on the seabed beneath the North Pole in a blatant attempt to stake a claim to the billions of tonnes of untapped energy resources believed to be under the Arctic Ocean.
Under international law, each of five Arctic countries ? Canada, Russia, the United States, Norway and Denmark ? controls an economic zone within 200 miles of its continental shelf. But the limits of that shelf are in dispute, and as Russia seeks to expand its gas and oil reserves, the region is at the centre of a battle for energy rights and ownership.
[color=blue]Russia's new research station in Arctic to open in late Sept.[/color]
20/ 08/ 2007
ST. PETERSBURG, August 20 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's new drifting research station in the Arctic will begin working in late September, the press spokesman of the Artic and Antarctic Research Institute said Monday.
The North Pole 35 station being set up with the help of the Akademik Fedorov research vessel and the nuclear icebreaker Rossiya, which brought mini-submarines to the pole for the first ever dive to the seabed earlier in August, will conduct research in the area for one year and replace the previous station.
Sergei Balyasnikov said about 20 Russian and German scientists will conduct geological and ornithological research on an ice floe in the East Siberian Sea located between the Arctic Cape in the north and Siberia's coast in the south.
In early August, Russian researchers descended 4,200 meters (14,000 feet) below the Pole in two submersibles to gather scientific evidence to bolster the country's claim to a vast swathe of extra Arctic territory and planted a titanium Russian flag on the seafloor. The mission attracted criticism from rival Arctic nations.
Under international law, the five Arctic Circle countries - the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Norway and Russia - each have a 322-kilometer (200-mile) economic zone in the Arctic Ocean at the moment.
Arthur Chilingarov, deputy Sate Duma speaker and president of polar explorers' association, and head of the North Pole-33 expedition, which begins to start its work in the Arctic in August 2004. Artur Chilingarov (b. 1939, Leningrad) is a Russian polar explorer and politician [color=red]of Armenian descent.[/color] He is a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union in 1986 and the title Hero of the Russian Federation in 2008. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Chilingarov
Arthur Chilingarov
Hero of the Soviet Union, laureate of the USSR State Award, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. Born in 1939, in Leningrad. In 1963 graduated from the arctic faculty of the Leningrad Marine Institute named after admiral S.O. Makarov (the speciality - oceanologer). As an engineer-oceanologer was directed to Tiksi observatory of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute. In 1965 was elected as the first secretary of Bulonsk district committee. In 1969 appointed as a head of the youth research station “North Pole-19”. In 1971 Chilingarov headed the Bellinsgausen station of the 17-th Soviet Antarctic Expedition. In 1973 organized the floating station North Pole-22 based on the ice-breaker Vladivostok. Since 1974, during 5 years, was working in the West sector of the Arctic as a head of the Amderminsk Administration of hydrometeorology and environment control. Under his direction new forms of arctic operative navigation support were implemented; for the first time experimental works on cargo transfer to fast ice during wintertime were carried out in Jamal Peninsula. His experience in navigation support on the Arctic Seaway Chilingarov summarized in his dissertation for a scientific degree of a candidate of geographical sciences. For developing the procedure of fast ice usage for handling operations A. Chilingarov and some of his research colleges were given a status of the USSR State Award laureates. In 1979-1992 worked in the USSR State Committee of Hydrometeorology; since 1986 has been the Deputy Chairman of the mentioned organization and the head of the Central Administrative Board on Arctic, Antarctic and the World Ocean of USSR Council of Ministers. In 1985 headed the special expedition on research vessel Mikhael Somov salvage, which was ice-blocked in South Ocean. For successful performance of salvation operations in extreme conditions and shown organizational abilities and courage A. Chilingarov was awarded a Hero of the Soviet Union status. Participated in liquidation of Chernobul Accident after-effects. In 1987 headed a high-latitude expedition on ice-breaker Siberia, which performed a large complex of scientific explorations and experiments, took a personnel of floating station North Pole-27 off from ice-floe, disembarked the scientific and technician personnel of floating station North Pole-29. On May 25, 1987, ice-breaker Siberia reached the geographical North Pole. In 1988 headed the inspection group of Antarctic polar stations. Since 1992 - the president of the Polar Explorers’ Association. Since 1993 - a deputy of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation State Duma. Deputy Chairman of the State Duma. A. Chilingarov is awarded with Orders of Lenin, Labour Red Banner, “Sign of Honor”, with many medals. Laureate of the USSR State Award. Author of more than 50 scientific publications.
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