The expedition of Fedor Konyukhov and Viktor Simonov

People

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  Fedor Konyukhov

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  Victor Simonov

Fedor Filippovich Konyukhov is a famous Russian traveler who has reached all five poles of the planet: the North Pole , the South Pole , the Pole of relative inaccessibility in the Arctic Ocean , the pole of height - Mount Everest and the pole of sailors Cape Horn . Writer, artist, Honored Master of Sports of the USSR in sports tourism, member of the Union of Artists of the USSR , Union of Writers and the Union of Journalists of Russia , priest of the Russian Orthodox Church ^{[1] [8]} .

Victor Albertovich Simonov - Russian traveler and polar guide. Head of expeditions and tours to the Arctic, the North Pole, the Caucasus and Transbaikalia . Master of sports in ski tourism. Director of Skiffs Tour LLC. Before the expedition he was at the North Pole 6 times ^[9] . Founder and main organizer of the first in Russia international dog sled race for medium distances “ On the Sampo Land ” ^[10] . Candidate for the election of deputies to the Petrozavodsk City Council in 2011 from the Just Russia party ^{[11] [12] [13]}

Dogs

Most of the route was planned to be overcome by dog ​​sledding. Dogs of the Chukchi sledding and mixed breeds that participated in the expedition were raised in Viktor Simonov’s own kennel ^[14] . In total, it was planned to use 24 dogs (two teams). 12 (10 main and 2 spare) went from the pole to Greenland, then 12 more Greenland sled dogs were to join the expedition ^[5] .

The expedition route was planned for the longest in the Arctic; previous attempts to overcome it were unsuccessful ^[15] .

First Stage (April - May 2013)

The first stage of the expedition began in Petrozavodsk in the Republic of Karelia. The participants, dogs and equipment were transported by plane to Svalbard to the northernmost settlement in the world of Langyir . From Longyearby, also by air, the participants headed to the Russian seasonal drifting ice base of Barneo in the immediate vicinity (about 100 km) from the North Pole. The last preparations and tests of equipment were made on it ^[8] . Corrections were made by increasing the average air temperature and early spring in the polar region in 2013. Contrary to forecasts, the ice began to move, a huge number of cracks appeared that needed to be bypassed. This circumstance forced travelers to change the route and move to the west the place of exit from the ice to the ground. As a result, Konyukhov and Simonov reached the uninhabited island of Ward Hunt ( Canada ), which has a runway for air transport ^[16] . The first stage was completed on May 23, 2013 ^[3] .

Second stage (2013—2017)

The second stage of the expedition was planned to begin by moving from the Canadian Arctic coast to Greenland. Then climb to the Greenland ice plateau and pass along it to the very south of the island along the previously planned route. This stage was expected to be the longest in time, and the rise was one of the most difficult sections ^[17] . However, at the end of May 2013, the start of the second stage was delayed for almost a week due to the powerful cyclone in Canada on the island of Ward Hunt , then due to bad weather the same amount of time was lost on the northern coast of Greenland ^[18] . As a result, it was decided to stop moving along the planned route because of fears that the expedition would not be able to descend to the southern coast of Greenland due to the melting of the glacier in the south of the island. The continuation of the trip was originally planned for 2014 ^[18] . However, the start of the second stage was postponed for a year due to the trip of Fedor Konyukhov on a rowboat across the Pacific Ocean, which lasted from December 2013 to May 2014.

Later, a number of media reported that the route of the Antarctic expedition would be radically changed. Travelers plan to start in March ^[19] (according to other sources, in April ^[20] ) in 2015 in the village of Isertok on the southeastern coast of Greenland, they will pass the island to the north, cross the Nersa Strait and reach the island of Ward Hunt along the coast of Canada ^{[ 20]} . Then it is planned to cross the Arctic coast of Canada and Alaska, the Bering Strait, Chukotka and Taimyr. The round-the-world Arctic trip should end in the spring of 2017 in Petrozavodsk, where it started in 2013 ^[19] . Due to problems with the paperwork by the Greenland authorities in 2015, the continuation of the expedition was postponed to March 2016 ^[21] .

The purpose of the expedition is to go until recently to an unattainable ^[22] polar route; to strengthen Russia's authority among the Arctic powers and Karelia as a special tourist region; to popularize sports tourism and dog sledding, to initiate the return of sledding to the Winter Olympic Games ; to conduct a series of experiments and tests of the latest navigation and communication equipment ^[23] .

Plans for the expedition were considered back in 2011 , and the active phase of preparation began in June 2012 . The priority task at the very beginning of the planning was to assess the possibilities of carrying out such an expedition. A thorough analysis of previous attempts of such expeditions was carried out, their errors and shortcomings were identified and taken into account. All complex and dangerous factors, the possibilities of bypassing difficult sections were taken into account, the shortest distances and weather conditions at all stages of the journey were determined. Particular attention was paid to the physical training of people and dogs, testing equipment, navigation and communication equipment, testing improvements to harnesses and sledges. Determination of the quantity and nomenclature required in the repair kit path ^[24] .

Before the start of the expedition, a special expedition headquarters was created from specialists from the Institute of Northern Water Problems of the Karelian Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences . Travelers and their dogs underwent a special medical examination and were insured against emergency and emergency evacuation ^{[25] [26]} .

The equipment included several types of communication and navigation equipment, which simultaneously underwent field tests: the Russian GLONASS navigation system, meteorological equipment, emergency rescue and search equipment of Russian production. Also, experiments were planned with the use of location-navigation support for the Arctic transition in the interests of designing a system for lighting the situation in the Arctic, studying the density of meteorite “fields” in Greenland as part of the assessment of the asteroid- comet hazard (AKO) in the interests of creating a planetary defense system against AKO ^{[27 ] [28]} .

The expedition could be monitored via the Internet . A special site dedicated to the expedition and a blog through which you can monitor the progress of the expedition and the location of travelers have been created. It was planned to install a webcam on one of the dogs. The ability to transmit digital data from polar latitudes was also tested during the expedition ^[29] .

For 46 days, Fyodor Konyukhov and Viktor Simonov, using a team of 12 sled dogs, walked over 900 km on drifting ice . Despite the sharp onset of warming and the complicated ice situation, travelers traveled this part of the route without loss, but they had to land on the island of Ward Hunt (Canada) near Greenland. Another danger was a polar bear mated to the expedition, chasing it for several days, sometimes approaching 20 meters from the leeward side. Several times the sledges and some dogs fell through the thin, snow-covered ice. A feature of this transition was the fact that for the first time in the history of polar expeditions not a single dog was lost. All of them were returned home safe and sound ^[3] .

• Naomi Uemura
• Knud Rasmussen

• northpole-grenlandia.ru - official site of the Arctic expedition "Karelia - North Pole - Greenland" (rus .)
• konyukhov.ru - official site of Fyodor Konyukhov (rus.) (eng.)