News & Views on the Russian presence within the Arctic Circle
5 May 2010
Just a brief reminder of one of the central aspects of control over the NSR – the capacity to mount search and rescue operations. A local newspaper from Vladivokstok reminds its readers of the rescue of two fishing boats from the ice back in January by an ice-breaker from the Sakhalin shipping company. (There is more from this blog on search and rescue here). The rescue also involved... Read More...
15 February 2010
A number of agencies recently reported the fact that a new class of ice-breaker built by the shipbuilding company Almaz has failed in recent attempts to navigate the Neva River. The Nevsky Gate, unfortunately, was not able to navigate the river up to the Alexander Nevsky Bridge. The ship lacked the capacity to deal with the ‘unique’/'not common’ thickness of ice on the... Read More...
11 February 2010
A couple of agencies announce that 2010 will see the construction of a new, universal atomic powered ice-breaker, with 60 MW capacity and which will patrol the NSR, May to October in the East and all year around in the West. Meanwhile, infox has a report on NASA’s photographs of shrinking Arctic ice and is concerned about the possibility that this is a unidirectional process - ’но,... Read More...
28 January 2010
The boat that I described yesterday as playing a role in the rescue of the Ivan Makarin is back in Vladivostok, so reports vecti.ru. Now this is only indirectly related to the issue of ArcticRussia but the ship was stuck in the ice in back in November while working for the BBC in Antarctica. The interesting fact here is that the ice breaker was stuck for about a week. вести.ru are... Read More...
27 January 2010
The fate of the Smolninskii was widely covered by a large number of news agencies. MIXA.TV has some good and rather scary footage of the kind of conditions that ship was in and many agencies reported that some of the crew were rescued my MI-8 helicopter. вести.ru has photos of the kind of ‘icing’ that led the ship to list, and which threatened to sink it. Eventually... Read More...
21 December 2009
In the light of the previous post and the statements made about the real difficulties in Arctic development these comments from the governor of the Arkhangelsk region are significant, especially given the conclusion to them in the article which hints at a fusion between state policy and the policy of United Russia, headed by Putin. The article on the necessity of developing Arctic resources... Read More...
10 December 2009
мурманск-вестник, always a good source, closer to the gritty realities of Arctic Russia today than many of the big nationals, carries what can only be described as a public annoucement. Dimitry Dmitrienko, Governor of Mumansk Oblast, sees a busy future for Murmansk, with increases in wages and over 3/4 of a billion roubles being spent in the region. He emphasizes ‘ the... Read More...
3 December 2009
There was a lot of news coverage given to the Russian ice-breaking fleet on the 3rd December as the 3rd is the 50th anniversary of the launch of the 1st atomic ice-breaker, Lenin. A press conference was held on board Lenin, now a musuem in Murmansk, with officials from atomflot and plenty of press present. (There is some good footage here of the Lenin leading a ‘caravan’ across... Read More...
27 November 2009
tv100.ru has television footage of explorer Viktor Boyarsky, and a talk he gave at the museum of the Arctic and the Antarctic in St. Petersburg. The large three-dimensional map of the roof of the world is quite striking. Boyarsky is Director of the Arctic and Antarctic Museum in St. Petersburg and head of the Victory in Arctic and Antarctic research. He has worked under Chilingarov. t.v.21.ru has... Read More...
25 November 2009
popmechanic.ru reports on the arrival of the Yamal ice-breaker, which was busy over the summer, and its arrival in Murmansk, where it is now docked alongside the Arktica - a legendary ice-breaker from Soviet times. This photograph of the bow of the Yamal published over the summer shows the teeth painted on the front and ‘popmechanic’ reports that this was painted there... Read More...
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