Reps from 20 Russian Academy of Sciences institutes, higher education institutions to depart for exploration of Arctic regions

MURMANSK. Aug 15 (Interfax) - The Clean Arctic - Vostok-77 expedition, which includes representatives from 20 institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences and higher education institutions, will depart from Murmansk on Tuesday on the Klavdiya Yelanskaya motor ship.

The expedition will end in exactly one year's time on the Kamchatka Peninsula, the head of the Clean Arctic project office Andrei Nagibin said during a ceremony at the Murmansk Regional Museum of Local Lore.

More than 700 representatives from 20 institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences and universities as well as volunteers are members of the expedition, which will explore the Arctic regions. Research in the fields of ecology, anthropology relating to the indigenous peoples of the North, and sociology will be conducted throughout the year.

The subjects of the research are diverse, ranging from the study of the influence of shamanism to mammoth death sites. Specialized teams of researchers will be involved at each stage.

Researchers will focus on sites of accumulated damage and the study of microplastics in the Arctic, in particular taking into account the impact of the warm Gulf Stream current, Nagibin said.

At the first stage, several teams made up of expedition members will reach the coast of the White Sea by motor ship and will go on a 120 km hike through a hard-to-reach area of the Tersky district of the Murmansk region.

"What is most interesting to me as the head of the Clean Arctic project office [is that] we need to understand and have a map of the entire [Kola] Peninsula, [of] what we have taken and left there over the past 80 years," Nagibin said, referring to the first stage of the expedition.

The scientists will then go to Karelia, and subsequently to the Arkhangelsk region and continue moving eastward.

In total, the Clean Arctic - Vostok-77 expedition will cover 12,000 kilometers.