Today, a volunteer expedition from the public environmental project "Clean Arctic" departs from the port of Murmansk for Spitsbergen. The volunteers will be transported to the archipelago by the research expedition vessel "Professor Molchanov." This is the first environmental mission to the island in the project's history.
A group of 15 people has departed for the Norwegian archipelago. They are volunteers from Murmansk, Moscow, the Kaluga, Lipetsk, Belgorod, and Novosibirsk regions, the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Yakutia, and the Republic of Belarus. They will be cleaning up the environmental damage—mostly scrap metal—that accumulated during the Soviet period of island development. The cleanups will take place in the Russian villages of Barentsburg and Pyramiden, and the volunteers will also clean up the coastline.
"In four days, we plan to land on Spitsbergen and begin cleaning up Russian villages," said Andrei Nagibin, head of the public environmental project "Clean Arctic." "The guys are all trained and well-instructed. On Svalbard, the presence of polar bears is a major problem for us, so to speak. So, we'll certainly be careful. Naturally, the entire team is insured. But all cleanups will be supervised by our technical team, because sometimes volunteers simply can't be allowed near certain trash—the trash in the Arctic is varied, and not just on Svalbard."
Svalbard has a special international status. The expedition to the archipelago opens a new stage in the development of environmental volunteering and strengthening Russia's presence in the region. Along with Clean Arctic, corporate volunteers from the state-owned Arktikugol trust and the United Volunteer Center of the Murmansk Region will be conducting the work.
"Our volunteers have the opportunity not only to contribute to the conservation of the Arctic but also to prove the importance of Russians on Svalbard. This is a special territory where Russia has maintained a presence for many decades." "And our guys are going there not just as volunteers, but as representatives of Russia in the Arctic. I think that's a very proud moment," said Evgeniya Chibis, head of the Murmansk Region's United Volunteer Center.
Russia has been working on the archipelago for over 90 years. Since 1931, the state-owned Arktikugol trust has been operating there, producing 120,000 tons of coal annually. The company owns 251 square kilometers of Norwegian territory. All waste collected during the expedition will be transported to Murmansk and sent for recycling.
The Clean Arctic public environmental project has been cleaning up northern territories since 2021. Volunteers focus on the legacy of the Soviet Union. Waste removal is a complex technological undertaking, taking into account the Arctic region's natural features. Over the past seasons, volunteers have collected 22,045 tons of waste and cleaned 1,101 hectares of land. During this time, 9,923 volunteers have participated in the project. The project's general partner is the Rosatom State Corporation, and the general information partner is the TASS news agency.
/ Ministry of Information Policy of the Murmansk Region, based on information from the United Volunteer Center of the Murmansk Region /
Photo: Clean Arctic and the United Volunteer Center
