Always Darkest Before the Dawn: Polar Night Ends on Frants Iosif Land (Russia’s Northernmost Archipelago)

Border marker at Severnaya Bay on Alexandra Land in the Frants Iosif Land Archipelago

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On Thursday, the Sun rose over the horizon on Frants Iosif Land, the northernmost Arctic archipelago in Russia and Eurasia, signalling an end to the four-month-long pitch-dark polar night. Aleksei Barakov, a deputy director of the Russian Arctic National Park, told us:

The Sun rose over Alexandra Land Island where the Omega permanent field base is located.

The polar night began on Frants Iosif Land, an archipelago lying only 1,100 kilometres (684 miles) away from the North Pole, on 18 October. Vadim Zakharyin, the chief of the national park’s expedition centre, noted:

The night is very cold, windy, and dark there. The Northern Lights rarely occur on the archipelago because the cloud cover is rather thick and low. The temperatures usually hover at around -30 degrees (-22 Fahrenheit), with high humidity that’s difficult to bear. Besides that, winds reach hurricane-like speeds of 36 metres per second (80.5 miles per hour). You have to be especially careful in that darkness because you can run into polar bears there.

On Thursday, the weather on Alexandra Island was frigid and calm. Two park staff-members are always present at the Omega field base of the Russian Arctic National Park. Only two of the 192 islands making up Frants Iosif Land are habitable during the winter. Alexandra Land, the westernmost island of the archipelago, is home to the Nagurskoye border outpost and a Northern Fleet base, in addition to the national park’s field base. A weather monitoring station, also known as “the observatory”, is on Kheysa Island in the very centre of the archipelago. A source at the Northern Department for Meteorology and Environment Monitoring said:

Currently, there are six workers at the Ernst Krenkel Observatory.

22 February 2018

TASS

http://tass.com/economy/991293

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Authorities to Move Polar Bear Hanging Around Oil Wells to Arctic island

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On Tuesday, a local official said a local official said that they’d tranquilise and airlift to an Arctic island a polar bear who hung around an oil well in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. The three-year old bear kept oil well workers on their toes for six days, and even attempted to sneak into their canteen, but it wasn’t aggressive. On 20 November, they scared away the beast with a helicopter and moved it to an oil field 50 kilometres (31 miles) away from the oil workers’ compound. The official said, “There’s no link between Dolgy Island (where the airlift will leave the bear) and the continent, therefore, we hope that the bear will adapt there and will find food in his natural habitat”. However, Viktor Nikiforov, the chief of the Bear Patrol programme of the World Wildlife Fund Russia, said that the bear’s move was a temporary solution, “The bear won’t understand that humans were a threat”, adding that the beast could approach settlements again. The polar bear is on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The estimated worldwide polar bear population is 20,000-25,000, with 5,000-7,000 living along Russia’s Arctic coast. Since 1957, polar bear hunting has been illegal in Russia.

25 November 2014

ITAR-TASS

http://itar-tass.com/en/non-political/763653

Rogozin Sez Russia Isn’t Going to Build Aircraft Carriers in Near Future

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On Wednesday, Deputy Chairman of the RF Government D O Rogozin said that building an aircraft carrier in Russia just isn’t worth the expense and bother. As previously reported by the Minoborony, Russia won’t authorise any new aircraft carriers for at least another five years. The state armaments programme doesn’t plan to authorise building a new aircraft carrier until 2020, at the earliest. Rogozin told reporters after a meeting with President Putin on the 2016-20 state armaments programme, “Whether or not to build aircraft carriers is more of a geopolitical decision than a military-technical one. We proved that we had the military-technical capability to do so on 16 November last year {the commissioning date of INS Vikramaditya, built at Sevmash: editor}, when we showed that Russia had competence in building fleet aircraft carriers. If we need to do so, we’ll be able to do it. However, such a task isn’t necessary now”. Meanwhile, as reported, the idea of ​​contracting with France to build the Mistral LPHs came about as Russia needed to get experience with the technology and skills needed to build such ships. At present, the Russian Navy has one aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov.

12 September 2014

Russian Arms

http://www.arms-expo.ru/news/navy/rossiya_poka_ne_sobiraetsya_stroit_avianosets/

Editor:

Many irresponsible and uniformed Amerikantsy are bloviating about Russia building up a carrier fleet to rival their own. Firstly, that’s bullshit. Russia is a continental power that has to devote more resources to its ground forces and air forces than the USA does. All things being equal, that means that it can’t devote as many resources to the naval forces as the USA does. Secondly, the proper countermeasures to carrier task forces are cruise-missile-armed cruiser submarines, quiet diesel-electric boats (the Norwegians proved that modern diesel boats can easily penetrate a task force’s screen), and supersonic cruise-missiles. Thirdly, the waters in which the Russian Navy would conceivably operate aren’t suited to carrier task force deployment, which is particularly true of the Black Sea, Baltic, and Northern (Arctic) theatres of operation (and restricted waters such as the Sea of Okhotsk and the Mediterranean). The Russian Navy isn’t organised nor trained for blue water sea control. It has a more modest mission… protecting the Barents Sea and Sea of Okhotsk fortress areas (deployment areas of Russian boomers with SLBMs) and protecting the sea flanks of Russian ground forces (along with short-range amphibious attacks, such as Novorossiysk in the VOV). That is, it isn’t a sea control force, as the Anglosphere navies are. Therefore, CVs ARE a waste of time and money.

The Anglosphere (USA/Australia/NZ/Canada/England, along with Japan) axis is the foremost world naval power… the Chinese/Russian axis is the foremost world land power. They needn’t conflict. In any case, the USA would waste its substance by direct operations on the World Island. The economic crisis of 2008 was a direct result of the USA waging unnecessary expensive land wars in Asia (whilst cutting taxes to the grasping Affluent Effluent at the same time). General Omar Bradley’s words in 1951 still ring true today… he was speaking of a land war in continental Asia, saying that it’d be “the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy“. Anyone who advocates land warfare on the World Island for the USA without a STRONG local ally to carry the main burden of the land fighting (much as England used the continental powers in the 18th and 19th centuries) is an ignoranus, doesn’t know history, and is dangerously demented. What does that tell you about John McCain, Chilly Hilly, Mitch McConnell, John Kerry, Marco Rubio, Benjamin Cardin, and Ted Cruz? Such people hold power… God do preserve us. However… there IS hope on both sides of the aisle… Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul… odd couple, no? However, both do see the situation aright…

One last thing… Dmitri Olegovich is the MOST anti-American figure in the Russian government… even he says that Russia doesn’t intend to challenge the USA (or its maritime allies) on the open seas. That proves that the posturing warmongers in the USA are chock fulla shit…

BMD