Russkaya Station

From Encyclopedia Westarctica
Revision as of 04:59, 14 March 2018 by Westarctica (talk | contribs)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

The Russkaya Station was a former Soviet and Russian Antarctic research station that was located on the Ruppert Coast, in Westarctica. The station was proposed in 1973 and approved in 1978. Construction began the next year and it was opened on March 9, 1980 and officially abandoned after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990.

The station was mothballed in the beginning of 1990, being closed in such a way that it could be re-opened with minimal effort.

In February 2006, Valeriy Lukin, the head of the Russian Antarctic Expedition (RAE), stated that There are plans to open the mothballed stations Molodyozhnaya, Leningradskaya, and Russkaya in the 2007–2008 season. However, by 2012 it was reported that reactivation plans, although delayed, had not commenced.

Climate

For the shore of Antarctica, the winds are considered to be rather strong. The average number of days per year with wind speeds of over {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} in the area around the station is 264, and on 136 of those the wind speed is over {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}. The average temperature in the coldest months of July–August is {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}; in the warmest months of December–January it is {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}. The lowest temperature ever recorded at the station was {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} in 1985, and the warmest was {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} in 1983. The average overall temperature over the course of a year is {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}, and the average amount of snowfall is around {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}.

See also