Russkaya Station

Russkaya station was a Soviet Antarctic research station located at (Ruppert Coast, Marie Byrd Land in Western Antarctica). The station was proposed in 1973 and approved in 1978. Construction began the next year and it was opened on March 9, 1980.

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 15 m/s in the area around the station is 264, and on 136 of those the wind speed is over 30 m/s. The average temperature in the coldest months of July-August is -20 °C (-4 °F); in the warmest months of December-January it is -2 °C (28.4 °F). The lowest temperature ever recorded at the station was -46.4 °C (-51.5 °F) in 1985, and the warmest was +7.4 °C (45.3 °F) in 1983. The average overall temperature over the course of a year is -12 °C (10.4 °F), and the average amount of snowfall is around 2000 mm.

The station was mothballed in the beginning of 1990. However, in February 2006, Valeriy Lukin, the head of the Russian Antarctic Expedition (RAE), said:

There are plans to open the mothballed stations Molodyozhnaya, Leningradskaya and Russkaya in the 2007–2008 season.

See also

• Research stations in Antarctica
• Soviet Antarctic Expedition

External links

• Official website Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute
• AARI Russkaya Station page
• COMNAP Antarctic Facilities
• COMNAP Antarctic Facilities Map