#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. A student competition Ticket to the Arctic has been announced in Russia. The reward for the winners will be participation in a scientific expedition to the Kola peninsula and acquaintance with the deepest artificial well drilled by people.
The Kola experimental superdeep reference well is the deepest mine working in the world. It is located between the cities of Nikel and Zapolyarny, and its depth exceeds 12 thousand meters. Drilling of the well continued intermittently for more than twenty years (1970–1991). Despite the fact that the well was closed in 1994, it remains in the Guinness Book of Records as the deepest in the world. Lovers of secrets call it “a well to hell” – according to legend, the driller’s sensors recorded the cries and groans of the sinners’ souls tormented in hell coming from the depths.
The closed well and the buildings above it need to be cleaned and repaired. Part of the work will be entrusted to the students – winners of the Ticket to the Arctic competition, said Andrey Nagibin, the ANO Clean Arctic project office head.
“The guys will not only see the nature beauty, but also clean up the Arctic themselves. Today we are starting to put in order the Kola super-deep well with a depth of 12 262 meters. In the 90s, it was closed, and the workshops turned into rubbish. I think that the guys who win the Ticket to the Arctic will come here and help clean up the world’s deepest well”, he said.
Any student who has reached the age of majority can take part in the competition. This can be done by completing tasks in the VKontakte social network’s mini-application Ticket to the Arctic. Ten winners will go to the Kola peninsula. The expedition program will take into account the scientific interests of the winners. In addition to the volunteer and research program, visits to the Kola nuclear power plant, nuclear icebreaker, industrial enterprises and cinematographic site of the Teriberka village are planned.
“Those students who go on a scientific expedition will get acquainted with the potential of the Kola peninsula in terms of scientific and technological achievements. Our plans for the next decade are to involve up to ten thousand people in the Rosatom’s Arctic projects. We are waiting for the guys in our projects. Our older students are tested in the Icebreaker of Knowledge competition, and the best of the best go on an icebreaker to the North Pole. 115 000 schoolchildren from all over the country took part in the competition, of which only 80 children got the opportunity to make their dream trip”, said Andrei Timonov, the Rosatom state corporation communications department’s acting director, quoted by TASS.
Earlier, we said that schoolchildren from Norilsk, brother and sister Vera and Grigory Nikolaev, won the Amazing and Unexplored Arctic competition and got a trip to the Bear Islands reserve.
Follow us on Telegram, VKontakte.
Text: Victor Borodin, Photo: archive of the Severny Gorod MC
