The Third

Soviet Antarctic Expedition The Soviet Antarctic Expedition (SAE or SovAE) (russian: Советская антарктическая экспедиция, САЭ, ''Sovetskaya antarkticheskaya ekspeditsiya'') was part of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute of the S ...

(1957–59) was led by

Yevgeny Tolstikov Yevgeny Ivanovich Tolstikov (russian: Евгений Иванович Толстиков; 9 February 1913 – 3 December 1987) was a Soviet polar explorer who was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union in 1955 for heading the station "North P ...

on the continent and included Czech future astronomer

Antonín Mrkos Antonín Mrkos () (27 January 1918, Střemchoví – 29 May 1996, Prague) was a Czech astronomer. Biography Mrkos entered the University in Brno in 1938. His studies were interrupted by the onset of World War II, and in 1945 he became a staff ...

; the marine expedition on the ''Ob'' was led by I V Maksimov. Two diesel-electric ships were used to transport the expedition. RV ''Ob'' (flagship; captain ) and ''Kooperatsiya'' (captain A S Yantselevich), used mainly as a transport vessel. The ships arrived in

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...

in November – December 1957. Together with the ships crews the expedition consisted of 445 men, of whom 183 were scheduled for wintering. The tasks of the expedition were: # Relief of the 1956–1958 continental expedition and continuation of the

IGY Immunoglobulin Y (abbreviated as IgY) is a type of immunoglobulin which is the major antibody in bird, reptile, and lungfish blood. It is also found in high concentrations in chicken egg yolk. As with the other immunoglobulins, IgY is a class of ...

programme # Organisation of the Sovetskaya station at the pole of relative inaccessibility # Continuation of tractor-sledge traverses in central Antarctica # Oceanographic work on the ''Ob'' in the southern oceans, and cartography of the coast from Mirny to the Bellingshausen sea The programme included 6 stations: ( Mirny;

Vostok Vostok refers to east in Russian but may also refer to: Spaceflight * Vostok programme, Soviet human spaceflight project * Vostok (spacecraft), a type of spacecraft built by the Soviet Union * Vostok (rocket family), family of rockets derived from ...

; Sovetskaya; Oasis; Pionerskaya and Komsomol'skaya). The first tractor-train to the interior left on 26 December, with 32 men. On 2 January 1958 the train arrived at Pionerskaya, and left again on the 8th. On the 17th they reached Komsomol'skaya; conditions of travel were difficult. A portion of the train (7 tractors and sledges) left on the 20th to relieve Vostok, arriving on the 27th, and delivering over 100 tons of cargo. On the 28th the train left for Komsomol'skaya, arriving on the 31st. On 3 February the train, with 27 men, left to found Sovetskaya; they reached 78° 24′ S, 87° 35′ E on the 10th, at an altitude of 3570 m. The station was rapidly constructed, and the train left on the 18th, returning to Mirny on 4 March, having completed a round trip of . After spending the Antarctic winter at Mirny, the Expedition undertook a second set of tractor traverses starting in September 1958. One team reached the pole of inaccessibility and established The

Pole of Inaccessibility A pole of inaccessibility with respect to a geographical criterion of inaccessibility marks a location that is the most challenging to reach according to that criterion. Often it refers to the most distant point from the coastline, implying a ...

station there on 14 December.

Landscape features discovered

Gamburtsev Mountain Range The Gamburtsev Mountain Range (also known as the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains) is a subglacial mountain range located in East Antarctica, just underneath the lofty Dome A, near the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility. The range was discovered b ...

* Golitsyn Mountains * Schmidt plain

3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition in literature

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

n writer Juhan Smuul took part of the expedition as a Soviet journalist and described the interesting details in his 1960 boo
"Antarctica Ahoy!: The Ice Book
("Jäine raamat" in Estonian).

References

* (translated from the Russian by the Israel program for scientific translations, Jerusalem, 1966 for the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

). {{Authority control 03 Antarctic Expedition 03 Antarctic Expedition 03 Antarctic Expedition 03 1957 in Antarctica 1958 in Antarctica 1959 in Antarctica