‘He took five bullets and returned to his plankton research’: The double life of a Ukrainian Antarctic scientist | Antarctica

WThe Ukrainian Antarctic research and supply ship Nousfera set sail from Odessa on her maiden voyage on January 28, 2022, passing a Russian warship in the Black Sea. A month later, President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Russia’s neighboring country. Nousfellatio hasn’t returned since then.

“After a few weeks, Nousfera would have become an important symbolic target for Russia,” said biologist Vadim Tkachenko, who recently completed his second Antarctic winter at Vernadsky Station in Ukraine. The ship currently supplies supplies to Antarctic bases in Ukraine and Poland from Chile and South Africa twice a year, at the beginning and end of winter.

Last week, it entered the Southern Ocean through the Drake Passage and arrived with Ukraine’s 29th Antarctic Scientist Team stationed at Vernadsky.

Base commander Bogdan Gavrylyuk has just completed his 18th expedition and 10th Antarctic winter. He first trained as a soldier, and then as a mechanic in Vernadsky. He then retrained as a geophysicist at the Institute of Radio Astronomy in Kharkiv, conducting research in electromagnetism.

In three weeks, he will see his family for two days before returning to the front lines as a Border Patrol commander. Although he hasn’t been home in his three years, he takes pride in his two jobs. “I was at the border In the trenches and trenches. here, I It’s on the line between what we know and what we’re learning. This is a very special place. ”

TThe base’s origins lie in the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, when Russia retained 12 Soviet Antarctic bases. But a third of the 12,000 Antarctic scientists were from Ukraine, and they had nowhere to go.

Shortly thereafter, the British Antarctic Survey decided that Faraday Station, located on a rocky island on the Antarctic Peninsula 1,100 miles south of Tierra del Fuego, was no longer needed. It was sold to Ukraine in 1996 for a symbolic £1 and was renamed after Ukrainian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky.

The only condition attached to the Vernadsky base was that the Ukrainians continue to monitor the weather. Weather has been recorded every three hours at the base since 1947. This is the longest continuous climate study in Antarctica and clearly demonstrated an increase in average temperatures. Nowadays, temperatures rarely drop below -20°C (-4F).

“Ice is melting faster than ever before, and rain is falling where it used to be snow,” Gavrylyuk said. “Last year, for the first time in history, there was no ice around the island.” Average temperatures rose by 3.5 degrees Celsius (6.3 degrees Celsius), he said.

Weddell seals no longer breed near the base because they require sea ice. And invasive bacteria and algae are being discovered in the ocean. Gavrylyuk’s office overlooks a colony of gentoo penguins that once nested further north, filling the air with their fishy smell and shrieking sounds.

This year’s chicks stand still while their fluffy feathers grow out. Others run around chasing each other for food and jumping in and out of the water, like in a Disney cartoon. “The first pair was born in 2008 and we now have 1,500 adult pairs and more than 2,000 chicks,” he says.

TWar may be geographically far away, but it is never far away for the people at the base. When word of the Russian invasion reached Vernadsky, marine biologist Andriy Zotov boarded a yacht and headed to Argentina, took a bus to Chile, flew to Poland, and within two weeks joined an army unit on the front lines in Ukraine. .

“He had been shot five times and was too seriously injured to fight any further,” Tkachenko said. “He has returned to work on phytoplankton at the National Antarctic Science Center in Kiev. He will be back here for the handover.”

Meanwhile, Tkachenko is looking forward to meeting her first child, who was born two months ago. In 2019, his wife Oksana Savenko, a humpback whale expert, became one of the first women to live on the base in more than 20 years. Historically, women have been underrepresented at Antarctic research stations, but the expedition team will include four women, three scientists and a doctor.

The base is a complex consisting of a corrugated iron housing, laboratories, machinery, tanks, and radio masts. A wooden church the size of a beach hut and brightly colored overlooks the generator building.

Inside, a school desk serves as an altar, dry milk cans contain holy water, and posters of Jesus and St. Vladimir decorate the plywood walls. Unlike the Russian base on King George Island, 300 miles north of the South Shetland Islands, there are no priests here, only scientists, engineers and cooks.

Under the round trap door on the roof of the laboratory building is written “Virginia,” after the British scientist named the Dobson spectrophotometer that measures the ozone layer. It was here that the ozone hole was first identified in 1985 by its predecessor, Daphne. This hole has stabilized since the ban on CFC chemical aerosols and refrigeration, but monitoring remains essential.

IDuring the long, dark Antarctic winter from March to October, the team socializes in the Faraday Bar, a recreation of an English village pub, complete with a pool table and dartboard. Gavrylyuk is a talented musician who writes songs about whales, seals, and even plankton every winter.

But now his guitar is sitting in a corner. “People may think that this is a peaceful part of Ukraine. For us and our families, the war is here too. Since our house was invaded, we have not been able to play or sing. “I can’t,” he says sadly. “Only when there is peace again can I sing.”

Since the pandemic, few landings have been allowed at the Vernadsky base, and there are few tourists. “There is too much work to do,” Gavrylyuk says. However, he welcomed Dr. John Sears, polar geographer, environmental scientist and recipient of the Order of the Polar Order.

Sears has worked here since 1991 and last visited Vernadsky in 2015 as an inspector for the Antarctic Treaty. “Not much has changed since the last time I was here, but it’s definitely warmer,” Sears said.

Biosecurity is strict and visitors are not allowed to bring organic matter, food or drink onto the base or the beach. Bird flu reached mainland Antarctica last month. They were first discovered by scavenging skuas, which killed penguins and seals.

Since 1996, Ukraine has added more research on water quality, seals, whales, krill, and phytoplankton (the building blocks of all marine life and essential for global oxygen production and carbon dioxide absorption). All are affected by global warming and pollution.

Some Ukrainians believe that government funds would be better spent on the war in Ukraine. But President Volodymyr Zelenskiy credits the Vernadsky base with reminding the world that Ukraine is not just a victim of Russian aggression, but a global scientific player contributing to understanding the climate crisis. There is.