| Summary/Abstract |
ON FEBRUARY 13, 1956, the first Soviet Antarctic station Mirny was opened on the shore of the Davis Sea. The station got its name from the sloop Mirny that participated in Russia's 1819-1821 South Pole expedition. Its crew members became the first people on the planet to see and map the icy shores of the mysterious Terra Australis. A capsule with soil from Stalingrad's Mamayev Kurgan, which is sacred to our people, was laid at the base of the station flagpole on which the Soviet national flag was raised. These symbolic acts testified to the inseparable connection between generations of Russian trailblazers, victorious heroes of the Great Patriotic War, and the country's postwar generation. This was how our country made its debut on the sixth continent after a more than a century-long hiatus.
|