The Russian Geographical Society and the Expeditionary Center of the Russian Ministry of Defense have completed the competitive selection of participants in the fifth season of the complex expedition «Eastern Bastion — the Kuril Ridge». Field work on geology, biology, ornithology, ecology, and soil science will take place from the end of July to the middle of August on Paramushir Island. In parallel, ground and underwater research on the events of the 1945 Kuril amphibious operation is planned on Shumshu Island.
Out of more than 300 applications from all over Russia, the RGS commission approved 77 winners, scientists and specialists in search work. The future participants were selected in several stages. The experts assessed the practical experience in expedition work and the scientific significance of the presented projects. The key requirement is the practical benefits of research.
The participants of the expedition are:
Shumshu Island
Andrey Andreev, Elena Barkanova, Sergei Bulochkin, Vyacheslav Garanin, Aleksey Dremov, Anton Zharkov, Valery Kazantsev, Vladimir Kamensky, Aleksey Knyazhev, Vladimir Koznov, Vera Kostamo, Artyom Lakhin, Maksimilian Lesin, Evgeny Muller, Kirill Plotnikov, Elena Poddubnaya, Denis Ponomarenko, Stanislav Pushkin, Aleksandr Savelov, Anton Tananykin, Aleksandr Yashin.
Paramushir Island
Tatiana Antokhina, Yuri Bazhenov, Irina Baykova, Artur Baklachyan, Marina Barinova, Arina Bigvava, Ilya Bolshakov, Aleksandr Bormotin, Veronika Butris, Elena Glazkova, Sofia Grigorieva, Yuri Deart, Ilya Dokuchaev, Aleksey Yezhelev, Elena Embaturova, Valery Ermachenko, Andrey Ermolinsky, Mikhail Ershov, Natalya Zadorozhnaya, Maria Zvereva, Daria Zemtsova, Anna Zueva, Natalya Ivanova, Konstantin Ilyin, Anna Kalandadze, Sofia Kanaeva, Nina Klochkova, Ivan Kolchin, Aleksandr Krichakin, Margarita Kryuchkova, Ruslan Kuznetsov, Lyubov Kurbatova, Roman Lebedev, Ksenia Mikhailova, Aleksandra Mishagina, Sofia Nesterkina, Anton Nuzhdaev, Anastasia Paskochina, Maria Repina, Oleg Savinkin, Ivan Savinov, Vladimir Savitsky, Nastasia Samarkina, Pavel Smirnov, Natalya Solovyova, Ivan Soltan, Vasilisa Stryuchkova, Andrey Sypin, Yuri Titov, Dmitry Fomin, Sergei Khokhlov, Aleksey Churganov, Evgenia Shepelya, Dmitry Botnev, Victoria Zimina, Olga Mulikhova.
The expedition will last three weeks. A historical-search team will conduct underwater work on Shumshu in order to find objects left underwater after the Kuril amphibious operation in August 1945. On Paramushir, biologists are exploring unique island ecosystems, studying the impact of climate change on endemic species of flora and fauna. Geologists will analyze volcanic activity, while soil scientists and biologists will take samples of soils and aquatic organisms.
The «Eastern Bastion — the Kuril Ridge» project was launched in 2019 as an initiative to study the military heritage of the Far East. In 2023, the participants discovered a network of underground tunnels of the Japanese army and identified species of endemic plants. In 2021, Russian biologists discovered a new species of mollusk on Urup and named it Cuthonella rgo.