Ever since the journey to the bottom of the earth, the desire has started to go up. But there is no land above the earth, only the sea. Frozen Arctic Ocean. As an inquiry into how to get there, where to go, and what to see. From the search it was realized that there are now ways to reach the point where the latitudinal lines converge at the top of the earth, where the axis of the earth meets the surface. Imagine for a second you were standing at the top of the earth. One of the 2 stationary places on Earth, which rotates on its own axis at a speed of more than 1300 kilometers per hour. (The other is 90 degrees south below the Earth’s axis). The earth is at our feet. Everything else on earth. Creatures and places below us.
From the investigation, it was learned that there are two ways to go to North Pole. 1. By Air – Take a charter flight from Canada or Finland to the nearest land station to North Pole. From there take a helicopter to North Pole. But this is an option that is high risk and has no other entertainment. This is because the helicopter journey will be more than 100 km. The weather may not be favorable or the North Pole might be about to land. Also you have to walk from the landing place to the pole and then (ICE SKIING – the easiest way to break a leg.) Such trips are usually made during the Arctic winter. Then the ice in the sea will freeze as much as possible and SKIING will be possible. But in winter, the light is very low due to lack of sunlight.
2. The sea route – This is the least risky route available, with 100% chance of success but costly. The biggest advantage of this is that you can enjoy wildlife. So I decided that what I really needed to do was learn how to do it right. At the end of the search it was found that only two companies were making trips to the North Pole. One thing is clear from the continuous conversation between the two. They are only the tour operator and both use the same ship of the Russian government and it is also chartered. The Russian government allows the ship to sail only 5 times a year.
POSEIDON EXPEDITIONS and QUARK EXPEDITION are the tour operators. Full control and operation of the ship is carried out by the ship’s Russian officials. It is the largest and most powerful ICE BREAKER SHIP in the world. The trips are in the months of June and July. Both tour operators gave me similar rates. Because the rate is unaffordable. The dream of travel was abandoned for the time being. At the end of May I received an EMAIL from POSEIDON. It was a letter informing them that they had a few vacancies because of the cancellation and that they were willing to give a small discount on the price. I was constantly harassing them again and again asking if it was possible to get a discount again if a cabin was taken as a whole. It was finally decided to book a cabin by the end of May. But a cabin is only allowed for a maximum of 2 people. The big cabin had already been booked in advance so we had to exclude our daughter from one of our trips for the first time. Then it was school holidays and her desire to go home for a month also motivated me to make this decision. When we came back, my wife agreed that we would get a beating when we showed her the video of POLAR BEAR).
The journey was just a few days ahead. The travel date was June 14th. A special voucher from the tour operator or hotel is required to obtain a RUSSIAN visa. After receiving it, I had to apply for a URGENT visa as there were not many days ahead. The visa was issued 3 days later. Air tickets are booked these days. Thus came June 14th. Our flight to Moscow was at 2.25 in the morning. The journey to change the terminal in Moscow takes only 1 to 2 hours, and the Russian plane itself was chosen to avoid it and reduce costs. Flight Arrived in Moscow at early morning 7 am. Russia has the strictest passport verification of any country. Probably because they are Indians, it took some time but the test was completed without any more questions. We walked to the domestic flight terminal for the next flight. The next trip was to an area on the northern tip of Russia called ‘MURMANSK’. It will take more than 2 hours to reach there. We boarded the plane in the afternoon and arrived at ‘MURMANSK’ in the evening.
The tour operator was waiting for us outside the airport. Most of the people on our plane were the same people who came for this trip. They boarded their bus to the city center. Checked into a large hotel in the heart of the city. Here it is tonight. The voyage starts tomorrow. There are very strong security checks at the seaport and on the ship. So we had to hand over all our luggage to the tour operator that night. The next day at 8am the Tour Leader called the first meeting of all the passengers at the hotel. We were given instructions on how to enter the port and board the ship. It has a total of 120 passengers from 23 countries. More than half are from China and Taiwan. Access to the seaport is by group. The bus time for our group is 3pm. So we went outside to see the sights.
‘MURMANSK’ is the largest and most beautiful coastal city located near the North Pole. As a Russian city closest to European countries, it is a strategically important region of Russia militarily. The weather here is always nice and cool. It is covered with snow for about 8 months of the year. Summer is in the months of July and August. Then the maximum temperature is 20 degrees. 20 to 22 hours during the day, it was generally nice and windy outside. The temperature at that time was 15 degrees. People and merchants all speak only Russian. All articles and advertisements are in Russian. I saw the yellow ‘M’ and realized that the shop was MC DONALDS. But I had to show the picture to buy a chicken burger. Nobody knows English and they don’t need it. There was a lot to see but due to lack of time we wandered around the city a bit and got back to the hotel. Began to prepare for the journey.
Our turn arrived at 3 p.m. As scheduled, we boarded the bus and headed for the port. It takes about 30 minutes to reach the port. On the way we had the opportunity to visit the Russian War Museum in ‘MURMANSK’. It was established to commemorate World War II. It is a statue of a “gun-wielding soldier” over 300 meters high. It is located on top of a hill. From here, you can see the entire city and the seaport. After spending 15 minutes there, the bus continued its journey to the seaport.(Continues)
