Bellingshausen Station (Russian: станция Беллинсгаузен) is a Russian (formerly

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

) Antarctic station at Collins Harbour, on King George Island of the

South Shetland Islands The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands with a total area of . They lie about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, and between southwest of the nearest point of the South Orkney Islands. By the Antarctic Treaty of 195 ...

. It was one of the first research stations founded by the

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 So ...

in 1968. It is also the location of Trinity Church, the only permanently staffed

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or "canonical") ...

church 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 contine ...

The station is named for the 19th-century Russian explorer of the Antarctic Fabian von Bellingshausen. The station is connected by unimproved roads to the nearby stations: Chilean

Base Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva Base Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva is the most important Antarctic base of Chile. It is located at Fildes Peninsula, an ice-free area, in front of Fildes Bay, west of King George Island, South Shetland Islands. Situated alongside the Escuder ...

, Chinese

Great Wall Station The Great Wall Station () is the first Chinese research station in Antarctica and opened on 20 February 1985. It lies on the Fildes Peninsula on King George Island, and is about from the Chilean Frei Montalva Station, and from Cape Horn. The ...

, and Uruguayan

Artigas Base The General Artigas Station ( es, Base Científica Antártica Artigas), also referred to as the Artigas Base is the larger of the two Uruguayan scientific research stations in Antarctica, the other one being Elichiribehety Base. It is one of ...

. It is antipodal to a location in Russian

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

, ~400 km west from

Yakutsk Yakutsk (russian: Якутск, p=jɪˈkutsk; sah, Дьокуускай, translit=Djokuuskay, ) is the capital city of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located about south of the Arctic Circle. Fueled by the mining industry, Yakutsk has become one of ...

. In October 2018, it was the site of the first attempted murder in Antarctica.

Climate

The

Antarctic Peninsula The Antarctic Peninsula, known as O'Higgins Land in Chile and Tierra de San Martín in Argentina, and originally as Graham Land in the United Kingdom and the Palmer Peninsula in the United States, is the northernmost part of mainland Antarctic ...

and its nearby islands are considered to have the mildest living conditions in Antarctica. Bellingshausen Station's climate is strongly influenced by the surrounding ocean. Under the Köppen system, it is one of the few locations in Antarctica classified as a

tundra climate The tundra climate is a polar climate sub-type located in high latitudes and high mountains. undra climate https://www.britannica.com/science/tundra-climateThe Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019 It is classified as ET according to Köppen ...

rather than an ice cap climate. Variation in temperatures are small with the coldest month, July averaging and in the warmest month. With only 591.2 hours of sunshine per year, the weather is often unsettled and cloudy throughout the year with precipitation in the form of snow, rain and drizzle occurring often. On average, of precipitation falls per year.

Gallery

2005-02-25 Trinity Church at Bellingshaussen.jpg, Trinity Church at Bellingshausen 2005-02-25 Inside Trinity Church.jpg, Interior of Trinity Church Russian Antarctic Base Bellinghausen.JPG, Bellingshausen in 2012 Antarctic Bellinghausen.jpg, Bellingshausen in January 1985 Bellingshausen-at-night-4755.JPG, Bellingshausen at night

In popular culture

On January 21, 2014, American tattoo artist

Lyle Tuttle Lyle Gilbert Tuttle (October 7, 1931 – March 26, 2019) was an American tattoo artist and historian of the medium, who had been tattooing since 1949. He tattooed Janis Joplin, Cher, Jo Baker, Paul Stanley, Jeff Scranton, and many other American ...

set up an impromptu tattoo station in a scientist's guesthouse where he tattooed his signature tattoo—his autograph—on project assistant/tattoo historian Dr. Anna Felicity Friedman, making him the first person to tattoo on all seven continents.

References

External links

United States Antarctic Inspection Team 2006: Report of Inspections under Article VII of the Antarctic Treaty and Article 14 of the Protocol on Environmental Protection. March 21, 2007
Includes detailed description of this and some nearby stations)

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COMNAP Antarctic Facilities
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COMNAP Antarctic Facilities Map
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Bellingshausen Station Photos
{{Antarctica Geography of King George Island (South Shetland Islands) Outposts of the South Shetland Islands Russia and the Antarctic Soviet Union and the Antarctic 1968 establishments in Antarctica

Climate

Gallery

In popular culture

See also

References

External links