Arctic Hectare, Tourist Destinations, and a New Ship

This 1 August, the Arctic Hectare governmental program kicked off. As part of the program, thousands of land plots across the Russian Arctic are being distributed by regional authorities to those willing to use such plots for making business or building a house. The influx of applications was too much to handle for the servers of the program’s online registration system, which caused a 13-hour pause needed to restore their functionality. At present, the system is up and running.
A team of researchers from the Russian Science Academy, the Moscow State University and the Russian Arctic wildlife preserve will survey Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya, Russian archipelagos in the Arctic Ocean, to select the best places of interest to be visited by tourists. With Arctic tourism on the rise, both remote archipelagos are seen by many in the industry as its flagship destinations. In this light, researchers will assess the potential impact of visitors on local wildlife and habitats to prevent any harm from tourism to the island ecosystems.
A new passenger ship will be built at a St. Petersburg dockyard for the Arctic region of Krasnoyarsk Krai. The vessel capable of carrying 250 passengers at a distance of 5,000 kilometers will be operated on a route connecting the city of Krasnoyarsk, the region’s capital, and the remote Arctic settlement of Dudinka via the Lena River. The ship whose keel was laid this weekend is expected to be commissioned by 2024.