An excursion around the famous Tikhaya Bay is offered to people, who love the Arctic

A panoramic tour around the historical Tikhaya Bay of Hooker Island of the Franz Josef Land archipelago is presented in Russian Arctic National Park. The video is available here in Russian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YKFlhi2eZU.   

“Because of the current epidemiological situation and the existing threat of the spread of the new coronavirus infection on the territory of the Russian Federation the majority of our compatriots are now isolated from the outside world. Many museums and galleries around the world are now open for virtual visits to help Russian people spend the time profitably. The park did not stand aside and offers all people, who love the Arctic, to take a tour around the famous Tikhaya Bay remote and inaccessible even in usual life”, said the director of Russian Arctic National Park Alexander Kirilov.  

The directorate of the national park believes that the project should be developed further. The next step is to create a virtual tour around Cape Zhelaniya of Novaya Zemlya, Krenkel Station on Heiss Island of Franz Josef Land and other locations of the specially protected natural territory. The project on Tikhaya Bay was based on video materials and panoramic photographs prepared by an employee of the national park, a wildlife photographer Nikolay Gernet. The virtual tour was created by specialists of the Digital Agency – the winners of all-Russian IT-competitions in the category “IT in culture and tourism”, as it is informed on the website of Russian Arctic National Park.  

“The presented video in 360-format is a part of our project with the national park. Our studio developed software for a VR-headset. If you wear it, you can find yourself on other islands of the Franz Josef Land archipelago. Working on the project was very interesting and involved many diverse specialists from designers and video editors to programmers. We plan to develop the project: to add the opportunity to view archived photo and video materials, to add a virtual guide, and to give a visitor freedom to move around the simulated territory”, said Ivan Ovsyankin, a managing partner of the Digital Agency.

Today Tikhaya Bay is an ensemble of 16 objects of the polar hydro-meteorological station on Franz Josef Land. It is a striking example of industrial and scientific development of the Arctic in the USSR. Till the mid-twentieth century the polar station operated on Hooker Island on the Franz Josef Land archipelago. After a set of measures on liquidation of ecological damage — the Arctic cleaning in 2012-2017 — the park started creating an open-air museum. Today the former polar station in Tikhaya Bay is the field base of the national park. Every tourist ship necessarily visits it during its cruise – annually 1.5 thousand people from all over the world. The national park formed a tourist product, which means that tourists stay on the island for at least 10 hours. Guests can enjoy excursions around the island, visit the northernmost visit center in the world, the northernmost post office in the world and even a Russian banya (a sauna, a bath-house).