During the expedition of the Arctic Floating University-2022 (AFU), employees of the Russian Arctic National Park were able to pick up an entire ancient Pomor vessel from the eastern Greater Oransky Island in the Barents Sea, the TASS correspondent reports from aboard the Professor Molchanov scientific expedition vessel.

The find was made by scientists of the Russian Arctic National Park in 2016, but previous attempts to bring it to Russia were unsuccessful due to bad weather and complicated logistics.

'Today was the landing on the Greater Oransky Islands, where, according to the estimates of the Russian Arctic National Park employees, we managed to salvage the remains of an ancient sewn Pomor vessel. We consider this a great success as far as the heritage part is concerned. In the future, the employees of the National Park will establish the type of this vessel and when it was built, and will then proceed to study it,' said Alexander Saburov, the head of the expedition, to TASS.

The discovery on Oran Islands is the oldest Pomor vessel found in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, the first such find there and is the northernmost in the Russian part of the Arctic. The ship was constructed using Pomor technology, with the boards held together by spruce branches. It is almost completely preserved. Specialists of the park brought the keel, bends, fragments of broadsides and other structural elements. After it is delivered to Arkhangelsk, the find will be thoroughly studied.

The Russian Arctic National Park is the northernmost and largest specially protected natural area in Russia. The Arctic Floating University is a joint project of Northern (Arctic) Federal University and the Northern Department of Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring. This year, the project turned 10 years.