Arktika 2007

Arktika 2007 (Russian: Российская полярная экспедиция "Арктика-2007") was a 2007 expedition in which Russia performed the first ever crewed descent to the ocean bottom at the North Pole, as part of research related to the 2001 Russian territorial claim, one of many territorial claims in the Arctic, made possible, in part, because of Arctic shrinkage. As well as dropping a titanium tube containing the Russian flag, the submersibles collected specimens of Arctic flora and fauna and apparently recorded video of the dives. The "North Pole-35" (abbreviated as "NP-35") manned drifting ice station was established. On January 10, 2008, three expedition members who performed the descent to the ocean bottom at the North Pole, (Anatoly Sagalevich, Yevgeny Chernyaev, and Artur Chilingarov) were awarded the title Hero of the Russian Federation "for courage and heroism showed in extremal conditions and successful completion of High-Latitude Arctic Deep-Water Expedition."