"Icebreaker of Discoveries"

From 17 to 28 July, the "Icebreaker of Discoveries" educational expedition to the North Pole was organized by the Rosatom State Corporation and ANСO "Big Break". 70 high school students, as well as their teachers, took part in the trip on the nuclear icebreaker "50 Years of Victory". Among them is Mark Shirchenko, a DLNP Senior Researcher, who told the Group of scientific communications of the Laboratory about his impressions.

- Mark, please tell us how you got on board the icebreaker and took part in the expedition?

- This is the fourth voyage of the icebreaker "50 Years of Victory" to the North Pole with schoolchildren on board. This time the participants were the winners of the Big Break contest. High school students were accompanied on board by experts from various fields of knowledge: physics, digital technologies, nuclear energy. I was invited as one of the experts in nuclear and particle physics. Throughout the past year, I participated in the activities of the Atomic Energy Information Centres (AEIC), met and became friends with their employees. Actually, they invited me to go on an expedition as an expert.

- How long was the expedition? Where did it start and what was the route?

- The expedition lasted ten days. This expedition, like the previous educational expeditions with the participation of schoolchildren, started and ended in Murmansk: the nuclear icebreaker fleet is based here. From Murmansk, the icebreaker sails non-stop past the Franz Josef Land archipelago to the North Pole. Here it stops for 4-5 hours, depending on how quickly everyone takes pictures, swims and completes the scheduled program. On the way back they go to Franz Josef Land, see the islands of the archipelago, visit the famous bird market and return to Murmansk.

- How did the life pass on board? What did the expedition members do?

- We lived in double cabins. I had a cabin for the chief of radiation safety, it suited in the profile very well. The program was very rich, the daily routine was absolutely incredible: in the morning we were awakened by a person from the Guinness Book of Records, Director of the Museum of the Arctic and Antarctic Viktor Boyarsky, a great traveler who, driving a dog team, had passed through the Antarctic. Then - morning exercises that were performed by the three-time Olympic champion in synchronized swimming Alla Shishkina. Afterwards, there was breakfast from the chef, specially ordered from St. Petersburg with the team. After breakfast, the coolest lectures from the designer of icebreakers, from the constructor of nuclear reactors and from the teacher of the Rosatom Corporate Academy (the one who prepared speakers almost for the Queen of England) started. In addition to lectures, there were many other activities. In general, there were very busy days, scheduled by the minute.

- What tasks did you have?

- On the project, I was an expert in physics. And I was supposed to give two lectures, however, I did not have time to deliver one of them, the program was so rich. The one that I managed to give (even twice) was not a lecture, but rather a talk show "Physics in the TV series The Big Bang Theory" - the same one that we held at the Blokhintsev Universal Library of JINR in December last year. I showed a fragment from the series and talked about the physical concepts and theories that were mentioned there. By the end of the trip, the curator of one of the children's groups fell ill and I replaced him. It was an absolutely unforgettable experience!

- How did you spend your day at the North Pole?

- We reached the pole in the morning, at 8:16 AM, we even made a bet on who could guess the time more accurately. Before arrival, the countdown started: 5 km, 4 km, ..., 1 km to the pole, then the countdown of the remaining meters, afterwards, the icebreaker gave a whistle and started to moor. For a long time we chose a place for mooring, finally, we stopped and landed. We set up three photo booths. It was possible to take a picture with the pole marker, with the anchor and the rope, as if you were pulling an icebreaker on a rope. Everyone took pictures and was happy and then there were still shootings of a video clip. I don't know how much I can tell about it now - the video clip will be edited at the end of the expedition. But it was funny how we filmed and danced to the chorus of this video. Of course, there was such euphoria, it is impossible to convey in words.

- Mark, do you participate in the DANSS physics experiment that investigates the fluxes of reactor antineutrinos using a detector installed in the very heart of the Kalinin NPP, next to the core of the power reactor of the station. Didn't you have a desire to extend the experiment to the icebreaker's reactor, to install a neutrino detector next to it?

- Yes, of course, we thought about the detector. It is not very easy to place it on the icebreaker, for it will not always be available, but the icebreaker reactor is quite interesting and unusual. It might be useful, if possible. But for now, these are just thoughts.

- What emotions have you got at the end of the expedition?

- I don't know about emotions, so far it's mostly "AAAAA!" All emotions remained there: I arrived with enthusiastic eyes and not exactly devastated, simply I could not think of anything else. Only now, maybe, it became possible, but before that it was impossible to put these emotions into words.

Photos from the personal archive of Mark Shirchenko