Explorers find Lenin statue in inhospital South Pole site

At the geographic centre of Antarctica—one of the world’s most inhospitable spots—Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin stares out over a frozen wasteland. A British and Canadian team that last month became the first to reach the Pole of Inaccessibility on foot were surprised to find a bust of Lenin still visible at a Soviet base that was abandoned almost 50 years ago.

“It was slightly yellow, but not a bit of snow on him,” Henry Cookson, a British member of the team, said. “It looked like it had been cleaned yesterday.” The explorers endured seven weeks of howling winds and sub-zero temperatures, dragging 120-kg sleds more than 1,700 km to reach the Pole of Inaccessibility on January 19.

The pole is the geographic centre of the frozen continent—the furthest point from any ocean—and is more than 3,725 m above sea level, where harsh winds cut through the atmosphere.

The Pole of Inaccessibility was first visited in 1958 by a team of explorers from the then USSR.