Tajik flag flies over Antartica

TAJIKISTAN— On January 30, the Tajikistan flag was raised in Antarctica by Professor Abdulhamid Kayumov, who became the first Tajik to travel there. He arrived as part of an international expedition and delivered the flag to the Russian Mirny station there.

Dr Kayumov is a correspondent member of the Tajikistan Engineering Academy and works in the preventive medicine department of the Tajik Sino Medical University. He is also the author of more than 140 scholarly works and an active environmentalist who helped convince the Tajik government to sign the Kyoto Protocol.

The goal of the Antarctic expedition, which includes representatives from eight countries, is to work out a methodology that can be used in space expeditions to the polar ice caps of Mars and Jupiter's moon Europa. Special attention will be paid to the marine and continental ice sheet, the Antarctic crust and the biosphere of the South Pole region of the planet. Year-round monitoring of the condition of various elements of the Antarctic environment will be extended and environmental protection measures will be implemented.

Dr Kayumov is also pursuing his own research programme, a study of the effects of climate change on the ecosystem that will take three months. President of the Tajikistan Academy of Sciences Mamadsho Ilolov stated that his studies in Antarctica will be relevant for Tajikistan as the climate of the nation’s highlands has several similarities to that of the South Pole.