Russia Geographical Society Travels to Gulf of Finland Islands

Members of the Russian Geographical Society (RGS) have traveled from Russia's Bolshoi Tyuters island in the Gulf of Finland to the Seskar and Maliy (Peninsaari) islands to carry out exploration work, RGS expedition head Artem Khutorskoy told Sputnik on Friday.

BOLSHOI TYUTERS (Sputnik), Alexander Mosesov — The expedition is the fourth of its kind carried out by the RGS on the Gulf of Finland islands, and is sponsored by the Russian Defense Ministry and the administration of the Leningrad Region. The expedition, which is focusing on ecology and exploration, arrived on Bolshoi Tyuters on Wednesday. Some 100 Russian servicemen and 20 units of military equipment are taking part in the expedition.

"The main goal on Seskar is to explore the part of the island which has remained unexplored since World War II, locating wartime artifacts and military hardware," Khutorskoy said.

"The second goal on Seskar is to retrieve and dispatch pieces of hardware found earlier," he added, noting that a special military truck and engineering tools would be used in the operation.

The third goal is to reach Maliy, where two defused wartime German naval mines are ready to be brought back to Bolshoi Tyuters and from there to the mainland, according to the expedition head.

An international Russian-German expedition also arrived to the islands on Thursday, seeking to find the remains of fallen Soviet and German World War II soldiers, and exhume them before reburying on the mainland. Over 120 remains of German soldiers are currently on the islands, according to the German War Graves Commission.