How Cape Town played a vital link in Russian oligarch Leonid Mikhelson’s multimillion-dollar Antarctic outpost

Russian billionaire and natural gas magnate Leonid Mikhelson has left his mark on the bottom of the world with something of a personal pet project — the “modern” Vostok “wintering complex” in East Antarctica. 

Officially launched into operation this week, the state-owned wintering complex stands “in the coldest and most inaccessible place on the planet”, according to the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (Aari).

The command for the trial launch had been given by Russian President Vladimir Putin in January, “in the presence of the President of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko”. 

Its journey, however, began farther north, using Cape Town as a vital transport link. 

As the only official Antarctic gateway in Africa, the Mother City served as the port for the delivery of up to 6,000 tons of cargo. The shipments were originally ferried from St Petersburg, sailing aboard cargo vessels such as Andrey Osipov in recent summers. 

After vessel stopovers in Cape Town, the billionaire’s vision was ultimately trekked across the icy desert to the world’s coldest, most inaccessible corner — where Earth’s lowest air temperature was recorded in July 1983 at -89.2°C.

Russian Antarctic flagship Akademik Fedorov moored near Cape Town's Signal Hill in March 2022, as Vostok's new complex was being built in East Antarctica. (Photo: Xabiso Mkhabela)

From Cape Town to the coldest place on the planet

Cape Town’s role in Antarctic logistics is well-established, giving Antarctic Treaty states’ scientific missions access to the southern frontier.

The Vostok wintering complex “was financed by the Russian Federation and the personal funds of Leonid Viktorovich Mikhelson, who came up with the initiative to build a new Russian scientific station in the most inaccessible corner of the Earth”, says Aari, the research agency that executes Moscow’s scientific interests in the Antarctic.

The state provided about 8-billion roubles ($75-million), it points out, totalling 70% of the funding. That means Mikhelson, chair of Russian natural gas giant Novatek, may have injected about 3.5-billion roubles ($33-million) into the complex. This, in turn, was built by Zapsibgazprom, a Russian energy and construction company. 

The five modules hauled through Cape Town represent more than 3,000m2 of engineering and luxury, including research labs, living quarters and even recreational facilities such as a gym and cinema — a showpiece bankrolled in part by Mikhelson’s personal fortune.

A billionaire’s Antarctic playground?

The fact that a magnate whose fortune derives from Russia’s natural gas reserves has turned to Antarctica — a region where undefined “mineral resource activities” are banned by the Madrid Protocol — may raise eyebrows. 

The complex may also be as much a testament to Mikhelson’s ambition as it is to Moscow’s determination to best its competition. 

There are 29 state signatories to the treaty, including Australia and the US, and Aari and company are at pains to point out that the complex was raised in record time.

“The new station was built in less than five years — no country in the world has built in Antarctica at such a high rate,” boasts Igor Shumakov, head of Roshydromet, the federal government department that oversees Russian Arctic and Antarctic interests. 

The complex offers labs for climate and geological research. It is also set to probe the impact of solar activity, “cosmic dust” and ice that may be up to 1.5 million years old.

From left: Aari director Alexander Makarov, Novatek chair Leonid Mikhelson and Roshydromet head Igor Shumakov are flanked by Russian Antarctic officials and staff at the new Vostok complex. (Photo: Aari public statement)

A Russian oligarch’s vision

The optics of a Russian billionaire financing a Russian state project to bolster his personal ambitions still beg an obvious question. 

Why did the oligarch sink his own funds into this build, touted as nothing more than a standard scientific research station? 

Mikhelson has previously suggested that his interest in the project was purely philanthropic as the current ramshackle research station near the subglacial Lake Vostok had been swallowed by snow and ice.

The parallels to Mikhelson’s Novatek natural gas ventures in the Russian Arctic at the opposite end of the Earth, which also involve conquering a harsh climate, are not hard to spot, either.

Feats in the ‘endless snowy desert’

For Mikhelson and Moscow — a founding signatory to the 1959 Antarctic Treaty together with South Africa — Vostok 2.0 is evidently not just a scientific milestone but a statement of Russian capacity to operate at the edges of human endurance and geopolitical influence. 

“RUSSIA HAS BUILT A WINTERING COMPLEX IN THE COLDEST AND MOST INACCESSIBLE PLACE ON THE PLANET,” the Aari headline shouts in capital letters.

“This is a real feat of Russian polar explorers, who, at temperatures down to -60°C, hiked for months across the endless snowy desert to an altitude of almost 3,500m above sea level … overcoming the cold and fatigue,” says Aari director Alexander Makarov. He had met with South African scientists in Cape Town in October to consider a potential BRICS collaboration.

“Russia has been in Antarctica forever, since the time it discovered the White Continent. Today is a major historical event that further strengthens our position,” Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Alexander Kozlov points out for the haters and the doubters inclined to dispute Russia’s 1820 “discovery” of Antarctica. (There were competing British and American expeditions who may have sighted it first.) “The wintering complex for the inland station Vostok is ready, has passed tests in the extreme Antarctic winter, and we are launching it into industrial operation.” 

From left: Aari director Alexander Makarov and Novatek chair Leonid Mikhelson outside the new complex. (Photo: Aari public statement)

Links to Antarctic minerals?

Apart from Mikhelson’s patronage, at present Vostok itself offers no reason to suspect that the complex will be used to engage in banned mineral resource activities. There are no oil rigs or pipelines at play here. 

However, Russian state minerals explorer Rosgeo has sent its oil and gas seismic survey vessel to the Southern Ocean annually, mapping a potential 500 billion barrels of oil and gas. 

Sailing under the flag of the Russian Antarctic Expedition (RAE), Rosgeo’s Akademik Alexander Karpinsky vessel has used Cape Town for refuelling and logistics reasons since the ban entered into force in 1998. 

Local feelings

Last week, Andrew de Blocq, the national spokesperson on forestry, fisheries and the environment for the Democratic Alliance (DA), told Daily Maverick that the party was “of the opinion” that the Karpinsky’s “activities are in contravention of the Madrid Protocol and constitute exploration with a future intention of exploitation” .

De Blocq’s comments echo the DA’s position on the issue, which it has issued in several public statements. For instance, Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis, a DA member, noted from East Antarctica in February 2023 that “Russian state vessels should not be here … All of these Russian war exercises, and the meetings with Russian government ministers, are a shameful moral disgrace.”

For his part, De Blocq was responding to the Cape Town arrival of the Akademik Fedorov, Russia’s Antarctic flagship which is responsible for standard scientific research in the Southern Ocean, as well as delivering cargo and personnel to the Putin regime’s Antarctic research stations. 

The RAE’s Akademik Tryoshnikov, another scientific research vessel, is currently sailing around Antarctica as part of a BRICS-style expedition. The Department of International Relations and Cooperation did not respond to immediate questions. DM

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