MOSCOW, June 11 State Duma at a plenary session terminated the powers of deputy Artur Chilingarov ahead of schedule due to his death.
Chilingarov died at the age of 85 after a long, serious illness.
Chilingarov was born on September 25, 1939 in Leningrad. In 1963 he graduated from the Leningrad Higher Marine Engineering School named after Admiral Makarov with a degree in oceanography. From 1963 to 1965 – engineer-oceanologist at the Tiksi Observatory of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute. In September 1969, he was appointed head of the youth research station «North Pole-19». In 1971, he headed the Bellingshausen station team of the 17th Soviet Antarctic Expedition. In 1973, on the icebreaker «Vladivostok» he organized the drifting station «North Pole-22».
In the summer of 2007, Chilingarov was the leader of the Arctic expedition on the ship «Akademik Fedorov», during which he personally supervised the dives of the deep-sea vehicles «Mir-1» and «Mir-2» to the ocean floor at the point of the Northern poles. Mir-1 (with Chilingarov on board) installed a titanium Russian flag and a capsule with a message to future generations at the bottom. For his courage and heroism in extreme conditions and the successful conduct of an Arctic expedition on the ship «Akademik Fedorov», Chilingarov was awarded the title of Hero of Russia.
Awarded numerous orders and medals. As the first person in the world to visit the South and North Poles within six months, Chilingarov was included in the Guinness Book of Records.
Chilingarov was a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and was a member of the leadership of international scientific organizations involved in research in the Arctic and Antarctic. He is the author of more than 50 scientific papers.