Since December, 2003 till February, 2004 there had been built the first Russian orthodox church of the Life-giving trinity in Antarctic. The engineering project was prepared by Altay architects S. Rybak, P. Anisifirov and K. Khromov. Head of the Chair of Information Technologies in Design of the Faculty of Civil Engineering of Saint Petersburg state university of architecture and civil engineering PhD in engineering, associate professor Alexander B. Shmidt prepared constructional section of the project as a chief engineer of the project and then he participated in fulfilling the project at the first Russian Antarctic station Bellingshausen.
10 year later on February 14, 2014 an expedition was arranged to Antarctic; the expedition group consisted 8 specialists of those 10 who worked upon the project 10 years before. The expedition was organized on several purposes: to take part in consecration of the southernmost Russian orthodox church in the world, and to check the foundation and building.
“For wind resistance I designed a monolith foundation with a system of chain haulage. This foundation is a kind of an anchor to make the church able to withstand wind up to 45 meters per second, - said Alexander B. Shmidt. – Main materials - Siberian cedar and larch – are protected by polypropylene mastic, and therefore is good for the severe weather of this region. This timber is conserved better in moisture conditions rather than structures made of steel or reinforced concrete”.
As the chief engineer of the project told in October 2003 this architectural construction 15 meters high and weighing 80 tones (in parts), six bells, icons, candlesticks and other church facilities were transferred by several heavy vehicles and airplane first from Barnaul to Kaliningrad. On October 1, 2003 the church started its trip from Kaliningrad on the technical research ship “Academician Sergey Vavilov”. It was a good place for the church: a rocky cliff where in December, 2003 it was erected was upon the blessing of memorable His Holiness Alexis II Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.
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