The big day was finally here. After about a month of exhaustive preparations, with contributions from the entire team, the station was all spruced up to receive the first ever Head of State to visit any Indian Antarctic Station in 27 years of India’s presence in Antarctica.
Prince Albert II of Monaco arrived at Novo on 18th Jan 09 late at night, ahead of schedule by one day because of inclement weather expected on 19th. Since then we were in constant touch with Novo regarding his plans. We were told at 9 AM on 19th Jan that he would be arriving at 3 PM and Novo asked for our vehicles to pick him up from Sankalp Point, where the Russian vehicles would drop him. The reasons for such a move were unknown to us. Mr Jamwal and Mr Hukum Singh were deputed to go to pick him up. But after they left, we got the message that the Prince would be walking it down to Maitri, given his love for adventure sports. Hence, Mr Ganapathy was stationed in the newly renovated greenhouse (now called the East End Lounge) to keep a watch on the route from Novo.
When the Novo team lead by the Novo leader, Yuri Mizin arrived we all rushed out to meet the Prince and have ourselves photographed with him. After endless rounds of photographs (I was the official photographer for the imperial visit), we realised that none of the guests was the Prince and that he would be arriving in our vehicles. That was an anti-climax. Soon, a Russian vehicle carrying some Russian team members and ALCI officials arrived and were ushered into the lounge.
Finally, we saw our vehicles arriving and we all rushed out to greet the prince. There were a horde of officials from Monaco and Russia, members of the Russian Dumas and journalists and photographers accompanying him. Another important dignitary was accompanying the Prince- Dr Arthur Chilingarov- the Special Representative of President of the Russian Federation. He was on first name terms with Prince Albert.
The welcome address by our team leader and speeches by the Prince and Dr Chilingarov were followed by 6 scientific presentations on India’s work in Antarctica, along with snacks, wine and champagne. The Prince appeared to be listening with rapt attention, though I don’t know how much he understood. He expressed his customary inquisitiveness by asking a few mundane questions about global warming and appeared satisfied with the replies. He then inaugurated the ionosonde experiment at the newly installed NPL hut and understood the various nuances of space science from Dr Rupesh Das. This was followed by a visit to the labs in the summer camp and briefing by various scientists.
The prince was in no mood to leave and posed for group photographs on the helipad and the lounge. I managed to take autographs of both, the Prince as well as Dr Chilingarov. I was lucky to be carrying an autograph book with me to Antarctica. The Prince was then dropped off at Novo by our vehicles after exchanging gifts and souvenirs.
Thus culminated a period of furious activity at Maitri. One positive outcome of this visit was the massive clean up operation carried out at Maitri. Our station now bears a neat look.
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