In 1957, after the signing of the Antarctic Treaty, Russia built the first of its Antarctic research stations. One of them, named Vostok (Russian for “east”) after the ship of the First Russian Antarctic Expedition in 1820, has the reputation of sitting on the most extreme and dangerous place on the continent, if not the entire planet. Located nearly 12,000 feet above sea level, on a distant part of the ice cap, Vostok has experienced the lowest temperatures ever recorded on planet Earth: –127 degrees Fahrenheit.
