The Amazon rainforests and the ancient Inca city on the snowy slopes of the Andes, the Pacific coast and pre-Columbian archaeological sites – it’s hard to imagine, but this part of the South American land on the other side of the globe has a historical connection with Russia. Moreover, the foundation for mutual knowledge exchange was laid by legendary Russian navigators.
In 1818, during his second circumnavigation of the world, Vasily Golovnin visited the capital of the then Spanish viceroyalty of Lima. In his diary entries, he described the city and surroundings in detail, and also gave a description of the Pacific coast, clarifying and commenting on the maps of Cook, Vancouver, Lisyansky, and other explorers. Golovnin's work, coupled with the memoirs of the other crew members of the sloop-of-war “Kamchatka” – Ferdinand Wrangel, Fyodor Litke, and Fyodor Matyushkin, who were just starting their careers – became the first sources about Peru that became widespread in Russian society.
Today, Russian-Peruvian ties are developing intensively, and once again the RGS is playing an active role in this rapprochement. One of the stages was the visit of the delegation of the Republic of Peru to the Headquarters of the RGS in Moscow. Among the issues raised by the representatives of the business and educational circles of Peru, the prospect of opening a Center of the Russian Geographical Society in a Latin American country aroused particular interest.
In his welcoming speech, the importance of this institution was noted by Deputy Executive Director of the RGS Sergey Korlykhanov.
“In Russia, there are RGS branches in every region," he stressed. “But our real geography has always been and will be wider – a representative of absolutely any country can become a member of the Society. Science knows no borders, and our openness to the world today, despite external challenges, is the best proof of that. RGS centers abroad are opened strictly on the initiative of citizens of other countries. It is especially valuable for us that this usually happens with the participation of academic and university partners. There is every chance to successfully implement this scenario in Peru. RGS centers must have country-specific priority activities. With regard to Peru, we can talk about the prospect of the first RGS center with an emphasis on the development of popular science tourism and complex expeditions. The Peruvian Archaeological school, which opened the Machu Picchu complex to the world, or the tourist promotion of the country through the geoglyphs of the Nazca plateau – there are many parallels to all this in our current work to uncover the tourist potential of Russia. Both sides will be strengthened by a platform for the constant exchange of experience and ideas."
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Dr. Olinda Yaringaño, Vice President of the Peruvian-Russian Chamber of Development, Commerce, and Industry, delivered a welcoming speech on behalf of the delegation of the Republic of Peru.
“We are extremely interested in the experience of the Russian Geographical Society in terms of comprehensive expertise preceding complex industrial solutions,” the speaker outlined another vector of promising interaction. “Peru is a country of silver mines, and to assess the condition of the mines and the prospects for their further use, we use drone exploration, we strive to eliminate the negative impact on the environment.”
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In continuation, Natalia Belyakova, Director of the Expeditionary and Tourism Development Department, spoke about the projects of the Russian Geographical Society related to industrial monitoring.
“Many of our federal expeditions, among other tasks, supply large businesses with reliable scientific data that allows minimizing production risks and negative impact on the environment,” she said. “The transpolar expedition of 2019 provided uninterrupted data on the state of soils in the permafrost zone thanks to the installed sensors. Neural network census of polar bears on Wrangel Island in 2022 was carried out with the help of domestic drones. In 2023, we will return to Kildin Island, where, as part of the expedition “Arctic: Spring Cleaning", an interactive map of pollution will be compiled. It is not the first year that we have been taking out man-made garbage and scrap metal from the island, but plastic washed up to the shores also creates a lot of pollution. Thanks to the map, the situation will be under control – convenient visualization of big data will allow any volunteer initiative to clean up the Arctic to act decisively and with results."
In conclusion, the parties noted both the high mutual interest of the two countries at the level of tourist exchanges (visa-free entry to Peru is valid for Russians), and the demand for joint long-term projects at the intersection of science, industry, and environmental innovations. The opening of the Center of the Russian Geographical Society in Peru will be a new stage of the Peruvian-Russian dialogue.