This is the only Russ­ian inland Antarc­tic sta­tion. Found­ed dur­ing the 2nd Sovi­et Antarc­tic Expe­di­tion. Named after the sail­ing sloop Vos­tok, one of the ships of the Antarc­tic expe­di­tion of 1819–1821. Estab­lished on 16 Decem­ber 1957 by the 2nd Sovi­et Antarc­tic Expe­di­tion, Vos­tok sits at 3 488 m above sea lev­el in Princess Eliz­a­beth Land. It oper­ates year-round, study­ing ice dynam­ics, geo­physics, cli­ma­tol­ogy, mag­ne­tos­pher­ic sci­ence and deep drilling that led to the dis­cov­ery of Lake Vos­tok beneath 4 000 m of ice.