History of Franz Josef Land for a national park covering northern Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land were launched in the 2000s. When the Russian Arctic National Park was established on 15June 2009, Franz Josef Land and Victoria Island were excluded. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited the archipelago in 2010, describing it as a "giant rubbish tip". By 2011 the national park had been expanded to include Franz Josef Land in a move to better accommodate tourism in the archipelago. From 2012, Russia commenced a 1.5 billion ruble, three-year clean-up project to remove more than 100,000 tonnes of waste which had accumulated during the Soviet
Vladimir Rusanov Ocean via the Northern Sea Route. Their ship "Gerkules" was too small for the kind of expedition Rusanov had in mind. The last to be heard of Rusanov's expedition was a telegram left at Matochkin Shar on Novaya Zemlya, which reached St. Petersburg on 27 September 1912. In it, Rusanov indicated that he intended rounding the northern tip of Novaya Zemlya, and heading east across the Kara Sea but nothing was heard from the "Gerkules" thereafter. He and his 11-man team, including Alexander Kuchin, disappeared without trace a year later in the Kara Sea, off the northern coast of Siberia.