The AARI has numerous departments, such as those of oceanography, glaciology, meteorology, hydrology or Arctic river mouths and water resources, geophysics, polar geography, and others.
manned drifting ice stations Severniy Polyus ("Северный полюс", or North Pole) to Central Arctic.
[3] The AARI was founded on 3 March 1920 as the Northern Research and Trade Expedition (Северная научно-промысловая экспедиция) under the Scientific and Technical Department of the All-Union Council of State Economy.
In 1932, the institute was integrated into the Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route (Главное управление Северного морского пути).
In 1958, it began to organize and lead all of the Soviet Antarctic expeditions, which would later make geographic discoveries, and in the same year the All-Union Arctic Institute was renamed Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute.