YEREVAN. – Karen Balayan, who is captain of the famous Armenian sailboat named Cilicia and also President of AYAS Nautical Research Club, has been invited to captain a stage of a scientific expedition by Norwegian seafarers.

Balayan told Armenian News-NEWS.am that his Norwegian colleagues have asked him to skipper a stage of this expedition, which will be conducted aboard a replica of a Viking ship.

Currently, this ship is being built, and in all likelihood, the expedition will get underway in two to three years.

In this expedition, the Norwegian seafarers are planning to “conquer” Scandinavia.

“We ‘conquered’ entire Europe with Cilicia,” Karen Balayan recalled.

In mid-September 2015, he had attended the festival of Viking ships as well as a scientific conference in Tønsberg, Norway.

“At the request of the conference organizers, I delivered a presentation on the construction and voyage of Cilicia,” Balayan said. “I [also] showed the English version of the film about the voyage. It was then that it was officially announced that I was invited to head one of the stages of the expedition.”

Norway plans to invite eight skippers to this expedition, and they will take turns in captaining this Viking ship.

“I will assume the running of the ship when it will be at the Norway-Russia border,” Karen Balayan concluded.