 It was the first wheeled vehicle to spend more than 10 years in Antarctica, where the classic VAZ-2121 Niva (Lada Niva 1600) was used by the Russian (formerly Soviet) Antarctic Expedition for transportation of personnel and goods, communication between Antarctic stations, towing boats, and where it covered more than 40,000 km (24,855 miles) in 1990–2001, thus operating at temperatures down to −54°.Niva also conquered the North Pole in 1998, when the lengthened VAZ-2131 Niva (five-door model) was dropped by parachute on ice and successfully completed its route operating at an average temperature of −30°, thus becoming the first wheeled vehicle to spend time there.Also, it had set the world record of highest point ever reached by a motorized vehicle when another VAZ-2131 climbed to the 5200-m-high base camp on Mount Everest in 1998 and even higher just a year later, on 16 September 1999, when the similar Niva belonging to Saint Petersburg extreme expedition team reached a height of 5725 m on a Tibet mountain during off-roading.