Only more than a decade after the event did any scientific analysis of the region take place, in part due to the area's isolation and significant political upheaval affecting Russia in the 1910s. In 1921, the Russian mineralogist Leonid Kulik led a team to the Podkamennaya Tunguska River basin to conduct a survey for the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Although they never visited the central blast area, the many local accounts of the event led Kulik to believe that a giant meteorite impact had caused the event. Upon returning, he persuaded the Soviet government to fund an expedition to the suspected impact zone, based on the prospect of salvaging meteoric iron.