Vostok Station (Russian: станция Восток, romanized: stantsiya Vostok, IPA: [ˈstant͡sɨjə vɐˈstok], lit. 'station east') is a Russian research station in inland Princess Elizabeth Land, Antarctica. Founded by the Soviet Union in 1957, the station lies at the southern Pole of Cold, with the lowest reliably measured natural temperature on Earth of −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F; 184.0 K). Research includes ice core drilling and magnetometry. Vostok was named after Vostok, the lead ship of the First Russian Antarctic Expedition captained by Fabian von Bellingshausen. The Bellingshausen Station was named after this captain (the second ship, Mirny, captained by Mikhail Lazarev, became the namesake for Mirny Station).

Vostok Research Station is around 1,301 kilometres (808 mi) from the Geographic South Pole, at the middle of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Vostok is located near the southern pole of inaccessibility and the south geomagnetic pole, making it one of the optimal places to observe changes in the Earth's magnetosphere. Other studies include actinometry, geophysics, medicine and climatology.

The station is at 3,488 metres (11,444 ft) above sea level and is one of the most isolated established research stations on the Antarctic continent. The station was supplied from Mirny Station on the Antarctic coast. The station normally hosts 30 scientists and engineers in the summer. In winter, their number drops to 15.

The only permanent research station located farther south is the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, operated by the United States at the geographic South Pole. The Chinese Kunlun Station is farther south than Vostok but is occupied only during summers.

Some of the challenges faced by those living on the station were described in Vladimir Sanin's books such as Newbie in the Antarctic (1973), 72 Degrees Below Zero (1975), and others.

Vostok Station was established on 16 December 1957 (during the International Geophysical Year) by the 2nd Soviet Antarctic Expedition and was operated year-round for more than 72 years. The station was temporarily closed from January 1962 to January 1963, from February to November 1994, and during the winter of 2003.

In 1974, when British scientists in Antarctica performed an airborne ice-penetrating radar survey and detected strange radar readings at the site, the presence of a liquid, freshwater lake below the ice did not instantly spring to mind. In 1991, Jeff Ridley, a remote-sensing specialist with the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London, directed a European satellite called ERS-1 to turn its high-frequency array toward the center of the Antarctic ice cap. It confirmed the 1974 discovery, but it was not until 1993 that the discovery was published in the Journal of Glaciology. Space-based radar revealed that the subglacial body of fresh water was one of the largest lakes in the world—and one of some 140 subglacial lakes in Antarctica. Russian and British scientists delineated the lake in 1996 by integrating a variety of data, including airborne ice-penetrating radar imaging observations and spaceborne radar altimetry. Lake Vostok lies some 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) below the surface of the central Antarctic ice sheet and covers an area of 14,000 square kilometres (5,400 sq mi).