People lived on the North coast Arctic Ocean approximately 30 thousand years ago. Scientists have found evidence of this (ancient sites in the valley of the Usa River in Komi and the mouth of the Yana River in Yakutia). For many centuries, to this day, the indigenous peoples of the Arctic have preserved the traditional way of life of their ancestors, although not many of them live here.
Among Europeans, for many years this territory was considered a “dead land”, unsuitable for life. However, as shipping and trade developed, many expeditions began to be sent to the Arctic. In the 10th century, the Normans discovered Greenland, and starting from the 12th century, Russian sailors successively began to explore the northern spaces - they discovered Novaya Zemlya, the islands of Vaygach and Kolguev.
Natural geographic zones in the regions of the North and South Poles are called the Arctic and Antarctic, respectively. These are thousand-year-old kingdoms of snow and ice that have always attracted scientists, researchers and travelers. It is with them that unprecedented cases of courage, bravery and courage are associated.
Western European explorers in the 16th and 17th centuries attempted to travel along America and Eurasia along northwestern and northeastern routes. However, they were unable to advance further than Novaya Zemlya to the east and the eastern part of the Canadian archipelago to the west.
Russian Pomors circumnavigated the Taimyr Peninsula while sailing along the Siberian coast in the 17th century. The strait between Asia and America was opened in 1648 thanks to Semyon Dezhnev. As a result of large-scale work carried out in the Arctic by the Great Northern Expedition (S.I. Chelyuskin, H.P. Laptev, D.Ya. Laptev, S.G. Malygin, etc.), almost all the details of the northern coast of Asia were mapped .
The expedition of V. Chichagov went to the Central Arctic on the initiative of M. Lomonosov. Important discoveries The 19th and 20th centuries in this region are associated with the names of Russian navigators: F.P. Wrangel, M. Gedenstrom, E.V. Toll, F.P. Litke, P.F. Anzhu, P.K. Pakhtusov, V.A. .Rusanova, G.Ya.Sedova and others; Austrian: J. Payer and K. Weiprecht; American: J. DeLong; Norwegian: F. Nansen; English: John Ross, James Ross, W. Parry, as well as expeditions sent to search for the missing expedition of J. Franklin in 1845.
Who was the first to discover certain northern lands or areas in the Arctic Ocean is often a rather difficult question due to the fact that each of the travelers contributed, sometimes the same area was discovered twice. For example, there is still debate about who was the first to visit the North Pole. The American Frederick Cook claimed to have achieved it in 1908, and his compatriot Robert Peary in 1909, but neither one nor the other provided conclusive evidence, and a number of scientists have doubts about their reports.
Nordenskiöld in 1878-1879 passed through the northeast passage from west to east. She went west along the same route in 1914-1915. expedition of B. Vilkitsky. Thanks to Russian sailors, as a result of this end-to-end voyage, the possibility of traveling along the Northern Sea Route was proven. By the way, in 1913 Vilkitsky discovered Severnaya Zemlya.
As for the research of the Antarctic continent, the day of its discovery in history is considered to be January 28, 1820. It was then that Russian sailors, under the leadership of Thaddeus Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev, first set foot on the soil of the sixth continent of the Earth. Before this, many geographers and travelers tried unsuccessfully to find the Southern Continent.
Then expeditions of English and American navigators set off to these places, which discovered the Adelaide Islands, the Lands of Joinville, Louis Philippe, Victoria, Adele and Clary, as well as Wilkes, coastal islands, etc. After the voyages of the American Wilkes and the Englishman Ross in the period 1838-1842. There came a period of calm in research, which lasted almost half a century.
Antarctica began to attract interest again in the 19th century, when the number of whales in the Arctic decreased due to predatory extermination, and whalers turned their attention to the southern part of the Earth.
In the subsequent period, human activity here was quite intense: numerous expeditions, the creation of ground stations, international research projects.
Arctic and Antarctic are sometimes confused because the words sound similar. “Arctic” is translated from Greek as “urse bear”, or “located under the constellation Ursa Major" And the word “Antarctica” means “opposite to the Arctic.” In other words, these are two poles opposite each other - the Far North and the Far South.
The Arctic is warmer, but Antarctica is larger in area. There is an indigenous population in the Arctic Circle region, but no one lives permanently on the southern continent. The climate at both poles is very harsh, natural conditions, vegetable and animal world unique.
All kinds of scientific research are carried out here. In the presence of Southern continent and a variety of countries are interested in the Arctic. The leading role in the Arctic belongs to Russia.
Behind polar circles northern and southern hemispheres The coldest places on our planet are located. Severe frosts and icy winds, snowstorms and the darkness of the polar night reign here. People strove to the Arctic seas to find new places for fishing and sea animals, and to develop these seas for navigation.
Travelers made great efforts to explore the extreme north and south of the globe. Their heroic struggle with harsh nature, courage and bravery earned general recognition and respect, and geographical discoveries forever entered the history of science.
Arctic Research
The first to inform Europeans about seas covered with ice was the Greek astronomer Pytheas. In the Middle Ages, long voyages in the northern seas in search of fish and sea animals were carried out by the Normans (Varangians). The Norman industrialist Oter sailed from the North Sea to the White Sea around the North Cape. Eirik the Red discovered the island of Greenland in 982. His son Leif led the expedition from Greenland in search of new lands. Around 1000 the Normans discovered the shores North America at 40° N. w.
Russian sailors on boats and kochas - strong three-masted ships of their own construction - boldly went to the distant seas of the Arctic for furs, to fish for fish and sea animals. Already in the XII-XV centuries. Novgorodians explored the shores of the Kola Peninsula and White Sea and settled there. Russian Pomors, as chronicles testify, laid the foundation for ice navigation and were constant explorers of the Arctic Ocean. They discovered the islands of Novaya Zemlya, Kolguev, Medvezhy, and Grumant Land (Spitsbergen). The Russians have the honor of discovering the entire European and Asian subpolar North, with the exception of the northern edge of the Scandinavian Peninsula.
Remarkable geographical discoveries were made by expeditions of the British and Dutch, who were looking for the shortest route to the riches of the East along the northern shores of America and Eurasia. These sea routes, passing north of the Arctic Circle, are known in geography as the Northwest and Northeast Passages.
At the end of the 15th century. John Cabot, an Italian in English service, and his son Sebastian Cabot reached the northeast coast of America. English ships sailed along the eastern shores of the continent. However, solid ice forced the travelers to return.
A few decades later, another English expedition, led by Hugh Willoughby and Richard Chancellor (1553-1554), also ended in failure. She tried to find a way to the eastern countries along the European and Asian coasts of the Arctic Ocean. But the expedition managed to reach only the island of Kolguev. Many of its participants soon died.
Two more English expeditions - in 1556 and 1580 - feared by the huge ice fields in the Kara Sea, abandoned their attempt to continue sailing to the northeast. In the ship's logs of these expeditions there were records that along the entire route the British encountered traces of Russian fishermen and hunters.
The Dutch from the expedition of the famous navigator Willem Barents (1594) named a solid ice barrier at 77° N. w. off the western shores of Novaya Zemlya with a “flock of giant swans”. Having failed to pass through the North-East Passage, two ships returned back, while the other two managed to make their way only into the Kara Sea.
However, failure did not stop the Dutch. IN next year they equipped another expedition of six ships loaded with goods for trade with China and India. But she also refused to continue sailing at Novaya Zemlya. She was forced to do this by heavy hummocky ice, scurvy and severe frosts. This was the largest Dutch expedition to the Arctic.
The third one also ended sadly, last expedition Dutch, who set out in 1596 in search of the Northeast Passage. She reached the island of Spitsbergen, made several geographical discoveries, but due to impassable ice she could not advance further. Barents's ship stopped in the north of Novaya Zemlya. A very difficult Arctic winter has begun. In 1597 Barents died. His body was lowered into the sea, which was later called the Barents Sea. Barents's companions were saved from starvation by the Russians, who hunted animals and fish.
Attempts of 16th century navigators Finding the Northeast Passage from Europe to East Asia was unsuccessful.
In an effort to gain greater benefits from trade with distant eastern countries, England at the end of the 16th and in early XVII V. again tried to reach them by the shortest route - the northern seas of America. To this end, English sailors made several outstanding voyages. Among them special place occupied by the voyages of M. Frobisher, G. Hudson and V. Baffin. Expeditions of this period marked the beginning of the exploration of the Canadian archipelago, for the first time studied the nature of icebergs, completed the discovery of the entire northern coast of Labrador and brought a lot of scientific information.
Russian sailors led by Semyon Dezhnev in 1648 rounded the northeastern tip of Asia and discovered the strait separating Asia from America, later called the Bering Strait. Dezhnev was the first to sail from the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. The most extreme one is named after him eastern cape Asia.
During the Great Northern Expedition in 1733-1743, in which thousands of people took part, almost everything was mapped north coast Russia. Numerous expedition teams explored the seas and northern coast of Siberia for 10 thousand years. km. As a result of the journey of V. Bering and A. Chirikov, the northwestern coast of America was discovered over a considerable extent.
Expedition member Semyon Chelyuskin reached the northernmost point of Asia in 1742. This cape bears his name. From the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic along the coast of North America, the English expedition of R. McClure traveled on sleds from west to east in 1853. Only half a century later (1903-1906) R. Amundsen sailed from east to west from Greenland to Alaska on the ship “Gjoa” and explored this passage.
In 1878-1879 For the first time in two navigations, A. Nordenskiöld’s expedition on the steam ship “Vega” passed the North-Eastern Passage from west to east. It was organized by the Swedes together with the Russians.
Remarkable events in the history of the conquest of the Arctic marked the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. The famous Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen made in 1893-1896. on the ship "Fram" sailing, trying to reach the North Pole. Drifting ice carried the ship to 83°59"N, from where Nansen and his companion Johansen went to the pole, but from 86°14"N. w. returned back, successfully reaching Franz Josef Land. While the Fram was drifting in the Arctic Ocean, Nansen conducted important studies of ocean depths and currents and observed the movement of ice.
40 years later, the Soviet icebreaker Georgiy Sedov drifted for 812 days from the Laptev Sea to the Greenland Sea parallel to the drift line of the Nansen Fram and crossed it several times. The polar explorers reached 86°39 N. sh., where no ship has ever been.
As a comparison of scientific materials from both drifts has shown, serious climate changes are occurring in the Arctic.
The Arctic from space. Photo: NASA
The outstanding Russian naval commander and scientist, Vice Admiral Stepan Osipovich Makarov, was for the first time in the world in 1899. sailed on the icebreaker "Ermak" near the island of Spitsbergen. Two years later, Makarov led an expedition to Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land on the Ermak. Icebreakers capable of overcoming strong ice and conduct caravans transport ships, opened a new page in the history of Arctic exploration.
Another Russian expedition also made a great contribution to the study of the Arctic - on the schooner "Zarya" under the command of E. Toll (1900-1902). Her path lay to the New Siberian Islands. During wintering, the expedition explored the Nordenskiöld archipelago and the coast of the Taimyr Peninsula. Toll and three companions went missing after they left the schooner to find Sannikov Land. Many expeditions searched for it, but only Soviet researchers in 1938 finally established that such a “land” does not exist.
Outstanding geographical achievements V. A. Rusanov, G. Ya. Sedov, G. L. Brusilov, B. A. Vilkitsky and other Russian polar explorers glorified their names. Overcoming difficulties, they opened new paths, accumulated a wealth of material about natural phenomena in almost unexplored areas.
The expedition of V. Rusanov, one of three Russian expeditions undertaken in 1912 to navigate the Northern Sea Route from west to east, ended tragically. Rusanov sailed on the Hercules ship to the island of Spitsbergen and discovered coal deposits there. From here he intended to reach the Bering Sea, but disappeared in the Kara Sea. Only in 1934-1936. Soviet navigators discovered on the islands off the western coast of the Taimyr Peninsula things, documents and remains of Rusanov’s camp and a pillar with the inscription “Hercules”, 1913.”
Another Russian polar explorer, Lieutenant G. Brusilov, decided to sail to the Pacific Ocean along the coast of Siberia through Yugorsky Shar. The steam schooner of the expedition “St. Anna" was frozen in the Kara Sea near the Yamal Peninsula. The ship drifted for a long time and was carried out into the polar basin. In 1914, at 83°17" N, in an area located north of Franz Josef Land, the navigator of the expedition Albanov with 13 sailors left the schooner. The travelers walked on ice drifting to the west. Albanov and sailor Konrad reached the Land Franz Joseph, where they were picked up by G. Sedov’s ship “St. Foka.” All other members of the expedition on the schooner “St. Anna” died.
The Russian flag fluttered over the icebreaking steamers “Taimyr” and “Vaigach”, which, under the command of B. A. Vilkitsky, passed the Northern by sea in 1913-1915 from east to west with one wintering area. These ships have a displacement of 1200 T were built at the Nevsky Shipyard in St. Petersburg specifically for the study of the Northern sea route.
The well-equipped expedition of B. A. Vilkitsky described the shores and adjacent islands from the Bering Strait to the mouth of the Yenisei, compiled nautical maps and sailing directions. She discovered the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago, the islands of Maly Taimyr, Starokadomsky, Vilkitsky and Lyakhov. In 1915, both ships arrived in Arkhangelsk. The expedition's extensive materials facilitated the development of the sea route along the coasts of Europe and Asia.
Our country has primacy in aviation flights over Arctic ice. In 1914, an aircraft - a Farman-type seaplane - was delivered to Novaya Zemlya to search for the missing expeditions of Rusanov, Brusilov and Sedov.
Russian military pilot I. Nagursky made his first flights in the Arctic. The car reached a speed of about 100 km at one o'clock. Despite fogs and storms, Nagursky examined the shores of Novaya Zemlya several times.
The use of aviation marked a turning point in the history of the Arctic. Hundreds of Soviet aircraft have established air traffic along the coast of the Arctic Ocean, they supply rapidly growing villages and new polar stations with everything they need. Aviation began to be widely used for scientific research. The pioneer in this was the naval pilot B. Chukhnovsky.
The famous polar pilot M. Babushkin landed on ice for the first time in the history of the Arctic. This happened in 1927 in the White Sea. Aviation began to be used to guide transport ships through ice.
The development of Soviet polar aviation made it possible in 1935 to make several outstanding flights. V. Galyshev flew more than 10 thousand from Moscow to Tiksi Bay in winter. km. The length of V. Molokov’s flight from Krasnoyarsk to Cape Dezhnev and Wrangel Island exceeded 13 thousand. km. M. Vodopyanov flew from Moscow to Cape Otto Schmidt, and from there to Wrangel Island.
In the spring of 1941, polar pilot I. Cherevichny reached the relatively inaccessible region of the Pole (81° N) on a four-engine USSR N-169 aircraft. The expedition made three landings on ice. Wrangel Island was chosen as the base of the expedition. The flying laboratory allowed scientists to collect valuable materials about a completely unexplored area. The depths of the ocean in this place were measured, and important meteorological data were obtained. The expedition discovered new stage in the history of systematic research of the Polar Basin.
North Pole exploration
A special place in history polar research occupies the conquest of the geographical poles of our planet, to which expeditions of scientists from different countries sought. Their campaigns were fraught with incredible difficulties and cost considerable sacrifices. American Robert Peer devoted 23 years of his life to reaching the North Pole. In 1909 he reached the Pole.
In 1912, the outstanding polar explorer, senior lieutenant Georgy Yakovlevich Sedov, equipped the first Russian expedition to the North Pole. Before that, he sailed in the Arctic seas, explored part of Novaya Zemlya and mapped Krestovaya Bay,
The expedition project to the Pole, presented by Sedov to the royal authorities, was rejected, but this did not stop the researcher. Overcoming enormous difficulties, using the support of advanced scientists, Sedov, thanks to private donations, raised funds for the expedition.
He hired the steam-sailing ship “St. Foka."
The voyage was very difficult, but the ship, despite strong storms and densely packed ice, made its way north along the shores of Novaya Zemlya. Unusually difficult ice conditions in the Barents Sea prevented Sedov from reaching Franz Josef Land, and he was forced to winter on Novaya Zemlya. Sedov used wintering for scientific observations and drawing up a map of the northern part of the island.
Only in September 1913, after the ice had cleared the ship, was it possible to continue sailing. Having reached Franz Josef Land that same month, the expedition settled down for the second winter - in a bay that Sedov called Tikhaya. There was no fuel, the boilers went out, the ship was grounded so that it would not sink. The frost was raging. Many people developed scurvy, and Sedov also fell ill with it. But this courageous man did not give up the thought of reaching the North Pole.
On February 15, 1914, Sedov with two companions - sailors A. M. Pustoshny and G. V. Linnik - set out on a trip to the Pole. They had to walk 2 thousand. km.
“I’m setting out on the road not as strong as I need to be and as I would like to be at this most important moment,” he said, saying goodbye to his comrades. - The time has come, and we will begin the first Russian attempt to reach the North Pole. The works of Russians have written the most important pages in the history of the exploration of the North; Russia can be proud of them. Now we have the responsibility to prove worthy successors to our Northern explorers. But I ask: do not worry about our fate. If I am weak, my companions are strong. We will not give polar nature away for nothing.”
A few days later, Sedov felt unwell, he caught a severe cold and began to breathe heavily, and in the evenings he shivered. His health was deteriorating and he often lost consciousness. Transitions became more difficult due to bad weather. On March 5, Sedov died. Having buried their beloved boss on Rudolf Island, Pustoshny and Linnik returned to the ship.
The valuable scientific materials of Sedov's expedition were widely used by Soviet researchers. Near the cape named after Sedov, from where this brave polar explorer began his heroic journey to the North Pole, a polar observatory was built in 1929.
Attempts to penetrate to the North Pole by air have been made more than once before. The death of the Swedish engineer Solomon Andre and his two companions ended the flight to the Pole in the Eagle balloon in 1897.
In 1925, the Norwegian Roald Amundsen and the American Ellsworth flew to the Pole in two seaplanes. At 87 ° 43 "N latitude they made an emergency landing. One plane died due to compression of the ice, and with the survivors the expedition returned to the island of Spitsbergen, and from there by ship to Norway. The following year, the American Richard Byrd reached the pole and circled over it on airplane and Roald Amundsen on the airship “Norway.” However, none of these travelers even tried to land in the North Pole area.
BRAVE FOUR
Possibility of swimming all the way from Barents Sea to the Bering Strait in one navigation was proven for the first time in history in 1932 by an expedition on the icebreaking steamship Sibiryakov. After the historic voyage of the Sibiryakov, the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route was formed in the same year. His task was to develop the Northern Sea Route, a giant polar route from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. This route connects
Sedov's ship "St. Foka" during the winter.
yay Soviet ports in the European part of the country with ports Far East. It is half the length of the sea route through the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean. In this regard, the importance of research work in the Arctic has increased even more. A systematic, systematic and extensive study of the Arctic seas and the study of their ice regime began.
It became obvious that it was impossible to truly study the coastal seas while the ocean of which they were parts remained unexplored. This is how the idea arose to organize a drifting station in the central part of the Arctic Ocean.
The Soviet air expedition was sent to the North Pole to land scientific personnel there to study the central regions of the Arctic Ocean.
On May 21, 1937, the flagship aircraft under the command of M.V. Vodopyanov, on board of which were the head of the expedition O.Yu. Schmidt, four employees of the future drifting station - I.D. Papanin, P.P. Shirshov, E.K. Fedorov , E. T. Krenkel and cameraman M. A. Troyanovsky, landed on the ice near the North Pole.
A few days later, three other expedition aircraft, piloted by V.S. Molokov, A.D. Alekseev and I.P. Mazuruk, delivered equipment to the ice floe where the scientific drifting station “North Pole” was created.
The Papaninites immediately began scientific observations and transmitted their results by radio to the mainland. The program included studies of ocean currents and depths, temperature and chemical composition water in various layers, elements of the Earth's magnetic field, meteorological and other observations. It was very strenuous physical labor. To obtain, for example, data on the depth of the ocean, one had to manually turn the winch continuously for several hours. The expedition could not take the engine with them, which could have made this work easier, due to its heavy weight.
The winterers lived in a cramped tent. The source of heat and light was a kerosene lamp, and food was cooked on a primus stove. Changing soaking wet clothes at a temperature of -10° inside the tent caused a lot of inconvenience. The drift participants shaved once a month - on the 21st.
Already the first observations at the station gave science valuable information about the central part of the Polar Basin.
It turned out that the direction of the magnetic needle at the pole differed from that previously calculated by 10-20°. In the Arctic Ocean at a depth of 250 to 750 m a layer of relatively warm water of Atlantic origin was discovered. For the first time, the depth of the ocean at the North Pole was accurately determined - 4290 m. The assumption about the poverty of the ocean's fauna turned out to be wrong. From depths of 100 m the plankton network delivered mollusks, larvae, jellyfish, and crustaceans. Far in the North, at 88° N. sh.,. winterers met polar bears, bearded seals, seals, gulls, and snow buntings.
Based on data from the North Pole station, in the summer of 1937 pilots V.P. Chkalov, G.F. Baidukov and A.V. Belyakov made their remarkable trans-Arctic flights from the USSR to America on the ANT-25 and M.M. Gromov , A. B. Yumashev and S. A. Danilin on ANT-25-1. These flights showed the remarkable technology of Soviet aviation and the high skill of our pilots.
In January, the station's drift speed increased sharply. The compression of the ice occurred more and more often, and the vibrations of the ice floe became more and more noticeable. On January 20, it was cut by a large crack, which separated the tent from scientific instruments from the camp. During a multi-day storm on the night of February 1, 1937, the ice floe split into several parts. One crack passed under a utility warehouse, the other cut off two bases with fuel and food. The brave four found themselves in the face of mortal danger, and only courage helped them withstand the fight against the raging elements.
February 19, 1938 to the remains of the ice floe, the size of which was reduced to 1500 m 2, the icebreaking steamships “Taimyr” and “Murman” arrived at the same time, and within a few hours all the property of the drifting station and its heroic winterers were safe.
This unprecedented 2,500-kilometer drift on the ice floe of four brave Soviet polar explorers, who enriched science with the most valuable materials, lasted 274 days.
The northern polar region of the Earth, including the Arctic Ocean and its seas: Greenland, Barents, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, Chukchi and Beaufort, as well as the Baffin Sea, Fox Basin Bay, numerous straits and bays of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the northern parts of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans; Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Greenland, Spitsbergen, Franz Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya, Severnaya Zemlya, New Siberian Islands and about. Wrangel, as well as the northern coasts of the continents of Eurasia and North America.
The word "Arctic" is of Greek origin and means "country big bear" - according to the constellation Ursa Major.
The Arctic occupies approximately one sixth of the Earth's surface. Two-thirds of the Arctic territory lies in the Arctic Ocean, the smallest ocean in the world. Most of the ocean surface is covered with ice (average thickness of 3 m) throughout the year and is not navigable. About 4 million people live on this gigantic territory.
History of Arctic exploration
The North Pole has long attracted the attention of travelers and researchers who, overcoming incredible difficulties, penetrated further and further north, discovered cold Arctic islands and archipelagos and put them on the map.
These were representatives different nations world: Americans John Franklin and Robert Peary, Dutchman William Barents, Norwegians Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen, Italian Umberto Nobile and many others, whose names forever remained in the names of islands, mountains, glaciers, seas. Among them are our compatriots: Fyodor Litke, Semyon Chelyuskin, the Laptev brothers, Georgy Sedov, Vladimir Rusanov.
Russian Pomors and explorers already in the middle of the 16th century, using the tributaries of Siberian rivers, made voyages to the Arctic Ocean and along its shores. In 1648, a group of sailors led by the “trading man” Fedot Popov and the Cossack ataman Semyon Dezhnev circumnavigated the Chukotka Peninsula on a kocha (an ancient Pomeranian decked single-masted sailing rowing vessel) and entered the Pacific Ocean.
In 1686-1688. The trade expedition of Ivan Tolstoukhov on three kochas circumnavigated the Taimyr Peninsula from west to east. In 1712, explorers Mercury Vagin and Yakov Permyakov first visited Bolshoi Lyakhovsky Island, marking the beginning of the discovery and exploration of the entire group of New Siberian Islands.
In 1733-1742 The Great Northern Expedition worked in the waters of the Arctic Ocean and on its coast. Essentially, it united several expeditions, including the second Kamchatka expedition led by Vitus Bering, which carried out a huge complex of studies of the northern territory of Siberia from the mouth of the Pechora and Vaygach Island to Chukotka, the Commander Islands and Kamchatka. For the first time, the shores of the Arctic Ocean from Arkhangelsk to the mouth of the Kolyma, the coast of the island of Honshu, and the Kuril Islands were mapped. There had never been a more ambitious geographical undertaking before this expedition.
Semyon Chelyuskin devoted his entire life to the study of the northeastern outskirts of the Russian land. For 10 years (1733-1743) he served in the second Kamchatka expedition, in squads famous researchers Vasily Pronchishchev, Khariton Laptev.
In the spring of 1741, Chelyuskin walked along the land of the western coast of Taimyr and made a description of it. In the winter of 1741-1742. traveled and described the northern coast of Taimyr, where he identified the northern tip of Asia. This discovery was immortalized 100 years later; in 1843, the northern tip of Asia was named Cape Chelyuskin.
A significant contribution to the study of the eastern section of the Northern Sea Route was made by Russian navigators Ferdinand Wrangel and Fyodor Matyushkin ( Lyceum friend Alexander Pushkin). In 1820-1824. They examined and mapped the continental coast from the mouth of the Kolyma to the Kolyuchinskaya Bay and made four unprecedented trips on drifting ice in this area.
Fyodor Litke went down in history as a major Arctic explorer. In 1821-1824. Litke described the shores of Novaya Zemlya and did a lot geographical definitions places along the shore of the White Sea, explored the depths of the fairway and dangerous shallows of this sea. He described this expedition in the book “Fourfold Journey to the Arctic Ocean in 1821-1824.”
In 1826, Litke set off on a circumnavigation of the world on the sloop Senyavin, which lasted three years. Based on the results, this is one of the most successful expeditions of the first half XIX century: in the Bering Sea identified the most important points the shores of Kamchatka from Avacha Bay to the north; the previously unknown Karaginsky Islands, Matvey Island and the shore of Chukotka Land are described; the Pribilof Islands are identified; the Caroline archipelago, the Bonin-Sima Islands and many others were explored and described.
A completely new stage in the exploration and transport development of the Arctic Ocean is associated with the name of the famous Russian navigator Admiral Stepan Makarov. Based on his idea, in 1899 the world's first powerful icebreaker, the Ermak, was built in England, which was supposed to be used for regular communication with the Ob and Yenisei through the Kara Sea and for scientific research of the ocean to the highest latitudes.
The Russian "Hydrographic Expedition of the Arctic Ocean" of 1910-1915 was fruitful in terms of results. on the icebreaking ships "Taimyr" and "Vaigach". Based in Vladivostok, in three years she completed a detailed hydrographic survey from Cape Dezhnev to the mouth of the Lena and built navigational marks on the coast.
In 1913, the expedition was given the task of continuing the hydrographic survey to the Taimyr Peninsula and, under favorable conditions, completing a through voyage along the Northern Sea Route to present-day Murmansk. But Cape Chelyuskin turned out to be blocked by heavy, unbroken ice.
In 1912, hydrographer and polar explorer Georgy Sedov came up with a project for a sleigh expedition to the North Pole. On August 14 (27), 1912, the ship "Saint Foka" left Arkhangelsk and, due to impassable ice, stopped for the winter near Novaya Zemlya. The expedition approached Franz Josef Land only in August 1913, but due to the lack of coal, it stopped in Tikhaya Bay for the second winter. On February 2 (15), 1914, Sedov and the sailors accompanying him Grigory Linnik and Alexander Pustoshny went to the North Pole on three dog sleds. Before reaching Fr. Rudolf, Sedov died and was buried at Cape Auk of this island. Two bays and a peak on Novaya Zemlya, a glacier and a cape on Franz Josef Land, an island in the Barents Sea, and a cape in Antarctica are named after Sedov.
Arctic explorer, oceanologist Nikolai Zubov (1885 1960) in 1912 made a hydrographic survey of Mityushikha Bay on west coast New Earth.
In 1932, he led an expedition on the ship "N. Knipovich", which for the first time in history circumnavigated Franz Josef Land from the north. Later, Nikolai Zubov put forward and developed the problem of ice forecasts in the Arctic seas, laid the foundations for the doctrine of vertical circulation of water and the origin of the cold intermediate layer in the sea, developed a method for calculating the compaction of water when mixing, and formulated the law of ice drift along isobars.
Despite whole line expeditions at the beginning of the twentieth century, many of which made major geographical discoveries, the Arctic Ocean remained poorly studied.
In Soviet times, the research and practical development of the Northern Sea Route was given national importance. On March 10, 1921, Lenin signed a decree on the creation of the Floating Marine Research Institute. The area of activity of this institute was the Arctic Ocean with its seas and estuaries, islands and adjacent coasts of the RSFSR.
Beginning in 1923, in just ten years, 19 polar radio meteorological stations were built on the coast and islands of the Arctic Ocean.
Russia soon became a leader in the exploration and exploration of the North Pole.
In 1929, the famous polar explorer Vladimir Wiese put forward the idea of creating the first polar scientific drifting station. In those years, the Arctic basin with an area of 5-6 million square meters. km still remained an unexplored “blank spot”. It was only in 1937 that the idea of studying the Arctic Ocean from drifting ice became a reality.
A special place in history is occupied by the period of Soviet exploration of the Arctic in the 1930-1940s. Then heroic expeditions were carried out on the icebreaking ships “G. Sedov”, “Krasin”, “Sibiryakov”, “Litke”. They were led by famous polar explorers Otto Schmidt, Rudolf Samoilovich, Vladimir Wiese, captain Vladimir Voronin. During these years, for the first time in one navigation, the Northern Sea Route was completed, heroic flights across the North Pole were made, which created fundamentally new opportunities for reaching and studying the North Pole.
From 1991 to 2001 there was not a single Russian drifting station in the Arctic ( Soviet station"North Pole 31" was closed in July 1991), not a single scientist who would collect the necessary scientific data on site. Economic situation Russia was forced to interrupt more than half a century of observations from the drifting ice of the Arctic. Only in 2001 was the experimental new drifting station "North Pole" temporarily opened.
Currently, more than a dozen international expeditions are working in the Arctic with Russia’s participation.
On September 7, 2009, the Russian drifting station "North Pole - 37" began operation. 16 people work at SP-37 - specialists from the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI), Sergei Lesenkov was appointed head of the station.
Scientific programs of Russian research are developed by leading scientific organizations and departments, which include the Hydrometeorological Scientific - Research Center Russian Federation (Hydrometeorological Center of Russia), State Oceanographic Institute (GOIN), All-Russian Research Institute of Hydrometeorological Information - World Data Center (VNIIGMI WDC), Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) - the oldest and largest research institution in Russia , conducting a comprehensive study of the Polar regions of the Earth; and etc.
Today, the leading world powers are preparing for the redivision of the Arctic spaces. Russia became the first Arctic state to submit an application to the UN in 2001 to establish the outer limit of the continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean. Russia's application involves clarifying the territory of the Arctic shelf with an area of more than a million square kilometers.
In the summer of 2007, the Russian polar expedition "Arctic-2007" launched, the purpose of which was to study the shelf of the Arctic Ocean.
The researchers set out to prove that the underwater Lomonosov and Mendeleev ridges, which stretch towards Greenland, may geologically be a continuation of the Siberian continental platform, this will allow Russia to lay claim to huge territory The Arctic Ocean is 1.2 million square meters. kilometers.
The expedition reached the North Pole on August 1. On August 2, the deep-sea manned vehicles Mir-1 and Mir-2 descended to the ocean floor near the North Pole and carried out a complex of oceanographic, hydrometeorological and ice research. For the first time in history, a unique experiment was carried out to take samples of soil and flora from a depth of 4,261 meters. In addition, the Russian flag was hoisted at the North Pole at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin stated then, the results of the expedition to the Arctic should form the basis of Russia’s position in resolving the issue of ownership of this part of the Arctic shelf.
Russia's updated application for the Arctic shelf will be ready by 2013.
After the Russian expedition, the topic of ownership of the continental shelf began to be actively discussed by the leading Arctic powers.
On September 13, 2008, a Canadian-American expedition started, in which the Arctic icebreaker of the US Coast Guard Healy and the heaviest icebreaker of the Canadian Coast Guard Louis S. St. took part. Laurent.
The purpose of the mission was to collect information that would help determine the extent of the US continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean.
On August 7, 2009, the second American-Canadian Arctic expedition started. On the US Coast Guard icebreaker Healy and the Canadian Coast Guard ship Louis S. St-Laurent, scientists from the two countries collected data on seabed and the continental shelf, where the richest oil and gas deposits are believed to be located. The expedition worked in areas from northern Alaska to the Mendeleev Ridge, as well as east of the Canadian archipelago. Scientists took photographs and videos, and also collected materials on the state of the sea and shelf.
Interest in participating in active development Arctic zone show everything more states. This is due to change global climate, opening up new opportunities for regular shipping in the Arctic Ocean, as well as greater access to the mineral resources of this vast region.
September 20, 1934 ice cutter “F. Litke" returned to Murmansk, having passed the Northern Sea Route in one navigation. The famous steamship worked hard exploring the Arctic, just like its namesake, admiral and scientist Fyodor Petrovich Litke.
Ice cutter "F. Litka" in Arkhangelsk, 1936.
In 1955, Soviet polar explorers set a world record. For the first time in navigation, a surface vessel reached the coordinates of 83 ° 21 "north latitude, 440 miles short of the North Pole. It remained unbeaten for many years - later such a voyage was only capable of icebreakers equipped with nuclear weapons. power plant. The honor of setting this record was given to the Litke icebreaker - a ship that served in the ranks of the Russian, and then Soviet fleet for more than 40 years. Although the Litke ice cutter is somewhat in the shadow of its older and more powerful brother in polar navigation, Makarov’s Ermak, it has worked hard for the needs of the vast Arctic economy, having survived three wars, many complex polar expeditions and caravan escorts.
Without exaggeration, this well-deserved ship was named in honor of a man who devoted almost his entire life to the study of the seas and oceans, including the Arctic. Fyodor Petrovich von Litke - admiral, scientist and researcher - did a lot to ensure that the blank spots framing the Russian Empire in the North became significantly smaller. The name of this outstanding navigator, the founder of the Russian Geographical Society, was named in 1921 by an ice cutter built in Canada, which for several months had previously been the “III International”, and even earlier – “Canada”.
Estonian roots
The ancestors of Fyodor Petrovich Litke, Estonian Germans, came to Russia in the first half XVIII century. The grandfather of the future admiral, Johann Philipp Litke, being a Lutheran pastor and learned theologian, arrived in St. Petersburg around 1735. He accepted the position of rector at an academic gymnasium, where, according to the contract, he was supposed to work for 6 years. Johann Litke, along with very extraordinary mental abilities, had a rather quarrelsome character, which caused conflicts with his colleagues. Soon he had to leave his place of service and go to Sweden.
However, Russia still remained for him convenient place for residence and work, and the scientist-theologian returned back to Moscow in 1744. His authority as clergyman, the scientist remains high, so Johann Litke is elected pastor in the new German community of Moscow. It is interesting that Johann Litke maintained an academic school where he studied German language none other than young Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin. Johann Philipp lived a fairly long life in Russia and died in 1771 from the plague in Kaluga. Ivan Filippovich Litke, as he was called in the Russian manner, had a large family: four sons and a daughter. The father of the famous navigator and founder of the geographical society was his second son, Peter Ivanovich, who was born in 1750.
Like many children of foreigners, he has already become completely Russified. Peter Litke received a decent education and in his young years preferred a military uniform to the mantle of a scientist. He took part in the Russian-Turkish War of 1768–1774, where he distinguished himself in the battles of Large and Kagule. Pyotr Ivanovich Litka had the opportunity to serve as an aide-de-camp to Prince Nikolai Vasilyevich Repnin, a figure of impressive influence during the reign of Empress Catherine II. Subsequently, he had the opportunity to serve as a manager in numerous princely estates, then he moved to the Customs Department, occupying quite significant positions there. Peter Litke died in 1808, being a member of the Commerce Collegium.
Like his father, Pyotr Ivanovich Litke also had numerous offspring, consisting of five children. The youngest of them was his son Fyodor Petrovich, born in 1797. Anna Ivanovna von Litke, née Engel, the wife of Pyotr Ivanovich, died two hours after giving birth. Being not yet an old widower and having five children in his arms, the baron expectedly decided to marry a second time. The young wife, who added three more children, had a very harsh attitude towards the offspring from her first marriage, so when Fedor was seven years old, he was sent to study at a private boarding school of a certain Mayer. The quality of training and education in this institution left much to be desired, and it is unknown how the fate and interests of Fyodor Litke would have developed if he had not been taken from the boarding school. His father died, and after her husband’s death his stepmother refused to pay for her stepson’s education.
The boy was barely ten years old when his mother’s brother Fyodor Ivanovich Engel took him home. The uncle was a high-ranking official, a member of the State Council and director of the Department of Polish Affairs. He was the owner of an impressive fortune and was active social life, in which there was never enough time for the nephew taken into the house. The property of Fyodor Ivanovich Engel, among other things, was a decent library for those times. The books were collected there large quantities, but rather haphazardly. Fyodor Litke, being an inquisitive person in his youth, did not deny himself the pleasure of reading everything that came to hand. And not always, as the admiral himself later noted, what was read was of useful content.
So, virtually left to his own devices, the boy lived in his uncle’s house for two years. In 1810, his older sister Natalya Petrovna von Litke married captain 2nd rank Ivan Savvich Sulmenev and took him into her house younger brother. Only then did Fedor finally feel like he was part of his family. In his sister’s house, he could often see naval officers and listen to conversations on naval topics, which gradually fascinated him more and more.
Perhaps close communication with my sister’s husband largely determined the future life path future admiral. In 1812, when the Patriotic War began, the detachment gunboats under the command of Sulmenev was on the roadstead of Sveaborg. His wife came to see him, taking with her his younger brother. Having long noticed that the young man was “sick” of the sea, Sulmenev decided to develop this useful craving in his young brother-in-law. At first, he hired teachers for him in various sciences, and then took him into his detachment as a midshipman. Fyodor Litke became a sailor and remained faithful to his choice for the rest of his life.
Sailor
Already in the next 1813, the newly minted midshipman distinguished himself during the siege of Danzig during the foreign campaign of the Russian army, serving on the galette (sailing-rowing vessel of small displacement) “Aglaya”. For his courage and self-control, Litke was awarded the Order of St. Anne, 4th degree, and promoted to midshipman.
Fyodor Petrovich Litke, 1829
An era has ended Napoleonic wars, and Litke's naval service continued. To a young man The Baltic was already small - he was drawn to the wide expanses of the ocean. And soon he had the opportunity to meet them not only on the pages of books and atlases. Ivan Savvich Sulmenev, having learned that captain 2nd rank Vasily Golovnin, famous in naval circles at that time, was preparing to leave for a round-the-world expedition on the sloop "Kamchatka", recommended Fedor to him.
Golovnin was famous for his voyage on the sloop Diana, which took place in very difficult international conditions. Recent allies, Russia and England, after the conclusion of the Treaty of Tilsit by Alexander I with Napoleonic France, were actually in a state of war. "Diana", arriving at South Africa, turned out to be interned by a British squadron based in these waters. Golovnin managed to deceive his guards, and the sloop escaped safely. Subsequently, circumstances developed such that Vasily Golovnin had to spend almost two years in Japanese captivity. This extraordinary officer described all his many adventures in “Notes,” which were extremely popular. It was a great honor to be under the command of such an illustrious officer, and Fyodor Litke did not miss his chance to join the expedition.
Around the world expeditions had not yet become commonplace in the Russian fleet, and each of them was an outstanding event. On August 26, 1817, the sloop "Kamchatka" set off on its two-year voyage. He crossed the Atlantic, rounded Cape Horn and, having overcome the expanses of the Pacific Ocean, arrived in Kamchatka. After giving the crew a short rest, Golovnin continued to complete the task. "Kamchatka" visited Russian America, visited the Hawaiian, Moluccas and Mariana Islands. Then, having passed the Indian Ocean, she reached the Cape of Good Hope. Next was the already familiar Atlantic. On September 5, 1819, a little over two years later, the Kamchatka sloop safely returned to Kronstadt.
Such a long expedition had a tremendous impact on the formation of Fyodor Litke as a sailor. On Kamchatka he held the responsible position of head of the hydrographic expedition. The young man had to engage in various measurements and research. During the long voyage, Litke intensively filled in the gaps in his own education: he studied English language and other sciences. He returned to Kronstadt from the expedition as a fleet lieutenant.
An interesting detail was that during his circumnavigation he met and became lifelong friends with Ferdinand Wrangel, an equally outstanding Russian navigator. Wrangel, having made another trip around the world, rose to the rank of admiral, became the ruler of Russian America in 1830–1835, and devoted a lot of time to exploring the coast of Siberia.
Vasily Golovnin was pleased with his subordinate and gave him a brilliant recommendation, in which he described Fedor Litke as an excellent sailor, an efficient and disciplined officer and a reliable comrade. Thanks to the opinion of a reputable sailor and extraordinary personal qualities, Lieutenant Fyodor Litke in 1821 received a responsible task: to lead an expedition to Novaya Zemlya, little studied at that time. He was then 24 years old.
Arctic Explorer
Novaya Zemlya, despite the fact that it was known to Russian Pomors and Novgorod merchants in ancient times, has not yet been subjected to serious and systematic research. In 1553, this land was observed from the boards of their ships by the sailors of the tragically ended English expedition under the command of Hugh Willoughby. In 1596, the famous Dutch navigator Willem Barents, in an attempt to find the Northern Passage to the rich countries of the east, rounded the northern tip of Novaya Zemlya and spent the winter in difficult conditions on its eastern coast.
In Russia itself long years never got around to exploring this polar archipelago. Only during the reign of Catherine II, in 1768–1769, the expedition of navigator Fyodor Rozmyslov compiled the first description of Novaya Zemlya, receiving a lot reliable information, supplemented by information from the local population. However, to early XIX centuries, this region still remained poorly studied. There was no exact map of the shores of Novaya Zemlya. To correct this omission, an expedition was sent there in 1819 under the command of Lieutenant Andrei Petrovich Lazarev, sibling M. P. Lazarev, discoverer of Antarctica, admiral and Chief Commander Black Sea Fleet. The tasks assigned to Lieutenant Lazarev were very extensive, and a very limited time frame was set for their implementation. It was necessary to survey Novaya Zemlya and Vaygach Island in just one summer. Lazarev's mission ended in failure: most of the crew of his ship, upon returning to Arkhangelsk, were sick with scurvy, and three died during the voyage.
Now Fyodor Litka was entrusted with this difficult task. Considering the experience of the previous, unsuccessful enterprise, the goals set for Lieutenant Litka were more modest. It was necessary to carry out filming as long as possible coastline Novaya Zemlya and carry out hydrographic research. At the same time, they were strictly instructed not to stay for the winter.
For expeditionary purposes, a 16-gun brig with the characteristic name “Novaya Zemlya” was specially built with a displacement of about 200 tons, a length of 24.4 meters, a width of 7.6 meters and a draft of 2.7 meters. The brig had a reinforced hull, the underwater part was lined with copper sheets. In case “Novaya Zemlya” still had to stay for an unplanned wintering, construction timber and bricks were loaded onto it to equip the home. The volume of the holds made it possible to take provisions based on supplies for 16 months. Under Litke's command was a crew of 42 people.
The expedition began on July 27, 1821. The lieutenant got down to business thoroughly and without haste. It was necessary to understand a completely unfamiliar environment, because Litke had no experience of swimming in ice. In addition, it was necessary to test the seaworthiness of the ship entrusted to him. The brig "Novaya Zemlya" was built to last - its crew had the opportunity to verify this many times later. In the Throat of the White Sea, “Novaya Zemlya” ran aground, not marked on existing maps; with great effort, the crew managed to get off it. In general, the result of the first voyage was satisfactory. The coordinates of Kanin Nos, whose longitude differed from that indicated on the maps by one degree, were clarified, and other studies and measurements were carried out. The experience gained in 1821 was taken into account in drawing up plans for the next expedition in 1822.
Until the beginning of August 1822, the expeditionary brig explored and described some areas of the Murmansk coast, and then moved to Novaya Zemlya, the main object of research. A significant amount of work was done: an inventory of the coast of Novaya Zemlya was made south of Matochkino Shar up to the Southern Goose Nose and from Mount Pervosmotrennyaya to Cape Nassau, mistakenly taken by Litke for Cape Zhelaniya. Further progress to the north was hampered by ice, and on September 12, Novaya Zemlya set sail for Arkhangelsk. The results of the expedition were highly appreciated by the Admiralty. Following the results of two years of work, Fedor Petrovich Litke was promoted to the rank of captain-lieutenant, his officers were awarded orders, and lower ranks were awarded cash bonuses.
The expedition of 1823 became a test of the strength of both the ship itself and its crew. Having completed work on the description of the Murmansk shores, on July 30 the brig set off for Novaya Zemlya. At the end of summer, with a strong northwest wind, “Novaya Zemlya” was thrown onto the rocks. The rudder was damaged, and pieces of the keel were floating around the ship, according to Litke. He was preparing to give the order to cut down the masts, but a powerful wave pulled the brig into open water. The damaged ship was forced to return to Arkhangelsk. Despite difficult conditions, in which the expedition found itself, research work continued even on the way home: the northern coast of Kolguev Island was described. In the White Sea, the hastily repaired Novaya Zemlya was caught in a storm, again damaging the rudder. Only the training and self-control of the crew prevented the death of the ship.
The next year, 1824, Litke planned the next, fourth, expedition to the Novaya Zemlya region. His ship was repaired and put into perfect order. On July 30 of this year, the brig set off on its next Arctic voyage. At the beginning of August he was already at Novaya Zemlya, but he was unable to advance further north. The ice conditions this year turned out to be unfavorable, and the crew began studying it. Four expeditions to Novaya Zemlya received major scientific and research results; Fyodor Litke himself acquired invaluable experience in sailing in polar latitudes. Possessing an excellent memory and excellent literary language, he combined his impressions and observations in the book “Four-fold journey to the Arctic Ocean, made by order of Emperor Alexander I on the military brig “Novaya Zemlya” in 1821, 1822, 1823, 1824. Captain-Lieutenant Fedor Litke."
Second circumnavigation
After his return from the North, compiling reports and reports, Litke was appointed commander of the Senyavin sloop being built at the Okhta shipyard. Together with another sloop called "Moller", commanded by Lieutenant-Commander Mikhail Nikolaevich Stanyukovich (later admiral and father of the famous marine painter Konstantin Mikhailovich Stanyukovich), they were supposed to sail to Kamchatka and then ensure the protection of Russian interests in the North Pacific Ocean . The Admiralty instructions, however, did not strictly prescribe interaction between the two ships.
In May 1826, a three-masted 300-ton sloop was launched on the Okhtinskaya rope and moved to Kronstadt for retrofitting. A crew of 62 people was preparing to sail to the distant Pacific frontiers. In addition, there were 15 artisans on board, who were supposed to be sent to Okhotsk and Petropavlovsk. Having loaded all the necessary supplies, on August 20, 1826, the Senyavin set off on its long voyage.
Evgeniy Valerianovich Voishvillo. Sloop "Senyavin"
The first stop on the way was Copenhagen, where we bought warm clothes and rum. There, “Senyavin” waited for “Moller”, who left Russia a little later. Then at the end of September Russian ships arrived in Portsmouth. Litke visited London, where he acquired some astronomical instruments, which he tested at the Greenwich Observatory. Then there was a path through Atlantic Ocean, and at the end of December 1826, Russian sailors saw Rio de Janeiro. The next stage of the journey: Cape Horn was bypassed at the beginning of February of the very next year, 1827. During a strong storm, both ships lost each other, and when the Senyavin entered Valparaiso Bay on March 18, he saw the Moller already leaving for Kamchatka.
In April, Litke set out on his sloop in the direction of Alaska. On June 11, the Senyavin arrived in the capital of the Russian possessions in America - Novoarkhangelsk, where it delivered cargo intended for this city ashore. The rest of the summer and the beginning of autumn, "Senyavin" was in the waters adjacent to Alaska, visiting the Aleutian Islands. In October, the sloop called at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to pick up mail.
After this, Litke took his ship into tropical waters. The exotic Mariana and Caroline Islands with their lush palette of colors awaited Russian sailors. Until the spring of 1828, "Senyavin" was in the southern latitudes, producing various studies, landing scientists on numerous islands, collecting samples of flora and fauna.
Map of the circumnavigation of the sloop "Senyavin"
In the summer, Litke again came to the shores of Kamchatka, exploring this remote region. "Senyavin", having passed the Bering Strait, went several miles into the Arctic Ocean, and then turned south. In September 1828, the sloop finally returned to Petropavlovsk, where by this time the Moller was already moored. Both ships began to prepare for their return to Kronstadt. In October of the same year, the ships left the coast of Kamchatka, which had already become familiar to them, and set off on their way back.
This route passed through the Philippines and Sumatra. The Senyavin picked up a shipwrecked English sailor from one of the many islands, but this “Robinson” was completely unsuitable as a translator, since during the two years he lived on the island he did not bother to master the language of the local natives. In August 1829, the sloop "Senyavin" safely returned to his native Kronstadt.
The material collected during the three-year expedition was simply enormous, and Fyodor Petrovich Litke immediately began to generalize and systematize it. Upon his return, he was nominated for an extraordinary military rank and received the epaulets of captain 1st rank. In 1835–1836 The major work “A Voyage Around the World on the Sloop of War “Senyavin” in 1826–1829” was published. It has been translated to many European languages, and its author became famous. The Russian Academy of Sciences awarded this book the full Demidov Prize, and Fyodor Petrovich himself was elected a corresponding member of the academy.
Mentor, Admiral and Scientist
Fame in scientific and naval circles, authority and popularity presented Fyodor Petrovich Litka with an unusual surprise. On February 1, 1832, Emperor Nicholas I appointed him aide-de-camp, and at the end of the year - tutor of his son, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich. The Emperor wanted Constantine to become a sailor. Fyodor Petrovich spent 16 long years in this position. On the one hand, such closeness to the court was an honorable duty, on the other hand, Litke no longer went on expeditions.
Sergey Konstantinovich Zaryanko. Portrait of F. P. Litke
The Grand Duke, through the labors and efforts of his mentor and educator, really fell in love with the sea and subsequently headed the Maritime Department. Konstantin Nikolaevich was known as a liberal; he carried out quite a lot of reforms and transformations, including the abolition of corporal punishment. Under him, military service in the navy was reduced from 25 to 10 years. But that will happen much later. Fyodor Petrovich Litke, despite being forced to live on land, did not leave his scientific activity. On his initiative, the Russian Geographical Society was formed in 1845, where he took the position of vice-chairman. The chairman was Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich. The first meeting of the society took place on October 7, 1845.
Litke's military career was successful: in 1835 he became a rear admiral, in 1842 he received the rank of adjutant general, and the following 1843 - vice admiral. Konstantin Nikolaevich grew up and was preparing to head the Maritime Department. Fyodor Petrovich Litke in 1850 was appointed chief commander of the Revel port and military governor of Revel. In 1852, the navigator was awarded the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky.
The day before Crimean War Vice Admiral Litke turned out to be the main commander of the Kronstadt port. At the beginning of 1854, at a special meeting with Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, where plans to counter the allied squadron, whose appearance in the Baltic was expected in the coming weeks, were discussed, Litke spoke out in favor of the defensive nature of the strategy of using Baltic Fleet. His main forces remained at anchor in the perfectly protected harbors of Kronstadt and Sveaborg. Subsequently, neither the shelling nor the demonstration of the most serious intentions helped the Anglo-French command achieve their goals. The capture of the small fortress of Bomarsund on the Åland Islands was their main and, perhaps, only major success. Litke's merits in organizing the defense of Kronstadt were appreciated - he was elevated to full admiral and appointed a member of the State Council.
Fyodor Petrovich does not abandon his scientific activity. In 1864 he was elected to the post of president of the Academy of Sciences. Litke served in this post for almost 20 years, until he was replaced in 1873 by another outstanding Russian scientist, Pyotr Petrovich Semenov-Tyan-Shansky. In 1881, having almost lost his hearing and sight, Fyodor Petrovich Litke retired from the Academy of Sciences. The navigator and scientist died on August 8, 1882 and was buried in St. Petersburg.
The name Litke was imprinted more than once on geographical maps, in his honor a gold medal was established in 1873 for outstanding research in the field of geography. In 1946, by decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, this honorary award was restored. The name of Fyodor Litke was carried on board for many years by a ship that did not much less for Russia in the Arctic than the admiral himself, in whose honor it was named.
Ice cutter "Litke"
In 1909, the famous British shipyard Vickers, commissioned by Canada, built a ship for work in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The multi-purpose ship called Earl Gray had a displacement of 4.5 thousand tons and was intended to transport passengers and cargo. If necessary, he could also protect fisheries. An unusual element of the ship's design was the sharp bow, where the skin thickness reached 31 mm. According to the creators, such a sharp and strong bow was supposed to cut the ice, allowing the ship to wedge itself into the resulting crack and then push the ice apart with its hull. Therefore, the brainchild of the British shipyard was called not an icebreaker, but the unusual term “ice cutter.” Earl Gray was not originally intended for navigation in harsh arctic conditions.
Earl Gray ice cutter, 1910
With the outbreak of World War I, Russia expressed a desire to acquire several ships suitable for ice navigation. One of them was “Earl Grey”, which after the purchase was renamed to the more euphonious “Canada”. The ice cutter was placed at the disposal of the Department of Maritime Transport of the Belomor-Murmansk region. Already in the late autumn of 1914, “Canada” began escorting Russian and allied transports across the White Sea to Arkhangelsk.
On January 9, 1917, the ice cutter encountered an underwater rock not indicated on the map, and as a result of the resulting hole, it sank in the Iokanga roadstead. The ship was soon raised and put in for repairs in June of the same year. In October 1917, weapons were installed on the Canada, and she was included in the Arctic Ocean flotilla.
The ice cutter also had a chance to take part in the Civil War that began soon. The British, who arrived to provide “allied” support, were bossy in the Russian North. "Canada" was placed at their disposal naval forces White movement. In March 1920, during the evacuation from Russia, “enlightened sailors” and the command of the White movement took some of the Russian ships abroad. The Canada crew, who sympathized with the Bolsheviks, sabotaged this event. Moreover, the ice cutter entered into a firefight with a former comrade-in-arms, the icebreaking steamer Kozma Minin, leaving for the West. It is believed that this is the only artillery battle between icebreakers in polar latitudes.
In April 1920, Canada became an auxiliary cruiser of the Red Army. White Sea Flotilla. In May, the ice-cutting steamship was renamed “III International”. In 1921 it was transferred to the Mortrans department. On July 21 of the same year, the ship was given the name “Fedor Litke” in honor of the admiral, navigator and head of the Russian Academy of Sciences. During the years of restoration of the economy destroyed by the Civil War, “F. Litka had the opportunity to work not only in the Arctic, but also in the Baltic and Black Seas.
In 1929, he was in the Arctic almost constantly. For the risky passage to Wrangel Island, the ice cutter was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. In 1934, he made the transition from Vladivostok to Murmansk in one navigation. In 1936, together with the icebreaking steamship Anadyr, he escorted the destroyers Stalin and Voikov to the Pacific Ocean.
The peaceful work of the ice cutter was interrupted again - the Great Patriotic War began. On July 25, 1941, the no longer young ship was again called up to military service. The ice cutter received the tactical designation SKR-18; it was initially equipped with two 45 mm guns, which were replaced by 130 mm. In addition to this there were several machine guns. The ship primarily performed its immediate task: escorting caravans from the Kara Sea to the White Sea and back.
On August 20, 1942, SKR-18 was attacked by the German submarine U-456, but managed to avoid being hit by torpedoes. At the end of the war, when the need for patrol ships decreased, the ice cutter was returned to the operational subordination of the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route. After the end of the war, the Arctic veteran returned to scientific activity - high-latitude expeditions were carried out on board. Swan song the old ice cutter set a record for Arctic navigation in 1955, when “F. Litke" reached the coordinates of 83°21" northern latitude. This record remained unbroken for a long time. But the years took their toll, and even metal retreated under their onslaught - on November 14, 1958, the ice cutter "Fedor Litke", which by that time was considered hopelessly outdated, They were taken out of active service and scrapped after some time.
Icebreaker "Fedor Litke", launched in 1970.
The tradition was continued by the new icebreaker "Fedor Litke", which entered service in 1970 and carried train ferries across the Amur. Withdrew from the fleet in 2014. Time will pass, and, perhaps, a new icebreaker named after Fyodor Petrovich Litke, a Russian navigator, admiral, scientist, will again break through the ice, like its predecessors.
Ctrl Enter
Noticed osh Y bku Select text and click Ctrl+Enter
Nikolai Nikolaevich Urvantsev, an outstanding geologist and geographer, was born on January 29, 1893. Urvantsev became one of the founders of Norilsk and the discoverer of the Norilsk ore region and the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago, the author of many scientific works, the main of which are devoted to the study of the geology of Taimyr, Severnaya Zemlya and the north of the Siberian Platform. We decided to talk about five domestic Arctic researchers.
Nikolay Urvantsev
Urvantsev came from a poor merchant family from the city of Lukoyanov, Nizhny Novgorod province. In 1915, under the influence of professor Obruchev’s lectures and books “Plutonium” and “Sannikov’s Land,” Urvantsev entered the mining department of Tomsk Institute of Technology and already in his third year he began studying rock samples brought from the expedition. By 1918, in Tomsk, on the initiative of the institute’s professors, the Siberian Geological Committee was created, in which Urvantsev began to work. For the summer of 1919, the committee outlined a plan for conducting searches and research for coal, copper, iron, and polymetals in a number of places in Siberia. Admiral Kolchak financed the expedition: the expedition went to the Norilsk region to explore coal for the Entente ships, delivering weapons and ammunition to the admiral. It is believed that it was Urvantsev who obtained funding for the expedition from Kolchak, for which he was later repressed. In 1920, Urvantsev's expedition in the west of the Taimyr Peninsula in the area of the Norilsk River discovered a very rich deposit of coal. In 1921, the richest deposit of copper-nickel ores was discovered with high content platinum. In the winter of the same year, Urvantsev explored all the surroundings of Norilsk and compiled a detailed map. The expedition built a log house on the site where Norilsk would appear in the future, which has survived to this day. It is still called “Urvantsev’s house”. The construction of modern Norilsk began with this house.
In the summer of 1922, the researcher sailed by boat along the Pyasina River and the coast of the Arctic Ocean to Golchikha at the mouth of the Yenisei. Between Dikson Island and the mouth of Pyasina, Nikolai Nikolaevich discovered Amundsen’s mail, sent by him to Norway with the schooner “Lyud”, which wintered at Cape Chelyuskin in 1919. Amundsen sent the mail with his companions Knutsen and Tessem, who traveled 900 kilometers through the snowy desert during the polar night. First, Knutsen died. Tessem continued his journey alone, but also died before reaching 2 kilometers to Dikson. For this trip, the Russian Geographical Society awarded Urvantsev the Great gold medal named after Przhevalsky. And for the discovery of R. Amundsen's mail, he was awarded by the Norwegian government with a personalized gold watch.
Until 1938, Urvantsev headed scientific expedition All-Union Arctic Institute on Severnaya Zemlya, an expedition to search for oil in Northern Siberia, became a Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, was appointed deputy director of the Arctic Institute and was awarded the Order of Lenin. However, the first expedition, financed by Kolchak, was not forgotten: in 1938, Urvantsev was repressed and sentenced to 15 years correctional camps for sabotage and complicity in a counter-revolutionary organization. The scientist was transferred to the Solikamsk camps. After the verdict was overturned and the case was closed in February 1940, he returned to Leningrad and accepted an invitation to work at LGI, but in August 1940 he was again arrested and sentenced to 8 years. Urvantsev had to serve his sentence in Karlag and Norillag, where he became the chief geologist of Norilskstroy. He found deposits of copper-nickel ores of the Zub-Marksheiderskaya Mountain, Chernogorskoye, Imangdinskoye, and the ore occurrence of the Serebryannaya River. Soon Urvantsev was unconvoyed and made a scientific trip to the north of Taimyr. “For excellent work” he was released early on March 3, 1945, but remained in exile at the plant. In 1945-1956, Nikolai Nikolaevich headed the geological service of the Norilsk MMC. After rehabilitation, in August 1954, he returned to Leningrad, where he worked for the rest of his life at the Research Institute of Arctic Geology.
The famous polar explorer, nicknamed Columbus of the North, was awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and a gold medal named after. Przhevalsky, a large gold medal from the Geographical Society of the USSR, received the title of Honored Worker of Science and Technology of the RSFSR and the first honorary citizen of Norilsk and Lukoyanov. The Urvantsev embankment in Norilsk, a street in Krasnoyarsk and Lukoyanov, a cape and bay on Oleniy Island in the Kara Sea, and the mineral urvantsevite from the ores of Talnakh are named after him. P. Sigunov’s book “Through the Blizzard” was written about him. The life story of Nikolai Nikolaevich formed the basis of the plot of the film “Enchanted by Siberia.” Nikolai Nikolaevich Urvantsev died in 1985 at the age of 92. The urn with the scientist’s ashes, in accordance with his will, was buried in Norilsk.
Georgy Ushakov
Famous Soviet Arctic explorer, doctor geographical sciences and author 50 scientific discoveries was born in the village of Lazarevskoye, now the Jewish Autonomous Region, in 1901 in a family of Khabarovsk Cossacks and went on his first expedition at the age of 15, in 1916, with the outstanding explorer of the Far East, writer and geographer, Vladimir Arsenyev. Ushakov met Arsenyev in Khabarovsk, where he studied at the Commercial School. In 1921, Ushakov entered Vladivostok University, but the outbreak of the Civil War and military service prevented him from graduating.
In 1926, Ushakov was appointed leader of the expedition to Wrangel Island. Since then, Georgy Ushakov has forever connected his life with the Arctic. He became the first scientist to draw up a detailed map of Wrangel Island, the first governor of Wrangel and Herald Islands, he studied the life and customs of the Eskimos. By 1929, fishing was established on the island, the map of the shores of Wrangel Island was corrected and supplemented, a large amount of scientific material was collected about the nature and economic capabilities of the islands, about the ethnographic features of the Eskimos and Chukchi, and about the conditions of navigation in this area. A meteorological service was also organized on the island, a topographical survey and description of the island was carried out for the first time, valuable collections of minerals and rocks, birds and mammals, as well as herbariums. One of the first studies in Russian ethnography was carried out on the life and folklore of the Asian Eskimos. In July 1930, Ushakov set off together with Nikolai Urvantsev to conquer Severnaya Zemlya. In two years, they described and compiled the first map of the huge Arctic archipelago of Severnaya Zemlya. In 1935, Ushakov led the First High-Latitude Expedition of the Main Northern Sea Route, on the icebreaking steamer "Sadko", when a world record for free navigation in the Arctic Circle was set, the boundaries of the continental shelf were determined, the penetration of warm waters of the Gulf Stream to the shores of Severnaya Zemlya was established, and an island named after Ushakov was discovered. Ushakov became one of the founders of the Institute of Oceanology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the initiator of the conversion of the motor ship "Equator" ("Mars") into the world-famous scientific vessel "Vityaz".
For outstanding achievements, Ushakov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Star. Several sea vessels, mountains in Antarctica, an island in the Kara Sea, a village and a cape on Wrangel Island are named after him. Ushakov died in 1963 in Moscow and bequeathed to be buried in Severnaya Zemlya. His last will was fulfilled: the urn with the ashes of the outstanding explorer and discoverer was taken to Domashny Island and walled up in a concrete pyramid.
Otto Schmidt
One of the founders and Chief Editor Great Soviet Encyclopedia, professor, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, corresponding member of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, Hero Soviet Union, explorer of the Pamirs and the North, was born in 1891 in Mogilev. He graduated from the physics and mathematics department of Kyiv University, where he studied in 1909-1913. There, under the guidance of Professor D. A. Grave, he began his research in group theory.
In 1930-1934, Schmidt led the famous Arctic expeditions on the icebreaking ships Chelyuskin and Sibiryakov, which made the first ever voyage along the Northern Sea Route, from Arkhangelsk to Vladivostok, in one navigation. In 1929-1930, Otto Yulievich led two expeditions on the icebreaker Georgy Sedov. The purpose of these voyages was to explore the Northern Sea Route. As a result of the campaigns of “Georgy Sedov”, a research station was organized on Franz Josef Land. "Georgy Sedov" also examined the northeastern part Kara Sea And western shores Severnaya Zemlya. In 1937, Schmidt led the operation to create the drifting station "North Pole-1", for which Schmidt was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin, and after the establishment of the sign special distinction he was awarded the Gold Star medal. "Cape Schmidt" on the coast is named after Schmidt Chukchi Sea and “Schmidt Island” in the Kara Sea, streets in Russia and Belarus. The Institute of Earth Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences was named after O. Yu. Schmidt, and in 1995 the Russian Academy of Sciences established the O. Yu. Schmidt Prize for outstanding scientific works in the field of research and development of the Arctic.
Ivan Papanin
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Arctic explorer Ivan Papanin became famous in 1937 when he led an expedition to the North Pole. For 247 days, four fearless employees of the North Pole 1 station drifted on an ice floe and observed the Earth’s magnetic field and processes in the atmosphere and hydrosphere of the Arctic Ocean. The station was carried out into the Greenland Sea, the ice floe floated more than 2 thousand kilometers. For their dedicated work in the difficult conditions of the Arctic, all members of the expedition received the stars of Heroes of the Soviet Union and scientific titles. Papanin became a Doctor of Geographical Sciences.
During the Great Patriotic War, the polar explorer held the positions of head of the Main Northern Sea Route and commissioner State Committee defense for transportation in the North. Papanin organized the reception and transportation of cargo from England and America to the front, for which he received the rank of rear admiral.
The famous polar explorer received nine Orders of Lenin, two Orders of the Red Banner, October revolution and the Order of the Red Star. A cape on the Taimyr Peninsula, mountains in Antarctica and an underwater mountain in the Pacific Ocean are named after him. In honor of Papanin’s 90th birthday, the Russian polar explorer, friend of Ivan Dmitrievich, S. A. Solovyov released envelopes with his image; currently there are few of them left, they are kept in private collections of philatelists.
Sergey Obruchev
Outstanding Russian, Soviet geologist and traveler, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, second son of V. A. Obruchev, author famous novels“Sannikov’s Land” and “Plutonium”, from the age of 14 he took part in his expeditions, and at the age of 21 he conducted an independent expedition - it was dedicated to geological surveying of the surroundings of Borjomi. Having graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow University in 1915, he was left at the department to prepare for a professorship, but two years later he went on an expedition to the region of the middle reaches of the Angara River.
Working in the Geological Committee of the Supreme Economic Council of the USSR, Obruchev conducted geological research on the Central Siberian Plateau in the Yenisei River basin, identified the Tunguska coal basin and gave its description. In 1926 he discovered the Pole of Cold Northern Hemisphere— Oymyakon. The scientist also established the gold content of the rivers of the Kolyma and Indigirka basins, in the Chaunskaya Bay area and discovered a tin deposit. The expedition of Obruchev and Salishchev in 1932 went down in the history of the development of the North and polar aviation: for the first time in the USSR, the method of aerial visual route survey was used to explore a vast territory. In the course of it, Salishchev compiled a map of the Chukotka Okrug, which also changed previously existing maps.
Obruchev's expeditions and works were unique for that time. In 1946, an outstanding scientist was awarded Stalin Prize, he was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Red Banner of Labor, and the “Badge of Honor.” Obruchev is the author of a number of popular science books: “Into Unknown Lands”, “Across the Mountains and Tundra of Chukotka”, “In the Heart of Asia”, as well as “Handbook for Traveler and Local Historian”. The name of the scientist is borne by mountains in the Chaunsky district of the Magadan region, a peninsula on the Southern Island and the cape of the Northern Island of Novaya Zemlya, a river (Sergei-Yuryus) in the upper Indigirka basin and a street in Leningrad.
The Arctic is one of the harshest regions on Earth. And perhaps the one who decided to study it is already worthy of admiration. Russian and Soviet polar explorers were able to make the most discoveries in the Arctic, but it still remains a mystery. So modern conquerors of the northern lands have something to strive for and someone to learn from.