Hundreds of publications and books, TV shows and films were written, numerous dates were honored, stamps were issued 
and plays were staged, and the Chelyuskinites themselves cruised around the vast country non-stop, speaking to the assemblies of the people.
And even today, millions of former Soviet people believe that the great feat of the Chelyuskin polar explorers is listed in the world "book of honor" and will never fade.
What do the majority of natives of victorious socialism remember? What were we taught at school and at home, at work and in kindergartens? I think something like this:
Fearless polar explorers, risking their own lives, carried out important scientific research and tried to get as close as possible to the North Pole on the icebreaker Chelyuskin. Somewhere in the ice of the Arctic, their icebreaker was caught in the ice, but they continued their research until the last minute of their stay on the ice floe, where they landed from the sunken icebreaker. The pilots of the mighty northern aviation of the USSR carried out a brilliant operation to rescue polar explorers at great risk. All one hundred Chelyuskinites were saved, and the Motherland received invaluable materials of their work.
Now let's open Wikipedia.Ru at the request of Chelyuskin and clarify the official position of the Russian Federation on this topic. After reading it, it becomes clear that heroism has decreased by 90% in recent years, and the result of the voyage is rather doubtful in the descriptions of the official Kremlin encyclopedia, however, everything is in order.
"Chelyuskin" - Soviet steamship. It was built in Denmark at the shipyards of Burmeister og Wain (B&W, Copenhagen) by order of Soviet foreign trade organizations ... The ship was built in accordance with the special requirements of Lloyd - "reinforced for navigation in ice."
That is, we are talking about a trading truck built in Denmark, which was NOT an icebreaker.
On July 16, 1933, the Chelyuskin steamer under the command of polar captain V. I. Voronin and the head of the expedition, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences O. Yu. Schmidt, sailed from Leningrad to Murmansk, on the way going to the docks of the manufacturing company in Copenhagen, where several identified defects.
By the simplest logic, all Arctic expeditions make the most of the summer shipping season. Chelyuskin set out on July 16 and proceeded to Copenhagen for repairs.
On August 2, 1933, having taken on board 112 people, the ship left Murmansk for Vladivostok, working out a scheme for delivering goods along the Northern Sea Route for one summer navigation. Icebreakers were planned to participate in the Chelyuskin's escort on difficult sections of the route.
In reality, the start of the polar “scientific” expedition was given at the end of summer, BUT it was officially recognized as “working out a cargo delivery scheme for one summer navigation.” The famous icebreaker Chelyuskin needed other icebreakers that would help him “on difficult sections of the path”.
On September 23, it was completely blocked in the area of the site of last year's accident of the steamer "Alexander Sibiryakov".
"Chelyuskin" drifted along with the crew for almost five months. On November 4, 1933, thanks to a successful drift, along with the ice, the Chelyuskin entered the Bering Strait. Clear water was only a few miles away. However, the ship was then dragged back in a northwesterly direction. On February 13, 1934, as a result of strong compression, the Chelyuskin was crushed by ice and sank within two hours.
And then the real heroic saga began to save the heroes. As a result, all its participants covered themselves with unfading glory and an endless stream of thanks, awards and honor. I note that from the place of the death of the ship, to the nearest base of Soviet rescuers there was a huge distance, many thousands of kilometers. Rescuers from Alaska, who instantly offered their help, could finish this whole epic in a matter of days due to their proximity to the scene. But, back to our Wikipedia.Ru.
Two days after the crash of the ship in Moscow, a special commission was formed, headed by Valerian Kuibyshev. The evacuation of the camp was carried out with the help of aircraft ...
About three weeks after the sinking of the ship, on March 5, pilot Anatoly Lyapidevsky on an ANT-4 aircraft made his way to the camp and removed ten women and two children from the ice floe ...
I have never heard of polar children and courageous swimming in the winter Arctic with so many women. Oh, those harsh Soviet children! Oh, those heroic Soviet pregnant women! Yes, yes, in the Kara Sea, on January 4, 1934, the girl Karina was born (named after the Kara Sea).
In the same Wikipedia.Ru, in the official list of the rescued crew of Chelyuskin, we see 104 names of the rescued and among them 4 (!) Cleaning women. The rest of the people were men of harsh male professions. For example, there are three stove-makers and eight carpenters on the list - well, not children at all! True, there are a couple of surnames of the middle gender, but you still can’t count up to ten.
The next flight was made only on April 7th. For a week, pilots Vasily Molokov, Nikolai Kamanin, Mikhail Vodopyanov on P-5 aircraft, Mauritius Slepnev on a Consolidated-Fleister (English) and Ivan Doronin on a Junkers W-34 (English) took the rest of the Chelyuskinites to the mainland. The last flight was made on April 13, 1934. In total, the pilots made 24 flights, transporting people to the Vankarem camp in Chukotka, located 140-160 km from the ice camp.
Following the official encyclopedic version of the Russian Federation, the first rescue pilot took out 12 people at a time. The rest of the pilots lagged behind him a little and a month later (!!!) flew to the freezing "researchers" of the summer shipping route. At the same time, the remaining 92 people were taken out by the five planes mentioned above for a whole week (!!!) Where did the first pilot disappear to? Why couldn't he come back for the rest in a whole month? What was transported in five planes that could easily accommodate 92 people at a time? Here is the simple ending:
All 104 people who spent two months on an ice floe in polar winter conditions were saved...
Why are we talking about two months? According to the same article, Chelyuskin: “On September 23, he was completely blocked in the area of the site of last year’s accident of the steamer “Alexander Sibiryakov”. That is, from September to April, 2 months have passed?
In the last days of his stay on the ice floe, Schmidt fell seriously ill and, by decision of a government commission, on April 11 was transferred to a hospital in Alaska, in the city of Nome.
That is, the entire heroic rescue operation is completely crossed out? In Alaska, five hundred kilometers from the sunken "icebreaker" was a city with a hospital, was there a civilization and people?
There is another version of the adventures of the Chelyuskinites (in addition to the official one and the one given above). It is much simpler and more prosaic. In the spring of 1933, huge tin-zinc deposits were found in the north of the far east of the USSR. For their development and production, 2 steamships, Chelyuskin and Pizhma, were quickly equipped. Prisoners were transported on Pizhma - future miners of precious raw materials. Despite all efforts, the departure of the ships was carried out with a huge delay and came exactly at the beginning of autumn. But this version is not the purpose of my story.
However, what is written on the official Wikipedia page is enough to completely debunk the myth of the Chelyuskin heroes. So many inconsistencies in the description of the only voyage of a brand new steamer just bought from Denmark speak of a very stupid and ill-conceived lie. But this is not just some kind of myth, but the exaltation of a crime! Here are some facts about this incredible expedition:
Chelyuskintsev Street exists in the cities of Russia: Asbest, Astrakhan, Balakhna, Barnaul, Belgorod, Bryansk, Berezniki, Vologda, Voronezh, Grozny, Yekaterinburg, Ivanovo, Irbit, Kazan, Kirov, Kislovodsk, Kovrov, Kursk, Kyshtym, Moscow, Mytishchi, Murmansk , Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Tagil, Novosibirsk, Novorossiysk, Omsk (five streets (!!!), Orenburg, Orekhovo-Zuevo, Perm, Petrozavodsk, Polevskoy, Rzhev, Samara, Saratov, Sebezh, Sevastopol, Tver, Troitsk, Tomsk, Tyumen , Yakutsk, Yalutorovsk, Yaroslavl; cities of Ukraine: Bila Tserkva (street and lane Chelyuskintsev, as well as street and lane S. I. Chelyuskin), Fastov (street and lane Chelyuskintsev), Boryspil, Donetsk, Kremenchug, Lugansk, Starobelsk, Odessa, Stakhanov, Kharkov, Chernivtsi; in Belarus: Minsk (street and park), Mogilev.
Chelyuskintsev Square in Yaroslavl and Tula
Chelyuskinskaya (platform), Yaroslavl direction of Moscow Railways
The village of Chelyuskintsev in the Tyumen region
Chelyuskintsev Park in Minsk and St. Petersburg (in 1991 the old, original name Udelny Park was returned to the latter)
Street of Professor O. Yu. Schmidt in the village. Dairy in the Vologda region
Schmidt street and 2nd Schmidt street in Tver
Schmidt street in Yekaterinburg
Captain Voronin Street in St. Petersburg
Garden of Chelyuskintsev in Chelyabinsk
Schmidt street in the city of Penza
Schmidt Avenue in Mogilev
Literature
How we saved the Chelyuskinites. Under the general editorship of O. Yu. Schmidt, I. L. Baevsky, L. Z. Mekhlis. - M.: Pravda, 1934.
Campaign "Chelyuskin". In 2 vols. - M.: Pravda, 1934.
Heroic epic. Album of photographic documents - M .: Pravda, 1935.
Kamanin N.P. Rescue of the Chelyuskinites // Pilots and astronauts. - M.: Politizdat, 1971.
Slepnev M. War, life and flights // How we saved the Chelyuskinites. - M.: Pravda, 1934. - S. 180-182.
Molokov V. We fulfilled our duty - that's all // How we saved the Chelyuskinites. - M.: Pravda, 1934. - S. 213.
Films
Documentary film "Chelyuskin", 1934, cameraman A. M. Shafran
Feature film "Chelyuskintsy" (Lenfilm, 1984).
"Doomed to a feat" Documentary film. TV company "Ostankino", 2004
Feature film "Chelyuskin" (Tscheljuskin) produced by the GDR, 1970.
Stamps dedicated to the epic "Chelyuskin"
Mauritius Slepnev, 1935
Sigismund Levanevsky, 1935
Ivan Doronin, 1935
Mikhail Vodopyanov, 1935
Nikolai Kamanin, 1935
Vasily Molokov, 1935
Anatoly Lyapidevsky, 1935
Otto Schmidt, 1935
Postage stamps of the USSR, 1984
On the anniversary of the rescue of the Chelyuskin expedition, I am posting my article published in our magazine "Picturesque Russia"
Once upon a time, every Soviet schoolboy knew about the expedition of the Chelyuskin steamer. 80 years separate us from the Chelyuskin epic. Few remember this story. And the majority, living in another country already, know little about this dramatic and heroic event. Although once films were made about the heroes of the Chelyuskinites, they composed songs that were sung by the whole country. This is an amazing epic of courage and selflessness.
Since the 30s. of the last century, great work was launched in the Soviet Union to develop the Northern Sea Route as a transport route. The Soviet government carried out the traditional Russian idea of developing the eastern and northern regions of the country. It started in the 16th century. Ermak Timofeevich. It was scientifically formulated by Mikhail Lomonosov. But only in Soviet times this idea was able to come true. In 1928, the Arctic Government Commission was established by a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars. It was headed by the former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the country S.S. Kamenev. The commission included scientists and pilots. The Commission supervised the creation of sea and air bases, meteorological stations on the coast of the Arctic Ocean and regulated the navigation of ships. The first practical result of the work of the commission was the rescue of the Nobile expedition, which had an accident on the airship "Italy". It was her efforts that saved the Soviet steamship Stavropol and the American schooner Nanuk that had wintered in the ocean ice.
Expedition on the ship "Chelyuskin"
The Soviet government set the task of ensuring reliable navigation of merchant ships from Leningrad and Murmansk to Vladivostok by the northern sea route in one navigation, during the summer-autumn period.
In 1932, the Sibiryakov icebreaker was able to complete this task. The head of the expedition was Professor Otto Yulievich Schmidt, and the captain of the icebreaker was Vladimir Ivanovich Voronin. Immediately after the end of the expedition, the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route (Glavsevmorput) was created, which was instructed to master this route, provide it with technical equipment, build settlements and much more. O.Yu. was appointed head of the Glavsevmorput. Schmidt.
On the slipway in Copenhagen
In 1933, the Chelyuskin transport ship was sent along the Northern Sea Route. "Chelyuskin" was supposed to pass in one navigation from Leningrad to the home port of Vladivostok. It was assumed that the ship would be accompanied by icebreakers. But that did not happen.
The expedition on the Chelyuskin was headed by O.Yu. Schmidt, and V.I. was appointed captain. Voronin. There were 111 people on board - the ship's crew, scientists, journalists, a shift of winterers and builders for Wrangel Island. On February 13, 1934, crushed by ice in the Chukchi Sea, the ship sank. One person died, and 104 crew members landed on the ice of the ocean. Part of the cargo and food was removed from the ship. The rescue of the Chelyuskin crew became one of the most exciting and heroic pages of the Soviet era.
The Chelyuskin expedition was supposed to prove the suitability of the Northern Sea Route for supplying Siberia and the Far East with everything necessary. "Chelyuskin" was named after Semyon Ivanovich Chelyuskin (1700-1764), a member of the Great Northern Expedition, who discovered the northernmost point of continental Eurasia (now Cape Chelyuskin). The ship was built at the shipyards of the company "Burmeister and Wine" (B&W, Copenhagen) in Denmark by order of the Soviet Union. The ship was designed to sail between the mouth of the Lena (hence the original name of the ship "Lena") and Vladivostok. In accordance with the technical data, the ship was the most modern cargo-passenger ship for that time. In accordance with Lloyd's classifications, she was classified as an icebreaking steamship. The ship had a displacement of 7500 tons.
Route map of Schmidt's expeditions
July 16, 1933 "Chelyuskin" sailed from Leningrad to Murmansk, on the way going to the docks in Copenhagen to eliminate the identified defects during the first voyage.
In Murmansk, the team was understaffed - those who showed themselves not from the best side were brought ashore. They loaded on board additional cargo, which they did not have time to take in Leningrad. Preparation of a polar expedition is a separate issue. Here is what Ivan Kopusov, the deputy head of the expedition, who was responsible for the supply, wrote: “It's no joke: the amplitude from a primus needle to a theodolite! All this went for Chelyuskin from all over our great country. We received cargo from Siberia, Ukraine, Vologda, Arkhangelsk, Omsk, Moscow. We sent representatives to all parts of the Union in order to expedite the fulfillment of orders and their progress along the railways. All the people's commissariats participated in the preparation of the expedition.
The expedition also took nutrition seriously. To supply the crew with fresh meat, they took with them 26 live cows and 4 small piglets, which then turned into healthy hogs and helped to diversify the ship's menu. On August 2, 1933, Chelyuskin left the port of Murmansk for Vladivostok, while working out a scheme for delivering goods along the Northern Sea Route in one summer navigation.
The passage in the open sea showed the shortcomings of the special form of the Chelyuskin - it rocked, like a real icebreaker, strongly and rapidly. At the very first encounters with ice in the Kara Sea, the ship was damaged in the bow. The fact is that it was overloaded (it was carrying coal for the Krasin icebreaker), and the fortified ice belt turned out to be below the waterline, so that the steamer met ice floes with a less protected upper part of the hull. To install additional wooden fasteners, it was necessary to unload the bow hold from coal.
How this was done, the head of the expedition, Otto Schmidt, told: “This operation had to be done quickly, and here for the first time in this voyage we used the same method of general emergency work, which already on the Sibiryakov and on previous expeditions turned out to be not only necessary for a quick end work, but also a great means of team building. All members of the expedition, both scientists and builders, sailors and business executives, carried coal, breaking into teams, between which the competition was bright and with great enthusiasm.
The voyage proceeded successfully up to Novaya Zemlya. Then the "Chelyuskin" entered the Kara Sea, which was not slow to show both its "bad" character and the defenselessness of the "Chelyuskin" in front of real polar ice. A serious deformation of the hull and a leak appeared on August 13, 1933. The question arose of returning back, but it was decided to continue the journey.
An important event took place in the Kara Sea - a daughter was born to Dorothea Ivanovna (maiden name Dorfman) and surveyor Vasily Gavrilovich Vasiliev, who were heading for wintering on Wrangel Island. The birth record was made by V.I. Voronin in the ship's magazine "Chelyuskin". It read: “August 31st. 5 o'clock 30 pm the Vasilyevs had a child, a girl. Calculated latitude 75 ° 46’51 "N, longitude 91 ° 06' E, sea depth 52 meters. "The girl was named Karina.
“The fate of this girl, who was born beyond 75 ° latitude and in the first year of her life suffered a shipwreck, life on ice, a flight to Uelen and a solemn return to Moscow, where Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin and Maxim Gorky caressed her, was curious,” Otto Schmidt wrote later. .
The fate of Karina Vasilyevna Vasilyeva is really interesting. She now lives in St. Petersburg and her passport really has the birthplace of the Kara Sea. “My birth happened before Chelyuskin was captured by ice,” recalls Karina Vasilievna. But I was born on board a ship. Then there was a heavy ice situation. When a strong compression happened, the side was torn apart, and the expedition landed on the ice. Through a huge hole it was possible to go out onto the ice. The first 3 days were very harsh, as everyone lived in rag tents at temperatures below 30 degrees below zero. Then the barrack was ready. It was covered with snow and ice. They made a stove out of a barrel. Mom and I were placed near the stove. Water was heated from ice. I was bathed in it. We lived on the ice floe for 21 days.”
The Laptev Sea and the East Siberian "Chelyuskin" passed relatively freely. But the Chukchi Sea was occupied by ice. Pyotr Buyko, who was to become the head of the polar station on Wrangel Island, recalls: “The ship fought, it fought, moving east. Vladimir Ivanovich Voronin sat up longer and longer in a barrel on Mars, nicknamed the "crow's nest", from the height of the foremast, looking with binoculars for the blue strings of lanes along which the Chelyuskin made its way. More and more often the road was blocked by weighty bullish ice of a different, stronger breed than was in the seas traversed. But Vladimir Ivanovich did not give up, and the Chelyuskin pushed the sludge jelly with its cheekbones and, like a wedge, crashed into the ice fields with its stem. Schmidt does not leave the bridge, his hands are in the pockets of his fur coat, his eyes are vigilantly searching the horizon from under his cap. He is outwardly calm. But he is also worried about the pace of progress.”
Heavy ice began to appear in the East Siberian Sea. On September 9 and 10, the Chelyuskin received dents on the starboard and port sides, one of the frames burst and the ship leak increased. The experience of the Far Eastern captains who sailed the northern seas said that September 15-20 is the latest time to enter the Bering Strait. Swimming in the autumn in the Arctic is difficult. Winter is impossible. The ship was frozen in the ice and began to drift.
The last photo - the death of "Chelyuskin"
On November 4, 1934, thanks to a successful drift, the Chelyuskin entered the Bering Strait. Clear water was only a few miles away. But no efforts of the team could save the situation. Movement to the south became impossible. In the strait, ice began to move in the opposite direction, and the Chelyuskin again ended up in the Chukchi Sea. The fate of the ship depended entirely on the ice situation. Otto Schmidt recalled: “At noon, the ice shaft on the left in front of the steamer moved and rolled down on us. The ice rolled over each other like the crests of sea waves. The height of the shaft reached eight meters above the sea. Clamped by ice, the steamer could not move independently. Fate was not kind.
All this preceded the famous radiogram from O.Yu. Schmidt: “Polar Sea, February 14. On February 13, at 15:30, 155 miles from Cape Severny and 144 miles from Cape Wells, the Chelyuskin sank, crushed by ice compression. Already the last night was alarming due to frequent compression and strong hummocking of the ice. On February 13, at 13:30, a sudden strong pressure tore the port side over a long distance from the bow hold to the engine room. At the same time, the pipes of the steam pipeline burst, which made it impossible to start up drainage means, which were useless, however, due to the magnitude of the leak. It was all over in two hours. During these two hours, in an organized manner, without a single sign of panic, long-prepared emergency food supplies, tents, sleeping bags, an airplane and a radio were unloaded onto the ice. Unloading continued until the moment when the bow of the ship was already submerged under water. The leaders of the crew and the expedition were the last to leave the ship, a few seconds before the full immersion. The caretaker Mogilevich died while trying to get off the ship. He was pinned down by a log and carried into the water. Expedition leader Schmidt.
Boris Mogilevich became the only one who died during the entire Chelyuskin expedition.
Rescue of the Chelyuskinites
104 people, led by O.Yu., were captured by ice. Schmidt. Among the captives of the ice were two very young children - Alla Buiko, born in 1932, and the previously mentioned Karina Vasilyeva. To save people, a government commission was created under the leadership of Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars V.V. Kuibyshev. On her instructions, an emergency "troika" headed by the head of the station at Cape Severny (now Cape Schmidt) G.G. dealt with rescue issues on the Chukotka Peninsula. Petrov. They were instructed to mobilize dog and reindeer sleds and to alert the planes that were at that moment in Chukotka. Animals were required for the transfer of fuel from the bases at Cape Severny and the Uelen polar station to the Vankarem point closest to the Schmidt camp. Aircraft were intended to save people.
In the photo, Otto Schmidt on an ice floe in the camp
The rescue of the Chelyuskinites is a truly glorious page in the history of polar aviation. Her actions were constantly reported in the press. Many experts did not believe in the possibility of salvation. Some Western newspapers wrote that people on the ice are doomed, and it is inhumane to arouse hopes of salvation in them, this will only aggravate their torment. Icebreakers that could sail in the winter conditions of the Arctic Ocean did not yet exist. There was only hope for aviation. The government commission sent three groups of aircraft to rescue. In addition to two "Fleisters" and one "Junkers", the rest of the aircraft were domestic.
The first landing in the expedition camp on March 5, 1934 was made by the crew of Anatoly Lyapidevsky on an ANT-4 aircraft. Prior to that, he made 28 sorties, but only the 29th was successful. It was not easy to find a drifting ice floe with people in the fog. Lyapidevsky managed to land in a 40-degree frost on a site measuring 150 by 400 meters. It was a real feat.
Pilots M.V. Vodopyanov, I.V. Doronin, N.P. Kamanin, S.A. Levanevsky, A.V. Lyapidevsky, V.S. Molokov and M.T. Slepnev, who took part in this operation, rightfully became the first Heroes of the Soviet Union. Their names in those years, and even at a later time, the whole country knew. However, not everyone, especially now, knows that the pilots seconded to carry out the extremely dangerous mission of evacuating the camp O.Yu. Schmidt, there were significantly more than seven. Only a third of them were awarded the titles of Heroes.
However, there were few available means of air evacuation: at Cape Severny there was a damaged H-4 aircraft with pilot Kukanov, and on Uelen there were two ANT-4 aircraft with pilots Lyapidevsky and Chernyavsky and one U-2 with pilot Konkin. The technical condition of the last three cars also caused concern. At the suggestion of the government commission, additional air transport was allocated for the operation. Part of it was decided to be transferred as far north as possible by water, so that the planes would go to the area of rescue operations "under their own power."
In accordance with this plan, two light aircraft "Sh-2" on the steamer "Stalingrad" were supposed to start sailing from Petropavlovsk; five R-5 aircraft and two U-2 vehicles, which were to be controlled by a group of pilots of the reconnaissance regiment of the Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army (OKDVA), led by Kamanin, intended to transport the Smolensk steamer from Vladivostok; from there, but by the steamship "Council", it was supposed to relocate the planes of pilots Bolotov and Svyatogorov. From the very beginning, the rest of the aircraft had to face the most difficult flights: three aircraft (two PS-3s and one R-5), at the controls of which the pilots Galyshev, Doronin and Vodopyanov were supposed to be, had to cover a distance of almost 6000 km over unexplored mountain ranges and tundra, flying out of Khabarovsk. Finally, the reserve group of pilots (Levanevsky and Slepnev) were required to break into the rescue area from the territory of the United States, namely from Alaska. As a result, for the evacuation of the Chelyuskinites, in addition to the four aircraft in the disaster zone, sixteen more aircraft were involved.
Lyapidevsky took out 10 women and two children, and for the second time his engine failed and he joined the Chelyuskinites. The mass evacuation began 13 days later and lasted two weeks. The pilots made 24 flights in the most difficult weather conditions. All of them then became the first Heroes of the Soviet Union - Anatoly Lyapidevsky, Mauritius Slepnev, Vasily Molokov, Nikolai Kamanin, Mikhail Vodopyanov and Ivan Doronin (the Gold Star medal appeared later), they were then awarded the Orders of Lenin. The rest were presented for orders and medals.
Upon returning home, all participants in the ice epic bathed in glory. Streets and geographical features were named after them. They say that in the list of Soviet names, among Dzdravperma and Vladilen, a new one appeared - "Otyushminald" - "Otto Yulievich Schmidt on an ice floe."
Political information in the Chelyuskin camp, drawing by P. Reshetnikov
All participants of the ice drift, as well as G.A. Ushakov and G.G. Petrov, were awarded the Order of the Red Star and a six-month salary. The same orders, but without conferring the titles of Heroes, were also awarded to members of their crews, including American mechanics. Then L.V. became holders of the highest award of the country. Petrov, M.A. Rukovsky, W. Lavery, P.A. Pelyutov, I.G. Devyatnikov, M.P. Shelyganov, G.V. Gribakin, K. Armstedt, V.A. Alexandrov, M.L. Ratushkin, A.K. Razin and Ya.G. Savin. In addition, all of the named aviators, unlike the Chelyuskinites, received bonuses in the amount of an annual salary. Other pilots who participated in the rescue operation and also risked their lives, the authorities noted more modestly.
By the same decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, in accordance with which G.A. Ushakov and G.G. Petrov, the Order of the Red Star and a six-month salary were awarded to V.L. Galyshev, B.A. Pivenshtein, B.V. Bastanzhiev and I.M. Demirov. These pilots, for various reasons, stopped literally a step away from the ice camp, did no less than, for example, Levanevsky, who also did not break through to the Chelyuskinites and did not take out a single person from the ice floe, but, nevertheless, became a Hero (according to the official According to the version, it is believed that Sigismund Alexandrovich received a high rank for transferring Ushakov to Vankarem, according to unofficial information, for giving a radiogram to I.V. Stalin in time, where he expressed his readiness to fulfill further government tasks). The rest of the pilots who were involved in the rescue operation, but who, against their will, failed to take an effective part in it, were much less fortunate. They just forgot...
80 years have passed since the names of the Chelyuskin heroes became a legend and a symbol of human achievement and selflessness. And this is one of the few cases when the state and the entire Russian, then Soviet, people empathized with the drama of the pioneers of the North. This is the rare case when everyone felt that they were not an expendable material of history, which, sadly, is very specific to Russian history, but a part of one state and people that they think about and for the sake of which they strain all their strength. Perhaps this is the most important lesson of the feat of the Chelyuskinites and the rescue expedition.
The article was written specifically for the magazine "Picturesque Russia"
Photo from the archive of the Schmidt family
The name of the ship "Chelyuskin" is familiar to many Russians, especially older ones. At the same time, not everyone clearly remembers what exactly this ship became famous for. The Chelyuskin expedition in the mid-1930s was supposed to prove the suitability of using the Northern Sea Route (NSR), which was planned to be used to supply the Far East and Siberia with everything necessary. In the summer of 1932, the Soviet ice drift "Alexander Sibiryakov" successfully passed from Arkhangelsk to the Bering Strait. The success of the icebreaker was to be repeated by the cargo ship. The ship "Chelyuskin" became such a ship.
The ship was named after Semyon Ivanovich Chelyuskin (1700-1764), a member of the Great Northern Expedition. This Russian explorer discovered the northernmost point on the continent of Eurasia - the cape that currently bears his name. It is worth noting that the campaign of 1932 was not without adventure. The icebreaker "Alexander Sibiryakov" lost a propeller in the Bering Strait, so he had to move stern forward under makeshift sails. And yet he was able to go from Murmansk to Vladivostok in just one navigation, that is, in the summer-autumn period. The captain of the icebreaker on this voyage was Vladimir Ivanovich Voronin, and the head of the expedition was the famous Soviet professor Otto Yulievich Schmidt.
Immediately after the completion of this first expedition to the USSR, the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route, abbreviated Glavsevmorput, was organized. The new organization had to master this path, build the necessary settlements, provide the route with the necessary technical equipment and do much more. The above-mentioned O. Yu. Schmidt became the head of the Glavsevmorput. He planned to conduct a new trip along the NSR route already in 1933. With considerable difficulty, Schmidt succeeded in obtaining the transfer to the address of the Glavsevmorput of the new steamship Lena, just built at Danish shipyards, which was renamed Chelyuskin.
The ship was built in Copenhagen at the shipyards of the Burmeister and Wine company by order of the USSR. It was a fairly large steamship of the latest design at that time. During the construction of the vessel, the conditions of its operation in ice were taken into account. The ship's hull had an appropriate shape, and the hull plating was strengthened. The ship also had a special room designed in case of a forced wintering, when the power plant would have to be stopped so as not to waste fuel in vain. A small Sh-2 amphibious aircraft was even placed on board the ship. The plane could take off both from a large ice floe and from open water, and was intended for aerial reconnaissance.
It should be noted that in those years the Arctic achievements were a brilliant find for Soviet propaganda. At that time, polar explorers were the people whose place in 30 years was to be taken by astronauts. The theme of the development of the North in the Soviet Union was associated with the courage of polar explorers and the romance of Arctic everyday life, it did not leave the pages of Soviet newspapers and magazines, as well as fiction and movie screens. As a result, a whole generation of citizens was formed, for whom work in the Soviet Arctic became a real life's work. These people reflected the era of the 30s. They were driven by everything sublime and pragmatic, romantic and terrible that was inherent in that time.
On July 16, 1933, the Chelyuskin steamer, under the command of the famous polar captain V.I. Voronin and the head of the expedition O.Yu. Schmidt, who, among other things, was a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, sailed from Leningrad to Murmansk. Along the way, the ship entered the Danish docks of the Burmeister and Vine company, where a number of identified defects were eliminated on the ship. On August 10, 1933, the ship left the port of Murmansk and set off for Vladivostok. The expedition had to work out a scheme for the delivery of goods along the NSR route for one summer navigation. On difficult sections of the route, it was planned to escort the Chelyuskin with the help of icebreakers.
The ship departed Murmansk early in the morning at 4:30. Due to such an early time, there were not so many mourners on the pier. There were 112 people on board the Chelyuskin, including 53 crew members, 29 people from the expedition, as well as 18 Wrangel Island winterers and 12 builders. The ship had significant reserves: 2995 tons of coal, 500 tons of water and food, which should have been enough for 18 months. The ship also took on board a three-year supply for Wrangel Island. It is worth noting that the expedition took the issue of food for its members quite seriously. In order for the crew of the ship to eat fresh meat, 26 cows and 4 little pigs were taken on board, which turned into healthy hogs during the voyage and helped diversify the polar explorers' menu.
At first, the voyage went quite successfully for the expedition. "Chelyuskin" managed to pass almost the entire route. The ship entered the Bering Strait and on November 7 sent a special greeting radiogram to Moscow. However, the movement of ice in the strait began in the opposite direction. The Chelyuskin, trapped in the ice, began to move in the opposite direction, once again entering the Chukchi Sea. This return was accompanied by the receipt of damage to the ship. As a result, the ship simply froze into a large ice floe and was forced to drift along with it for several months. At the same time, at any moment the ice could move and simply crush the ship. And so it happened...
On February 13, 1934, a radiogram went on the air, which told the world about the death of the Chelyuskin steamer. The ship sank on February 13, 1934 at 15:30, 144 miles from Cape Uelen and 155 miles from Cape North, being crushed by ice. The last to leave the ship were Captain Voronin and the head of the expedition, Schmidt, while the supply manager Boris Mogilevich lingered on the deck of the ship and was crushed by a barrel that rolled over him. He went to the bottom with the ship and became the only victim of the expedition. After the flooding of the ship, 104 people remained on the ice, including 10 women and 2 children (during the expedition, a daughter was born in the family of the surveyor Vasiliev). Another 8 people left the ship before the described events near Cape Chelyuskin for various reasons, mainly due to illness.
As a result, exactly 2 months - from February 13 to April 13, 1934 - the members of the polar expedition had to fight for their lives. All 104 members of the expedition carried out heroic work to organize a normal life on the ocean ice, and also prepared the airfield, the field of which was covered with cracks and hummocks, covered with snow, and the ice on it was constantly broken. The Chelyuskinites were able to set up a good camp. A full-fledged wooden barrack was built for women and children, since the necessary lumber was on board the ship. Also, the expedition members built their own bakery and even began to publish a wall newspaper called “We don’t give up!” The soul of the camp at that time was the head of the expedition, Otto Schmidt. The connection of the expedition with the mainland all this time was provided by Ernst Krenkel, the famous polar radio operator.
The rescue of the Chelyuskinites turned into a real epic and became a glorious page in the domestic polar aviation. The first landing in the Chelyuskin camp on March 5, 1934 was made by the crew of the ANT-4 aircraft under the control of Anatoly Lyapidevsky. Prior to this, the crew under his command made 28 sorties, only the 29th in a row was successful. There is nothing surprising in this: it was not so easy to find a drifting ice floe with polar explorers with periodically descending fog. At the same time, Lyapidevsky managed to land the plane on a very limited area of 150 by 400 meters in 40-degree frost. It was the real feat.
On the very first flight, the ANT-4 aircraft took 10 women and two children out of the camp, but the second time the aircraft's engine failed and its crew was forced to join the Chelyuskinites. The mass evacuation of polar explorers began 13 days later and lasted two weeks. In total, Soviet pilots completed 24 flights, they managed to save all 104 people who were on the ice floe and spent 2 months on it in the conditions of the polar winter. All the pilots who took part in the rescue of polar explorers were presented with the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Among them were Anatoly Lyapidevsky, Mauritius Slepnev, Vasily Molokov, Nikolai Kamanin, Mikhail Vodopyanov and Ivan Doronin. All participants of the wintering on the ice floe, including B. Mogilevich, who died during the sinking of the ship, were awarded the Order of the Red Star (except for children). For help in rescuing Soviet polar explorers, two Americans were also awarded - flight mechanics William Levery and Clyde Armstead, who received the Order of Lenin.
In Moscow, all Chelyuskin residents were given a solemn meeting with the leadership of the Soviet Union and the inhabitants of the city, they were greeted as real heroes. The history of the steamer "Chelyuskin" is reflected in literature and cinema. Based on this expedition, several feature films were shot, books were written. The memory of the Chelyuskinites was immortalized in a large number of streets, which today can be found in many cities of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
In the recent past, attempts have been made to locate the wreck. Expeditions that were organized in 1974 and 1978 ended in nothing. A new underwater search expedition was already organized in Russia - in 2004, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the events described. The expedition was named "Chelyuskin-70". The participants of this expedition announced the discovery of a sunken ship in the same year, but pretty soon it was possible to find out that this information was erroneous.
The ship was discovered in 2006. The fragments of the ship raised from the bottom of the sea and the metal samples taken were sent to Denmark to the shipyards where the ship was built. In February 2007, a Danish shipbuilding company confirmed that the found fragments belonged to Chelyuskin. In particular, the ventilation grille and railing post, which were raised from the bottom of the Chukchi Sea, really belong to the legendary steamship. The discovery of the sunken ship put an end to this whole story.
Information sources:
http://www.diletant.ru/excursions/35543
http://monoblog.su/?p=7275
http://www.calend.ru/event/5888
http://www.testpilot.ru/review/ppt/cheluskin.htm
The famous icebreaker "Chelyuskin" was built in 1933 in Denmark by order of the Soviet government. First, the new ship was named "Lena" (the fact is that it was intended for travel between Vladivostok and the mouth of the Lena River). It was renamed "Chelyuskin" on the eve of the famous polar expedition. The ship met all the most modern standards of its time. Its displacement was 7.5 thousand tons.
Unique Mission
The outstanding characteristics that distinguished the Chelyuskin icebreaker attracted the attention of the Soviet polar explorer Otto Schmidt. This geographer and mathematician dreamed of conquering the Northern Sea Route - a route leading to the Pacific Ocean along the northern coasts of Eurasia. Schmidt was ready for anything for the sake of his plan. In 1932, on the ship "Alexander Sibiryakov", he overcame the path from the White to the Barents Sea.
Icebreaker "Chelyuskin" for this enthusiast has become a means to develop their research success. Schmidt convinced the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route to use the ship in his new experimental voyage. The problem was that, despite all its modernity, the Chelyuskin was primarily a cargo ship. The designers did not adapt it for extreme navigation among the polar ice. This led to the future death of the ship.
Travel preparation
The adventurous goal of the Chelyuskin icebreaker's voyage inspired many enthusiasts who devoted their lives to exploring the North. However, even among enthusiastic voices natural questions were heard about the suitability of the ship for a future expedition. One of these skeptics was the ship's captain. Having studied the Chelyuskin, he noted a number of design flaws before the official authorities. In the Northern Sea Route, however, no attention was paid to them.
The icebreaker "Chelyuskin" set off on August 2. There were 112 people on the ship that sailed from Murmansk. Some of them were not directly related to the expedition. So, one of the surveyors took his pregnant wife on board. The ship itself was heavily overloaded, as additional cargo was placed on board, a reconnaissance seaplane and several prefabricated houses intended for a settlement on Wrangel Island.
In the Kara Sea
Having passed the Matochkin Shar Strait, the Semyon Chelyuskin icebreaker ended up in the Kara Sea, where the first formidable ice floes were waiting for it. The vessel overcame these obstacles without any problems. However, the longer the expedition went, the harder it was for the crew to continue the journey.
In the Kara Sea, the ship stumbled upon a large uninhabited island, not indicated on any map. Studies have explained this strange coincidence. The "new" island turned out to be the island of Solitude. It was discovered in the 19th century and revisited in 1915 by the expedition of Otto Sverdrup. It turned out that on the maps, Solitude Island was as much as 50 miles east of its real location. The error was determined by the astronomer-surveyor Yakov Gakkel, who worked on Chelyuskin.
Meanwhile, encounters with dangerous ice continued. The first damage was the damage to the stringer, after which the frame burst. Engineer Remov came up with a successful design of wooden mounts that replaced damaged parts, but this did not change the fact that the Chelyuskin should not have gone into the Arctic desert alone.
To install new parts, the crew unloaded the bow hold (coal was stored in it). Everyone had to do this painstaking work: scientists, sailors, builders and business executives of the ship. The members of the expedition were divided into brigades and coped with the task in time. Later, already during wintering on the ice, this principle of labor organization again came in handy for the Chelyuskinites.
Prisoners of ice
On September 23, the ship was finally blocked. Solid ice surrounded and bound him at approximately the same place where the steamer "Alexander Sibiryakov" had stopped a year before.
To reach the final goal of the campaign, Schmidt could not. Now the expedition of the icebreaker "Chelyuskin" continued in completely new conditions. The ship was moving east along with the drift of multi-year ice. November 4, he entered the waters of the Bering Strait. The ice was getting thinner, and the crew separated the path of several kilometers from clear water. It seemed that a safe rescue was imminent.
Not far from Chelyuskin was the icebreaker Litke. Its captain offered to help the ship break out of the ice captivity. But Otto Schmidt refused support, hoping that the ship itself could be free. This time, the scientist made a fatal mistake, for which the entire crew of the Chelyuskin icebreaker eventually paid.
A capricious drift changed its direction and sent the ship in the exact opposite direction of the Arctic desert. Realizing his mistake, Schmidt, on his own initiative, requested help from Litka, but it was already too late. Now the crew was waiting for wintering in the lost ice. Moreover, the polar explorers sounded the alarm - no one could vouch for the safety of the ship in the extreme conditions of the Far North. On February 13, 1934, the ship really sank. The physical reason for the death of the icebreaker "Chelyuskin" was the powerful pressure of ice that pierced its port side.
Ship evacuation
A few hours before the denouement, when it became clear that the ship would go to the bottom, a hasty evacuation of people began. The team managed to transfer part of the inventory and tools to the surrounding ice. These things were enough to create at least some kind of temporary camp. One person died during the evacuation. By a tragic accident, he was crushed by a shifting load.
The icebreaker "Chelyuskin", whose story ended at five o'clock in the evening, left 104 people on the ice. Among them were two children, including the newborn daughter of one of the surveyors. Finding themselves face to face with the unfriendly polar world, the crew sent a message about the catastrophe to the capital on the second day. The Chelyuskinites established communications under the guidance of the senior radio operator Krenkel. Relatively close, at Cape Wellen, there was a coast station, which transmitted the message. When Otto Schmidt was on the emergency Sibiryakov a year before, he found himself in a similar situation. There were no coast stations yet, and communication was established through crab fishermen in the Sea of Okhotsk.
camp life
Moving onto the ice floe, the crew unloaded from the ship not only sleeping bags with tents, but also building materials. The team, which found itself on the verge of death, showed solidarity and organization, thanks to which it was possible to establish a fairly tolerable life in the camp. A barrack, a kitchen and a signal tower were built.
From the first days of stay on the ice floe, scientific work was not interrupted. Every day, hydrologists and surveyors determined the exact location of the camp. The drift of the ice did not stop, which means that it was necessary to regularly calculate the coordinates of your location. For this, a theodolite and a sextant were used. During the entire stay on the ice, only Otto Schmidt, who had pneumonia, became seriously ill from the crew. Due to illness, the head of the expedition was evacuated from the camp not among the last, but on the 76th.
Crew Search
In Moscow, the rescue of the Chelyuskin icebreaker, or rather, the people sailing on it, was entrusted to a government commission headed by a high-ranking party member. On the very first day after receiving the message of trouble, government members sent an encouraging telegram to the north. Nevertheless, even the cheerful assurances of the Central Committee did not cancel the complexity of the upcoming operation.
The polar explorers were so far away that the only way to save them was to use aviation. In a hurry, the best Soviet pilots went to Chukotka. Options for using dog sleds or walking were dismissed almost immediately. On their feet on hummocky ice, polar explorers could walk a distance of 10 kilometers a day. With a similar transition of navigator Valerian Albanov to Franz Josef Land, which happened in 1914, only two of his team of fourteen survived.
Rescuing the crew of the Chelyuskin icebreaker was a unique operation, if only because no Arctic aviation had yet existed not only in the USSR, but in no other country in the world. Among the first pilots who began to search for Schmidt and his people was the pilot Anatoly Lyapidevsky. Before finally finding the Chelyuskinites, the aviator made 28 failed attempts to find the right place. Only 29 times, on March 5, 1934, Lyapidevsky noticed below, first a seaplane, and then people near it.
Now that the place where the Chelyuskin icebreaker sank has been discovered, the evacuation is in full swing. ANT-4 Lyapidevsky took on board all the women and children (12 people) and transported them to the nearest settlement. However, after the first success was followed by the first failure. The rescue aircraft's engine broke down, after which the operation stalled.
The use of aviation on this, however, was not limited. The airships went north. Also, the Krasin icebreaker and auxiliary all-terrain vehicles tried to break through to the Chelyuskinites. Nevertheless, it was the aircraft that made the main contribution to the successful outcome of the polar epic. All two months of life in the ice, the inhabitants of the camp were busy preparing airfields for the aviation that was looking for them. Every day, the men took turns clearing the runways, not losing hope of returning home.
Continuation of the rescue operation
The rescue of Chelyuskinites from ice captivity resumed on April 7th. Now several famous pilots participated in the operation at once. Mikhail Vodopyanov will later take part in sending polar explorers to the first drifting station "North Pole-1", and Nikolai Kamanin will become the head of the first team of Soviet cosmonauts. There were other legendary pilots among the rescuers: Mauritius Slepnev, Vasily Molokov, Ivan Doronin. Another pilot, Sigismund Levanevsky, himself had an accident - he was also found and rescued.
The icebreaker Chelyuskin, whose history was full of similar stories worthy of a thick novel or an expensive film adaptation, became one of the main symbols of its time. This name began to be associated with the unbending spirit and courage of those who helped people return home. The crew, stuck in the polar ice, was transported to Vankarem, a small Chukchi camp that became the center of the entire rescue operation.
Interestingly, several people from the ship, using the surviving seaplane, reached their cherished goal on their own. The last lost parking was left by the captain of the lost vessel Vladimir Voronin. On April 13, he ended up in Vankarem. The final days of the operation took place in an increasingly nervous atmosphere - the ice field was gradually destroyed. The day after Voronin was rescued, a powerful storm destroyed the temporary camp.
Homecoming
During the days of the rescue operation, the crew and the Chelyuskin icebreaker itself, whose photo got into all Soviet and many world newspapers, were in the center of attention of millions of people. Rejoicing over the successful outcome of the polar drama was nationwide. The delight of ordinary people is easily explained: nothing similar has ever happened in the history of world aviation and navigation.
The pilots who took part in the evacuation of the Chelyuskinites became the first Heroes of the Soviet Union. This highest state award was established just before the events in the Far North. Two Americans (William Levery and Clyde Armstead) also received the Order of Lenin, who took care of imported aircraft purchased specifically for the operation to rescue the crew that was on the verge of death. Participants of the ice epic were greeted with jubilation in Moscow. All adult Chelyuskin residents who survived a dangerous winter were awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
Afterword
The death of the ship forced the Soviet leadership to change their attitude towards polar research. After Schmidt returned to Moscow, the conquest was announced. Nevertheless, many foreign experts considered the results of the expedition not so rosy. One way or another, the Chelyuskin experience was assimilated in the USSR. Ever since the fleet of icebreakers began to grow by leaps and bounds. Now these ships were accompanied every time by ordinary cargo ships, which could not independently make their way in the polar desert.
During the Soviet era, several attempts were made to find the legendary sunken Chelyuskin. Two such search expeditions were organized in the 1970s. More fortunate were the participants of the 2006 campaign, which was assisted by the administration of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, the main headquarters of the Navy and the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Federation. Specialists were able to raise some fragments of the ship from the seabed. These artifacts were sent to Copenhagen, where Chelyuskin was once built. After checking the ventilation grill, the experts concluded that it really belongs to the sunken ship.
On April 13, 1934, the last member of the crew of the sunken steamship Chelyuskin was delivered to the mainland. The operation to rescue one hundred and four people drifting on an ice floe took two months from Soviet aviators. Through the ice, fog and arctic cold, the pilots made their way to people. Photos and facts about the famous operation, after which boys all over the country began to play "Chelyuskinites" - in our selection.
The Chelyuskin steamer was built at the shipyards of the Burmeister and Vine company in Copenhagen by order of the Soviet Union. The ship's hull was strengthened, there was a special room in case of forced wintering, when the engines would have to be stopped. The displacement of the Chelyuskin was 7,000 tons, power - 2,400 horsepower, speed - up to 12 ½ knots per hour. On board was a small Sh-2 amphibious aircraft for aerial reconnaissance, which could take off from open water or from a large ice floe.
On July 16, 1933, the Chelyuskin steamer set off from Leningrad to Vladivostok across the Arctic Ocean. The purpose of the cargo steamship expedition was to prove the suitability of the Northern Sea Route for supplying Siberia and the Far East. The leaders of the campaign were the head of the expedition Otto Yulievich Schmidt and Captain Vladimir Ivanovich Voronin. There were 112 people on board the ship: 53 crew, 29 expedition members, 18 winterers on Wrangel Island and 12 builders. Stocks on board were: 2995 tons of coal, 500 tons of water, food for 18 months and a three-year supply for Wrangel Island.
The passage on the open sea showed the shortcomings of the special form of the Chelyuskin - it, like a real icebreaker, rocked strongly. In addition, during the first encounters with ice in the Kara Sea, the ship was damaged - the Chelyuskin was overloaded with coal for the Krasin icebreaker, and the fortified ice belt was below the waterline, so that the ship met ice floes with a less protected upper part of the hull.
The Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea "Chelyuskin" passed relatively freely. But the Chukchi Sea was occupied by ice. Air reconnaissance showed that it was impossible to approach Wrangel Island, it is surrounded by powerful ice. A reduced train was sent to the island by plane to change winterers at the polar station.
"Chelyuskin" was trapped in the ice. Several times, drifting, he passed Cape Heart-Stone. Finally, on November 3, the ship entered the Bering Strait. The crew of the vessel communicated by radio with the command of the Fyodor Litke icebreaker, which was trying to get through to the Chelyuskin. But, having spent several steamers before that, the Litke received serious damage to the skin, so that even young ice could not force it.
Realizing that there was nowhere to wait for help, the Chelyuskin crew began to prepare for wintering in conditions of drift on the high seas. It was necessary to change the heating system to save fuel. I had to get fresh water.
After almost three months of drifting, the movement of ice began - what the Chelyuskinites feared most of all. On February 13, at 15:30, 155 miles from Cape Severny and 144 miles from Cape Wells, the Chelyuskin sank, crushed by ice compression.
The ship was sinking rapidly. In two hours, prepared emergency food supplies, tents, sleeping bags, an airplane and a radio were unloaded onto the ice. Unloading continued until the moment when the bow of the ship was already submerged under water. The leaders of the crew and the expedition were the last to leave the ship, a few seconds before the full immersion. On that day, not having time to get off the ice, the supply manager Boris Mogilevich died. He became the only dead "Chelyuskin".
Organization and discipline not only ensured the safety of the lives of people who were on drifting ice, but also created the conditions under which they could be helped.
On March 5, 1934, the crew of Anatoly Lyapidevsky on an ANT-4 aircraft made the first landing at the expedition camp. Prior to that, he made 28 sorties, but only the 29th was successful. Weather conditions, including heavy fog, prevented the Chelyuskinites from finding them. Lyapidevsky managed to land in a 40-degree frost on a site measuring 150 by 400 meters. That was incredible!
On that flight, the aviator took out 10 women and two children, and the second time his engine failed, and he had to join the Chelyuskinites. The mass evacuation began 13 days later and lasted two weeks. The pilots made 24 flights in the most difficult weather conditions. All of them then became the first Heroes of the Soviet Union - Anatoly Lyapidevsky, Mauritius Slepnev, Vasily Molokov, Nikolai Kamanin, Mikhail Vodopyanov and Ivan Doronin. The rest were presented for orders and medals.
It is worth noting that on the deserted coast of Vankarem, an airfield was prepared for the arrival of Soviet pilots, ready to receive aircraft of any design. The well-established work of the radio operators of the coast of the Arctic Ocean made it possible from the very beginning to have two-way radio communication every day. And the inhabitants of the coast of Chukotka, attracted to provide assistance, in the cold, cold and blizzard selflessly carried out the tasks of creating bases, arranging landing sites, as well as clearing snow from airfields.
Starting from April 7, the weather settled, which allowed for decisive rescue operations. The arriving Soviet pilots first took out five people on April 7, then 22 people on April 10, and 35 people on April 11.
By April 13, the aviators completed the transfer of the Chelyuskinites to the mainland and delivered Schmidt, who was ill at that time, to the city of Nome in Alaska.
On April 13, exactly two months after the death of the ship, the last six Chelyuskin crews were taken to the mainland, headed by the acting head of the expedition A.I. Bobrov and captain V.I. Voronin.
