January 29, 1893 was born Nikolai Nikolaevich Urvantsev - an outstanding geologist and geographer-explorer. 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 papers, 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 researchers of the Arctic.
Nikolai 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 "Plutonia" and "Sannikov's Land", Urvantsev entered the mining department of the Tomsk Technological Institute and, already in his third year, began to study mining samples brought from the expedition. By 1918, in Tomsk, on the initiative of the professors of the institute, the Siberian Geological Committee was created, in which Urvantsev began to work. For the summer of 1919, the committee outlined a plan for prospecting and research on coal, copper, iron, polymetals in a number of places in Siberia. The expedition was financed by Admiral Kolchak: the expedition went to the Norilsk region to prospect for coal for Entente ships delivering weapons and ammunition to the admiral. It is believed that it was Urvantsev who secured 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 region of the Norilskaya River discovered a very rich coal deposit. In 1921, the richest deposit of copper-nickel ores with a high content of platinum was discovered. In the winter of the same year, Urvantsev explored all the environs of Norilsk and compiled a detailed map. The expedition built a log house in the place where Norilsk will appear in the future, which has been preserved to this day. It is still called "the house of Urvantsev". From this house began the construction of modern Norilsk.
In the summer of 1922, the researcher sailed in a boat along the Pyasina River and the coast of the Arctic Ocean to Golchikha at the mouth of the Yenisei. Between the island of Dixon and the mouth of the Pyasina, Nikolai Nikolaevich discovered Amundsen's mail, sent by him to Norway with the schooner "Lud", which in 1919 wintered at Cape Chelyuskin. Amundsen sent mail with his companions Knutsen and Tessem, who traveled 900 kilometers through the snowy desert on a polar night. First, Knutsen died. Tessem alone continued on his way, but also died, before reaching 2 kilometers to Dikson. For this journey, the Russian Geographical Society awarded Urvantsev the Przhevalsky Grand Gold Medal. And for the discovery of R. Amundsen's mail, he was awarded by the Norwegian government with a personalized gold watch.
Until 1938, Urvantsev led the scientific expedition of the 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 in penal camps for sabotage and complicity in a counter-revolutionary organization. The scientist was transferred to the Solikamsk camps. After the abolition of the sentence and the termination of the case in February 1940, he returned to Leningrad and accepted an invitation to work at the LGI, but in August 1940 he was again arrested and sentenced to 8 years. Urvantsev had to serve his term in Karlag and Norillag, where he became the chief geologist of Norilskstroy. He found deposits of copper-nickel ores of the Zub-Marchsheiderskaya, Chernogorskoye, Imangdinskoye mountains, an ore occurrence of the Silver River. Soon Urvantsev was unescorted and made a scientific trip to the north of Taimyr. "For excellent work" was released ahead of schedule on March 3, 1945, but left in exile at the plant. In 1945-1956, Nikolai Nikolayevich 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 Geology of the Arctic.
The famous polar explorer, nicknamed the Columbus of the North, was awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, a gold medal named after. Przhevalsky, a large gold medal of 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 a bay on Oleniy Island in the Kara Sea, and the mineral urvantsevite from Talnakh ores are named after him. P. Sigunov's book "Through the Snowstorm" was written about him. The life story of Nikolai Nikolaevich formed the basis of the plot of the film Charmed by Siberia. Nikolai Nikolaevich Urvantsev died in 1985 at the age of 92. The urn with the ashes of the scientist, in accordance with his will, was buried in Norilsk.
Georgy Ushakov
The famous Soviet explorer of the Arctic, Doctor of Geography and author of 50 scientific discoveries, was born in the village of Lazarevskoye, now the Jewish Autonomous Region, in 1901 into a family of Khabarovsk Cossacks and set off on his first expedition at the age of 15, in 1916, with an outstanding explorer of the Far East , writer and geographer, Vladimir Arseniev. Ushakov met Arseniev 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 an 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 the 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 scientific material was collected about the nature and economic opportunities of the islands, about the ethnographic features of the Eskimos and Chukchi, and about the conditions for navigation in this area. A meteorological service was also organized on the island, a topographic survey and description of the island were carried out for the first time, valuable collections of minerals and rocks, birds and mammals, as well as herbariums were collected. One of the first in Russian ethnography was a study of 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 vast Arctic archipelago Severnaya Zemlya. In 1935, Ushakov led the First High-Latitude Expedition of the Main Northern Sea Route, on the icebreaking ship Sadko, when the world record for free navigation beyond the Arctic Circle was set, the boundaries of the continental shelf were determined, the penetration of the warm waters of the Gulf Stream to the shores of Severnaya Zemlya was established, 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 re-equipment 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 Labour, the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Star. Several ships, 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 bury himself 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 editor-in-chief of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, professor, academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, Hero of the 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 the development of 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 explored the northeastern part of the Kara Sea and the western shores of Severnaya Zemlya. In 1937, Schmidt led the operation to create the North Pole-1 drifting station, for which Schmidt was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin, and after the establishment of a special distinction, he was awarded the Gold Star medal. In honor of Schmidt, "Cape Schmidt" on the coast of the Chukchi Sea and "Schmidt Island" in the Kara Sea, streets in Russia and Belarus are named. The Institute of Physics of the Earth of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR was named after O. Yu. Schmidt, and in 1995 the Russian Academy of Sciences established the O. Yu. Schmidt Prize for outstanding scientific work 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 taken out into the Greenland Sea, the ice floe sailed more than 2 thousand kilometers. For selfless 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 served as the head of the Main Northern Sea Route and the authorized representative of the State Defense Committee for transportation in the North. Papanin organized the reception and transport of goods from England and America to the front, for which he received the title of Rear Admiral.
The famous polar explorer received nine Orders of Lenin, two Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of the October Revolution and the Order of the Red Star. A cape on the Taimyr Peninsula, mountains in Antarctica, and a seamount in the Pacific Ocean are named after him. In honor of the 90th anniversary of Papanin, Russian polar explorer, friend of Ivan Dmitrievich, S. A. Solovyov issued envelopes with his image, at present there are few of them left, they are kept in private collections of philatelists.
Sergey Obruchev
An outstanding Russian, Soviet geologist and traveler, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the second son of V. A. Obruchev, the author of the famous novels "Sannikov Land" and "Plutonium", from the age of 14 he took part in his expeditions, and at the age of 21 he also spent an independent expedition - it was devoted to the geological survey of the surroundings of Borjomi. After graduating 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 course of the Angara River.
Working in the Geological Committee of the Supreme Council of National Economy of the USSR, Obruchev conducted geological research on the Central Siberian Plateau in the Yenisei River basin, singled out the Tunguska coal basin and gave its description. In 1926, he discovered the cold pole of the Northern Hemisphere - Oymyakon. The scientist also established the gold content of the rivers of the Kolyma and Indigirka basins, in the region of the Chaun Bay and discovered a tin deposit. The expedition of Obruchev and Salishchev in 1932 entered 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 District, which also changed previously existing maps.
The expeditions and works of Obruchev were unique for that time. In 1946, the outstanding scientist was awarded the Stalin Prize, he was awarded the Orders of Lenin, the Red Banner of Labor, and the Badge of Honor. Obruchev is the author of a number of popular science books: “To Unexplored Lands”, “Across the Mountains and Tundras of Chukotka”, “In the Heart of Asia”, as well as the “Handbook of a traveler and local historian”. The mountains in the Chaunsky district of the Magadan region, the peninsula on the South Island and the cape of the North Island of Novaya Zemlya, the river (Sergei-Yuryus) in the basin of the upper reaches of the Indigirka and a street in Leningrad bear the name of the scientist.
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 there is something to strive for and from whom to learn modern conquerors of the northern lands.
For centuries, the Arctic has attracted the attention of travelers and polar explorers. Many of them dedicated the best years of their lives to her. Georgy Alekseevich Ushakov (1901-1963) - Doctor of Geography, author of the most interesting memoirs "The Island of Blizzards. Through the Wild Land", republished last year on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of this prominent scientist (St. Petersburg .: Gidrometeoizdat - 2001, 600 pp. with illustrations).
In the first part of the memoirs, the author, in the form of a diary, talks about research work on Wrangel Island. Already at the very beginning of the book, the reader gets acquainted with those who discovered this relatively tiny piece of land lost in ice and snow.
On March 9, 1823, the Russian traveler Lieutenant of the Fleet F.P. Wrangel, sitting in a smoky tent on Cape Shelagsky, treated one of the Kamakai foremen, and at the same time asked him if there was any land north of the coast of Chukotka. Kamakay, as a good connoisseur of his region, answered: “Between capes Ezrri (Shelagsky. - G.U.) and Ir-Kaipio (Schmidt. - G.U.), near the mouth of one river, from low coastal cliffs on clear summer days in the north, across the sea, high, snow-covered mountains are visible; in winter, beyond the sea, however, they are not visible. In former years, large herds of deer came from the sea - probably from there, but, pursued by the Chukchi and exterminated by wolves, now they don't show up.
Such was the first information received by the future honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and one of the founders of the Russian Geographical Society, F.P. Wrangel, about the island, which was later named after him. By the way, the Russian traveler himself did not manage to visit or even see the mysterious land: his heroic attempts to get to it on the ice on a sleigh from Cape Yakan were unsuccessful. Nevertheless, not doubting the actual existence of the land here, Wrangel mapped its contours with mountains to the north of Cape Yakan, which made it easier for subsequent sailors to navigate.
On August 17, 1849, looking for traces of the Franklin expedition that died in 1847, the English captain Kellet was the first European to notice from the Herald ship in the north-west the land that Wrangel had once outlined, which he also failed to visit, however, on a map published in London in 1853, it was designated as Kellet Land. And in 1867, the American captain T. Long from the whaling ship "Nile" saw the same island from the south. Recognizing its outlines, previously mapped by a Russian traveler, he restored justice by giving this territory the name Wrangel Land.
Later, on October 28, 1879, American Lieutenant J. De Long, commander of the Jeannette, also saw Wrangel Land. Drifting in the ice, the ship passed north of it, and thus it became known that it was an island.
And only fifty-eight years after the attempt of our compatriots to reach the mysterious land from the side of Cape Yakan, the first American ships approached its shores. The team of one of them stayed here for 19 days, during which three parties were engaged in the study of this piece of land, which resulted in the first approximate map, collections of flora and fauna, rock samples.
Russian icebreaker "Vaigach" under the leadership of B.A. Vilkitsky came here only in 1911. A landing force landed in the southwestern part of the island, the participants of which made magnetic measurements, determined an astronomical point, and significantly refined the topographic map available at that time. The work of the expedition lasted five years, after which the tsarist government sent a note to foreign powers. In it, Russia declared its rights to a number of newly discovered lands lying against its northern shores. Wrangel Island was also mentioned among them. There were no objections to the note ...
However, in the future, foreign states have repeatedly tried to seize such a tasty piece of land. This could have been avoided only by mastering and populating it with our citizens. With this mission, GA arrived. Ushakov landed on the island in 1926. Fifty Eskimos from Chukotka landed with him (Georgy Alekseevich founded a stationary settlement here in 1936).
For three years, the scientist led a small group of settlers, sharing joys and sorrows with them. Judging by the memories, it was very difficult. I had to overcome frosts and blizzards, hunger, diseases. Surprises and the most difficult trials lay in wait for people at every step. The islanders were practically cut off from the mainland and large cities. There was no question of any regular flights of steamships and planes. Even constant radio communication seemed to them a pipe dream.
I must say that the word "polar explorer" in those years only came into use. There was no experience of living and working in the Arctic. Nevertheless, the author of the book emphasizes, the colony justified the hopes placed on it - a Russian settlement was firmly established here, and the skins of arctic foxes and bears harvested on the island, walrus and mammoth tusks more than covered all the costs associated with its organization.
When reading the short, jerky notes made by Georgy Alekseevich, it is easy to see how much time and energy the administrative work took from him. But despite this, he constantly conducted scientific research. In 1927, in a letter addressed to the Main Hydrographic Directorate and the Polar Commission of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Ushakov wrote that he managed to discover three low-lying pebble islands located off the northern coast and elongated in latitude. For the first time, regular meteorological observations began to be made in these places. Nevertheless, his main scientific achievement was the compilation of a complete map of the island, which shows all the features of orography, including the position of mountain ranges and their heights, river valleys and their watersheds. In addition, the first "governor of the island" collected a variety of collections (geological, flora and fauna), interesting ethnographic materials about the life and life of the Eskimos.
Orography- description of various elements of the earth's surface (ridges, hills, basins, etc.) and their classification according to external features (size, direction), regardless of origin.
In the book of G.A. Ushakov gives a detailed description of this unique corner of nature, sheltered in the extreme northeast of the Arctic coast of Russia, at the junction of the East Siberian and Chukchi seas. The one hundred and eightieth meridian divides the island into two almost equal parts, one of which lies in the Western Hemisphere, the second - in the Eastern. In summer, when the sun hangs overhead all day and night, it is enveloped in fogs, and during the long polar night blizzards rage on it.
The geological history of the island is quite unusual. Once it was part of Beringia - a vast land that in the distant past connected Asia with America (it is considered to be the center of the formation of the Arctic fauna and flora). Glaciers have never covered the entire surface of the island at once, so much of the original pristine nature has been preserved here. About 50 thousand years ago, the sea separated part of the land from the mainland and became an obstacle in the way of the later "invaders".
Wrangel Island is unusually rich in birds. And at the end of summer, large herds of walruses appear in its coastal waters. In some years, they arrange huge haulouts on land - up to 10 thousand individuals. Without any doubt, this rookery can be considered one of the largest in the world. Here is the largest "maternity hospital" of polar bears within the Arctic Ocean.
The main result of the three-year wintering of G.A. Ushakov put it this way: "I fell in love with the Arctic forever." Therefore, after a short respite on the mainland, the icy land again called him to him - in 1930 he led a new expedition, this time to the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago, which is located on the border of the Kara Sea and the Laptev Sea.
This book details the history of its discovery. In early September 1913, the ships of the Hydrographic Expedition "Taimyr" and "Vaigach" under the command of the already mentioned B.A. Vilkitsky, when trying to bypass the ice north of Cape Chelyuskin, entered a strip of clear water, which led them to an unknown land. The first to notice her was the watch officer of the Vaigach, Lieutenant N.I. Evgenov.
The discovery of Severnaya Zemlya was the last major geographical discovery in the 20th century. It is important to emphasize that G.A. Ushakov began training on Wrangel Island. First of all, he studied in detail all the materials relating to the recently discovered archipelago, developed in detail his own, boldly bold and at the same time extremely simple plan for future work. It provided for the implementation of an extensive program: determining the configuration of Severnaya Zemlya, compiling its topographic map, analyzing the geological structure, collecting materials on the flora and fauna, as well as the ice regime of the seas surrounding the islands. The expedition was supposed to carry out a cycle of meteorological observations, measure terrestrial magnetism, describe auroras, and much more.
The author of the book tells in a fascinating way about the progress of the work of the legendary four Russian polar explorers: G.A. Ushakova, N.N. Urvantseva, V.V. Khodov and S.P. Zhuravlev, who in 1930-1932. in fact, they re-discovered and described Severnaya Zemlya to the smallest detail - four large and small islands with a total area of 37 thousand km 2. As a result, an accurate map of the archipelago was created, which made it possible in the future to make through navigation along the Northern Sea Route.
The Severozemelskaya expedition was marked by another important event - on October 1, 1930, it commissioned the first hydrometeorological station in the Arctic. On it, the famous four began to conduct regular observations of the weather, launch pilot balloons, measure atmospheric electricity and terrestrial magnetism. She laid the foundation for the study of auroras and permafrost. Achievements of the legendary group of researchers led by G.A. Ushakov, as well as the work under his leadership on Wrangel Island, found a well-deserved place in the history of the development of the Russian North.
Candidate of Historical Sciences Ya.V. RENKAS
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 the Atlantic Oceans; Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Greenland, Svalbard, Franz Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya, Severnaya Zemlya, Novosibirsk Islands and about. Wpangel, as well as the northern coasts of the continents of Eurasia and North America.
The word "Arctic" is of Greek origin and means "country of the big bear" - according to the constellation Ursa Major.
The Arctic occupies about a sixth of the Earth's surface. Two-thirds of the Arctic is covered by the Arctic Ocean, the world's smallest ocean. Most of the ocean surface is covered with ice throughout the year (with an average thickness of 3 m) and is not navigable. About 4 million people live in this gigantic territory.
History of Arctic exploration
The North Pole has long attracted the attention of travelers and explorers who, overcoming incredible difficulties, penetrated further and further north, discovered cold Arctic islands and archipelagos and mapped them.
These were representatives of different peoples of the world: Americans John Franklin and Robert Peary, Dutch William Barents, Norwegians Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen, Italian Umberto Nobile and many others, whose names have 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.
Already in the middle of the 16th century, Russian coast-dwellers and explorers, using the tributaries of the 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 bypassed the Chukotka Peninsula on kochs (an old Pomeranian decked single-masted sailing rowing vessel) and entered the Pacific Ocean.
In 1686-1688. The trading expedition of Ivan Tolstoukhov on three kochs bypassed the Taimyr Peninsula by sea from west to east. In 1712, explorers Mercury Vagin and Yakov Permyakov visited Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island for the first time, initiating the discovery and exploration of the entire group of the New Siberian Islands.
In 1733-1742. The Great Northern Expedition worked in the waters of the Arctic Ocean and on its coast. In essence, it united several expeditions, including the second Kamchatka expedition led by Vitus Bering, who carried out a huge complex of studies of the northern territory of Siberia from the mouth of the Pechora and Vaigach Island to Chukotka, the Commander Islands and Kamchatka. For the first time, the coasts of the Arctic Ocean from Arkhangelsk to the mouth of the Kolyma, the coast of the island of Honshu, the Kuril Islands were mapped. There was no more grandiose geographical enterprise before this expedition.
Semyon Chelyuskin devoted his whole 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 the detachments of famous explorers Vasily Pronchishchev, Khariton Laptev.
In the spring of 1741, Chelyuskin walked overland on 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 of Alexander Pushkin). In 1820-1824. they explored and mapped the mainland coast from the mouth of the Kolyma to the Kolyuchinskaya Bay and made four unparalleled trips on drifting ice in this area.
Fyodor Litke went down in history as a major explorer of the Arctic. In 1821-1824. Litke described the shores of Novaya Zemlya, made many geographical determinations of places along the coast of the White Sea, explored the depths of the fairway and the dangerous shallows of this sea. He described this expedition in the book "Four-time trip to the Arctic Ocean in 1821-1824".
In 1826, Litke on the sloop "Senyavin" went on a voyage around the world, which lasted three years. According to the results, this is one of the most successful expeditions of the first half of the 19th century: in the Bering Sea, the most important points on the coast of Kamchatka were identified from Avacha Bay to the north; previously unknown islands of Karaginsky, Matvey Island and the coast of Chukotka Land are described; the Pribylov Islands are identified; explored and described the Caroline archipelago, the islands of Bonin-Sima and many others.
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. According to his idea, in 1899 the world's first powerful icebreaker "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.
Fruitful in terms of results was the Russian "Hydrographic Expedition of the Arctic Ocean" 1910-1915. on the icebreaking ships "Taimyr" and "Vaigach". Based in Vladivostok, in three years she completed a detailed hydrographic inventory from Cape Dezhnev to the mouth of the Lena and built navigation signs on the coast.
In 1913, the expedition was given the task of continuing the hydrographic inventory to the Taimyr Peninsula and, under favorable conditions, to make a through voyage along the Northern Sea Route to present-day Murmansk. But Cape Chelyuskin was blocked by heavy unbroken ice.
In 1912, hydrographer and polar explorer Georgy Sedov came up with a project for a sledge expedition to the North Pole. On August 14 (27), 1912, the ship "Saint Foka" left Arkhangelsk and near Novaya Zemlya, due to impenetrable ice, stopped for the winter. 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 wintering. On February 2 (15), 1914, Sedov and sailors Grigory Linnik and Alexander Pustoshny, who accompanied him, reached the North Pole on three dog sleds. Not reaching about. 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 the western coast of Novaya Zemlya.
In 1932, he led an expedition aboard the N. Knipovich ship, 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 theory of the vertical circulation of water and the origin of the cold intermediate layer in the sea, developed a method for calculating the density of water when they are mixed, and formulated the law of ice drift along isobars.
Despite a number of expeditions at the beginning of the 20th century, many of which made major geographical discoveries, the Arctic Ocean remained little explored.
In Soviet times, the study and practical development of the Northern Sea Route was given the importance of national importance. On March 10, 1921, Lenin signed a decree establishing 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.
Soon Russia became a leader in the development and exploration of the North Pole.
In 1929, the famous polar explorer Vladimir Vize 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". And only in 1937 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 1930s-1940s. Then heroic expeditions were carried out on the icebreakers "G. Sedov", "Krasin", "Sibiryakov", "Litke". They were led by famous polar explorers Otto Schmidt, Rudolf Samoilovich, Vladimir Vize, captain Vladimir Voronin. During these years, for the first time in one navigation, the route of the Northern Sea Route was passed, heroic flights over the North Pole were made, which created fundamentally new opportunities for reaching and exploring the North Pole.
From 1991 to 2001, there was not a single Russian drifting station in the Arctic (the Soviet station "North Pole 31" was closed in July 1991), not a single scientist who would collect the necessary scientific data on the spot. The economic situation in Russia forced to interrupt more than half a century of observations from the drifting ice of the Arctic. Only in 2001 was a new experimental drifting station "North Pole" temporarily opened.
Now more than a dozen international expeditions are working in the Arctic with the participation of Russia.
On September 7, 2009, the Russian drifting station "North Pole - 37" began work. SP-37 employs 16 people - specialists from the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI), Sergey Lesenkov has been appointed head of the station.
Scientific programs of Russian research are developed by leading scientific organizations and departments, which include the Hydrometeorological Research Center of the Russian Federation (Hydrometeorological Center of Russia), the State Oceanographic Institute (GOIN), the All-Russian Research Institute of Hydrometeorological Information - World Data Center (VNIIGMI WDC), the Arctic and the Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) - the oldest and largest research institution in Russia, conducting a comprehensive study of the Earth's Polar Regions; and etc.
Today, the leading world powers have prepared for the redistribution 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 "Arktika-2007" started, the purpose of which was to study the shelf of the Arctic Ocean.
The researchers set out to prove that the underwater ridges of Lomonosov and Mendeleev, which stretch to Greenland, can be geologically a continuation of the Siberian continental platform, this will allow Russia to claim a vast territory of the Arctic Ocean of 1.2 million square meters. kilometers.
The expedition reached the North Pole on August 1. On August 2, the Mir-1 and Mir-2 deep-sea manned submersibles descended to the ocean floor near the North Pole and performed a set of oceanographic, hydrometeorological and ice surveys. 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 flag of the Russian Federation was hoisted at the North Pole at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the time, the results of the expedition to the Arctic should form the basis of Russia's position in deciding whether this part of the Arctic shelf belongs to it.
Russia's updated application for the Arctic shelf will be ready by 2013.
After the Russian expedition, the topic of belonging to the continental shelf began to be actively discussed by the leading Arctic powers.
On September 13, 2008, a Canadian-American expedition was launched, which included the US Coast Guard Arctic icebreaker Healy and Canada's heaviest Coast Guard icebreaker Louis S. St. Laurent.
The purpose of the mission was to collect information that will help determine the extent of the US continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean.
On August 7, 2009, the second US-Canadian Arctic Expedition launched. 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 the seafloor and continental shelf, which are believed to be rich in oil and gas fields. The expedition worked in areas from the north of Alaska to the Mendeleev Ridge, as well as to the east of the Canadian archipelago. The scientists took photos and videos, and also collected materials on the state of the sea and the shelf.
An increasing number of states are showing interest in participating in the active development of the Arctic zone. This is due to global climate change, which opens up new opportunities for establishing regular shipping in the Arctic Ocean, as well as greater access to the minerals of this vast region.
The Arctic is the northernmost region of the globe. This polar territory still remains unexplored to the end, attracting the attention of researchers from around the world.
The most famous Arctic explorers in the world
The story of Roald Amundsen
Roald Amundsen was born in 1872. He made his first trip to the Arctic in the period from 1897 to 1899, when he was the navigator of a ship participating in the Belgian expedition. Upon his return, the Norwegian organized his own trip, buying himself a yacht "Joa" and recruiting a small crew to set sail. The journey began in 1903 in Greenland.The main merit of Roald Amundsen is the conquest of the Northwest Passage - the sea route through the Arctic Ocean along the northern coast of North America, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In 1911, Roald Amundsen became the first polar explorer to reach the border of the North Pole.
History of Fridtjof Nansen
Fridtjof Nansen was born in Norway in 1861 and his interest in the Arctic came from his sports career. The professional skater and skier crossed Greenland on skis, becoming the first person to make such a journey. Later, having assembled a team, Fridtjof set off for the North Pole on the three-masted schooner Fram. 
When the ship was blocked by ice blocks, Nansen, along with the team, continued on a sleigh, reaching 86 degrees north latitude. After this journey, Nansen's life was not connected with expeditions: he devoted himself to science and politics and in 1922 was awarded the Nobel Prize.
History of Umberto Nobile
Umberto Nobile was born in 1885 in Italy, he became famous as the creator of airships. In 1926, Umberto Nobile began traveling with the American millionaire Lincoln Ellsworth in an airship. 
The aircraft successfully flew to Alaska, and Umberto Nobile received the status of a national hero. After that, the airship builder repeated the journey, but the ship crashed. At the same time, Umberto Nobile managed to escape.
Russian Arctic explorers
History of Chelyuskintsy
In 1933, sailors Vladimir Voronin and Otto Schmidt set off on a unique expedition on the Chelyuskin steamer along the northern shores of Eurasia. 
Their goal was to prove the possibility of passing the Northern Sea Route on a simple steamer and in the absence of special equipment. The attempt was unsuccessful and the Chelyuskin was blocked by ice in the Bering Strait. Fortunately, the team was saved.
History of Georgy Sedov
Georgy Sedov was born in 1877 and from his youth connected his life with the sea. Before exploring the Arctic, he took part in the Russo-Japanese War, commanding a destroyer. 
He made his first trip to Yakutia in 1909, in which he studied in detail the mouth of the Kolyma River. After he went to explore Novaya Zemlya. In 1912, at the expense of private funding, he organized a voyage on the ship "Saint Foka", which was blocked by ice blocks on the border with Novaya Zemlya. Georgy Sedov could not complete this expedition, as he died from hypothermia on the way to the North Pole.
History of Valery Chkalov
The call to Valery Chkalov came at the age of 52, when he was able to make the first non-stop flight over the North Pole from Moscow to Vancouver. The entire flight took 63 hours: Chkalov and his crew flew 9130 km on an ANT-25 aircraft. 
History of Ivan Papanin
Soviet Arctic explorer Ivan Papanin was born in 1894 in the family of a Sevastopol port worker. His first trip to the north took place in 1931 during the exploration of Franz Josef Land on the steamer "Malygin". 
In the period from 1937 to 1938, Papanin was the head of the North Pole drifting station. The team spent 274 days on the ice floe. Ivan Papanin twice received the degree of Hero of the Soviet Union.
At all times, man has sought to know the world. The editors of the site invite you to learn about the most famous travelers in the world who were attracted by unknown distances.
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People settled the Arctic many millennia ago. It is almost impossible to determine exactly when. But some methods allow (very approximately) to estimate the prescription of this event.
The first way is related to the genetic difference between different groups of people, such as Africans and Europeans, Arctic Asians and the peoples of the Pacific basin. The greater the difference, the earlier these groups separated. The second method is based on the analysis of the proximity of their languages. The third - archaeological - on the analysis of the age of buildings and other traces of material culture. The results obtained by all three methods approximately coincide and show that the settlement of the Arctic by people who made up its indigenous population occurred gradually, over a period of about 20 thousand years, starting about 35 thousand years ago (and maybe even earlier).
The details of this process are unknown to us, and the current population of the northern region is represented by many peoples - Nenets and Evenks, Khanty and Evens, Chukchi and Nanai, Mansi and Nivkhs, Eskimos, etc. Their number is small (for example, according to the All-Union Population Census of 1989, There were 34,665 Nenets, 30,163 Evenks, 22,520 Khanty, 15,184 Chukchi, and 12,023 Nanais). This is understandable: the local nature is not able to feed many people. But reindeer breeding and hunting (including sea animals) have been ensuring their existence for several millennia. The Arctic remained unknown to Europeans for many centuries. Scandinavians and Russian coast-dwellers were the first to settle beyond the Arctic Circle.
The arrival of Europeans and the discovery of the richest mineral deposits in the Arctic have changed the traditional way of life of the local population. But it continues to preserve ancient cultural and economic traditions. In the future, travel to the Arctic was undertaken for various purposes - military, commercial, scientific. The names of many pioneers remained on the map: the Bering Strait, the Barents Sea, the Laptev Sea, etc.
In the 4th century BC, from the Greek colony of Massalia (now the city of Marseille is located here), Pytheas, a geographer and astronomer, set off in search of the western edge of the world. On a tiny sailing boat, without a compass (they learned to use a magnetic needle in the Mediterranean only fifteen centuries later!) He rounded the Iberian Peninsula and the British Isles and reached the land where the Sun sank below the horizon for only three hours. He called this land Tuliy (sometimes they write - Tula). At a distance of one day's journey from there, he found himself in an area that " was neither sea nor land". Did he reach the ice? Whether Thulium was the Shetland Islands, or Iceland, or the shores of Scandinavia - we do not know. Be that as it may, it was Pytheas from Massalia who turned out to be the discoverer of the Arctic for Europeans.
In the VIII century, the Vikings from Scandinavia, the poverty of nature which made them look for new lands, reached the Orkney and Shetland Islands, the Hebrides and Ireland, in the middle of the IX century - Iceland. It was from Iceland in 982 that Eirik the Red, expelled for violent temper from his native places (present-day Norway), having recruited a team, went west in search of land. Having neither maps nor a compass, he reached the largest island on Earth - Greenland. Finding meadows covered with lush grass here, Eirik called this place Greenland (Green Earth), and many geographical objects received his name: Eirik's fiord, Eirik's island and others. Three years later he returned to Iceland, collected a flotilla of twenty-five ships and again set off for Greenland. After a difficult and dangerous journey, only fourteen ships reached the goal. Eirik and his family settled in the new lands and was proclaimed their ruler. Fifteen years later, Eirik's son Leif went to sea with a crew of thirty-five men, headed west, and after some time reached Helluland, the "Land of Stone Slabs." This was probably the southern tip of Baffin Island. Sailing from there to the south, the sailors reached Markland - "Land covered with forest" (maybe Labrador), and then Vinland - "Land of grapes". They spent the winter there, and the next summer they returned to Greenland. There is almost no doubt that the Vikings visited North America, but exactly where Vinland was located is still unknown.
In 1741, the ship St. Peter, carrying Captain-Commander Bering, washed ashore on the island, where more than 20 crew members, including the captain, died of scurvy. In memory of this event, the island was named Bering, and the archipelago of which it is part was named the Commander Islands.
For 10 years of research, the outlines of the coasts and islands of almost the entire giant coast of Northern Russia were mapped. Sections of the lower and middle reaches of many rivers in the Arctic Ocean basin are described for the first time. The "academic detachment" of the expedition, that is, scientists assigned to it, explored vast territories that had not been studied by anyone until then.
Johann Gmelin spent all 10 years (1733-1743) traveling around Siberia, compiling a description of Yakutia and Transbaikalia, the Urals and Altai. Behring's satellite Georg Steller became the first explorer of Northwest America. Stepan Krasheninnikov walked more than 1700 km across Kamchatka, compiling the first "Description of the land of Kamchatka", which became a model of geographical research for several generations of scientists.
The names of many members of the expedition are imprinted on the map of the Arctic: the Bering Sea, Cape Chelyuskin, the Pronchishchev Coast and many others.
An attempt to find a northwestern passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, undertaken by many - for example, the expeditions of Sebastian Cabot (1508) and John Franklin (1845), ended in the death of the crews of both expedition ships in the area of King William Island.
For the first time, the northwestern passage was passed by Roald Amundsen on the ship "Joa" (with a displacement of only 47 tons) in 1903-1906.
Expedition routes: D. Franklin (1), R. Amundsen (2), F. Nansen (3, 4), R. Peary (5), drift "SP-1" (6), raid a/l "Arktika" (7)
In an attempt to reach the North Pole, Fridtjof Nansen in 1893-1896 on the drifting ship "Fram" and dog sleds reached 86 ° 14 ′ N, from where he went to Franz Josef Land. The North Pole was reached by Frederick Cook from Axel-Heiberg Island on April 21, 1908. The following year, his success was repeated by Robert Peary from Cape Columbia (Ellesmere Island). Later, R. Piri accused his rival of falsifying the report on the campaign. The debate about who was the first to reach the North Pole has not subsided to this day.
In 1926, R. Amundsen flew over the Pole on the airship "Norway".
In May 1937, the first drifting scientific station "North Pole" ("SP-1") was landed on the top of the planet under the leadership of Ivan Papanin, removed from an ice floe in the Greenland Sea upon completion of the drift in February 1938.
On August 17, 1977, the Soviet nuclear-powered icebreaker Arktika (Captain Yuri Kuchiev) reached the North Pole in free navigation for the first time in history.
article from the encyclopedia "The Arctic is my home"
