On February 13, 1934, a tragedy occurred in the Chukchi Sea - a huge bulk carrier “Chelyuskin completely went under water for two hours. The death of the "Soviet" Titanic "threatened to become a grand defeat of the USSR in the Arctic, and turned into a triumph.
In March 1933, a ship was built in Copenhagen, built by order of the Soviet foreign trade organization, originally called "Lena", because it was assumed that it would be used to transport goods from the mouth of the Lena to Vladivostok. The ship had a reinforced hull for navigation in the ice, and in this regard was assigned to the icebreaking type ships. It was this circumstance that made it possible to decide on its use in a campaign from Murmansk to Vladivostok along the seas of the Arctic Ocean in one navigation.
This was the second attempt to overcome the Northern Sea Route in one season. The first, generally successful, except for the last leg of the journey, when the ship was sandwiched in the Chukchi Sea, was already carried out by the icebreaker Alexander Sibiryakov in 1932. But there were few such ships as the Sibiryakov, and they could not take very much cargo.
So, “Lena” was renamed “Chelyuskin” in honor of the 18th-century Russian explorer of the North, Semyon Chelyuskin, loaded to the eyeball with building materials for the station on about. Wrangel, with coal for himself and the accompanying icebreakers, food and other things, so that the draft was 80 cm below the waterline, and solemnly sent from Leningrad to Murmansk. The expedition leader Otto Schmidt wanted to show with this voyage the possibility of regular passage of merchant and cargo ships along the Northern Sea Route, so the ship was not only professional sailors, but also builders, scientists, an artist, two cameramen and other workers, including ten women, one of them they are pregnant, and even the child is a girl of one and a half years. Only 112 people. Plus cows and pigs, as well as 500 tons of fresh water.
The first difficulties began almost immediately. Even during the transition from Leningrad to Murmansk, ship defects were discovered - I had to go to the docks of Copenhagen for repair. The captain of the ship P. Bezays did everything to give up control of the Chelyuskin, and as a result, contrary to his will, hereditary Pomors, an experienced captain Vladimir Voronin, who had embarked on an expedition as a passenger, had to take on these functions. He agreed to command the ship only to Murmansk, but fate decreed otherwise.
The first serious ice met Chelyuskin already in the Kara Sea. Even at the first inspection of the ship V. Voronin wrote: “The hull is weak. The width of the Chelyuskin is large. The zygomatic part will be heavily impacted, which will affect the strength of the hull. "Chelyuskin" - the vessel is unsuitable for this voyage. " And now the first impressions of the experienced captain have been fully confirmed. In the holds there were leaks, which, however, were quickly eliminated, but the Chelyuskin could not cope with long-term ice itself - the Krasin icebreaker was called to help. However, Krasin was already substantially Chelyuskin, so even following him, along a strip of clean water, Chelyuskin had to experience the pressure of the surrounding ice and crush it with its hull, which naturally affected the strength of the structure.
By September 1, Chelyuskin reached Cape Chelyuskin, the northernmost point of mainland Eurasia. Here, 8 people left the ship. But then the team received an addition: on August 30, Dorothea Vasilyeva, the wife of the head of the polar station on Wrangel Island, gave birth to a girl. Her name was given at her birthplace: the Kara Sea, which means - Karina. There were 105 people left on the ship.
Despite everything, the campaign seemed close to a successful conclusion. The ship has already passed three quarters of the way, breaking the Barents and Kara Seas, the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea. However, in the Chukchi Sea, the Chelyuskin was crushed by ice and he was forced to drift with them for about five months, until he was carried to the Bering Strait. And here, when less than two miles were left before the strait, a disaster happened. A large crack passed along the left side of the ship, as a result of which water began to penetrate the holds. It was already impossible to eliminate the leak, as was done before - the ice was rapidly crushing the ship.
During the forced drift, O. Yu. Schmidt received an order to transfer to Krasin and finish the campaign, but chose not to carry it out, just as he decided not to accept the help of the Litke icebreaker in the hope that Chelyuskin would cope with the task himself. "Chelyuskin" could not cope, and on February 13, 1934, a huge ship in front of the eyes of its inhabitants, who were almost completely, with the exception of the supply manager B. Mogilevich, crushed by the load moving from the heel, urgently evacuated onto the ice, went under water, making a rattle and crackle tearing apart a huge structure.
People managed to save most of the property important for life, and immediately began to pitch tents, build houses from logs, equip a galley - in a word, organize life on ice, which from the light hand of radio operator E. Krenkel was now called the "Schmidt Camp" - that’s he began to sign his radiograms on the mainland, because Chelyuskin no longer existed. Several people expressed a desire to walk to the shore, leaving the camp, but Schmidt simply threatened to shoot them. On this incident was exhausted.
People on the ice showed miracles of endurance, calm and organization. They lived as if no catastrophe had happened: in the mornings they were still going to exercise, doing socially useful work, listening to lectures, conducting meetings, and taking walks with children. All this became possible thanks to outstanding organizational skills and faith in the success of the expedition leader O. Yu. Schmidt. It was he, of course, together with the leadership of the country, who managed to turn his failure into a triumph.
Despite the ridicule of the Western press, reproaches in the stupidity of the enterprise, haste of actions and confidence in a soon unsuccessful outcome - one Danish newspaper even published Schmidt's obituary, the whole Soviet people - on the contrary, not only with bated breath watched the fate of the “Chelyuskinites”, but certainly believed in their salvation.
And salvation finally came - from heaven. Anatoly Lyapidevsky flew 28 times in his ANT-4 to the Chelyuskin crash site until March 5, when he discovered the camp. He removed all ten women and two children from the ice. Then six more pilots joined him: Vasily Molokov, Nikolai Kamanin, Mikhail Vodopyanov, Mauritius Slepnev, Ivan Doronin, Mikhail Babushkin and Sigismund Levanevsky. And people on the ice flooded tirelessly building landing strips for airplanes, they were breaking all the time, and they cleared them again. The pilots made 23 flights, bringing people to the Chukchi camp of Vankarem, and O. Schmidt, ill with pneumonia on the ice, was sent to the city of Nome, Alaska, to undergo treatment for the treatment. Seven pilots became the first “Heroes of the Soviet Union” in history, including Levanevsky, although he did not save anyone and he himself needed help. All participants of the expedition, 103 people, except for children, and the headquarters of the rescue of the Chelyuskin residents were awarded the Orders of the Red Star.
The train with the participants in the Chelyuskin expedition made a long journey from Vladivostok to Moscow, stopping at each station until Moscow met the Chelyuskin residents on June 19, 1934. The solemnity of the meeting and the inspiration that prevailed on the streets are well known for the chronicle: open cars with heroes were literally littered with flowers, welcome leaflets fell from the sky in the rain. The country has shown the whole world that it never leaves its people in trouble. And the experience of the "Schmidt camp" and its salvation was very useful after three years - the four "Papanins" who landed on the ice with the help of aviation and spent 9 months there.
Lazarus Freudheim
“CHELYUSKIN” AND “FIRM”: ALL POINTS OVER “i”
More than 70 years is not a short time. However, the history of the Chelyuskin expedition continues to attract attention. Sometimes the significance of the goals of the expedition and the heroic confrontation of people by brutal northern nature, sometimes husky speculation. The Chelyuskin epic became one of the first campaigns of Stalinist propaganda, emphasizing the heroism of Soviet reality, giving "spectacles" to the masses. Moreover, the effect of public triumph was achieved in a situation of failure of the planned expedition. Additional difficulties are associated with this situation in the analysis of the events that took place, since the information of those years could be radically distorted, and the participants' memories carried the burden of contemporary events of bans.
A bit of history
In February 1934, the Chelyuskin steamer sank, crushed by ice in the Chukchi Sea. One man died, and 104 crew members landed on the ice of the ocean. Part of the cargo and food was managed to be taken off the ship abruptly. Such a colony of people on the ice of the Arctic Ocean is an unprecedented event. How did it happen?
To ensure the delivery of goods to the easternmost coastal areas by the Northern Sea Route, it was necessary to try to go all the way from Europe to Chukotka in one short summer navigation. The first to do this in 1932 was the Sibiryakov icebreaker. But the icebreakers had insufficient cargo transportation capabilities. For freight, commercial transport, corresponding to the tasks of developing the North, ships with a greater commercial load, adapted for sailing in the north, were needed. This led the Soviet leadership to the idea of \u200b\u200busing the Chelyuskin steamer for the development of the Northern Sea Route. It was built in 1933 in Denmark at the shipyards of Burmeister and Wain, B&W, and Copenhagen, commissioned by Soviet foreign trade organizations.
In the weekly New Siberia, No. 10 (391), March 9, 2000, published in Novosibirsk, the essay by E.I. Belimova “The Secret of the Chelyuskin Expedition, which introduced the myth of the existence of the Pyzhma ship, built according to the same project and sailing as part of the Chelyuskin expedition with 2,000 prisoners to work in tin mines. After the death of the main ship, this second ship was allegedly sunk. Such a gloomy horror story, sewn to the idea of \u200b\u200ba scientific expedition, has gained widespread acceptance. The essay has been reprinted by many publications and many Internet sites. This epidemic continues to this day. Thanks to the efforts of sensationalist journalists, the version has overgrown with a whole series of witnesses and participants, in whose memory the events of those distant years supposedly surfaced. All these details are exactly the same as fragments of Belimov's literary opus. The same names, the same miraculous salvation, the same priests and short-wave-record champions ... It is noteworthy that all without exception interviews, memoirs and publications of this kind appeared later than the publication of Belimov's work.
I took up a detailed analysis of the described events in comparison with other well-known sources. My initial opinion on the reality of Belimov’s version has changed dramatically. The result of this was a large analytical article on the versions of the Chelyuskin expedition, first published at the end of September 2004. It clearly concluded that Belimov’s work was a literary fiction. A year later, on the basis of additional data, I published the results of the continuation of the search, which removes questions that remained unclear. This article combines the analysis of all documents and certificates found.
The main official version
A steamer with a displacement of 7500 tons called Lena set off on its first voyage from Copenhagen on June 3, 1933. He made the first passage to Leningrad, where he arrived on June 5, 1933. On June 19, 1933 the steamer Lena was renamed. It received a new name - "Chelyuskin" in memory of the Russian navigator and explorer of the north S.I. Chelyuskin.
The steamer immediately began to prepare for a long voyage in the northern seas. On July 16, 1933, carrying 800 tons of cargo, 3,500 tons of coal and more than a hundred crew members and expedition members, Chelyuskin left the Leningrad port and headed west, to the place of his birth - Copenhagen. Shipyards in six days eliminated the noticed defects at the shipyard. Then transfer to Murmansk with additional loading. The equipment was replenished in the form of an amphibious aircraft "Sh-2". On August 2, 1933, with 112 people aboard the Chelyuskin, he left Murmansk on his historical voyage.
Swimming was successful right up to Novaya Zemlya. Chelyuskin entered the Kara Sea, not slow to show its bad character. Serious deformation of the body and leak appeared on August 13, 1933. The question arose of returning back, but it was decided to continue the journey.
An important event was brought by the Kara Sea - a daughter was born to Dorothea Ivanovna (maiden name Dorfman) and Vasily Gavrilovich Vasiliev, who were heading for the winter to Wrangel Island. The birth record was made by V. I. Voronin in the Chelyuskin magazine. This record read: "August 31. 5 hours 30 m. A spouse Vasiliev was born a child, a girl. Numeral latitude 75 ° 46" 51 "north., Longitude 91 ° 06" east., Sea depth 52 meters. "On the morning of September 1 According to the ship’s broadcast: “Comrades, congratulations on the appearance of a new member of our expedition. Now we have 113 people. Surveyor’s wife Vasilyeva gave birth to a daughter. "
September 1, 1933 six Soviet ships were anchored at Cape Chelyuskin. These were the icebreakers and steamers Krasin, Sibiryakov, Stalin, Rusanov, Chelyuskin and Sedov. The ships greeted each other.
In the East Siberian Sea, heavy ice began to come across; September 9 and 10 Chelyuskin received dents on the starboard and port side. Burst one of the frames. The ship's leakage intensified ... The experience of the Far Eastern captains sailing the northern seas stated: September 15-20 is the latest deadline for entering the Bering Strait. Swimming in the Arctic in the fall is difficult. In winter, the impossible.
Already at this stage, the expedition leadership had to think about a possible wintering in the ice. On one of the autumn-winter September days (autumn on the calendar, winter on the cold) several dog teams arrived at the Chelyuskin. It was a visit of courtesy and friendship of the Chukchi, whose village was 35 kilometers from the ship. No one knew how long the ice imprisonment would last, where every extra person could be a serious enough problem. Eight Chelyuskinites, sick, weak, or simply not needed in the conditions of drift, were sent on foot ... 105 people remained on the ship.
November 4, 1933 due to a successful drift, Chelyuskin entered the Bering Strait. There were only a few miles to clear water. But no team efforts could save the situation. Driving south has become impossible. In the strait, ice began to move in the opposite direction, and the Chelyuskin again found itself in the Chukchi Sea. The fate of the ship depended entirely on ice conditions. Covered by ice, the steamer could not move independently. Fate was not merciful ... All this preceded the famous radiogram of O.Yu. Schmidt, which began with the words: “On February 13, at 15:30, 155 miles from Cape Severny and 144 miles from Cape Wallen, the Chelyuskin sank, crushed by compression of ice ...”
When people were on the ice, a government commission was formed to save the Chelyuskinites. 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 ice are doomed, and raising hopes of salvation in them is inhumane, this will only aggravate their torment. There were no icebreakers that could sail in the winter conditions of the Arctic Ocean. The hope was only for aviation. The government commission sent three groups of aircraft to rescue. Note that in addition to two Fleisters and one Junkers, the rest of the aircraft were domestic.
The results of the work of the crews are as follows: Anatoly Lyapidevsky made one flight and took out 12 people; Vasily Molokov for nine flights - 39 people; Kamanin for nine flights - 34 people; Mikhail Vodopyanov made three flights and took out 10 people; Mauritius Slepnev for one flight - five people, Ivan Doronin and Mikhail Babushkin made one flight and took out two people each.
For two months, from February 13 to April 13, 1934, 104 people fought for life, carried out heroic work to organize organized life on the ice of the ocean and build an airfield, which was constantly breaking, covered with cracks and hummocks, and covered with snow. Preserving the human collective in such extreme conditions is a great feat. The history of the development of the Arctic knows cases when people in such conditions not only lost the ability to collective struggle for life, but even for the sake of personal salvation they committed serious crimes against their comrades. The soul of the camp was Otto Yulievich Schmidt. There, on an ice floe, Schmidt published a wall newspaper and lectured on philosophy, which was daily reported in the entire central Soviet press. The entire world community, aviation experts and polar explorers gave the Chelyuskin epic the highest rating.
In connection with the successful completion of the epic, the highest degree of distinction was established - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. It was assigned to pilots A. Lyapidevsky, S. Levanevsky, M. Slepnev, V. Molokov, N. Kamanin, M. Vodopyanov, I. Doronin. At the same time, they were all awarded the Orders of Lenin. Subsequently, the Golden Star No. 1 was awarded to Lyapidevsky. All mechanics, including two American ones, were awarded. All the expedition members who were on the ice, except for the children, were awarded the orders of the Red Star.
Additional unofficial version
In 1997, the Izvestia newspaper made its first public mention of secrets related to the Chelyuskin expedition. Its author was Anatoly Stefanovich Prokopenko, a historian and archivist, in the past he headed the famous Special Archive (now the Center for the Storage of Historical and Documentary Collections) - a huge top-secret repository of captured documents from twenty European countries. In 1990, Prokopenko submitted irrefutable documentary evidence to the CPSU Central Committee about the execution of Polish officers near Katyn. After the Special Archive - Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Archival Affairs of the Government of the Russian Federation, consultant to the Commission for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression under the President of the Russian Federation. The newspaper said literally the following: “From the foundation of the famous polar pilot Molokov, you can find out why Stalin refused foreign aid in saving the crew of the icebreaker Chelyuskin. And because, by the will of fate, a grave barge with prisoners was frozen in the ice nearby. ”
The version of the presence of the second ship in the Chelyuskin expedition was described by Eduard Ivanovich Belimov in his work The Secret of the Chelyuskin Expedition. The author of the work is E. Belimov, Candidate of Philology, worked for more than twenty years at NETI at the Department of Foreign Languages, then left for Israel. He outlined his version of events in the form of the story of the son of a man who survived the death of the second ship “Tansy”, led by the ship “Chelyuskin”. This man also became a close friend of Karina, who was born in Chelyuskin. Such a source of information makes every word and detail take very seriously.
An almost identical version appeared on the Versta newspaper on behalf of Israeli citizen Joseph Sachs, who was referred to by St. Petersburg journalists. He claims that in the winter of 1934 in the Chukchi Sea, at the direction of Stalin, the Pyzhma ship was blown up and scuttled, which accompanied the legendary Chelyuskin. According to Sachs, on board this ship, or rather, in the holds, were 2,000 prisoners who were taken to work in the Chukotka mines under the escort of NKVD officers. Among the prisoners on Tansy was a large group of classy short-wave radio hams. After the explosions on Tansy, they reached the spare radio transmitter kit, and their callsigns were heard at American air bases. True, the pilots managed to save a few. Later, all the saved, including the father of Joseph Sachs, seemed to have adopted another citizenship. It seems that Yakov Samoilovich in E. Belimov exactly corresponds to Joseph Sachs, quoted by Petersburgers.
The correspondent of the newspaper "Trud" in Kazan July 18, 2001 referred to the story of the well-known Kazan radio amateur V.T. Guryanova that his mentor, a pilot of the polar aviation, said that in 1934 he intercepted a radio session of American pilots based in Alaska. The story was like a legend. It was about saving the Russians in the area of \u200b\u200bChelyuskin’s death, but not crew members, not members of the Otto Schmidt’s scientific expedition, but some mysterious political prisoners who found themselves in the area of \u200b\u200bthe famous Chelyuskin drift. After getting acquainted with the version of Belimov, it became clear to him what was being discussed.
On August 30, 2001, the Russian television channel TV-6 in the Today program showed a story about Tansy, which went to sea with Chelyuskin and which contained 2,000 prisoners with security guards. Unlike the previously published version of Belimov in the television version, the guards took families with them. The purpose of Tansy is to verify the possibility of delivering the LC along the sea route at this time. When the Chelyuskin was captured by ice and an operation to rescue him began, it was decided to blow up Tansy. Families of guards were transported by sleigh to Chelyuskin, and 2,000 prisoners went to the bottom along with the ship.
In mid-September 2004, another statement appeared about the possible voyage of the second ship. Alexander Shchegortsov wrote that, in his opinion, the hypothesis of a second vessel following the Chelyuskin has a right to exist. Perhaps the ship had a different name (not "Tansy") and it is likely that it did not sink like "Chelyuskin". Moreover, the author did not provide any additional grounds for his opinion. Unfortunately, this message is very similar to the old “Armenian” joke: Is it true that Academician Hambartsumyan won a hundred thousand in the lottery? We answer: it is true, but not an academician, but a janitor, and did not win, but lost, and not in the lottery, but in cards, and not one hundred thousand, but one hundred rubles. (I apologize for such a departure from the serious spirit of presentation).
Discussion Versions
Initially, we note that none of the versions excludes the other. The official version, as it were, does not know about the existence of other options, lives (or pretends) independently. The second version gloomyly supplements the first, gives an expansive inhuman interpretation of the implementation of the expedition's goals. Mentally returning during the voyages of Chelyuskin, one can imagine that Otto Yulievich Schmidt, the scientific leader of the expedition, set himself the most interesting scientific task of studying the Northern Sea Route and could not refuse the imposed conditions of this expedition. It could not be a matter of a scientific future, but a matter of life.
Our task is to try to get a true picture from the information available today. If possible, disassemble these two decks and discard the fake cards.
In the official version, perhaps, only three questions arise: about the compliance of the ship with the expedition's tasks, about the number of people and the coordinates of the death of the ship.
Chelyuskin and its characteristics.
For the expedition along the Northern Sea Route, a vessel was used specially designed by Soviet shipbuilders to sail in the ice of the Arctic basin. According to technical data, the steamer was the most modern cargo and passenger ship for that time. The ship was intended for navigation between the mouth of the Lena (hence the original name of the ship "Lena") and Vladivostok. The construction order was placed at one of the most famous European shipyards Burmeister & Wain (B&W) Copenhagen.
A year ago, attempts were made to obtain information about this order from the builder. The reason for the unsuccessful attempts was as follows. Shipyard Burmeister & Wain (B&W) Copenhagen went bankrupt in 1996, and a large amount of documentation was lost. The surviving part of the archives was transferred to the B&W museum. The head of the museum Christian Mortensen (Christian Hviid Mortensen) kindly gave the opportunity to take advantage of the surviving materials related to the construction of "Chelyuskin." These include photographs of the launch of the Lena and the test voyage of the ship (published for the first time), as well as a press release describing Chelyuskin, which gives an idea of \u200b\u200bthe technical perfection of the ship.
A fragment of the launching photograph was posted by me on the website www.cheluskin.ru in
hoping to establish the names of the participants in this event. However, we were not able to identify anyone in the picture. In 1933, only one ship was built for the Soviet Union, designed to sail in the ice environment of the seas of the Arctic Ocean. The company did not build other ships for these navigation conditions either in 1933 or later. The ship “Sonja”, which is referred to on the website www.cheluskin.ru, was designed for other operating conditions and, perhaps, had only an outward resemblance to the “Lena”. In addition, B&W supplied the USSR with two more refrigerated vessels and two self-unloading cargo vessels. B&W's next supply to the USSR included three vessels for timber transport in 1936.
According to the manufacturer’s data, a steamer with a displacement of 7500 tons under the name Lena was launched on March 11, 1933. Test sailing took place on May 6, 1933. The ship was built in accordance with the special requirements of Lloyd, the most respected and respected organization in the world in the field of shipbuilding, with the note "Reinforced for navigation in ice." We also note that in the press release of B&W Chelyuskin Passenger and Passenger Ship, the steamship was assigned to the ice breaking type.
We received copies of the Lloyd Register journals for 1933-34. from London. The steamer Lena was registered by Lloyd in March 1933 under the number 29274.
Tonnage 3607 t
Built in 1933
Builder Burmeister & Wain Copenhagen
Owner Sovtorgflot
Length 310.2 ’
Width 54.3 ’
Depth 22.0 ’
Home Port Vladivostok, Russia
Engine (special version)
Feature +100 A1 strengthened for navigation in ice
Decoding class characters:
+ (Maltese Cross) - means that the ship was built under the supervision of Lloyd;
100 - means that the ship was built according to the rules of Lloyd;
A1 - means that the vessel was built for special purposes or for special merchant shipping;
The number 1 in this symbol means that the vessel is well and efficiently equipped in accordance with Lloyd's rules;
strengthened for navigation in ice - reinforced for navigation in ice.
After renaming the Register, a new entry was made under the number 39034. The name of the ship is given in the following transcription “Cheliuskin”. All main characteristics were repeated.
In the register of the dead ships of the Lloyd’s registry, “Chelyuskin” with registration number 39034 is listed with the following cause of death: “Destroyed by ice on the northern coast of Siberia on February 13, 1934” There are no other entries related to this period in the register.
After the first voyage to Leningrad and back to the shipyard in Copenhagen, the shortcomings noted by the Soviet side were eliminated. Compliance with all the terms of the contract for the construction of the vessel is also indirectly confirmed by the fact that there is no data on the claims of the Soviet side to the manufacturer after the death of Chelyuskin, as well as further orders of Soviet foreign trade organizations to this company. This is also evidenced by the act of inspection of the vessel on July 8, 1933 in Murmansk according to the norms of the Soviet Maritime Register, which does not contain comments.
Thus, of course, the assertion of many, including members of the expedition, that the ship was an ordinary cargo and passenger ship, not intended for penetration in ice conditions, is erroneous. According to E. Belimov, the Danish government sent notes protesting against the use of steamers made in Copenhagen for sailing in ice. Why didn’t the other demarches follow when reporting the death of one of them and the disappearance of the other? (We were unable to find confirmation of the existence of such interstate notes. Their presence contradicts the logic of international relations, since the customers of the ships and their manufacturers were trading companies, and not the USSR and the Kingdom of Denmark). But the main thing: the Chelyuskin steamer, as mentioned above, was designed and built specifically for swimming in the ice of the Northern basin. There could be not only diplomatic, but also technical grounds for Danish government notes to the USSR government on the inadmissibility of using Chelyuskin in the northern seas. It is possible, not presumably, but unambiguously to state that this part of E. Belimov’s story, allegedly documented by the secret archive “Secret Folder of the Central Committee of the CPSU”, is fiction.
When sailing from Murmansk, according to I. Kuksin, there were 111 people on the ship, including one child, the daughter of the new wintering chief on Wrangel Island. This number included 52 people on the crew of the ship, 29 people on the expedition and 29 people on the staff of the research station of Wrangel Island. On August 31, 1933, a girl was born on the ship. At the Chelyuskin there were 112 people. More accurate is the above number of 113 people. As mentioned above, before the start of the drift in mid-September, 8 people on dogs were sent to the ground. After that, 105 people were to remain on the ship. One person died while the ship was plunged into the deep of the sea on February 13, 1934. The given data are accurate to 1 person with the number of people by decree on awarding the participants of the Schmidt camp. It was not possible to establish the reason for the discrepancy.
Of particular interest is the question of the coordinates of the death of Chelyuskin. It would seem that this issue should have been uniquely defined. These coordinates, of course, were recorded in the logbook, reported to the mainland to ensure the search and rescue of people from the ice, should have been known to each crew of the aircraft involved in the rescue of polar explorers.
However, in August 2004, the expedition to search for Chelyuskin with the help of the scientific vessel Akademik Lavrentyev ended in failure. The study used the data specified in the navigational magazine of 1934. Then the head of the expedition, Otto Schmidt, reported the exact coordinates in a radiogram. All coordinates known in archives left by expeditions of 1974 and 1979 were checked. The head of the expedition, director of the Russian Underwater Museum, Alexei Mikhailov, said that the reason for the failure is the falsification of data on the place of the ship’s death. There is an assumption that for some reason or the tradition of classifying any information in the press, the changed coordinates were reflected. In this regard, the author attempted to find these data in the foreign press of the period of salvation of the Chelyuskinites. The newspaper Los Angeles Times dated April 12, 1934 gave the following coordinates: 68 ° 20 ’sowing. latitude and 173o 04 ’west. longitude. In the navigation charts of the Far Eastern Shipping Company, it is noted that the Chelyuskin sank in coordinates of 68 degrees 17 minutes north latitude and 172 degrees 50 minutes west longitude. This point lies 40 miles from Cape Vankarem, on which the village of the same name is located.
Fifteen years ago, in September 1989, the sunken Chelyuskin was found by Sergey Melnikoff on the Dmitry Laptev hydrographic vessel. He published the specified coordinates of the death of Chelyuskin, verified as a result of immersion to the ship. In connection with the statement about the falsification of coordinates after the end of Mikhailov’s expedition, he wrote: “I will allow myself to object and give the exact coordinates of the Chelyuskin submarine that I had at my disposal, which I received as a result of a week-long search on the Dmitry Laptev hydrographic vessel using systems satellite orientation "Magnavox" and military system "Mars": 68 ° 18; 05; north latitude and 172 ° 49; 40; west longitude. With such numbers, do not throw anchors there! These are the coordinates with an accuracy of one meter. ”
Given the inconsistency in the estimates of the coordinates of the sunken Chelyuskin, the author attempted to clarify controversial issues with Sergei Melnikoff, who claims that he immersed himself in the sunken ship and took photographs in the immediate vicinity of the ship at a depth of 50 meters. When asked about the significance of differences in coordinates and the presence of falsification of the source data, S. Melnikoff answered that “the difference is not significant. Half a nautical mile. Due to the fact that in those days the coordinates were taken using a manual sextant, and I used the satellite system, this is a normal mistake. ” The search was carried out “on maps of the General Staff, on which there are no other wrecks in the area. And they found half a mile from the place of its designation on the map. Therefore, with almost 100% certainty we can say that it is Chelyuskin. Echolocation also speaks about this - the object is 102 meters long and 11 meters high. Apparently, the ship is slightly inclined to the port side ”and is practically not immersed in silt or bottom sediments. The insufficient validity of Mikhailov’s statement about falsification of data was confirmed by a member of the Chelyuskin-70 expedition, the head of the apparatus of the Commission of the Council of the Federation for Youth and Sports, Doctor of Sociology Alexander Shchegortsov.
Since we undertake the task of conducting an independent investigation, when analyzing the factual side of the matter, we will proceed from the “presumption of innocence”, i.e. we will assume that all the basic information presented by the author E. Belimov in The Secret of the Chelyuskin Expedition reflects real facts known to the author and is not aggravated by conscious literary fiction.
We note that until today it was believed that the first publication of the work “The Secret of the Chelyuskin Expedition” was on the Chronograph website, published under the slogan “XX Century. Documents, events, persons. Unknown pages of history ... ". In the introduction to the site, the editor Sergei Shram points out: “Many pages of this site will seem unusually tough to someone, and even offensive to someone. Well, this is a feature of the genre in which I work. This feature is the authenticity of the fact. What is the difference between fiction and history? Fiction tells what could be. History is just what happened. At the turning points of epochs, people are more willing to spend time reading historical publications that tell “what was”. Before you is just such a publication ... ". Therefore, it is not surprising that such a problematic article, which made public the statement of the expedition on a very acute problem, was reprinted by many publications and Internet sites.
The search shows that the traditional reference to Chronograph as the source is not true. The publication in the Chronograph dates back to August 2001. The first publication of the work of E. Belimov was in the New Siberia weekly, No. 10 (391), March 9, 2000, published in Novosibirsk. In addition, this publication has a link: "specially for" New Siberia ". In this case, the author’s place of work in NETI becomes absolutely certain, the abbreviation of which did not say anything during repeated publications. NETI is the Novosibirsk Electrotechnical Institute, later renamed the Novosibirsk State Technical University (NSTU). We also draw attention to the fact that the Israeli version also appeared in print later than the publication in New Siberia, but it also precedes publication in the Chronograph.
Anti- Tansy
When it comes to comparing different versions, there can always be a danger that versions refer to different objects and their inconsistencies are not mutually exclusive. In this case, there are two unique and individual events considered in both versions, information about which cannot be dual. Only OR-OR. This is the only, first and last campaign of Chelyuskin, for which there can be no different dates. And the only case of a girl's birth in the Kara Sea: there can be no different birth dates and different parents.
Therefore, initially we turn to a comparison of information on precisely these issues.
According to the official version, the ship left Murmansk on August 2, 1933. Already on August 13, 1933, a serious hull deformation and leak appeared in the Kara Sea. On November 7, 1934, the head of the expedition, O. Schmidt, while in the Bering Strait, sent a congratulatory radiogram to the Soviet government. After that, the ship no longer had the opportunity to sail independently and drifted in the ice in a northerly direction until the day of its death. E. Belimov writes: “So, back to the distant past, December 5, 1933. At 9 or 10 in the morning, Elizaveta Borisovna (Belimov’s future mother, version LF) was brought to the pier and helped to board the Chelyuskin. Sailing began almost immediately. Steamers hummed, rockets burst in the black sky, music was playing somewhere, everything was solemn and a little sad. Following the Chelyuskin, Tansy floats, all in the lights, like a fairy-tale city. ” One can cite a number of temporary milestones showing that Chelyuskin could not start sailing from Murmansk on December 5, 1933. In accordance with this, it can be firmly stated that the dating of the Chelyuskin expedition in the work of E. Belimov is erroneous.
In the Kara Sea on the "Chelyuskin" a girl was born, named after her birthplace Karina. Most sources in this regard refer to the following entry in the ship's journal: “August 31. 5 hours 30 m. A spouse was born a child, a girl. The calculated latitude is 75 ° 46 "51" north, longitude 91 ° 06 "east, sea depth 52 meters." In the work of E. Belimov it is stated: "And only once did the twin ships moor to each other. This happened on January 4, 1934 year, on Karina’s birthday. The head of the convoy, Kandyba, wished to personally see the newborn daughter. Elizaveta Borisovna occupied the suite cabin No. 6, the same as the captain and the expedition’s chief. Karina was born in the farthest corner of the Kara Sea. Some 70 km remained to Cape Chelyuskin, and beyond it begins another sea - the East Siberian. I proposed to name the daughter “Karina” in the Kara Sea. Captain Voronin immediately wrote a birth certificate on the ship’s letterhead, indicating the exact coordinates — north latitude and east longitude — signed and enclosed a ship's seal. ”A comparison of these notes allows us to distinguish two fundamental differences. In the first version, the girl was born on August 31, 1934. According to the second, on January 4, 1934, Chelyuskin approached Cape Chelyuskin on the Kara Sea border on September 1, 1933. In January 1934, the Chelyuskin steamer was already ice-covered near the Bering Strait and no one BrAZ alone could not go to another ship, moreover, in the Kara Sea. This makes the only version possible about Karina’s birth on August 31, 1933. In the first version, the girl’s parents indicate the Vasilievs. The group of wintering workers was a surveyor Vasiliev V.G. and his wife D. Vasilieva In the version of E. Belimov, Kandyba (without indicating the name and patronymic) and Elizaveta Borisovna (without indicating the last name) are named as parents. You should also pay attention to the fact that in the second version in the quoted record of the birth of the girl there is no mention of parents at all. Many memories speak of the birth of Karina in the Vasilyev family. Especially in detail, as about the family of his teacher, Ilya Kuksin writes about this. According to documentary data and memories, there is no place for other parents to appear on the ship with other children. Participants in the voyage by the name of Kandyba or with the name Elizaveta Borisovna could not be found either in the documents examined or in the memoirs. All this unequivocally allows us to conclude that the version of E. Belimov about the birth of Karina is unreasonable. To confirm the reality of the girl born on the ship from the participants of the Vasilyev expedition, we present a photograph of Karina Vasilyeva in our time. Photo provided by www.cheluskin.ru. For her, who had lived all her life with her parents, the far-fetched version of other parents and another life described by Belimov was especially obvious.
A very serious question is the number of wintering people on a drifting ice floe, taking into account the navigation of two ships. This issue was not considered in any of the publications known to me. After the death of Chelyuskin, 104 people appeared on the ice. These included 52 members of the Chelyuskin team, 23 expedition members O. Yu. Schmidt and 29 participants of the proposed wintering on about. Wrangel, including 2 children. At the same time, the number of members of the steamer’s crew should be somewhat larger, since on the eve of the wintering in September 1933 several team members were sent to the ground for health reasons. It is this number of people - 104 people - that was taken out by the pilots of the rescue expedition to the earth. E. Belimov makes a hint that the number of people transported to the ground could be greater given the significant number of aircraft involved in the rescue. Therefore, we considered it necessary to carefully present the data on the number of flights and people taken out by each pilot. There is no place among the saved winterers even for the mythical Kandyba and his wife Elizabeth Borisovna. At the same time, a second crew of the same strength was needed to guide a second ship like the Chelyuskin. We are not talking about the protection of prisoners. What is their fate in the presence of the second ship, flooded by order, executed personally by Kandyba?
The brutality of the Stalinist regime and the treatment of prisoners by NKVD officers have long ceased to be a secret. Repeated executions of prisoners by flooding them in the holds of old barges have been published and documented.
Suppose that in order to destroy all witnesses transporting prisoners and drowning them, a decision was made difficult to be implemented by one person to destroy all the guards and members of the ship’s crew together with the prisoners. But even the implementation of such a decision does not destroy dangerous witnesses. The Northern Sea Route in those years was no longer an ice desert at all. The many-month voyage was accompanied by repeated meetings with other ships, the periodic participation of icebreakers in the expedition. We pointed to a meeting of six ships on Cape Chelyuskin, a meeting with a large group of Chukchi. E. Belimov describes the repeated contacts of the Chelyuskin and Tansy teams, both before the death of Chelyuskin and after. For the destruction of witnesses, one would have to take equally drastic measures in relation to all the people who were or could be witnesses of the voyage of the second ship. Moreover, sending O.Yu. is not real from these positions. Schmidt, an old intellectual, a man with an impeccable reputation in the scientific world, for treatment in the United States immediately after evacuation from the ice. It is well known that the owners of secrets in no case had the opportunity to travel abroad, especially without reliable escort.
In 1932, a special expedition of the People’s Commissar was created in the structure of the NKVD. She served the Gulag, transporting people and goods from Vladivostok and Vanino to Kolyma and the mouth of the Lena. The flotilla totaled about a dozen ships. In one navigation, they did not have time to get to Lena and back, they wintered in the ice. Documents relating to the activities of the Special Expedition are stored in the closed funds of the NKVD. It is possible that there is information about the sunken ship. But they are hardly related to the Chelyuskin epic. The famous English researcher Robert Conquest devoted many years to studying the processes of violence against his own people in the USSR. Separate works are devoted to death camps in the Arctic and the transport of prisoners. He compiled a complete list of ships used to transport prisoners. Not a single Arctic flight in 1933 was on this list. The name of the ship “Pizhma” (“Pizhma” - “Tansy”) is missing.
The author looked at the set of the Los Angeles Times from the first page to the announcements for the period from February 1 to June 30, 1934. The search made it possible to find photographs of the Chelyuskin’s death, the coordinates of the sunken ship, a series of reports about the drifting ice camp, the stages of preparation and rescue of Chelyuskinites, about the participation of Americans in this, transportation and treatment of O. Schmidt. No other news was found in newspapers about other SOS signals from the Soviet Arctic or the finding of escaped prisoners. The only mention of radio signals related to prisoners is a note by a Trud correspondent from Kazan dating back to 2001. No such reports were found in foreign studies of the Soviet Arctic. Over the past 70 years, we are not aware of a single publication in the foreign press about prisoners who survived or died in 1934, who were in the northern seas at the same time as Chelyuskin.
Soviet leaders often applied the principle that the end justifies the means. In peacetime and wartime, turning people into camp dust was commonplace. On this side, sacrificing a mass of people for the development of the North would be commonplace. But with all the recognized cruelty of power in major endeavors, it was not stupid. To accomplish the same task, a simple solution catches your eye with greater benefit. With even greater fanfare, the passage of the Northern Sea Route in one navigation is announced not by one, but by two steamboats. Openly, legally, to the sounds of orchestras, as Belimov said, two ships proudly go along a given route. They are not afraid of witnesses and meetings with other ships. Only the “stuffing” of one of the ships remains a mystery: instead of wood, food and coal reserves, living building material is hidden in the holds. There is no disappearance of the newly built ship, there are not many problems ... It is hard to imagine that the arbiters of fate chose such a more vulnerable option than was possible. All this suggests that these problems were not, because the expedition did not have a second ship. The above information from the archives of a shipbuilder indicates that in 1933 only one Lena steamer was built for the USSR, renamed Chelyuskin before leaving for its only voyage. English Lloyd's registration books allow you to establish the presence of only this ship.
We were able to attract short-wavelengths to actively participate in the search. According to Belimov, a large group of classy amateur radio enthusiasts - shortwave workers were on Tansy, and they were assigned a significant role. The beginning of the 30s was a time of widespread enthusiasm for short-wave communications. Many hundreds and thousands of radio amateurs in the USSR and abroad received personal callsigns and went on the air. The establishment of a large number of connections was honorable; competitions were held among short-wavelengths. The proof of the establishment of two-way communication was the presence in the received information of the callsign belonging to the sender. References to the presence of distress signals from shortwaves that did not belong to Chelyuskin were given by third-party reporters after the publication of the version of Tansy. Each of them included details exactly repeating Belimov’s text. Famous Shortwave Georgy Chliyants (callsign UY5XE), author of the recently published book, Leafing through the Old<
Let us dwell on some less significant details of the story of E. Belimov, which are poorly consistent with reality. The apparent problem is associated with the name of the ship. The author points out that something like this was written on a small copper plate in English: "Chelyuskin" was launched on June 3, 1933. " The date fixed by the builder for launching the ship is March 11, 1933. When launching, the steamer had another name - “Lena”. No similar information is given at all about the second ship, although in essence it was Belimov’s essay that was needed. Apparently, things were not going well with mathematics at the philologist Belimov. This, in particular, is indicated by the following two episodes. He writes: "Five people took part in the meeting: four men and one woman." And right after that she says that Karina’s mother spoke, and Karina herself followed her. After the death of Chelyuskin, according to Belimov, Tansy turns out to be a new home for women and children: “On February 14 evening, snowmobiles rolled up to the starboard side of Tansy, first one and then the second. The doors swung open and children of all ages rained down from there. ” And this despite the fact that there were only two girls on the ship, one of which was less than 2 years old, and the second a few months.
The documentary essay, on the form of which the “Secret of the Chelyuskin Expedition” claims, requires accuracy in determining the characters. Belimov does not have a single person with a name, patronymic and last name. The protagonist of the essay, which uncovers the whole intrigue of the ghost ship, remains Yakov Samoilovich without a surname - a short, dense man with a round head, as is the case with mathematicians. It could be assumed that the author does not want to disclose incognito, but the essay was written in the 90s, and the author and his main character are in Israel. Therefore, objective grounds are not visible for this. At the same time, information about the connection between Yakov Samoilovich and Karina would be quite enough for the KGB (Ministry of Internal Affairs) to disclose incognito. In contrast, the captain of "Tansy" has only the last name Chechkin without a name or patronymic. An attempt in the Northern Fleet to find such a captain, who led the court in the 30s, failed.
Frank “literary” appears in a detailed account of conversations about Chelyuskin’s campaign against the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the leaders of the NKVD. In some episodes, the nature of the presentation of the material in The Secret of the Chelyuskin Expedition is similar to the case of making fake dollars with their own portrait of the manufacturer.
Chelyuskin Ibrahim Fakidov calls the Israeli version of "fiction." A graduate of the Faculty of Physics and Mechanics of the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, whose dean was academician Ioffe, remained at the institute as a research fellow. In 1933, I. Fakidov was invited to join the scientific expedition to Chelyuskin. Quickly nicknamed Chelyuskinites, as a sign of respect, they called the young physicist Faraday. In 2000, I.G. Fakidov was indignant: “This is some colossal misunderstanding! After all, if everything was true, I, being on the Chelyuskin, could not help but find out. I had close contact with everyone on the ship: I was a great friend of the captain and expedition chief, I knew every researcher and every sailor. "Two ships got into an alteration, and they break it to death with ice, but they don’t know each other - some kind of nonsense!” The last participant of the Chelyuskin expedition, Yekaterinburg professor Ibrahim Gafurovich Fakidov, who headed the laboratory of electrical phenomena at the Sverdlovsk Institute of Metal Physics, died on March 5, 2004.
Awarding Chelyuskintsev has several interesting features. They did not reward the expedition members for carrying out some tasks and scientific research, but the participants of the Schmidt camp, “for the exceptional courage, organization and discipline shown by the detachment of polar explorers in the ice of the Arctic Ocean at the time and after the death of the Chelyuskin steamer, which ensured the preservation of people's lives, safety of scientific materials and property of the expedition, which created the necessary conditions for assisting and saving them. ” The list does not contain eight participants and specialists who have gone all the hard way during extreme swimming and work, but who were not among the wintering people on the ice.
All participants in the Schmidt camp - from the expedition leader and the captain of the sunken ship to the carpenters and cleaners - were awarded the same way - the Order of the Red Star. Similarly, all pilots, initially included in the rescue team, were awarded the titles of Heroes of the Soviet Union, including Sigismund Levanevsky, who, due to the plane crash, did not directly participate in the rescue of the Chelyuskins. They did the same with the mechanics of the aircraft, having awarded them all with the Orders of Lenin. At the same time, the Sh-2 pilot and his mechanic, who provided aviation support for the entire sailing route and flew independently to the mainland, were awarded only as wintering participants.
In connection with the awarding of S. Levanevsky, it was suggested that he deliberately made a forced landing, so as not to allow the American mechanic Clyde Armstead to see the ship with prisoners. In this version, it becomes difficult to explain the participation in the flights of the second American mechanic Levari William almost at the same time together with Slepnev.
On the advice of one of the participants in the search, Ekaterina Kolomiets, who suggested that she had a clergyman on Pizhma, we contacted representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCOR) in the USA. We were unable to obtain additional information. A similar request was made by our correspondent in the circles of the Moscow Patriarchate - also with zero result.
The participation of E. Kolomiyets and her information are very typical for attempts to restore the truth from memories. In her first letter, she wrote: “In my family, the story of my great-grandfather, who was on Tansy at the time of his crash among political prisoners, was transmitted from generation to generation, he was an Orthodox priest, lived in Moscow and, according to him, was a high-ranking official. In 1933 he was repressed with his family. ” The concreteness of the information made it possible to hope for it as a guiding thread. However, in the future it turned out that the tradition contradicts the facts. Some time later, in response to our questions, the correspondent wrote: “I learned such a fact that my great-great-grandfather was familiar with Krenkel E.T. He often came to them in Kimry. And Nikolai Georgievich himself (the son of his great-grandfather), he is now 76 years old, worked all the time in a sailor on the Papanin’s protege. ” The legend was replaced by the truth of life, in which there was no place for either Chelyuskin or Tansy. Specifically, she herself admitted that these data are not related to Chelyuskin and Tansy. These are the problems of another family dragged into the maelstrom of Stalin's repressions.
Many people involved in the near-Cheluskinsk problems after the publication of the work of E.I. Belimova, we would like to find out serious issues in communicating with the author. I also made persistent attempts to find an opportunity to find out the correlation of literary fiction and fact directly from the author. No attempts to establish contact with the author E. Belimov over the years that have passed since the publication of his work have been crowned with success, which has been reflected in many sites and Internet forums. My appeals to the editor of Chronograph Sergey Shram, who was considered the first publisher of the material, and to the editorial office of the New Siberia weekly remained unanswered. Unfortunately, I can report that to find out the opinion of E.I. No one will succeed Belimov. According to his old colleagues, he died in Israel in 2002.
Verification of all the main provisions of the work of E. Belimov or the Israeli version, as some authors call it, is over. The facts and publications are examined, the recollections of witnesses are heard. This allows today to put an end to the investigation of the "secrets" of the Chelyuskin expedition. The presumption of innocence came to an end. In accordance with all the information known today, it can be argued that the version of "Tansy" is a literary fiction.
In modern conditions of greater openness, an attempt was made to find out if the families of the expedition members had any assumptions about the presence of any ship or barge with prisoners in the Chelyuskin drift zone. In the families of O.Yu. Schmidt and E.T. Krenkel unequivocally answered that such a version never arose. In addition to ice hummocks around the ship, neither in the last period of the voyage, nor during the drift of the camp, there was nothing and nobody - the ice desert.
We were not able to find any facts and information confirming the presence of a second steamboat sailing as part of the same expedition with Chelyuskin. I would like to quote Confucius: "It is difficult to look for a black cat in a dark room, especially if it is not there." We have done this hard work and testify responsibly: it was not there! There was no ship with prisoners as part of the Chelyuskin expedition. The Chelyuskin cargo and passenger ship, specially designed for sailing in ice, led by strong and courageous people, tried to solve the problem of laying the Northern Sea Route for non-icebreaking ships. The task was half a step away from the solution. But she didn’t give in. The risk of such penetration without icebreaker escort was so serious that no new attempts were made.
In conclusion, I want to express my deep gratitude for the responsiveness and participation, the desire to help Christian Mortensen, the director of the B&W Museum, Copenhagen, Anna Kovn, an employee of the Lloyd’s Register information department, Sergey Melnikoff, publisher and traveler, Alexey Mikhailov, director of the Russian Underwater Museum, T.E. Krenkel - son of a radio operator E.T. Krenkel, V.O. Schmidt - the son of the expedition leader O.Yu. Schmidt, short-wave Georgy Chliyants, Ekaterina Kolomiets, as well as many other correspondents who took part in the discussion and responded to difficult questions of Russian history.
Reviews
Of course, the history of the expedition of the huge steamboat that had just been made for colossal money and left on a polar night was falsified by the whim of Schmidt’s enthusiasm, and the history of the exploit of 28 Panfilov’s is overgrown with new historical details.
This is our time.
From the page of the author of Tansy ():
"Eduard Belimov was born in Siberia in the family of a historian in 1936. At the age of sixteen he completely lost his sight, but despite this he graduated with honors from the Novosibirsk Pedagogical Institute and received a philological education. For thirty-three years he taught German at the Novosibirsk Technical University and at the same time he was engaged in science: languages \u200b\u200band ethnography of small peoples of Siberia, Ph.D. in philology, made ten expeditions to the Far North.
10 expeditions being blind. Fiction of course!
PS. "The country has the greatest famine in history. 32-33. At the same time, the country spends a lot of money to order a non-standard and expensive ship. Which, in an incredible haste, neglecting all the proven methods of such trips, without really checking it, is driven into a very dubious sailing and it drowns.
The accident with human victims is called a disaster.
Schmidt is responsible. Could rest and not swim until the next navigation. . I would find excuse. In an extreme case, one bearded head would fly and would not risk a hundred lives.
The question is, what is the urgency and priority? Like other problems before the country, science and industry did not stand? I do not understand. There are only speculations.
Trying to pave the way to the DB, except for the Trans-Siberian Railway?
BAM was built for the same purpose, starting at 38.
Baked with Japan? No wonder the Koreans were evicted to Wed Asia is already at 37m.
Just do not say that the goal was to study the Arctic and the station on about. Wrangel with a nursing mother and baby, outhouse on the outskirts of the polar night and in a frantic wind.
February 13, 2012 marks the 78th anniversary of the moment the world flies around the news of the terrible shipwreck of the ship " Chelyuskin”, Which will later be called Soviet. The story of the courageous ship-hero will be told in schools, and the children will come up with a game " chelyuskin". It would seem that the details of the epic have long been known to everyone, but the history of our country is rewritten depending on the political situation, and we no longer believe that this or that event had a double bottom. This happened with the ship " Chelyuskin».
Over the past decades, a catastrophe in the Chukchi Sea has been shrouded in legends. The most daring of which is that the steamer Chelyuskin"Went into the Arctic not one, but accompanied by a double ship. According to legend, the icebreaker " Chelyuskin”Covered up a large ship, on which there were several thousand prisoners who were taken to mines to death penal servitude. The myth of o acquires all new details and details. What exactly is the Chelyuskin epic - the carefully hidden secret of the Gulag or political action, which was based on the great desire of the authorities to save the country's citizens who were held hostage.
Chelyuskin beginning
The Arctic for many countries was a tidbit, but in 1923 the Soviet government announced that all the lands in the Soviet sector of the Arctic belong to the USSR. Despite this, Norway has long claimed the land of Franz Joseph. The Northern Sea Route was the shortest route between the Eastern and Western borders of the USSR. According to the plan of the leader, caravans were supposed to move along the Northern Sea Route to the Far East, but this route had to be cut through the ice and equipped with weather and radio stations, ports and settlements.
In 1933, for the first time in one navigation on the Northern Sea Route, “ Sibiryakov", But the USSR had few such ships, and even those were foreign — bought for currency. In addition, ice cutters could take on board, very little cargo. Polar enthusiasts tried to prove to the whole world that simple ships can also pass through the ice, which, by the way, were also built abroad and bought for a lot of money, and this was at a time when the country was starving.
In the plan of the People’s Commissariat for 1933, the expedition from Leningrad to Vladivostok did not appear. Professor Otto Schmidt tried to prove the need for a through passage along the Northern Sea Route. Two months later, the ship was ready, it was called " Lena"And then renamed to" Chelyuskin". was built by order of the Soviet government in Denmark. It was for river and sea transportation. Moreover, the vessel did not make a single test voyage.
The captain of the ship Chelyuskin"Vladimir Voronin, a long-distance captain with extensive experience, was appointed. Arriving at the port of registry on July 11, 1933, Voronin examined the ship. What the captain saw greatly upset him: " ... The body kit is weak. The width of the Chelyuskin icebreaker is large. The zygomatic part will be heavily impacted, which will affect the strength of the hull. "Chelyuskin" - the vessel is unsuitable for this voyage ...". He was not the first to alert the ship. It turns out that the ship was not accepted by the commission of the People's Commissariat of Water. Later they chose to forget another fact. When the Chelyuskin was being built in Denmark, Peter Vizis watched the whole process, and he went to the ship as a captain, and Vladimir Voronin agreed to go to the Arctic only as a passenger.
In the Leningrad port, the ship was clearly overloaded. Part of the expedition was made by surveyors who traveled to Wrangel Island for the winter and most of the cargo, including logs for building houses “ Chelyuskin"Drove for them. It was assumed that the ship will accompany the icebreaker " Krasin", And the ice cutter" Fedor Lipke"Will meet" Chelyuskin»In the Chukchi Sea and will lead further. For them, Chelyuskin also carried 3,000 tons of coal. In addition, 500 tons of fresh water, cows and pigs were loaded onto the steamer; as a result, the vessel went 80 cm below the waterline. Otto Schmidt knew about this, but the development of the Arctic was of great importance.
July 16, 1933 on the embankment of Lieutenant Schmidt held a large rally. Leningraders escorted the miracle of Danish shipbuilding. Contingent on " Chelyuskin"Picked up international and motley. Kostyak was a close-knit team of Siberians - cameramen, journalists, artists, carpenters. Also on Chelyuskin”There were several women. Members of the expedition knew that they were going on a non-tourist trip. As soon as they left the port, the ship immediately found a malfunction - the bearings were overheated. Four days later, the ship arrived in Copenhagen, where it was repaired on the spot.
At this time, Captain Viziz, for some reason, left the port and did not return to his duties, and Vladimir Voronin, without waiting for a change, was forced to head the voyage. Through the Barents Sea Chelyuskin"Went to the Kara Sea, where it was the most difficult - ice. During the campaign, the weak steamer did not obey the helm. The team often inspected the hull from the inside, and the damaged areas were reinforced with wooden wedges.
On August 14, 1933, a leak formed at Cape Severny in the hold of Chelyuskin. Going ahead and breaking through the road " Krasin"Turned around and came to the rescue. The leak has been eliminated. On the same day, Otto Schmidt received a government telegram, and without reading it, he put it in his pocket, and told the radio operator Krenkel that we would not answer yet. He would have acted, while the fate of the Chelyuskin steamer would have looked differently written in a telegram. He will reveal the cards, but it will be too late to retreat.
Chelyuskin genuine photos of the ship
September 01, 1933 Otto Schmidt gathered everyone in the wardroom. The team fell silent. The head of the expedition spoke about the telegram received, which said that part of the crew and the expedition transferred to the icebreaker " Krasin", And the ship" Chelyuskin"Was ordered to return to Murmansk for repair. Schmidt asked the team about his readiness to move on, to which he received consent.
« Chelyuskin»Traveled safely ¾ in four months, breaking the Barents Sea, the Kara Sea, the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea. During this time, the team more than once had to unload on the ice. The ship was on the verge of collapse, but the danger receded and " Chelyuskin"Went on. When two miles left the icebreaker before the Bering Strait Krasin»Left with broken propellers for repairs. It was the same His Majesty’s case, but " Chelyuskin" bad luck. The steamboat unexpectedly shackled ice and carried north along the Chukchi Sea. In the cabins they talked about wintering, and the captain knew that the ship could not stand it. Nearby was an ice cutter " Fedor Lipke”, But Otto Schmidt refused his help, thereby missing a second chance to approach the ship. Steamboat hull Chelyuskin"Deeply rooted in the multimeter ice layer, and drifted through the expanses of the Chukchi Sea for another four months, until February 13, 1934.
death of Chelyuskin
Steamboat « Chelyuskin"Calmly drifted in the Chukchi Sea. The team did not sleep, as the ice broke at night and the hull creaked from compression, after which a crack formed. By morning, it had assumed monstrous proportions, even ice began to penetrate inside. Suddenly, a captain was called from the bridge, and he saw a huge, high ice wall. Hummocks moved straight onto the ship. For " Chelyuskin"A critical moment came, and the captain ordered the evacuation. There was no panic. Each was responsible for his own area of \u200b\u200bwork. The ship went under the water with tremors, as if writhed in dying convulsions. Boxes of canned goods, appliances, coal briquettes, sheets of plywood, bales with fur clothes, tents, bags of flour and sugar flew into the snow. Soon the ship went under the ice. It was getting dark fast, crew " Chelyuskin"I urgently set up tents for women and children, carpenters built a hut, cooks dismantled provisions and equipped a galley. Ernest Krenkel unsuccessfully fiddled with the radio station by the light of a lantern. Finally, he heard familiar callsigns, and the first radiogram about the death of the ship “immediately flew to Moscow” Chelyuskin».
chelyuskin epic
On February 14, 1934, the 17th Congress of the AUCPB ended its work in Moscow, at which many voted against Stalin. He will be called the congress of the executed, because most defiant leaders will end their lives in the basements of the Lubyanka. But then Stalin needed support. 103 people on the ice flooded like never before. The great combinator invented a brilliant move. Everyone instantly forgot about the true causes and prerequisites of the tragedy, and one question remained on the agenda - salvation chelyuskintsev. Immediately a government commission was created, headed by Kuybyshev. The whole world should have known that the USSR did not spare either the strength or the means to care for its citizens.
Press coverage of the Schmidt camp life can be safely called the forerunner of contemporary reality shows. The whole world watched as 103 people survive in the Far North. And in fact, none of the Chelyuskin residents felt doomed. People rallied into one continuous family, which helped each other physically and mentally. Schmidt lectured in a tent.
Moscow realized that the only salvation for people would be aviation, but an airfield was needed. A suitable ice floe was found a few kilometers from the camp. Every day, Chelyusky people came to clear the ice. This work was extremely hard. People worked in three shifts. In addition, the Chelyuskins had 13 times to find new ice floes with an area of \u200b\u200b40,000 square meters. m., because the wind often broke the ice.
the long-awaited salvation of the Chelyuskinites
After three weeks of drift, Lebedevsky’s plane landed on the ice, which only 28 times found shelter for the Chelyuskins. It is difficult to describe the joy they experienced. The first to export women and children. A few days later, seven pilots in difficult conditions, made flight after flight on an unexplored airway, because only 2-3 people could take it on board. While sent one by one chelyuskin, Otto Yulievich Schmidt seriously caught a cold, and fell ill with tuberculosis. Inflammation of the lungs could lead to the death of the great scientist, so Kuibyshev ordered him to immediately arrive in Moscow, and Bobrov was appointed head of the expedition.
Several thousand kilometers rescued Chelyuskintsy from the Far East to Moscow. At each station, people came running to greet national heroes. June 19, 1934 they were met by Moscow on Red Square. A rally and a festive demonstration took place in their honor. For the first time, seven pilots were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and all Chelyusky citizens received the Order of the Red Star.
Risky sailing on a steamer unsuitable for Arctic ice did much to develop the Northern Sea Route. Following the ship " Chelyuskin“Dozens of ships passed, and the coastline soon overgrown with ports and research stations. In addition, the Chelyuskins became the last citizens of a huge country, whose life the Soviet government took care of. After Kirov’s assassination, repressions began that destroyed hundreds of thousands of “political” ones, millions were taken away by the war, and our human life will no longer be above the interests of the state, although “ Chelyuskin"Brought the Soviet government not small political dividends.
The Northern Sea Route has become one of the symbols of Russia's achievements. A well-functioning, well-functioning track in the polar zone is really a full reason for pride. However, the path to atomic icebreakers and regular scheduled flights of today was not strewn with roses. The country had to fight for the Arctic with might and main.
The first trip through the Northern Route was completed by the Vilkitsky expedition in 1915. But the regularly operating transport artery was made later, in the Soviet era. It was during the experiments on the Northern Sea Route that one of the most dramatic stories happened: the disaster of the Chelyuskin steamer and the salvation of its crew.
North way
After the Civil War, the role of the Northern Sea Route only grew. The new authorities invested in the development of Siberia and its resources, in addition, the railways were in decline. Specialists of the tsarist era were involved in the construction of new polar stations, compiling navigations and maps, piloting ships with might and main. Fortunately, researchers could use the latest industrial era - icebreakers and aircraft for ice exploration.
At this stage, one of the main characters of the future epic, Otto Schmidt, came to the polar zone. This scientist came from Baltic Germans. Following the results of Civil, he did not leave - he explored the Pamir, and headed the department at the Physics and Mathematics Department of Moscow State University, and compiled the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.
When laying the Northern Sea Route, an obvious difficulty arose. The tasks in the Arctic were to be carried out by different drug commissariats, for each of which the Arctic was a deeply secondary area. Therefore, in 1932, a special department began its work - the Glavsevmorput under the leadership of Schmidt - with broad powers and a range of tasks. The department was immediately engaged in the organization of a network of sea and air transport, radio communications, the construction of all necessary infrastructure (ports, workshops, and so on), scientific research.
One of the key questions was how to make passing the Northern Sea Route the fastest. Sevmor frees itself from ice for too short, but the idea to slip all the way in one navigation did not leave the researchers. In addition, it was unclear how much ordinary steamboats — not icebreakers — could feel in the Arctic. Therefore, the newly created department quickly began to equip a new expedition.
The protagonist of the new campaign was to be the steamboat Chelyuskin. This ship was built in Denmark by order of the USSR, and its design was initially strengthened for sailing in the polar seas, although it was not a real icebreaker Chelyuskin. The main objective of Chelyuskin was a breakthrough from Murmansk to Vladivostok. It was required to work out the transition, to establish interaction with icebreakers. Finally, the crossing also had a narrowly practical goal - to change the wintering team on Wrangel Island, who had been sitting there for years without any problems.
The experience of trying to break through Sevmor in one fell swoop was already there, but you cannot call it positive. In 1932, the Sibiryakov steamer sailed from Arkhangelsk to the Chukchi Sea, crashed and lost its propeller. Then the team was able to get out of the situation in an original way: by installing home-made canvas sails.
The most prepared part of the Chelyuskin team was composed of veterans of the Sibiryakov campaign, including Schmidt himself. The captain of Chelyuskin Vladimir Voronin used to go to Sibiryakov. This sailor from the Arctic has not crawled out at all since 1916. Another old polar explorer was Ernst Krenkel, who wintered on Novaya Zemlya and also flew on the German airship “Count Zeppelin” as part of the Soviet-German scientific program.
In addition to the sailors themselves, there were personnel for the base on Wrangel Island — some with wives and children, builders, scientists (from surveyors to zoologists) and journalists. In addition, a seaplane with an experienced polar explorer Mikhail Babushkin was loaded on board.
True, there was little time to prepare the flight. The crew of Chelyuskin was pressed not only by the problems of the station on the Wrangel lost in the polar wilderness, but also by storming, when they demanded to give the result as soon as possible. Therefore, it was out of the question to better prepare the ship and go on the road to the next navigation. August 2, 1933 "Chelyuskin" left Murmansk and went to Vladivostok.
The Arctic is a harsh mistress
Troubles began back in the Kara Sea. A small leak opened in the hold. “Chelyuskin” coped well with fragile ice, the damage was not heavy, but what happened did not add confidence in the future.
By early September, Chelyuskin went into open water, but instead of ramming the ship’s ice, they had to overcome the cruel rolling. Meanwhile, the time for landing on Wrangel Island was approaching. However, this task could not be solved: Voronin, who had already mastered aerial reconnaissance, flew along with Babushkin’s route and made the obvious conclusion: the ice is too dense to pass. "Chelyuskin" sent straight to the Bering Strait.
However, the Chukchi Sea is filled with ice. In mid-September, Chelyuskin made its way through hummocks. The ice around the ship was being compressed. The speed dropped to several hundred meters per day. On the 20th of September, the ship freezes in the Kolyuchinsky Bay, sandwiched by ice.
Once at the devil's horns in dense ice, Schmidt and Voronin did not lose their heads. To begin with, they tried to blow up the ice around the Chelyuskin. However, with the same success, one could try to blow up the moon. Ammonal left only small craters on the ice.
"Chelyuskin" was freed from the ice ... and October 16 again fell into the trap. The screw is frozen. The ice drifted and dragged the doomed ship back, then the winds changed - the Chelyuskin shook in circles. The Litke icebreaker tried to get help from Chelyuskin, but the ice situation worsened day by day: attempts to break through the icebreaker to Chelyuskin quickly became dangerous for the rescuers themselves, and the operation was canceled. "Chelyuskin" finally wiped out one and a half hundred miles from the nearest shore.
At "Chelyuskin" introduced austerity mode. Coal production was reduced, handicraft stoves were built, powered by engine oil and waste. Nevertheless, the temperature in the cabins dropped to 10 degrees. Food and warm clothes were unloaded on the ice in case of sudden death of the ship. Had to wait for July next year.
However, July Chelyuskin did not wait. February 13, 1934 on the "Chelyuskin" suffered a huge ice field. The eight-meter mountain of ice moved like a living one.
Schmidt and Voronin immediately ordered the unloading of people and everything that was necessary for survival from the ship. Work was still going on when the ice floe pressed on the port side and began to destroy Chelyuskin. At first, the surface of the ship collapsed, but then the ice broke a hole below the waterline. Water went into the engine room. Only a few hours were left to unload the Chelyuskin, but they were used properly. The crew endured everything that could come in handy to complete the wintering. Decisions were made quickly, commands were carried out, the condition of the ship was clearly monitored. At 15:50, “Chelyuskin” fell on his nose and went under the ice. One man died - the manager Boris Mogilevich, unsuccessfully hit by a broken barrel and thrown to the deck when the team left Chelyuskin. Another 104 people took to the ice.
Help from heaven
They managed to save quite a lot of property - they even brought out cinema equipment and utensils. However, now it was necessary to set up camp from scratch in severe frost. Tents were hastily set up on ice. There would be no happiness - misfortune helped: neither builders nor building materials got to the Wrangel Island. But now engineers and workers began to build a galley and a hut. The walls were upholstered in tents, the floors were made of improvised materials, craftsmen made handicrafts, in a word, they got serious.
Lucky for those who are lucky: thanks to prompt, clear-cut actions during the disaster, they managed to save quite a decent amount of provisions, from canned food and rice to fresh pork, chocolate, condensed milk and cocoa. Stocks were transferred to the supply manager, and all surplus warm clothes were handed over to him, not excluding Schmidt.
At this time, radio operators under the command of Krenkel, with great works, restored radio communication with the ground. The antenna was bent in the wind, the receiver had to be repaired with bare hands. The first thing they managed to catch on the recovered walkie-talkie was ... foxtrot. Soon Krenkel drove into other tents those who spent the night near the walkie-talkie and set up a full-fledged radio center. Soon managed to contact the polar station Uelen. Schmidt described the situation - without panic, but without embellishment of his position.
Moscow reacted quickly to the misfortunes of the Chelyuskinites. The special commission to save people was led by Valerian Kuybyshev, one of the highest dignitaries of the state. Meanwhile, the rescue operation presented such difficulties that they did not know before. The USSR had the experience of evacuating distressed polar explorers.
The rescuers themselves provided tremendous help to future rescuers. Schmidt and Voronin initially proceeded from the fact that it was necessary to make life easier for pilots, and sent people to clear the runway. Piles of ice and pieces of ice standing on the edge were cleaned by hand at a suitable site a few kilometers from the camp. The result was a runway 600 meters long, and when the ice crushed it, the construction of new ones began - all in all, the Chelyusky residents built four (!) Runways.
Both Schmidt and Voronin on ice and the members of the commission in Moscow worked on the idea of \u200b\u200bmaking their way to salvation on their own. She had to be discarded: too many people demanded too much load for life support: they themselves simply would not have carried away all the necessary property by hummocks.
On March 5, in the forty-degree frost, the first ANT-4 aircraft, under the command of the pilot Anatoly Lyapidevsky, flew from Uelen to Chelyuskin. Soon the smoke was detected from the air - these were the people of Schmidt who gave signals. To the cries of joy below, Lyapidevsky’s car landed at the “airfield”. The order was strictly followed: the first to take away women and two little girls.
Lyapidevsky brought to the polar explorers crowbars, picks, shovels, batteries and fresh deer carcass. The aviator had to start with great accuracy from the ice - outside the homemade Chelyuskin “runway” ropaks stuck out, which in a collision would simply destroy the plane with everyone who was on it. However, everything went well.
The beginning of salvation was laid, but on the same night the trouble with the hut almost happened: a crack formed in the ice that divided it in two. People jumped out who was what - they had to go up to the tents.
Lyapidevsky no longer flew to the Chelyuskin camp - his car crashed nine days later. Everyone remained alive, but he left the rescue operation. However, by this time several aircraft had arrived at the scene at once. It is interesting that the Americans helped the Russians in this: they provided two planes and airfields in Alaska as an additional base, moreover, American mechanics were included in the crews of the transferred planes for maintenance.
Salvation was approaching - on April 7, three planes arrived at once on the ice. Earned a real air bridge. The first to take out the patients. Schmidt himself fell seriously ill, but flew away one of the last. On April 12, only six people remained on the ice, including Captain Voronin and radio operator Krenkel. On April 13, the last inhabitants of the ice camp were evacuated at the site of the death of the Chelyuskin steamboat.
The survivors were met as heroes. The catastrophe catastrophe paled in comparison with the brilliant struggle of the crew for their own survival and rescue operation.
Schmidt was returning through America. In the USA he was introduced to President Roosevelt, and the world press was not tired of singing the polar explorer, comparing it with Amundsen. Schmidt and the rest got a standing ovation at home.
Chelyuskin’s voyage, despite the ship’s catastrophe, gave a great experience in the Arctic, and related to navigation and the organization of aviation in the Arctic. For most participants in this epic, fate smiled. Schmidt continued the work of a scientist, and died many years later. Seven pilots who saved the Chelyuskinites from the ice became the heroes of the Soviet Union, Lyapidevsky in general became the first to be awarded this title. Orders were awarded to all adult wintering participants and the technical personnel involved in the operation, including two Americans.
In addition to the tragic accident that resulted in the death of one of the polar explorers, the crew rescued, it would seem, almost routine. But behind this external simplicity lies just the brilliant work and steel self-control of the expedition leadership.
The history of the Chelyuskin steamboat, its first and last voyage is well studied literally by the day. The steamer Lena (later Chelyuskin) was launched on March 11, 1933 in Copenhagen. July 16 "Chelyuskin" left Leningrad to Murmansk. Taking on board 112 people, on August 2, the ship left Murmansk in Vladivostok, working out a scheme for delivering goods along the Northern Sea Route in one navigation.
Captain Vladimir Voronin commanded the steamboat; on board was also the head of the Glavsevmorput and expedition Otto Schmidt. September 23 "Chelyuskin" was completely obliterated by ice. The drift lasted almost 5 months. November 4, along with the ice Chelyuskin entered the Bering Strait. There were several kilometers to clear water, but the ship was carried back by ice. On February 13, 1934, as a result of severe compression, the Chelyuskin was crushed by ice and sank for two hours. As a result of the disaster, 104 people were found on ice (1 person died). On February 15, a special commission for the rescue of Chelyuskin residents was formed in Moscow, headed by Valerian Kuybyshev. On March 5, pilot Anatoly Lyapidevsky made his way to the camp on the ANT-4 plane and removed ten women and two children from the ice. The last flight was on April 13, 1934. All crew members of the Chelyuskin steamer were rescued.
How did Chelyuskin manage to cope with the task? In fact, the flight ended in tragedy. An expensive steamer just bought abroad was flooded. The cargo has not been delivered to its destination. Navigation along the Northern Sea Route in one navigation has not been completed. Huge resources have been spent to save people.
But, on the other hand, the Chelyuskin transition showed the whole world the seriousness of the USSR’s claims to the Arctic. Since the ship was sent, this voyage has been given not only important economic, but also ideological significance. After passing the Northern Sea Route in 1932 for one navigation on the Alexander Sibiryakov icebreaker, the leadership of the Main Northern Sea Route was faced with the task of proving the possibility of navigation in high latitudes of an ordinary ship without additional ice protection. The belief that it was possible was so great that the Chelyuskin steamer was loaded above the norm, and the pregnant wife of one of the crew members was among the crew.
The catastrophe that happened with the ship in the ice of the Chukchi Sea, could become one of the great tragedies in the history of navigation, but became a triumph of the USSR. In many ways, the adventurous idea with the Chelyuskin transition demonstrated to the whole world that the USSR is actively working in the Arctic, that when developing the Arctic, the country is ready to take on any financial costs. And besides, a separate heroic story of the rescue of Chelyuskin residents by Soviet aviation demonstrated to the whole world the possibility of flying at high latitudes on not very technically advanced aircraft.
Despite the loud celebration and celebrations on the occasion of the return of the Chelyuskinites, the correct conclusions on the issues of shipping in the Arctic were made by the leadership of the country and the Central High Sea Route. From now on, all vessels operating in the Arctic were equipped with additional ice protection and operated with the help of icebreakers. Along the entire route of the Northern Sea Route, navigation and technical infrastructure began to be created. Separately, the North Pole project of research stations on drifting ice floes was launched.
The significance and importance of the development of the Northern Sea Route was confirmed by the Great Patriotic War. The Northern Sea Route has become an important transport route between the Far East and the European part of Russia. The warships of the Pacific Fleet in the Barents Sea were posted along it. It was along the Northern Sea Route that there was a large flow of economic and military traffic. Coal, nickel, copper, timber, consumer goods were uninterruptedly delivered along this sea route.
Work in the north in extremely difficult circumstances is a challenge not only to man, but also a challenge to the viability of the state. As the experience of “self-elimination” of our country's leadership from the problems of the development of the northern territories at the beginning of the 90s of the XX century has shown, the vacuum of state will is very quickly filled and not always friendly by neighboring states.
1. The first heroes.
2. Map of the expedition of the expedition O. Yu. Schmidt on the ship Chelyuskin.
3. Mikhail Nesterov. Portrait of Otto Yulievich Schmidt. 1937.
4. Steamboat Chelyuskin.
5. Speech by Schmidt before sailing. 1933.
6. Steamboat "Chelyuskin" at the pier.
7. Pipes "Chelyuskin".
8. "Chelyuskin" goes on a journey.
10. Schmidt and captain Chelyuskin Vladimir Voronin.
11. Residents of Copenhagen welcome the arrival of Chelyuskin.
12. "Chelyuskin" sailing from the port.
14. In the East Siberian Sea.
15. Repair of the bow.
16. The storm.
17. Floating ice.
21. Advancing through an ice field.
22. "Chelyuskin" in the ice.
23. Taking pictures on ice.
24. Fedor Reshetnikov. The death of Chelyuskin.
25. The first night at the Schmidt camp.
26. Camp Chelyuskintsev.
27. At the flag.
28. Cracks in the ice.
29. Otto Yulievich Schmidt in a camp after the crash of Chelyuskin.
30. The whaleboat from the Chelyuskin surfaced at the site of death in February 1934.
31. Tent.
32. Signal tower.
33. A burning barrel with fuel oil as a signal light for aircraft.
35. Polar aircraft participating in the operation to rescue Chelyuskintsev.
36. Aircraft on ice.
37. Chelyuskintsy at the plane.
38. The great polar explorer Otto Schmidt.
39. Ernst Krenkel, senior radio operator of the expedition.
40. Georgy Ushakov, authorized by the government commission to save the Chelyuskinites.
41. Pilots - the first Heroes of the Soviet Union, participants in the rescue of Chelyuskinites. Photo collage.
42. Pilots - the first Heroes of the Soviet Union, participants in the rescue of Chelyuskinites.
43. Pilots - the first Heroes of the Soviet Union, participants in the rescue of Chelyuskinites.
44. Pilots - the first Heroes of the Soviet Union, participants in the rescue of Chelyuskinites.
45. The first Hero of the Soviet Union Anatoly Lyapidevsky.
46. \u200b\u200bVasily Molokov.
47. Ivan Doronin.
48. Mauritius Slepnev.
49. Mikhail Vodopyanov.
50. Mikhail Vodopyanov (right).
51. Nikolai Kamanin.
52. Pilots Nikolai Kamanin and Boris Pivenshtein.
53. Sigismund Levanevsky.
54. Fyodor Kukanov, commander of the Chukotka air group to rescue Chelyuskintsev.
55. Alexander Svetogorov, border guard pilot, participant in the rescue of the Chelyuskintsev.
56. On board the ship “Smolensk” at the end of the operation to rescue Chelyuskintsev.
57. Meeting Chelyuskinites in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.
60. The journal "Change" №4 1934.
61. Moscow meets the heroes.
62. On the streets of Moscow.
63. Moscow meets Chelyuskintsev.
64. Solemn meeting at the station. Schmidt, Nikolai Kamanin, Sigismund Levanevsky.
65. Meeting Chelyuskintsev in Red Square.
67. Chelyuskintsy on Red Square.
68. O.Yu. Schmidt and I.V. Stalin.
69. Chelyuskintsy along with the leadership on the podium of the Mausoleum of Lenin. USSR. 1934.
70. Chelyuskintsy along with the leadership of the USSR on the podium of the Lenin Mausoleum.
71. Vasily Molokov and Otto Schmidt.
72. Ivan Papanin, Otto Schmidt and Mikhail Vodopyanov. 1938.
73. A poster about the salvation of the Chelyuskin crew. 1934.
74. Chelyuskintsy. Photo collage. 1934.
75. A book written by pilots who saved the Chelyuskinites. 1934.