The northern Russian expeditions of 1912 under the leadership of V. A. Rusanov, G. L. Brusilov, G. Ya. Sedov, despite all their tragedy and incompleteness, made a significant scientific contribution to the study of the Arctic. But unlike the private expeditions of G. Ya. Sedov and GL Brusilov, the expedition of Vladimir Aleksandrovich Rusanov to Spitsbergen was official, organized with the approval of the government and with public funds. Its main purpose was to study the coal resources of Spitsbergen and prepare a Russian enterprise there ...
Mysteries of Russian History / Nikolai Nepomniachtchi. - M .: Veche, 2012.
Vladimir Alexandrovich Rusanov. Photo of the 1900s.
Rusanov was born in 1875 in the city of Oryol into a merchant family. His father died when Rusanov was still a child. Rusanov's mother, despite financial difficulties, decided to give her son a good education and arranged for him in the best educational institution in the city - a classical gymnasium. However, he studied poorly.
Rusanov's lively mind and spontaneity were at odds with the dry and dogmatic methods of teaching the state school. He was fond of reading books describing adventures and travel, country walks, from which he returned with pockets full of all kinds of stones - his first "geological collections".
In the spring of 1897 Rusanov entered the natural faculty of Kiev University as a volunteer. His studies did not last long: noticed in student riots, he was deprived of the right to attend lectures and sent to Oryol. Since then, the police have constantly pursued Rusanov. On September 4, he was arrested in connection with the Workers' Union case.
In May 1901, on the basis of the "highest decree", he was exiled for two years to the city of Ust-Usolsk in the Vologda province. In Ust-Usolsk Rusanov entered the zemstvo council as a statistician. This work, in addition to his livelihood, allowed him to explore the vast and almost unexplored Pechora region.
In an effort to complete his education, Rusanov persistently sought permission to go abroad. In the fall of 1903, he left for Paris, where he entered the Sorbonne University in the natural sciences.
The brilliant completion of the theoretical course in 1907 gave him the right to defend his doctoral dissertation. In an effort to benefit his homeland, Rusanov decided to collect material for a dissertation on Novaya Zemlya, the geology of which was almost unexplored, and minerals were not explored.
In the spring of 1907 V.A.Rusanov returned to Russia. When Rusanov arrived in Arkhangelsk, he, to his surprise, received all possible assistance from the local authorities in preparing an expedition to Novaya Zemlya. This was explained by the fact that the Norwegians ruled with impunity on Novaya Zemlya, and the Arkhangelsk governor saw in Rusanov's expedition one of the measures directed against poaching.
In Arkhangelsk, Rusanov was joined by a student-zoologist of Kharkov University L.A. Molchanov, with whom he arrived in mid-July on a regular steamer to the western mouth of the Matochkin Shar Strait. From here, accompanied by a Nenets guide, they sailed along the strait to the Kara Sea and back on an ordinary Nenets karbas.
Rusanov's research on Novaya Zemlya, carried out independently and on his own initiative, was highly appreciated by the professors of the Sorbonne. Therefore, when a geologist was required for the French expedition to Novaya Zemlya in the spring of 1908, Rusanov was unanimously elected from among many candidates. He gladly accepted this offer, which allowed him to continue his research in the geology of Novaya Zemlya. Rusanov with three members of the expedition went by steamer to the Matochkin Shar camp, then on the Nenets karbas passed through the strait into the Kara Sea and climbed along the coast to the north to the Unknown Bay. While exploring this bay, Rusanov made an interesting discovery: on a small peninsula, he discovered previously unknown fossil organisms.
Continuing his journey, Rusanov made the first ever land voyage across Novaya Zemlya, he crossed it from the Unknown Bay to the Krestovaya Bay on the western side of the island. It should be noted that only one Rusanov reached the Barents Sea, the rest of the travelers, unable to withstand the difficulties of the way, fell behind.
In September, the expedition completed its work, and Rusanov arrived in Arkhangelsk, then wrote a scientific report on his research in 1907 and 1908.
This expedition brought Rusanov fame as a talented geologist and brave explorer. Therefore, when the Arkhangelsk authorities began to prepare an expedition to Novaya Zemlya, they invited Rusanov to take part in it as a geologist. It was officially headed by Yu. V. Kramer, but in fact the expedition worked according to the program drawn up by Rusanov and under his leadership. On July 9, the steamer landed Rusanov and his companions at Krestovaya Bay, where the main base of the expedition was organized.
The weather was not conducive to research. In addition, while unloading the steamer, Rusanov severely injured his leg. However, despite all this, he daily went into the interior of the island. Many minerals have been discovered on the island, including coal, marble, diabase and slate.
Rusanov, rightly assuming that Novaya Zemlya should eventually become one of the nodal bases serving the Northern Sea Route, considered it necessary to find out the sailing conditions along the western coast of the island, which, in his opinion, would be an integral part of the Transarctic route. To this end, together with two guides, he made a bold sea voyage on a fragile boat from Krestovaya Bay to the Admiralty Peninsula. In the fall, returning to Arkhangelsk, he delivered a number of lectures, reports and articles that attracted public attention to the Arctic. He was especially worried about the fate of Novaya Zemlya. “A sad picture on Russian soil,” wrote Rusanov. “Where once our brave Russian Pomors were fishing for centuries, now Norwegians live quietly and easily get rich.”
In the spring of 1910 he was again invited to the Novaya Zemlya expedition, but this time as its head. Absorbed by the problems of the Northern Sea Route, Rusanov in the article "Is it possible to urgently navigate between Arkhangelsk and Siberia through the Arctic Ocean?" outlined a plan for through navigation. “Until now,” he wrote, “with unshakable and incomprehensible stubbornness they are trying to go to Siberia ... perhaps farther south: through the Yugorsk Shar, through the Kara Gates, in more rare cases through Matochkin Shar. I suggest just the opposite. I propose to go around Novaya Zemlya as far north as possible ... ".
Below he continues: “It should be borne in mind that the direction of the currents of the northern part of Novaya Zemlya is still unexplored and that my assumptions on this score are hypothetical. That is why the clarification of this fundamental question, in my opinion, should be the most important task of the Novaya Zemlya expedition in 1910. This expedition will have to finally clarify the question of how convenient the trade route I propose to Siberia is ”.
The expedition vessel "Dmitry Solunsky" under the command of the famous polar captain GI Pospelov left Arkhangelsk on July 12, having on board five scientific workers and ten crew members.
On July 20, the Dmitry Solunsky safely reached the western mouth of the Matochkin Shara, where the Nenets Ilya Vylka, an excellent connoisseur of polar ice, was taken aboard the ship, who rendered Rusanov invaluable assistance on the previous expedition. On August 16, the ship reached the extreme northern point of Novaya Zemlya - Cape Zhelaniya, having rounded it and encountered floating ice.
As the Dmitry Solunsky moved to the south, the edge of solid ice, stretched from northeast to southwest, approached the coast more and more and at the Ice Harbor closed with it, blocking its further path. Attempts to go around the ice from the northeast ended unsuccessfully, and on the evening of August 19 the ship returned to Cape Zhelaniya, where they anchored and decided to wait for changes in the ice situation.
The storm that broke out at night drove the masses of ice from the Barents Sea, and by the morning "Dmitry Solunsky" was in ice captivity. Ice fields, constantly hummocking, stepped on the ship and every minute threatened to crush it. Using the small, now opening, now closed waterways, stretching under the coast, "Dmitry Solunsky" began to make its way to the east. Soon, the openings began to increase and turned into a wide coastal channel, opening the way to the south. Twelve days later, the ship approached the eastern entrance to Matochkin Shar, and on August 31 entered the Barents Sea, thus making a detour around the entire northern island of Novaya Zemlya.
This outstanding voyage brought Rusanov well-deserved fame.
The research carried out by the expedition far surpassed everything that had been done in the area before it, significantly expanded the knowledge of Novaya Zemlya and the hydrological regime of the waters washing it.
By this time, the publication of one of the most significant works of Rusanov, modestly entitled "On the question of the Northern Sea Route", belongs.
Rusanov again spent the winter in Paris, working hard on his doctoral dissertation, and in the summer of 1911 he went to Novaya Zemlya for the fourth time. On this expedition, on the motor-sailing yacht Polyarnaya, with a displacement of only five tons, he finally sailed around the southern island of Novaya Zemlya. The expedition to "Polyarnaya" devoted its main attention to hydrographic and meteorological research. Much has been done especially to study the surface currents of the Barents and Kara Seas.
Then Rusanov was appointed head of the expedition to Spitsbergen. His travels, without fail, and his ever-growing authority served as the best guarantee of the expedition's success.
This expedition was, in comparison with the other two, well equipped, in Norway they bought a motor-sailing ship "Hercules" for it, in Paris - instruments and instruments. The captain of the "Hercules" was 24-year-old A. S. Kuchin, a hereditary Pomor, who graduated in 1909 with honors and a gold medal from the Arkhangelsk Trade and Naval School, a member of Amundsen's expedition to Antarctica in 1910-1911, who showed great abilities in science was an assistant to the famous Norwegian oceanographer Helland-Hansen.
On July 9, 1912, the Hercules left Aleksandrovsk-on-Murman with fourteen members of the expedition on board.
July 16 "Hercules" safely reached the island of West Spitsbergen and entered Belsund Bay, located on the western side of the island. From here Rusanov, together with two sailors, walked on foot to the eastern coast of West Spitsbergen and back. This transition, made in a mountainous area covered with a glacier, almost ended in the death of Rusanov: on the way back, he fell into an ice crack and only by some miracle lingered on a small ledge at the edge of a deep abyss.
From Bedzund, "Hercules" moved to Icefjord, and then to Adventby. Having explored the entire western coast of the island, Rusanov discovered rich coal deposits.
By the beginning of August, the expedition completed the official program: twenty-eight application marks, supplied by Rusanov, secured for Russia the right to develop coal in Spitsbergen.
In addition, paleontological, zoological and botanical collections were collected, and oceanographic research was carried out during the voyage to Svalbard and its coastal waters.
Having sent three people from Spitsbergen to Russia with a passing Norwegian steamer, Rusanov went to Novaya Zemlya. On August 18, in Matochkin Ball, he left a telegram to be sent to the mainland as follows: “South of Spitsbergen, Island of Hope. Surrounded by ice, doing hydrography. By storm they were carried south of Matochkin Shara. I go to the northwestern tip of Novaya Zemlya, from there to the east. If the ship dies, I will head to the nearest islands along the way: Solitude, Novosibirsk, Wrangel. Stocks for a year. Everyone is healthy. Rusanov ". Apparently, the particle was missing in the telegram. One should read "If he does not perish", which essentially follows from the further text.
This telegram, revealing Rusanov's plan, was the last news received from the Hercules.
Where and under what circumstances Rusanov's expedition died, it was not possible to find out. Searches for it, carried out in 1914 and 1915 at the initiative of the Russian Geographical Society, yielded nothing. Only in 1934, on an unnamed island (now the island of Hercules), located near the coast of Khariton Laptev, a pillar was discovered, dug into the ground, on which the inscription “HERCULES. 1913 ". In the same year, on another island (now the island of Popov-Chukchin, named after the members of the Rusanov expedition), located in the skerries of Minin, the remains of clothing, cartridges, a compass, a camera, a hunting knife and other things belonging to the participants of the expedition on the "Hercules" were found ...
After careful searches, not far from these items, a seamanship book of the sailor "Hercules" AS Chukchin and a silver watch with the initials of VG Popov, also a sailor of the "Hercules", and a certificate issued in his name were found.
Judging by these findings, it can be assumed that extremely unfavorable ice conditions in 1912 forced the Hercules to winter somewhere in the northern part of Novaya Zemlya, and the next year Rusanov, apparently, reached Severnaya Zemlya. This assumption is also supported by traces of someone's camp, discovered in 1947 in Akhmatov Bay on the northeastern coast of Bolshevik Island (Severnaya Zemlya). In all likelihood, these are traces of Rusanov's expedition.
The untimely deceased Vladimir Aleksandrovich Rusanov left an indelible mark on the history of Arctic exploration.
A bay on the eastern coast of Novaya Zemlya, a peninsula on the southern coast, a strait between the island and this coast, a bay on the same coast, a fishing camp in this bay and a mountain on the coast of the bay are named after him.
IN THE WAKE OF RUSANOV'S EXPEDITION
Nikolai Nepomniachtchi - 100 Great Mysteries of the 20th Century ...
In 1912, the polar explorer Vladimir Rusanov, already well-known at that time, decided to make a daring attempt to sail on a small boat along the Northern Sea Route from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Rusanov's expedition disappeared, and only in 1934 the first traces of it were discovered off the western coast of Taimyr. In the 1970s, they managed to find another site of the Rusanovites, but the circumstances of the tragic death of the expedition still remain a mystery.
In the summer of 1912, three Russian expeditions set out to explore the expanses of the Arctic at once: G.L.Brusilova, V.A.Rusanova and G. Ya. Sedov. None of the polar explorers then knew that the winter of 1912/13 would be very harsh and that only Sedov's group and two members of Brusilov's team would be able to return ...
Vladimir Rusanov was born in 1875 in the city of Oryol, in the family of a merchant of the II guild. From 1908 to 1911, he took part in expeditions to Novaya Zemlya, traveled hundreds of kilometers across uncharted lands, discovering new bays, bays, glaciers, lakes and islands that still bear the names given to them.
In February 1912, Vladimir Rusanov was instructed to lead an expedition to the islands of the Spitsbergen archipelago. In Norway, a motor-sailing vessel "Hercules" was purchased for her. This ship had already been tested in the ice, was sailing well, and had good maneuverability.
Rusanov offered to take part in the voyage to Captain Alexander Kuchin, whom he met at one time in Arkhangelsk. He answered with consent. Kuchin was a hereditary Pomor, participated in Amundsen's Antarctic expedition to the South Pole and, despite his youth, was considered an experienced sailor. Rusanov took his fiancée, Frenchwoman Juliette Jean, whom he had known for 5 years as a doctor on the expedition.
On July 3, the travelers saw the shores of Svalbard. Research work was successful. Coal deposits were discovered, a map of minerals was compiled, and a wealth of scientific material was collected. In early August, Rusanov sent on one of the steamers he met three members of the expedition - Samoilovich, Svatosh and Popov. With them, he handed over to the Russian Geographical Society a report on the work done, zoological and geological collections.
As Samoilovich recalled, he poorly understood Rusanov's further intentions. It seemed to him that he was going to go to New Earth, and then act according to the circumstances. From the letter of the sailor Vasily Cheremkhin and the memories of father Kuchin, it becomes obvious that Rusanov, even before the start of the expedition, after examining Spitsbergen, intended to go east, to the Kara Sea. That is why the maximum amount of food and fuel was loaded on the ship.
On August 18, "Hercules" reached Matochkin Shara, where Rusanov left his last message: "I am going to the northwestern tip of Novaya Zemlya, from there to the east. If the ship dies, I'll head to the nearest islands along the way: Solitude, Novosibirsk, Wrangel. Stocks for a year. Everyone is healthy. Rusanov ".
The year 1913 has come. There was no news from all three expeditions that left for the Arctic - Rusanov, Brusilov and Sedov. The public and the Russian Geographical Society began to sound the alarm. But only in 1914 it was decided to organize rescue expeditions, and three ships and an aircraft went in search of Sedov, and only the Eclipse bark under the command of the Norwegian polar explorer Otto Sverdrup went to search for Brusilov and Rusanov. However, the Eclipse fell into an ice trap and hibernated before reaching Solitude Island. The search for Sedov's expedition ended in vain. But suddenly “St. Fock ”returned to his homeland, however, without his leader. On board were navigator Albanov and sailor Konrad from Brusilov's yacht, picked up on the way. On March 6, 1915, it was decided to provide assistance to Brusilov's expedition ("St. Anna" was never found), and the search for the Rusanovites on May 7, on the contrary, was stopped. Only thanks to public outcry, Sverdrup was instructed to continue the search in the summer of 1915. This time "Eclipse" reached the Island of Solitude, but no traces of Rusanov were found there ...
Only on September 9, 1934, off the western coast of Taimyr, on one of the islets in the skerries of Minin, topographer M. I. Tsyganyuk discovered traces of the Rusanovites: scraps of clothing and a backpack, cartridges of various calibers, a Kodak camera, Popov's personal watch and documents of sailors Popov and Chukhchin from expedition Rusanov.
After this finding, another topographer - A. I. Gusev - reported that a month earlier, on one of the islands in the Mona archipelago, he had seen a pillar lined with stones with the inscription "Hercules, 1913" carved on it. Unfortunately, no attempts were made then to find out the fate of the Rusanovites. Only new names of previously unnamed islands appeared on the map: one - Hercules, the other - Popov-Chukhchina island.
In 1935, new finds were made on Popov-Chukhchina Island: nail scissors, a comb, a penknife, iron spoons, cartridges, copper coins, compass, a fragment of the manuscript “V. A. Rusanov. On the issue of the northern route through the Siberian Sea. Many items were found in duplicate, for example, two mugs, two spoons ... Together with the documents of two sailors, this suggested that two members of the Hercules crew died here, possibly sent by Rusanov to the mainland with a report about wintering or with a request about help. However, when they examined the cartridges, it turned out that they were 10 different types, which implied the presence of at least six types of weapons. It became clear that the island was visited not only by two sailors, but, possibly, the entire team of "Hercules".
In the 1970s, the Komsomolskaya Pravda expedition led by Dmitry Shparo and Alexander Shumilov explored the coast of the Arctic Ocean from Dikson to Middendorf Bay for 8 years. On the island of Hercules, they managed to find a hook and fragments of a sled. On the island of Popov-Chukhchina - cartridges, buttons, a strip of leather with the inscription “Insurance company“ Russia ”” (where “Hercules” was insured) and a small anchor emblem, possibly from Kuchin's shoulder strap.
A lot of interesting things were found in the archives. It is known that in 1918 Roald Amundsen tried to cross the Arctic Ocean on a drifting ship. In 1919, he sent two sailors to Dixon to deliver the materials collected during the year. Both died. One of them did not reach Dikson, only 3 km away; his remains were found in 1922. For a long time it was believed that the second sailor died at Cape Perceptible - 400 km to the east. There, a rescue expedition sent in 1921 in search of missing Norwegians found the remains of a large fire, burnt bones, foreign cartridges, coins and many other items. However, in 1973 polar explorer N. Ya. Bolotnikov suggested that the Rusanovites' camp was located at Cape Perceptive. Now his hypothesis is considered proven: at this place were found a French coin, a button made in Paris, a spectacle frame (the Norwegians did not wear them, but the mechanic of "Hercules" Semyonov had such glasses).
Analyzing the finds and available information about the Rusanov expedition, Shparo and Shumilov suggested that the Hercules sailed into the Kara Sea in 1912 and hibernated at the end of September. In the spring of 1913, during a short toboggan trip, the Rusanovites visited the island of Hercules, where they erected a pillar with an inscription. Ahead was summer and the alleged release of the ship from the ice trap, so they did not leave any report in the pyramid at the base of the pillar. However, in the summer the ship did not manage to free itself, and for the second wintering there was no longer enough food and fuel. Probably in August the Rusanovites left the ship and headed for Cape Sterlegov. It was here in 1921 that sledges were discovered, obviously made on some kind of ship, as evidenced by the fastenings of copper ship pipes. Part of the team, apparently, moved on water, and part - on land. This is evidenced by a fire in the parking lot near the Mikhailov Peninsula. It was fired up in a high place, for which it was necessary to drag the fin from the scythe, although it was much easier to stop there for a halt. Probably, the fire played the role of a beacon - a signal for those who moved on the water. At that moment, the position of the Rusanovites, apparently, was not yet tragic: not the most important things were left here from the equipment.
On the island of Popov-Chukhchina something irreparable happened - it is difficult to imagine that people could throw out their own documents without good reason. What happened to the Hercules team? In 1988, in the magazine Around the World, V. Troitsky reported two curious letters, possibly related to the tragedy of the Rusanovites. One of them spoke about two mysterious graves in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Avam River on Pyasina, which were seen by nurse Korchagin in 1952. She managed to find out that even during the reign of the king, nomadic reindeer herders found a boat on the coast, next to which there were dead people. The reindeer herders buried the corpses under the stones, and then they found two or three more people from this group who managed to reach the Taghenar port, where they froze to death. The deceased were buried along with documents and manuscripts.
In another letter - LN Abramova - it was reported that in 1975 an old Dolgan showed her in the village. Novorybnoye on the banks of the Khatanga, two sagging graves, where, according to her, the Russians were buried - a pregnant woman and her husband, whom the Dolgan's parents brought back alive from somewhere from the tundra a long time ago. They died, and handwritten books, which were very dear to the dead, were placed in the graves with them.
V. Troitsky reported that an expedition was being prepared to check these letters. Alas, this expedition did not take place. Everything would be much simpler if, upon discovery in 1934 of the traces of Rusanov's expedition, large-scale searches were immediately carried out. Perhaps then it would be enough to interview local hunters and reindeer herders to find out about the fate of the missing polar explorers.
F. Perfilov's material
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Russian studies of the Arctic. V.A. Rusanov.
The "Eye of the Planet" editors received a proposal to act as an information platform for the preparation of an expedition organized under the auspices of the Russian Geographical Society to search for traces of the expedition of Vladimir Alexandrovich Rusanov.
The expedition is planned for the summer of 2014. The purpose of this publication is to draw attention to the topic and collect feedback from readers who may have been in those places themselves and have their own observations, or second-hand information about the presence in the designated area of \u200b\u200bsome material traces of finding people that could be associated with this expedition.
Vladimir Alexandrovich Rusanov
Detailed biography
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Rusanov is a prominent polar explorer of the early 20th century. His work was multifaceted; during his relatively short life, he showed himself as a brave revolutionary, an enthusiastic scientist and a fearless traveler.
Valentin Kaverin, author of "Two Captains", said that "of course, Rusanov" became the prototype of Captain Tatarinov.
Rusanov was born on November 3, 1875 in the city of Orel in a merchant family. His father died when Rusanov was six years old. Before his death, the father went bankrupt, leaving the widow with his son almost without any means of subsistence. Rusanov's mother, despite financial difficulties, decided to give her son a good education and arranged for him in the best educational institution in the city - a classical gymnasium. From an early age, Rusanov discovered an extraordinary passion for geology for learning new things, however, to the surprise of all friends and relatives, the boy was soon expelled for academic failure. The same thing happened after he entered the real school.
Neither persuasion nor punishment helped. Rusanov's lively mind and spontaneity were at odds with the dry and dogmatic methods of teaching the state school. He was fond of reading books describing adventures and travels, country walks, from which he returned with pockets full of all kinds of stones. These were his first "geological collections".
At the age of twelve, apparently, with the help of his stepfather, a teacher at the Oryol Seminary, he was placed in this educational institution. The successes of the young Rusanov in the theological seminary were also not brilliant, the "theological sciences" were especially hated by the teenager.
Dissatisfied with his studies, Rusanov became close to the revolutionary-minded youth. In 1894, as a nineteen-year-old youth, he joined an underground circle, which in 1896 became part of the Social Democratic "Workers' Union". Soon the young man became one of the most active members of the underground.
After graduating from the seminary in the spring of 1897, Rusanov entered the natural faculty of Kiev University as a volunteer. His studies did not last long: noticed in student riots, he was deprived of the right to attend lectures and was sent to Oryol. Since that time, the police have not stopped pursuing Rusanov. On September 4, he was arrested in connection with the Workers Union case. A maximalist and fighter for justice, the young man even ended up in the Oryol prison castle in November 1898. During a search they found brochures about an eight-hour working day. Subsequently, Rusanov was arrested three times, came under constant police surveillance, he was forbidden to leave Orel. In 1901, Vladimir found himself in exile in the Vologda province, in the city of Ust-Sysolskoe (now Syktyvkar). In the Oryol House-Museum V.A. Rusanov has a photograph dated 1902. A photograph was taken in Vologda; in addition to Rusanov, Berdyaev, Remizov, Lunocharsky, Boris Savinkov are captured on it. But interest in the almost wild surroundings and swamps of Pechora outweighs all revolutionary preferences.
While in prison, Rusanov continued to educate himself. Among the books he read during this period, one enjoyed his particular attention. It was F. Nansen's book "Among the ice and in the darkness of the polar night". Apparently, already at that time Rusanova was occupied with the idea of \u200b\u200bpolar travel. Released in February 1899 under the public supervision of the police, Rusanov did not stop his revolutionary activities and was subjected to new repressions. In May 1901, on the basis of the "highest decree" he was exiled for two years to the city of Ust-Usolsk, Vologda province. Not long before that, he married Maria Bulatova, a girl of extraordinary abilities and rare spiritual qualities; despite the opposition of her parents, Maria followed her husband into exile.
In Ust-Usolsk Rusanov entered the zemstvo council as a statistician. This work, in addition to his livelihood, allowed him to explore the vast and almost unexplored Pechora region. During his summer trips for the statistical survey of the Ust-Usolsk district, Rusanov managed not only to fulfill his official duties, but also to conduct a variety of observations, which later served as material for a number of scientific works. As a result, Rusanov compiled detailed and detailed reports and wrote a valuable article "A few words about the Zyryans", took part in the investigation of the watershed rr. Pechora and Kama in order to find out the possibility of connecting them with a channel.
At the end of the term of exile, Rusanov was not allowed to live in any of the major cities of Russia, thus depriving him of the opportunity to graduate from the university. In an effort to complete his education, Rusanov persistently sought permission to go abroad. In the fall of 1903, he and his wife left for Paris, where he entered the Sorbonne University in the natural sciences.
Having given birth to a son in 1905, Rusanov's wife, Maria, died in 1905 in Paris. Rusanov's mother took Shura to Oryol. "Do not worry and do not hope, I will never marry again, and you will always have Shurka," he wrote to his mother.
Rusanov studied hard and hard. Specializing in geology, he has proven himself excellently in the study of extinct volcanoes in France and the eruption of Vesuvius in 1906. The brilliant completion of the theoretical course in 1907 earned him the right to defend his doctoral dissertation. In an effort to benefit his homeland, Rusanov decided to collect material for a dissertation on Novaya Zemlya, the geology of which was almost not studied, and minerals were not explored (according to other sources, Rusanov's trip to Novaya Zemlya was associated with the fact that in previous expeditions, Rusanov established himself as a man fully prepared for independent scientific work, and when in 1907 a geologist was required for the French expedition to Novaya Zemlya, Rusanov was nominated to this place, despite the great competition from French geologists. To thoroughly prepare for the upcoming expedition, Rusanov in the summer of 1907 made an exploratory expedition to Novaya Zemlya.)
In the spring of 1907 V.A. Rusanov returned to Russia. When Rusanov arrived in Arkhangelsk, he, to his surprise, received all possible assistance from the local authorities in preparing an expedition to Novaya Zemlya. This was explained by the fact that the Norwegians ruled Novaya Zemlya with impunity, and the Arkhangelsk governor saw in Rusanov's expedition one of the measures against poaching.
In Arkhangelsk, Rusanov was joined by a student-zoologist from Kharkov University L.A. Molchanov, with whom he arrived in mid-July on the regular steamer "Koroleva Olga Konstantinovna" to the western mouth of the Matochkin Shar Strait. From here, accompanied by a Nenets guide, they sailed along the strait to the Kara Sea and back on an ordinary Nenets karbas.
In September Rusanov returned to Arkhangelsk, and then, having visited his native Orel, again left for Paris. This journey finally determined the direction of his further scientific activity.
Rusanov's research on Novaya Zemlya, carried out independently and on his own initiative, was highly appreciated by the professors of the Sorbonne. Therefore, when a geologist was required for the French expedition to Novaya Zemlya in the spring of 1908, Rusanov was unanimously elected from among many candidates. He gladly accepted this offer, which allowed him to continue his research in the geology of Novaya Zemlya. Gathering delayed him in Paris, and he caught up with the expedition in Belushya Bay on Novaya Zemlya. From here Rusanov with three members of the expedition went on the steamer "Koroleva Olga Konstantinovna" to the Matochkin Shar camp, then on the Nenets Karbas passed through the strait into the Kara Sea and climbed along the coast to the north to the Unknown Bay. While exploring this bay, Rusanov made an interesting discovery: on a small peninsula, he discovered previously unknown fossil organisms.
Continuing his journey, Rusanov made the first ever land voyage across Novaya Zemlya, he crossed it from the Unknown Bay to the Krestovaya Bay on the western side of the island. It should be noted that only one Rusanov reached the Barents Sea, the rest of the travelers, unable to withstand the difficulties of the way, fell behind.
In September, the expedition finished work, and Rusanov arrived in Arkhangelsk. While still on the expedition, he began to write a scientific report on his research in 1907 and 1908. The report, which he presented to the head of the expedition, Captain Benar, was the last, without any changes, to be placed in his books. At the same time, Benard never pointed to the true author of the most interesting chapters of his works.
Rusanov spent the winter of 1908-1909 in Paris, continuing to process the collected materials. The works written by him at this time testify to the continuous growth of his scientific outlook. In his article: "On the Silurian of Novaya Zemlya" Rusanov comes to interesting conclusions about the close connection at the end of the Upper Silurian period between the Arctic Ocean and the disappeared sea of \u200b\u200bCentral Europe. Also of great importance were his conclusions about the routes and time of dispersal of some varieties of the Devonian fauna in the polar regions.
This expedition brought Rusanov the fame of a talented geologist and daring explorer. Therefore, when the Arkhangelsk authorities began to prepare an expedition to Novaya Zemlya, they invited Rusanov to take part in it as a geologist. Officially headed by Yu.V. Kramer, in fact, the expedition worked according to the program drawn up by Rusanov and under his leadership. On July 4, 1909, an expedition of five people left Arkhangelsk on the steamer Olga Konstantinovna Koroleva. In Matochkin Shara, two Nenets guides joined the expedition. On July 9, the steamer landed Rusanov and his companions at Krestovaya Bay, where the main base of the expedition was organized.
The weather was not conducive to research. In addition, while unloading the steamer, Rusanov severely injured his leg. However, despite all this, he daily went into the interior of the island. Success has invariably accompanied his search. Many minerals have been discovered on the island, including coal, marble, diabase and slate.
Rusanov, rightly assuming that Novaya Zemlya should eventually become one of the nodal bases serving the Northern Sea Route, considered it necessary to find out the sailing conditions along the western coast of the island, which, in his opinion, would be an integral part of the Transarctic route. To this end, together with two guides, he made a bold sea voyage on a fragile boat from Krestovaya Bay to the Admiralty Peninsula. In the fall, returning to Arkhangelsk, he delivered a number of lectures, reports and articles that attracted public attention to the Arctic. He was especially worried about the fate of Novaya Zemlya. "A sad picture on Russian soil," wrote Rusanov. "Where once our brave Russian Pomors were fishing for centuries, now the Norwegians live quietly and easily get rich."
Rusanov again spent the winter of 1909-1910 in Paris. In the spring of 1910 he was again invited to the Novaya Zemlya expedition, but this time as its head. Absorbed by the problems of the Northern Sea Route, Rusanov in the article "Is it possible to urgently ship between Arkhangelsk and Siberia through the Arctic Ocean?" outlined a plan for through navigation. “Until now,” he wrote, “with unshakable and incomprehensible stubbornness they are trying to go to Siberia ... perhaps farther south: through the Yugorsky Shar, through the Kara Gates, in more rare cases through Matochkin Shar. I propose just the opposite. I propose to go around Novaya Zemlya as far north as possible ... "
Below he continues: “It should be borne in mind that the direction of the currents in the northern part of Novaya Zemlya is still unexplored and that my assumptions on this score are hypothetical. That is why the clarification of this fundamental issue, in my opinion, should be the most important task of the Novaya Zemlya expedition in 1910. This expedition will have to finally clarify the question of how convenient the trade route I propose to Siberia is. "
The expedition vessel "Dmitry Solunsky" under the command of the famous polar captain G.I. Pospelova left Arkhangelsk on July 12 with five scientific workers and ten crewmen on board.
On July 20, the Dmitry Solunsky safely reached the western mouth of the Matochkin Shara, where the Nenets Ilya Vylka, an excellent connoisseur of polar ice, was taken aboard the ship, who rendered Rusanov invaluable assistance on the previous expedition. On August 16, the ship reached the extreme northern point of Novaya Zemlya - Cape Zhelaniya, having rounded it and encountered floating ice.
As the Dmitry Solunsky moved to the south, the edge of solid ice, stretched from northeast to southwest, approached the coast more and more and at the Ice Harbor closed with it, blocking its further path. Attempts to go around the ice from the northeast ended unsuccessfully, and on the evening of August 19 the ship returned to Cape Zhelaniya, where they anchored and decided to wait for changes in the ice situation.
The storm that broke out at night drove the masses of ice from the Barents Sea, and by morning "Dmitry Solunsky" was in ice captivity. Ice fields, constantly hummocking, stepped on the ship and every minute threatened to crush it. Using the small, now opening, now closed divider, stretching under the coast, "Dmitry Solunsky" began to make its way to the east. Soon the openings began to increase and turned into a wide coastal channel, opening the way to the south. Twelve days later, the ship approached the eastern entrance to Matochkin Shar, and on August 31 entered the Barents Sea, thus making a detour around the entire northern island of Novaya Zemlya.
This outstanding voyage, performed by a Russian vessel, for the first time after the campaign of Savva Loshkin, brought Rusanov well-deserved fame.
The research carried out by the expedition far surpassed everything done in the area before it, significantly expanded the knowledge of Novaya Zemlya and the hydrological regime of the waters washing it.
Returning to Arkhangelsk, Rusanov headed to Moscow. His new friend Ilya Vylka rode with him. Rusanov, who noticed the outstanding talents of a painter in the young Nenets, introduced him in Moscow to artists, his studies with which allowed Vylka to receive an art education he lacked.
At home, Rusanov did a lot of public work, giving lectures, reports, articles and notes on the North. By this time, the publication of one of his most significant works, modestly entitled "On the question of the Northern Sea Route", belongs.
Rusanov again spent the winter in Paris, working hard on his doctoral dissertation, and in the summer of 1911 he went to Novaya Zemlya for the fourth time. On this expedition, on the motor-sailing yacht "Polyarnaya", with a displacement of only five tons, he finally saves around the southern island of Novaya Zemlya, which he failed to accomplish last year only due to lack of fuel. The expedition to "Polyarnaya" devoted its main attention to hydrographic and meteorological research. Much has been done especially to study the surface currents of the Barents and Kara Seas.
Then he was appointed head of the expedition to Spitsbergen. His travels, which did not know of failures, and his growing authority served as the best guarantee of the expedition's success.
The expedition went on a small (about sixty-four tonnes of displacement) hunting ship "Hercules", adapted for navigation in ice. In addition to sailing equipment, the vessel had a twenty-four-horsepower engine and had excellent seaworthiness. Together with Rusanov, his bride Juliette Jean, a geologist and doctor, went on the expedition.
On July 9, 1912, the Hercules left Aleksandrovsk-on-Murman with fourteen members of the expedition on board. According to the plan, "Hercules" was supposed to return in October of the same year. However, a year and a half supply of food and an abundance of polar equipment on the ship testified that Rusanov had other intentions. Rusanov himself spoke about this rather transparently in the final part of the expedition plan. “In conclusion, I find it necessary to openly declare that, having in my hands a vessel of a higher type, I would look at the survey of Spitsbergen as a small first test. With such a vessel it will be possible to broadly illuminate, quickly move forward the issue of the Great Northern Sea Route to Siberia and to come by the Siberian Sea from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. "
On July 16, the Hercules safely reached the West Spitsbergen island and entered Belsund Bay, located on the western side of the island. From here Rusanov, together with two sailors, walked on foot to the eastern coast of West Spitsbergen and back. This transition, made in a mountainous area covered with a glacier, almost ended in the death of Rusanov: on the way back, he fell into an ice crack and only by some miracle lingered on a small ledge at the edge of a deep abyss.
From Bedzund "Hercules" moved to Icefjord, and then to Adventby. Having explored the entire western coast of the island, Rusanov discovered rich coal deposits.
By the beginning of August, the expedition completed the implementation of the official program: twenty-eight application marks, supplied by Rusanov, secured for Russia the right to develop coal in Spitsbergen.
In addition, paleontological, zoological and botanical collections were collected, and oceanographic research was carried out during the voyage to Svalbard and in its coastal waters.
Having sent three people from Spitsbergen to Russia with a passing Norwegian steamer, Rusanov went to Novaya Zemlya. On August 18, in Matochkin Shara, he left a telegram to be sent to the mainland with the following content: "South of Spitsbergen, Island of Hope. Surrounded by ice, engaged in hydrography. Storm carried south of Matochkin Shara. I am going to the northwestern tip of Novaya Zemlya, from there to the east. If the ship dies. , I will head to the nearest islands along the way: Solitude, Novosibirsk, Wrangel. Supplies for a year. Everyone is healthy. Rusanov ". Apparently, the particle was missing in the telegram. One should read "If he does not perish", which essentially follows from the further text.
This telegram, revealing Rusanov's plan, was the last news received from Hercules.
Where and under what circumstances Rusanov's expedition died, it was not possible to find out. Searches for it, carried out in 1914 and 1915 at the initiative of the Russian Geographical Society, yielded nothing. Only in 1934, on an unnamed island (now the island of Hercules), located near the coast of Khariton Laptev, a pillar was found, dug into the ground, on which the inscription "HERCULES. 1913" was carved. In the same year, on another island (now the island of Popov-Chukchin, named after the members of the Rusanov expedition), located in the skerries of Minin, the remains of clothes, cartridges, a compass, a camera, a hunting knife and other things belonging to the participants of the expedition on the "Hercules" were found ...
After careful searches, not far from these items, a seagoing book of the sailor "Hercules" A.S. Chukchin and a silver watch with the initials of V.G. Popov, also a sailor of "Hercules", and a certificate issued in his name.
Judging by these findings, it can be assumed that extremely unfavorable ice conditions in 1912 forced the Hercules to winter somewhere in the northern part of Novaya Zemlya, and the next year Rusanov, apparently, reached Severnaya Zemlya. This assumption is also supported by the traces of someone's camp discovered in 1947 in Akhmatov Bay on the northeastern coast of Bolshevik Island (Severnaya Zemlya). In all likelihood, these are traces of Rusanov's expedition.
The untimely deceased Vladimir Aleksandrovich Rusanov left an indelible mark on the history of Arctic exploration. All his tireless activity testified to the breadth of his horizons and the depth of his mind.
The name of the polar explorer is remembered and revered in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Paris, Arkhangelsk and Siberia. A monument to Rusanov was erected in the city of Pechora in 1967. A bay on the eastern coast of Novaya Zemlya, a peninsula on the southern coast, a strait between the island and this coast, a bay on the same coast, a fishing camp in this bay and a mountain on the coast of the bay are named after him. The icebreaker is also named after him.
Swimming on the Hercules. Rusanovites' parking lots.
Map from the book "The Horizon Called Them". Yu. A. Senkevich, A. V. Shumilov
The last campaign of "Hercules"
For 88 years of searching, the mystery of the disappearance of eleven Rusanovites has never been solved.
Vladimir Rusanov's compatriot tried to find his tracks in Taimyr, and, it seems, found traces ... of Alexander Kuchin ...
At the end of 1912, the hunting schooner Hercules disappeared in the Arctic ice, setting off in search of the Northern Sea Route, which is important for Russia. The expedition was headed by a seasoned polar explorer - a native of Orel Vladimir Rusanov; "Hercules" was commanded by Alexander Kuchin. For 88 years of searching, the mystery of the disappearance of eleven Rusanovites has never been solved.
Last summer, the Oryol traveler Valery Salnikov, who has been looking for traces of the Hercules team in the Arctic for 13 years, discovered human remains on a tiny peninsula in the Kara Sea. There is every reason to believe that this is one of the Rusanovites. In early November, specialists from the Russian Center for Forensic Medicine of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation will publish the name of this person. The statement threatens to become a sensation. If this is really a member of Rusanov's expedition, then it is possible that the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago was discovered not by military sailors from the icebreaking ships Vaigach and Taimyr in 1913, but by the Rusanovites a whole year earlier. But that is not all. Salnikov again got ahead of him with sensations, announcing that he knew where to look for a clue to the death of the expedition.
For the glory of Russia
In June 1912, the hunting schooner Hercules left the Arkhangelsk port. On the instructions of the Russian government, 14 polar explorers on board had to stake out coal deposits on the “no man's” archipelago of Svalbard. The expedition promised Russia a lot of money.
The sailors predicted many troubles for "Hercules", since there was a woman on the ship. Her name was Juliette Jean, she was French and a full member of the team - a doctor and a geologist. She was also in love with the gray-eyed Russian polar explorer Vladimir Rusanov, who was leading the expedition. They met at the Sorbonne, where they studied together, and on their return from sailing they were going to get married. Two years ago, they had to postpone the wedding because of Vladimir's fourth expedition to Novaya Zemlya, during which he was the first to go around its northern and southern islands, mapping unknown bays, mountains and glaciers. This time Juliet did not want to part with Vladimir. They didn't believe in omens.
Contrary to predictions, the expedition was fantastically successful. The Rusanovites placed 28 applications for coal deposits in Svalbard and were supposed to sail back to Arkhangelsk, but something happened that no one expected. Rusanov, Juliette and nine other people unauthorizedly sailed on "Hercules" across the northern seas to the Pacific Ocean in search of the Northern Sea Route - for the glory of Russia. Rusanov dreamed about this for a long time, even wrote several articles in various magazines. The journey was pure gamble and arbitrariness, but if it was successful, Rusanov would have gotten away with it.
With the documents of the expedition, three Rusanovites returned to Murmansk on a Norwegian ship, who did not want to continue their journey. Later, a strange note left by Rusanov in the Nenets village of Matochkin Shar was handed over to the mainland: “I am going to the northwestern tip of Novaya Zemlya. If the ship dies, I will head to the nearest islands of Solitude, Novosibirsk, Wrangel along the way. Stocks for a year, everyone is healthy. " Since then, nothing is known about the fate of the Russian polar explorer, the brave Frenchwoman in love with him and nine other people. The prediction came true.
Rusanovtsy did not die in vain
Did Rusanov pass the Northern Sea Route? Where did Hercules find its demise? What happened to the members of the expedition? There is still no answer to these questions. Two years later, the search for the missing polar explorers stopped. The Rusanovites were called heroes, they came to the conclusion that the expedition did not die in vain: thanks to its research, Russia opened two mines on Spitsbergen (one of them still produces coal), and during the search for the Rusanovites, the Northern Sea Route was passed, the strait was opened and the huge Severnaya Zemlya archipelago. Russia considered its duty to the willful polar explorers fulfilled. Points on the map were named after them: Lake Juliette Jean, Cape Rusanova, Cape Kuchina ... But the mystery of the expedition's disappearance remained unsolved.
In the summer of 1934, the veil of secrecy was suddenly opened. The hydrographer from the motor-sailing boat "Stalinets", having landed on an island in the Kara Sea, found a post on which was carved: "Hercules 1913". In the same year, on a neighboring island, another detachment of hydrographers discovered traces of the camp: a seaman's book of the sailor "Hercules" Alexander Chukhchin, a certificate issued in the name of the sailor Vasily Popov, and a silver watch with his initials, business cards of the zoologist of the expedition Zenon Svatosh, decayed pieces of clothing ... These findings meant that a year after the disappearance of the expedition, one of the Rusanovites was alive and crossed the southern part of the Kara Sea! As before, nothing new was learned about the further fate of the expedition. The islands were named in memory of the expedition: Hercules and the island of Popov-Chukhchina. In the 70s, an expedition headed by Dmitry Shparo was looking for traces of the Rusanovites, but the mystery remained unsolved.
In 1987, ten years after the search for the missing expedition finally ceased, a light dawned over the mystery. The Oryol house-museum of V. Rusanov received a letter from the Ivanovo region from Antonina Mikhailovna Korchagina. At this time, the TV journalist and traveler Valery Salnikov was looking in museum documents for at least a hint of solving the mystery of the missing expedition ... Korchagina in the 70s sent a similar letter to the "Travelers Club". Yuri Senkevich handed the letter to Dmitry Shparo, but he considered this information to be an old lady's delirium.
Korchagina wrote that in 1951 she worked as a medical assistant in Taimyr. Once, with a guide named Yurlov, I was walking from the village of Volochanka to the village of Kresty to see a patient. Because of the flooding of the rivers, she had to walk and sail by boat instead of flying by seaplane, so the journey took twenty-one days. During the trek, the guide showed her two graves. One bore a half-erased tin with a surname beginning with P and ending in ov.
Yurlov told the paramedic that Russians were buried here. Local residents - Dolgan reindeer herders - told him that shortly before the First World War they found two frozen men in naval uniforms, next to whom lay a sailor's locker. One of them, they said, was a geologist. The Dolgans buried them as Russians are buried. The guide also said that no one was looking for these people, but they will still be looking, and then Korchagina must tell about the burial. Yurlov made no secret of the fact that he was digging graves, looking for weapons or money, and in the grave with a sign he saw a locker with documents.
After reading the letter, Valery Salnikov realized that this is exactly the secret that he must reveal. Unlike Shparo, he did not believe that the old woman was delusional. Until now, it never occurred to anyone to look for the Rusanovites in Taimyr, five hundred kilometers from the Kara Sea. Salnikov had no doubt that the members of Rusanov's expedition were buried in the graves. Too many facts have confirmed this: people in marine uniform, a geologist "R ... s", a locker with documents ...
Salnikov met with Korchagina, and she pointed out the signs that she remembered, and poured two "graves" in her garden, located perpendicular to each other - the letter "T". In 1988, Valery Salnikov organized the first of five expeditions from Orel, from the homeland of Rusanov. It would be symbolic if it was his fellow countrymen who revealed the secret.
In 1988, Oryol residents found a way from Volochanka to the village of Kresty and determined that the graves could be located in the tundra on a "square" of 4 by 4 kilometers. In 1990, Salnikov invited two "black pathfinders" from Voronezh with probes to join the expedition. The devices turned out to be useless due to the permafrost, but the members of the expedition on Pestsovoye Island in the Kara Sea found a hut where polar explorers caulked boats, and on the Taimyr River on the Pyasina River - a dugout, where, by all accounts, Rusanov and his team spent the winter. In the same year, scuba divers recovered from the bottom of the sea parts of a wrecked ship, similar to the Hercules. All these finds confirmed Valery Salnikov's version that the Hercules died in the Kara Sea.
Last summer, Salnikov and his team decided to explore Minin's skerries. In the vicinity of Mount Minin on one of the peninsulas, the members of the expedition discovered the remains of a man ingrown into the moss. A gunpowder box and a silver spoon lay next to the bones. Salnikov took these findings to the Moscow Forensic Medical Center and waited for the results.
Mystery is in the chest
- Valery, do you already know whose remains you found?
I really hoped it was Rusanov or Juliette, but the skull is male, and Rusanov did not fit in age. He was thirty-seven years old, and "our" skull was younger, about twenty-five years old. The captain of "Hercules" Alexander Kuchin was of this age.
I took his photograph and photographs of six more members of the expedition to Moscow. The other day I spoke on the phone with Professor Zvyagin, he is 95 percent sure that this is Kuchin. Now specialists are doing expensive DNA tests. I think the tests will confirm that this is the captain. And rumors have already spread ... Recently the vice-governor of the Arkhangelsk region called me and said: we will bury in Onega.
- What, in your opinion, happened to Rusanov's expedition?
- I think Rusanov hoped to sail the northern seas to the Pacific Ocean with one wintering. He understood that this was a gamble, and did not rule out the loss of the ship, therefore he wrote about it in a note. In 1913, there was a difficult ice situation in the Arctic, and the Rusanovites had to winter earlier than they expected - on the island, which is now called Hercules. The wintering period dragged on due to bad weather, the polar explorers ran out of supplies, and the expedition split up: some of the researchers on three boats went to the mainland for help, and the Hercules with the captain and crew remained to wait until the ice melted. I do not exclude that the expedition could have split up for another reason - perhaps one of the Rusanovites was against the presence of Juliette Jean on the Hercules.
On the neighboring island, which is now called Popova-Chukhchina, the Rusanovites united, but lost the Hercules. It is difficult to say whether the storm broke it or the polar explorers simply abandoned the ship. The survivors set off on foot across the islands in the Minin skerries to the south.
Perhaps one of the Rusanovites died, having fallen through the ice, but the survivors continued to move by boat and on foot to the volost village of Volochanka, where there were representatives of the tsarist government who could provide assistance. The two most hardy Rusanovites (or the healthiest) went the farthest, carrying a locker with the documents of the expedition. They saved not so much their lives as papers, realizing how important they are for Russia. These people overcame about five hundred kilometers, walked along Taimyr and froze almost at Volochanka. There they were found by local residents and buried along with a precious locker. These are the graves we are looking for. I think the sign was put up by the conductor Yurlov, who read the documents. I am sure that this locker contains a complete solution to the mystery of the death of Rusanov's expedition.
- How are you going to search for graves?
- We need to carry out aerial photography of the area that we have identified. The fact is that in the tundra any violation of the natural soil cover persists for a very long time. If our "square" of searches is photographed in certain rays from a helicopter, then the traces of the graves will be visible in the picture. Such shooting costs about ten thousand dollars. If I can find this amount, I will solve the mystery of the missing expedition.
"Juliette Glacier"
I don't know if she got what she wanted or not. Was there an ultimate goal? Leaving Paris in the spring of 1912, Juliette hardly remembered the headlines of newspaper articles. The strength was too deep, thanks to which M-lle was called brave.
Courage and endless striving for the goal - this is about Vladimir. Infinite, because he never reached it.
Russia has long benefited from the discoveries made by Vladimir Rusanov. The mines on Svalbard were profitable. On the maps of Novaya Zemlya, instead of white spots, dark marks appeared - mineral deposits, the outlines of the coastline became clear and there were no longer unknown plains between them. Cold water kept the name of its hero - Rusanov Bay, Rusanov Bay ...
In the west of the North Island, a yellow-white promontory goes into the sea. Yellow land, yellow rocks - Cape Jean. White ice - Juliette Jean glacier. "From time to time, icy cliffs fall on the waves with noise and splashes, and then a bright blue fresh fracture wound appears on the icy steep wall" - this is how Rusanov described this glacier, who named it after the bride in 1910.
At that time he sailed on "Dmitry Solunsky", a ship with "ice" oak sheathing, superbly equipped for those years. Gift of the Arkhangelsk fishery and philanthropist D. Maslennikov. They were looking for places for Russian fishing settlements - the Arkhangelsk governor had long been annoyed by Norwegian poachers who were exporting fish, skins, and even live bears from Novaya Zemlya. For Captain Pospelov it was not a mystery why Vladimir marks the wind and current directions on the map. Cape Desire is the northernmost point of Novaya Zemlya. From here, while only on the map, Rusanov began the Northern Sea Route.
Away from the ice floes that cut the nose of "Dmitry Solunsky", two women in fear read about bears and scurvy. One raised a child in Oryol who did not know his mother. Another studied at the Sorbonne.
Once Masha, Rusanov's first wife, also entered there. But before that, for three years she studied the maps of the dense Zyryan forests (now the Komi Republic). Expelled from his native Orel to the Vyatka province for participation in the revolutionary movement, Vladimir was already completely owned by three "and": go, explore, search. He walked - somewhere along the paths of Zyryan hunters, somewhere along the river by boat. He described the watersheds between Pechora and Kama. I came to the conclusion: two rivers need to be connected by a canal - the waterway is shorter and more profitable than the overland one.
In 1905, having given birth to a son, Masha died. Rusanov's mother took Shura to Oryol. Vladimir studied then at the natural department of the Sorbonne. "Do not worry and do not hope, I will never marry again, and you will always have Shurka," he wrote to his mother. If time allowed Rusanov, after the next expedition to Novaya Zemlya, he called home. The visits were short and soon infrequent. In Paris, at number 17, Boulevard Port-Royal, there lived a tall, black-haired girl.
Juliette studied throughout her adult life. Foreign languages, drawing ... When my daughter studied music as a child, her father went out to meet the postman so that the knock on the door and the fuss in the hallway would not interfere with Juliette. M-lle was known as a serious and reasonable girl. To fans, and there were a lot of them, she preferred studying at the natural faculty of the Sorbonne, after which she entered the medical school. Monsieur Jean did not expect that one day all these lessons of well-being would not be enough. They will not be able to save Juliette from the Russian polar explorer.
Tall, with strong arms and laughing eyes, he was filled with boyish enthusiasm.
Seasoned sailors brought him stones for the geological collection, and the captains guided ships through the ice. And, probably, Juliette alone understood that with his courage Vladimir was trying to somehow smooth out the lack of warmth and attention to people. Since Shurka was taken to Oryol, Rusanov has seen his son only a few times. All his heat was taken away by searching.
At first Juliette was satisfied that, having made all his important discoveries, Vladimir returns to her. In 1911, the wedding was postponed because of the fifth expedition of Rusanov to Novaya Zemlya. And Juliette did not want to wait any longer. She was afraid that he would go further and further along his Northern path and one day he would forget the way back.
In 1912, at the request of the Russian government, Rusanov went to Spitsbergen to explore and secure coal deposits for Russia. Here another feature of his character manifested itself. By that time, Vladimir had already decided to finally settle "in sweet France, to which he owes everything." But he furiously insisted that the expedition be equipped in Russia (it is enough that the ship is Norwegian) and set off from the Russian port. "Everything that I am going to do, I am doing for Russia."
In the spring Rusanov left Paris. Juliette was with him, she was traveling as a full member of the expedition, a doctor. I can guess what her father asked her goodbye. Does Vladimir love so much, since he took on a dangerous voyage?
We sailed to Svalbard on the Hercules, a small motor-sailing vessel under the command of an experienced oceanographer and polar explorer Captain Alexander Kuchin.
When the ship dropped anchor in Michaelis Bay, Rusanov left with two sailors to Sturfjord. He returned a few days later stripped in blood. On the way back, Vladimir slipped and fell into a 100-meter crack in the glacier. It was only saved by the fact that his belt caught on the icy growth. The sailors threw a rope at him and pulled him into the light.
Juliette only said:
- Tomorrow I'll go with you.
At all Rusanov's persuasions, she shook her head. On the ship, they chuckled quietly: it is one thing to treat colds and rheumatism, and another to earn them in the cold wind, standing knee-deep in water.
The next day, scientists headed by Rusanov went to the northern shore of Spitsbergen. In the evening we reached an abandoned Swedish fishing station. Several years ago, a snowstorm caught 13 Norwegian hunters here. Unable to reach the coast, they died from scurvy.
There were no frames on the windows, doors on the hinges. Pieces of old sheepskin lay on the floor. Rusanov and his companions silently hid themselves with them, realizing that it was under them that the Norwegians were dying. Vladimir held Juliet tightly to him. And for the first time, the smell of his body and clothes was mixed with another.
- These matting, it seems to me, they still smell of dying sweat, - whispered Juliette.
The voyage to Svalbard was drawing to a close when Tampa, the long-eared dog, the favorite of the team, disappeared. The sailors set out on a boat, and Tampa was the first to jump to the ground. She ran to the top of the hill, turned around, barked and sped away. She was never seen again. Tampa used to always come back ...
At the end of August, "Hercules" left the Samoyed colony on Novaya Zemlya. The Nenets later said that Rusanov was cheerful and waved his hat for a long time. End of August - ships from the Arctic seas returned to the harbor. There was more and more ice on the water. In the colony, Vladimir left a telegram: "I am going to the north-western tip of Novaya Zemlya. From there to the east. If the ship dies, I will go to the islands closest on the way: Uedineniya, Novosibirsk and Wrangel. Supplies for a year. Everyone is healthy. Rusanov."
Back in Svalbard, scientists from the Hercules were transferred to a steamer heading to Norway. The official part of the expedition was over. Juliette stayed on the Hercules.
Perhaps Rusanov intended to explore the unexplored part of the Northern Sea Route, lying in the Arctic Ocean beyond the Islands of Solitude. The Northern Land will be opened only in a year.
In house number 17 on Boulevard Port Royal, the black-haired girl was never seen. A year and a half later, an elderly monsieur died of longing for his daughter. He died in December 1913, when an advertisement appeared in the newspapers about the death of Juliette Jean - "a woman doctor, bride of the polar explorer VA Rusanov."
Probably, even in Paris, Juliette knew about this minute. When a gray-eyed man hugs her in the middle of the white desert, trying to warm her. And all this time he will remember the path not traveled.
Expedition of the Oryol State
tV and radio companies on the Taimyr Peninsula
The expedition of the Oryol State TV and Radio Company to the Taimyr Peninsula has ended. For the first time, human remains were found in the area of \u200b\u200bMount Minin. Who is this unknown person? Vladimir Rusanov? Or - the captain of "Hercules" Alexander Kuchin? Or maybe - Norwegian sailor Paul Knutsen, sailor on the schooner "Maud" with Roald Amundsen? The studies currently being conducted at the Russian Center for Forensic Medicine of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation should give an answer.
The remains were found by members of the fifth expedition to the Taimyr Peninsula. This time, the search area was the Minin skerries off the western coast of the peninsula. On the Kolosov Island a mast was found in size corresponding to the mizzen-mast of the "Hercules". It was in these places that the ship was supposedly left by the members of the expedition. On the Mikhailov Peninsula, fragments of a ship's boat made at the beginning of the century were found (it is known that there were three boats on the Hercules), as well as a hull from a ship's instrument (possibly a barometer) ...
Rusanov visited Novaya Zemlya five times, mapped previously unknown bays, bays, islands, explored glaciers and mountains. His expeditions to Novaya Zemlya were of decisive importance in securing this primordially Russian land for Russia.
Rusanov did not return from the last expedition. After completing research on the Spitsbergen archipelago, where the richest coal deposits were discovered, he and his ten companions on the Hercules ship at the end of the summer of 1912 set off to the east: Rusanov decided to fulfill his old dream - for the first time to cross the northern seas to the Pacific Ocean.
It is reliably known that he only managed to reach the Kara Sea. It is assumed that one of the options for the development of events after wintering in the Kara Sea is the division of the expedition participants into two groups. One group remained on the "Hercules" - to wait for the possibility of freeing the ship from the ice captivity. The second one got to the mainland in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Mikhailov Peninsula in order to go on foot in the direction of settlements. The search for traces of the last expedition, attempts to unravel the mystery of its death continue to this day.
The veil of secrecy can be lifted only by the investigations of the findings of the last expedition of the Oryol state television and radio company, which are currently being conducted at the Russian Center for Forensic Medicine of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation.
The tragedy of the captain of the "Hercules":
forensic reconstruction
For the first time, no doubt, human remains, presumably of one of the members of Rusanov's disappeared expedition, were discovered on Taimyr only in 2000. According to the head of the search group of the Oryol State TV and Radio Company V.Ya. Salnikov, the bones lay in the tundra at the foot of Mount Minin.
According to experts from the Oryol Bureau of Forensic Medicine, the prescription of the death of the unknown is about 100 years old and the age ranges from 30 to 40 years. So the assumption arose about the belonging of the discovered bones to V.A. Rusanov.
The bones were admitted to the Personality Identification Department of the RC SME in September 2000. At the same time, we were given photographs of some of the expedition members: A.S. Kuchina. (3), Rusanova A.V. (5), Belova K.A. (1), Cheremkhina V.T. (1), Ermolina F.M. (2) and Juliette Jean - Saussin (1). Eight photographs of A.S. Kuchin and his relatives were sent by A.S. Kuchin's fellow countrymen from Onega.
The skull without the lower jaw and four fragments of bones: the left femur (1), the right humerus (2), and the left scapula (1) were presented for the study.
Found bones of the skeleton are badly destroyed. The upper epiphysis is absent on the femur; only the middle part is preserved on the lower epiphysis. The fragment is 427 mm long. The upper epiphysis is almost completely absent on the humerus, the lower epiphysis is slightly damaged. The largest fragment is 297 mm long. The scapula is destroyed more thoroughly: the lateral part with the articulated platform and the base of the bone are preserved. The anterior part of the alveolar process and the lower left corner of the bones that form the piriform opening are fragmented on the skull.
The anterior-lateral surfaces of the bones are brownish-buffy. The posterior surface of the bones is whitish-grayish in color, rough, speckled with numerous small cracks and detaching scales. Without a doubt, these are traces of weathering and exposure to solar radiation, indicating a long-term presence of bones on the soil surface. On the skull, the right half is more discolored. Consequently, the likely position of the corpse was lying on its stomach, half of its head to the ground. The bone remains are shrouded in dried moss, which fills all their natural holes and the cranial cavity. In ultraviolet light, the surface of the bones gives off a dark brown velvety luminescence with areas of a whitish-purple hue. The luminescence in the region of the edges of the fragments is mainly whitish, with a gray-blue tint. Bone tissue is devoid of a fat component, has a pronounced porosity and fragility. These features indicate a long prescription of death, at least 50 - 100 years. (E.M. Evgeniev - Tish, 1963).
The presented bone remains most likely belong to the skeleton of one person. This fact is evidenced by the noted nature of the luminescence, as well as the results of emission spectral analysis. In all bone fragments, including the skull, Si, P, Mn, Fe, AI, Cu, Na, Pb, Sr, Ti were found. It must be said that the content (in S) of Mn, Fe, AI, Ti is somewhat higher in the humerus and especially in the femur, but the spread is insignificant and can be explained by the fact that samples were taken from different parts of the bone, incl. adjacent to the soil.
The bone remains belonged to a young man. There is no overgrowth of the seams both on the outer and inner surfaces of the skull. The preserved teeth have only a slight abrasion of the enamel. Note that there are also alveoli, the so-called. "wisdom teeth". At the same time, persistence of the second milk molar probably took place on the left upper jaw, which can be judged by the shape of the alveoli, which is atypical for a premolar (developmental anomaly). The epiphyses of long tubular bones have a large number of feeding holes. The exposed spongy substance of the femur and humerus is fine-trabecular and fine-mesh. Radiographically, the apex of the bone marrow cavity is located significantly below the surgical neck of the shoulder and the lesser trochanter of the femur. All this allows us to say that the skeleton belongs to a person of a mature age (Adultus - from 18-22 to 30-35 years old) with a tendency to shift downward (22-27 years old).
The results of a craniometric study indicate the indisputable belonging of the skull to a male person. Attention is drawn to the considerable length of the cranium and its horizontal circumference (527 mm, which corresponds to the size of the headdress 57 - 58), the large occipital foramen. The secondary sexual characteristics of the relief, and this, first of all, the sharply protruding glabella, the superciliary arches, the tubercle on the outer surface of the zygomatic bones, the temporal lines of the frontal, parietal and temporal bones, are extremely pronounced.
The belonging of long tubular bones to a man who is well developed physically is indicated by the general shape of the femur, which has pronounced pilasters, anteroposterior bend of the diaphysis and muscle relief.
The possibilities of sex determination by the size of the tubular bones are limited, but some of the features according to J.-V.J. Ninis (1972) is undeniable evidence in favor of male bones.
According to the testimony of a renowned dentist prof. A.A. Zubova, the morphology of the three intact teeth most likely indicates Caucasoid. The results of the craniometric study are typical for the North European local race with a predominance of features of the White Sea-Baltic type. As you know, individuals of this appearance are characterized by very light, but somewhat more pigmented than that of the Atlanto-Baltic type, skin (this also applies to hair and eye color), medium height and an abundant beard, a relatively short nose with a straight or concave back and significant percentage of raised bottoms, short face. The settlement area is Eastern Europe.
The noted features fully correspond to the appearance of A.S. Kuchin in the presented photographs.
Determination of craniofacial relationships and elements of physical appearance from fragments of long bones and an incomplete skull is an extremely difficult task. Therefore, we were faced with the need to predict the height of the nose, the upper and full height of the face, and the latitudinal dimensions of the lower jaw. For which the regression equations were used (V.N. Zvyagin, 1986). Perhaps this could negatively affect the results of craniofacial identification.
The length of the humerus and femur, determined by calculation formulas, was 326.00 ± 2.4 mm (N.N. Mamonova, 1968) and 462.1 ± 7.5 mm (Steel, McKern, 1969). Judging by the reconstructed lengths of the indicated bones, the most likely height of the man was within 168.2 ± 2 cm (Pearson and Lee, 1899; Telkka, 1950 and Olivier, 1960).
The presented bones of a man belong to the gracile type skeleton, which often corresponds to the thoracic somatotype (M.A. Grigorieva, 2001). Considering the pronounced muscular tuberosity of the long bones and the saucer-shaped shape of the articular cavity of the scapula, it is logical to assume that the man most likely had a pectoral-muscular body type and body weight (calculated from the dry mass of the skeleton) 63.8 ± 6 kg (Baker, Newmann, 1957 ).
Somatic features of A.S. Kuchin, judging by the photographs presented, are quite consistent with those diagnosed.
Detailed comparative studies were carried out only with materials related to A.S. Kuchin. This choice was supported by the results of diagnostics of gender, age, race, as well as facial proportions and somatic characteristics. The remains of V.A. Rusanov is excluded both on the basis of age and appearance. It is also necessary to exclude the belonging of the investigated skull to the sailors of "Hercules" V.T. Cheremkhin, who had pronounced features of the South European anthropological type; and F.M. Ermolin, in view of the sharp difference in the size and proportions of the face. As for Konstantin Belov, a peer and comrade of Kuchin, one should take into account the testimony of P. Bashmakin "... he was short, but a muscular, strong man ...". The difference between the examined skeleton in terms of somatic characteristics, as we can see, is quite visible.
Comparison of particular features of the verbal portrait (asymmetry of the width of the face, difference in the position of the eyebrows, eye shape, prognathism, rotation of the frontal plane of the face, etc.) also indicates that the skull and photographs of A.S. Kuchin could belong to the same person.
A comparative study of the photographic portrait of A.S. Kuchin (full face) and the found skull, carried out by the method of computerized quantitative "verbal portrait" (V.N.Zvyagin et al., 2000), showed complete similarity in 24 characters out of 26 investigated. Significant differences in the size of individual elements of the face of A.S. Kuchina. and the examined skull was not found.
The results of craniofacial identification by the POSKID 1.1 method (VN Zvyagin et al, 2001), meanwhile, were uncertain (DC \u003d 11.81). We are inclined to explain this fact by postmortem deformity of the skull (divergence of the sagittal suture and long-term exposure to atmospheric factors in the Arctic).
And the last thing. What the unknown was sick with, and what was the cause of death. First of all, it is necessary to note here periodontopathy. This is a group of diseases with similar clinical manifestations: chronic inflammation near the dental tissues, loosening and loss of healthy-looking teeth. Most likely, we can talk about scurvy.
Attention is also drawn to cystic changes in the alveolar process of the right upper jaw and right-sided mastoiditis, accompanied by melting (osteomyelitis) of the bone tissue. This suffering, even with the timely provision of specialized medical care, can be complicated by inflammation of the meninges and lead to death.
The skull also has a sharp porosity of the upper walls of the eye sockets, the so-called. cribra orbitalis, is a sign of iron deficiency anemia.
Thus, the results of the forensic medical study do not exclude that the bones found belonged to the captain of "Hercules" A.S. Kuchin. Further research can go in the direction of archaeological searches for the missing parts of his skeleton and the collection of comparative materials. First of all, it is necessary to pay attention to the information about F.A. Bykovsky, V.G. Popove, A.A. Rabbi, K.A. Semenov and A.S. Chukhchina. We do not have any information on the last group of expedition members.
To the 115th anniversary of Alexander Stepanovich Kuchin
His path to immortality lay
The 115th anniversary of the birth of the Russian sailor and polar explorer Alexander Kuchin was celebrated in his homeland, Onega. A scientific and practical conference and an evening, during which, in particular, two new documentaries were shown, which had not previously been broadcast on TV; excursions; opening of a new building of the Onega Historical and Memorial Museum ...
The owners of other high-profile metropolitan forums could also learn from the organization of the entire festive program and hospitality from Onezhan; The warmest words were deserved by the head of the administration of Onega and the Onega region, Alexander Varakin, and the head of the regional department of culture, Nadezhda Mozhaitseva. But the main hero of the celebrations was the polar captain Kuchin himself, one of the outstanding nuggets of the Pomor land.
"Russian in body and soul"
Is there much you can do at 24? Alexander Stepanovich Kuchin at the age of seventeen was a cabin boy on Norwegian ships, at twenty on the same - already a captain. At the age of 19, he published The Small Russian-Norwegian Dictionary - if not the very first, then one of the first in Russia. By the way, his linguistic abilities were outstanding. He mastered Norwegian in a year, he read English and German special works on oceanography without a dictionary. He worked in Norway at the Bergen Biological Station, where he soon became one of the closest students of the outstanding scientist Professor Bjorn Helland-Hansen. On the personal recommendation of Fridtjof Nansen, Roald Amundsen himself took him as an oceanographer on an expedition of 1910-1911, which culminated in the conquest of the South Pole. For him, the only exception was made to the recommendation of parliament - the Storting, which ordered the crew of the "Fram" to be exclusively Norwegian ... No one doubted that the young researcher was waiting for a brilliant career in Europe. But in 1912 Kuchin, who was not without reason saying about himself: "I am Russian in body and soul," returned to Russia. And literally two weeks later, he agrees to the offer of the famous polar explorer Vladimir Rusanov to become the captain of the expedition cutter "Hercules". Together with Rusanov, he supervises the work on Svalbard. Then, vast deposits of coal were found and assigned to Russia ...
Before that, he had an intense and successful study in Russia - he graduated from the Arkhangelsk Trade and Naval School in 1909 with a gold medal. His active participation in political life is known. He, in particular, was among those who in Norway published and dispatched illegal social democratic literature to Russia. It would seem that happiness in his personal life was so close: in December 1911, an engagement took place with the 18-year-old daughter of the "Norwegian Shaw" - a wonderful publicist and journalist Andreas Poulson. The correspondence between Alexander and Aslaug, the memories of their relationship - a touching monument of pure and sincere mutual love.
This information in itself is capable of surprising, even if we were talking about the son of a major industrialist, or officer, or scientist, who received a brilliant education at home and the opportunity not to think about his daily bread. The father of the future captain of "Hercules" Stepan Grigorievich, having lost his father as a child, began his journey at sea as a plover - a boy, who was responsible for all the rough and preparatory work in the life of the Pomors - from cooking to fishing for small fish for bait. Studying for pennies, working desperately, he made his way into the people - he became a navigator, then a captain. But still the need for a family living in the village of Kushereka was terrible. They drank tea once a week. What tea! Aleksandr Kuchin's mother, Fekla Andreevna, recalled the beginning of family life: “The groom ... married in someone else's fur coat - there was no one of his own. How he brought me - andel-god, there is no samovar. The hut is like that - the sky can see, the birds are flying ... ”In such and such a situation, the first-born of the Kuchins, Alexander, was born and spent his childhood. He went to sea from the age of fourteen. What abilities, willpower, courage, and diligence one had to possess in order to achieve such success under these conditions!
Rusanovtsy: madness of the brave
Spitsbergen - in Russian Grumant - was mastered by the Pomors back in the 16th century. However, for various reasons, it was not possible to secure Russia's rights to these lands or to use them, and by the beginning of the twentieth century, many countries and just adventurers - private individuals - claimed Spitsbergen, rich in coal. Under these most difficult conditions, Vladimir Alexandrovich Rusanov headed the Russian expedition to the northern archipelago. By the time he was thirty-seven years old, he had five remarkable expeditions to Novaya Zemlya under his belt. It was he who, in February 1912, invited Kuchin as a captain and oceanographer on his expedition. They both left for Norway and soon acquired a Hercules cutter there. At the end of June, from Aleksandrovsk-on-Murman (now Polyarny), the expedition set out to sea.
The Rusanovites coped with the tasks on Spitsbergen brilliantly, collecting the richest collections, conducting geological and other research, and most importantly, placing 28 pillars - “applications” securing Russian rights to Spitsbergen. The expedition report was sent to Russia on a passing ship. The Hercules, with eleven crew members, moved east. The expedition also included Rusanov's fiancee - Frenchwoman Juliette Jean-Sossin, a ship's doctor ...
There is still no consensus among scientists even about what purpose Rusanov was thereby pursuing. Was he trying to reach the Pacific Ocean by the northeastern passage, which until then only Niels Nordenskjold managed to do on the schooner Vega in 1878-1879, or was his task more modest and practical - to explore the mouths of Siberian rivers, primarily the Yenisei? The riddle is one of many. It is known that Rusanov was firmly convinced of the existence in the Arctic of a special branch of the Gulf Stream, and hence of ice-free spaces ...
Be that as it may, the last time "Hercules" was seen on Novaya Zemlya on August 31, 1912. Eyewitnesses remember the cheerful, lively Vladimir Rusanov, who warmly said goodbye to them. He was escorted to the Hercules with a threefold rifle salute. Meanwhile, the weather that day was not conducive to sailing. There were many "angry" white clouds over the mountains of Novaya Zemlya, and a strong east wind was blowing. This, according to the signs of the Pomors, meant that broken ice floes were moving from the Kara Sea. The last message from Rusanov is a telegram left in one of the Nenets camps on the archipelago: “... We were engaged in hydrography. By storm they were carried south of Matochkin Shara. I go to the northwestern tip of Novaya Zemlya, from there to the east. If the ship dies, I'll head to the nearest islands along the way: Solitude, Novosibirsk, Wrangel. Stocks for a year. Everyone is healthy. Rusanov ". Researchers suggest that the Cape of Zhelaniya - the northern end of Novaya Zemlya - “Hercules” nevertheless skirted and went out into the Kara Sea without hindrance.
There was no further news of the expedition.
The grief of the parents and relatives of Alexander Kuchin was immeasurable. It is difficult to calmly read these slightly awkward, but in fact, the lines of Stepan Grigorievich written in the blood of the heart:
Where are you, where, my beloved son?
Where are you dying, my dear?
You cry - I can't hear
I only feel with my soul.
Where the mountains are icy
Where there is eternal snow
Where there is no summer
Where darkness stands all winter ...
Why did you leave, my dear,
Why did you leave your family?
You abandoned your bride
You left your friends ...
Mother and father grieve
Sisters cry for you
This is how it goes year after year.
You answer us: where are you, where?
For a long time, the bride of Alexander continued to believe, hope and wait. For several years she kept in constant correspondence with his parents. In Russian literature, a beautiful legend is even spread that Aslaug has been waiting for her beloved all her life. In fact, she later married twice. However, some kind of fate seemed to weigh on the unfortunate woman. Her first husband, a Norwegian sailor, died shortly after the wedding. She married again at a very mature age. She had no children. Aslaug Poulson died relatively recently - in 1987 - in a nursing home. There is one detail that strangely unites her with her first lover and his father. Like Alexander Kuchin and Stepan Kuchin, who died in besieged Leningrad, Poulson does not have his own grave. The fact is that she bequeathed her body for scientific purposes, and in Norway such people are buried in a common grave ...
But let's return to the tragedy of "Hercules". Only in 1914, under pressure from the public, the Naval Ministry equipped a search and rescue expedition; It was led by the idol of Kuchin's youth, the renowned Norwegian Otto Sverdrup. But the searches, in which a total of four ships participated, were unsuccessful, and with the outbreak of World War they stopped altogether.
Taimyr calls them
After the revolution, hunters in Taimyr found and buried the bodies of two men in naval uniforms. It is still unknown who these two sailors are. Later there were many expeditions, including special ones, equipped in the 70s with Komsomolskaya Pravda with the participation of Dmitry Shparo and Alexander Shumilov, and in recent years by the Oryol State Television and Radio Company (OGTRK) Rusanov was born in Orel. There were finds. So, in 1934, in the Mona archipelago in the Kara Sea, a pillar with a carved inscription “Hercules. 1913 ", broken old sledges and a fragment of a cartridge box. This islet was called Hercules. The personal belongings of the Rusanovites were found on the island, which was then named after the sailors Vasily Popov and Alexander Chukhchin. Numerous finds on the mainland - on Taimyr. In particular, in the summer of 2000, members of the OGTRK expedition discovered fragments of human remains in the area of \u200b\u200bMount Minin on Taimyr. To identify them by genetic material, relatives of Alexander Kuchin and other members of the expedition took special tests.
Alas, the researchers were disappointed. The found remains, as the examination showed, contain a large amount of radioactive strontium. Apparently, this area was in the contamination zone after one or more nuclear tests on Novaya Zemlya. As a result, alas, the genetic material was damaged, and identification by it was impossible.
Experts managed to identify the main features of a person whose skull and bones were found. It was a Caucasian male. At the time of his death, he was no more than thirty; growth - about 168 centimeters. Some of his other signs are known, even chronic diseases. In a word, it may well be Alexander Kuchin, judging by the few surviving data on his appearance. Moreover, it was possible to prove that the remains cannot belong to most of the other members of the expedition.
In the materials for the film, collected by Arkhangelsk TV journalists, there is an interesting record of a conversation with Professor Viktor Zvyagin, the head of the personality identification department of the republican center of forensic medical examination. The researcher admits that he is personally quite sure: the remains of Captain Kuchin were found ...
However, from a scientific point of view, the evidence is still insufficient. The fate of the last expedition of Vladimir Rusanov and Alexander Kuchin conceals many, too many mysteries.
Enthusiasts - both residents of Orlov and Muscovites - hope to assemble a new expedition to Taimyr.
The participants of the celebrations learned about all this from the films prepared by the Oryol and Arkhangelsk television journalists. The work of the Arkhangelsk journalists from the Pomorie State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company - the head of the project Svetlana Bush, director Alexei Ugarov, cameraman Viktor Eremeev - also contains an element of investigation. The authors of the film do not avoid the poignant moments. In the frame there are not only Kuchin's relatives, not only Norwegian journalists, museum workers, who provide interesting biographical details, but also famous Russian historians, researchers of the Arctic: Vadim Starkov, Vladislav Koryakin. From them we also learn what is in vain hushed up at the anniversary celebrations. So, there is an opinion that "Hercules", bought with government money, Rusanov, in fact, simply stole for the needs of his private project. It is also believed that there were no "supplies for a year" on the 20-meter cutter. Rudolf Samoilovich, who worked with Rusanov in Svalbard, spoke about this, in particular. They say, and not without reason, that this boat was completely unsuitable for sailing in ice, and among the 11 crew there were serious researchers, but there were no people with practical experience of wintering ...
Well, Gorky's now unfashionable words about the "madness of the brave" are very appropriate here. As well as the words about the song in honor of this high "madness".
Mighty Russia remembers
Captain Kuchin,
His path to immortality lay ...
This song by Boris Shlomovich to the words of Yevgeny Tokarev performed by the Onega Pearls ensemble especially touched the hearts of the participants in the festive celebrations. May it really be so for many years. May the memory of the fearless seafarer and outstanding explorer preserve many generations of Russia, a great and mighty country - the way the captain of the Hercules wanted to see it.
Stanislav ZELYANIN, Onega-Severodvinsk
A question for the readers of OKO - who has been to the Pyasina river, the Minin skerries, and generally the bank of H. Laptev - have they not found sites, crosses, graves, household items. If so, let them give you approximate coordinates. Everything is interesting.
Geologist Vladimir Alexandrovich Rusanov, after graduating from the University of Paris, sailed in 1907 to Novaya Zemlya to collect materials for a dissertation. Partly on dilapidated karbas, partly on foot, he passed Matochkin Shar from west to east and back. In 1908, while working as a geologist on the French Arctic expedition, he went to Novaya Zemlya for the second time, then twice crossed the North Island at 74 ° N. sh. - from Krestovaya Bay to the Unknown Bay and in the opposite direction.
In 1909, participating in a Russian government expedition, Rusanov visited Novaya Zemlya for the third time, again crossed the Northern Island and discovered a continuous transverse valley - the shortest path (40 km) between both banks. Following on a dilapidated boat along the western coast of the island from Krestovaya Bay to the Admiralty Peninsula (75 ° N), he discovered a number of glaciers, several lakes and rivers and completed the discovery of Mashigina Bay (74 ° 45 "N) to its peaks, deeply cut into the land and surrounded by large glaciers.
Then Rusanov was the head of three Russian expeditions. In 1910, for the fourth time, he sailed to Novaya Zemlya on a motor-sailing vessel. The expedition re-described the western coast from the Admiralty Peninsula to the Arkhangelsk Bay (near 76 ° N). On the way, she opened two previously unnoticed lips and found out that one of the Pankratyev Islands had turned into a peninsula several decades after its first inventory. Having rounded the northern end of Novaya Zemlya, Rusanov headed south and beyond 76 ° N. sh. tracked a large glacier for 50 km; glaciers also stretched to the south. The official maps of the Kara coast of the island from 75 ° to 73 ° 30 "N corresponded little to reality. Rusanov used a much more accurate handwritten map of the expedition guide of the Nenets Ilya Vylka, who had previously filmed 250 km of this coast with a compass for three years and opened a row lips and islets Rusanov described four lips discovered by I. Vylka and at 74 ° 35 "N. sh. he himself discovered a large lip, to the top of which the tongue of a huge glacier approached - the Gulf of Oga (named after the French geologist Emile Oga).
Having passed through Matochkin Shar to the western coast, Rusanov thereby completed a detour (a second time after Savva Loshkin) of the entire Northern Island (48,100 km2) and, based on the inventory and several walking routes, made a new map of it. It turned out that the coastline of the island is more developed than previously thought, and the mountains occupy the entire interior and are cut through by deep, mostly through valleys, dug by ancient glaciers. For the first time, a continuous ice cover is plotted on Pycanov's map, the outlines of which are close to those shown on our maps.
In 1911 Rusanov for the fifth time sailed to Novaya Zemlya on a motor-sailing boat (5 tons), taking I. Vylka with him. He went to Fr. Mezhdusharsky (748 km2) and was convinced of the complete discrepancy between the maps of reality - the northeastern coast of the island turned out to be indented by many bays. Then the boat reached the southern coast. Rusanov, having completed the first complete survey of the Reinecke Bay (70 ° 34 "N), radically changed the outlines of the southern outskirts of Novaya Zemlya and revealed the indentedness of its shores. along the eastern coast of the South Island, which has not yet been explored by naturalists, completed its detour in September.
In 1912 Rusanov was sent to Svalbard to explore deposits of coal and prepare them for exploitation. At his disposal was a small (65 t) motor-sailing vessel "Hercules" (captain - Alexander Stepanovich Kuchin). Rusanov went first to West Spitsbergen and discovered four new deposits of coal. From there, for the sixth time he moved to Novaya Zemlya, to Matochkin Sharu. He left a note there that, having a year's supply of food, he intends to go around Novaya Zemlya from the north and pass through the Northeast Passage to the Pacific Ocean. Then the expedition went missing - all eleven of its members, including Rusanov with his wife, a student at the University of Paris Juliette Jean, and Kuchin. Only in 1934, on one of the islands in the Mona archipelago and on an island in the Minin skerries, off the western coast of the Taimyr Peninsula, did Soviet hydrographers accidentally find a pillar with the inscription “Hercules, 1913”, things, documents and remains of the expedition's camp. However, as early as 1921, on the Mikhailov Peninsula (near 88 ° E), Nikifor Begichev came across an old fireplace and numerous small things; their owners, he mistakenly decided, were the Norwegian sailors he was looking for. Only in 1974 was it proved that these finds belonged to the Rusanovites.
Military sailor Georgy Yakovlevich Sedov in 1902 and 1910 carried out hydrographic work in the northern seas. In 1912 he led an expedition aimed at exploring the Central Arctic and hoisting the Russian flag at the North Pole. In August, in command of the steamer Svyatoy Foka, Sedov tried to cross from Arkhangelsk to Franz Josef Land, but due to heavy ice he turned to Novaya Zemlya; in the bay at 76 ° N. sh., near the Pankratyev Peninsula, the ship was covered with ice.
In autumn G. Sedov made a detailed survey of the neighboring islets. The members of the expedition - geographer Vladimir Yulievich Vize, geologist Mikhail Alekseevich Pavlov and two sailors - crossed the Northern Island twice, passing from the Barents Sea to the Kara Sea and back. The first crossing of Novaya Zemlya at such a latitude showed that the inner part of the island is occupied by a vast glacier, which completely smooths out the unevenness of the relief. In the spring of 1913, G. Sedov described in detail and accurately the north-western coast of Novaya Zemlya, including the bays of Borzov and Inostrantsev, and with one dog sled rounded its northern tip. The survey by G. Sedov significantly changed the map of this coast. In particular, he discovered the Mendeleev Mountains and the Lomonosov Ridge.
At the beginning of September, the ice was broken, and the "Saint Foka" moved to the southern part of Franz Josef Land, choosing for wintering a bay near about. Hooker. During the second wintering, Sedov fell ill with scurvy, like almost all of his companions. Mortally ill, on February 15, 1914, together with sailors Grigory Vasilyevich Linnik and Alexander Matveyevich Pustoshny, he began an ice trip to the Pole on sledges, but died on March 5, 3 km south of Fr. Rudolph. The sailors buried Sedov on the western bank of Fr. Rudolph, at Cape Auk (81 ° 45 "N), and returned to the ship on 19 March.
(1912-1914)Geologist Vladimir Aleksandrovich Rusanov first visited the Arctic in 1907.
He reached Matochkin Shara on a passenger steamer, and then on a Nenets longboat sailed the entire Matochkin Shar to the Kara Sea and back ”describing the strait along the way in navigational and geological terms.
In 1908 Rusanov again visited Novaya Zemlya. He carried out geological research and, in particular, crossed Novaya Zemlya along the 74th parallel, from Krestovaya Bay in the west to the Unknown Bay in the east and back.
In 1909 Rusanov explored the western coast of Novaya Zemlya from Krestovaya Bay to the Admiralty Peninsula on a sailboat.
In 1910, on the motor-sailing ship “Dmitry Solunsky” (displacement of 180 tons, captain G. I. Pospelov), he walked around the northern island of Novaya Zemlya in the sun.
In 1911 Rusanov walked around the southern island of Novaya Zemlya on a small motor-sailing yacht “Polyarnaya”.
Finally, in 1912, he went to the Arctic on the Hercules hunting ship (displacement 64 tons, motor - 24 forces). The ship was commanded by Captain Alexander Stepanovich Kuchin, who had just returned from Amundsen's Antarctic expedition.
First, Rusanov went to Spitsbergen, considered at that time "no man's land", and surveyed the coal-bearing areas on the coast of the bays. Bellsund and Isfjord. From Spitsbergen he went to Novaya Zemlya and left a note here, which, by the way, said:
“I am going to the northwestern tip of Novaya Zemlya. If the ship dies, I will head to the nearest islands of Solitude, Novosibirsk, Wrangel along the way. Stocks for a year, everyone is healthy. Rusanov ”.
He did not tell anyone about his intention to cross the Northern Sea Route. Rusanov was an ardent advocate of the development of the Northern Sea Route "and wrote several articles about the need for this development. Rusanov, like Brusilov, knew that just at that time the icebreaking steamers Vaigach and Taimyr were preparing to pass the Northern Sea Route from east to west and, therefore, in case of need they could help him. Finally, the very content of his note, left on Novaya Zemlya, does not give rise to doubts that he was going to fulfill his long-held dream.
For a long time nothing was known about the further fate of "Hercules". Only in the summer of 1934 the motor-sailing boat “Stalinets”, which was carrying out hydrographic work in the skerries of Minin, discovered on the island of Hercules (so called later) a pillar of fin with the inscription “Hercules 1913” and a number of broken sledges. A little later, in the same area, but on another island, now called the Popov-Chukchin island, the same "Stalinist" found a seagoing book of the sailor "Hercules" Alexander Spiridonovich Chukchin, a certificate issued in the name of the sailor Vasily Grigorievich Popov, a silver watch with with the initials of Popov, several business cards of the zoologist of the expedition, Z. F. Svatosh. Decaying clothing, a camera and rifle cartridges lay near the shore. In 1936, the Popov-Chukchina Island was thoroughly surveyed by the hydrographic team on the Toros vessel. In addition, knives, Browning clips, cartridges, buttons, copper money, scraps of clothing, postal receipts and an autograph of V.A.Rusanov were found.
These findings proved that, despite the unfavorable ice conditions of 1912 and 1913, Rusanov still managed to cross the southern part of the Kara Sea.
Until now, it remains unknown whether the things found are evidence of a shipwreck or traces of the death of only two people, sent for any purpose from the Hercules. It is only known that in 1947, on the northeastern coast of Bolshevik Island (Severnaya Zemlya), (in the depths of Akhmatov Bay, the remains of a human skeleton, five opened cans, remnants of a fire, fragments of boards fastened with bolts and resembling the skin of a ship were discovered.
To this day, we do not know what tragedy played out there. The question arises: what if these are the remnants of Rusanov's expedition? But what if Rusanov discovered the Severnaya Zemlya before the expedition of the icebreaking ships "Taimyr" and "Vaygach" and paid with his life, carried away by the description of a previously unknown land?
Vladimir Alexandrovich Rusanov (November 3 (15), 1875) - Russian Arctic explorer. Came from the class of merchants.
1897 - Graduated from the Oryol Theological Seminary.
1897 - For participation in the revolutionary movement he was imprisoned, was exiled for 2 years to Ust-Sysolsk.
1903 - emigrated to France (Paris), where he graduated from the Sorbonne University (1907).
1907 - visited Novaya Zemlya, the Matochkin Shar Strait passed along the coast.
1908 and 1909 was a participant, and in 1910 and 1911 - the head of scientific expeditions to Novaya Zemlya; first crossed about. North and on motor-sailing ships went around Novaya Zemlya.
1912 - headed an expedition on the Hercules boat to survey the coal-bearing regions of Spitsbergen; Then he set off on a voyage around Cape Zhelaniya to the east and went missing with the entire crew (the time and circumstances of the death of the expedition remained unclear) near the Mikhailov Peninsula.
From Wikipedia
Heart noble feat
V. Pasetsky, Candidate of Historical SciencesVladimir Alexandrovich Rusanov is perhaps one of the most daring and enthusiastic explorers of the Arctic. He devoted five years to the study of Novaya Zemlya: along and across its shores, plotted previously unknown bays, bays, coastal islands, explored glaciers and mountains. He defended this primordial Russian land from the encroachments of foreign colonists. He defended the interests of Russia in the distant Spitsbergen. For many years, his attention was drawn to the great and most complicated problem - the organization of regular navigation along the Northern Sea Route. In the name of her decision, he sacrificed his life.
Rusanov's childhood and youth passed in Orel. Here he linked his life with the revolutionary movement. According to contemporaries, Rusanov became the soul of the Oryol Social Democratic circle, which maintained close ties with the Moscow "Workers Union", in whose activities Dmitry Ilyich and Anna Ilyinichna Ulyanovs, MT Elizarov, and VD Bonch-Bruevich took an active part. It is known that in 1898 Rusanov exchanged illegal literature with Anna Ilyinichna Ulyanova. Soon Rusanov was arrested: the police learned that he kept the "Communist Manifesto". In 1901 Rusanov was sent to a settlement in the Vologda province under the public supervision of the police. His very young wife, Maria Petrovna Bulatova, who had just graduated from high school, followed him into exile, against the will of her parents.
To earn a living, Rusanov took up a difficult job - a statistical study of the deaf and little-known Zyryan lands in those years (the Komi people used to be called Zyryans). Returning to Vologda, he presented to the provincial zemstvo assembly a report "On the exploration of a new waterway between the Volga-Kama and Pechora basins." In the summer of 1903 Rusanov spent a new trip to the Pechora region, from which he brought a project for the device of a canal, which would connect "two great river systems - the Northern and Southern, the Pechora and the Volga for the benefit of industrial development and the cultural rise of the Motherland."
In 1903, Rusanov received freedom, but not complete, but with the notification that he was forbidden to live in capital and university cities for five years. This meant that the path to continuing education in Russia was cut off. Then he and Maria Petrovna left for France. And in December 1903, both were enrolled among the students of the Sorbonne. The half-starved, tense and happy student life was overshadowed by great grief. Soon after giving birth, Maria Petrovna died of blood poisoning. In the arms of Rusanov, a newborn son Sasha remained.
In the summer of 1907 Rusanov was again in Russia. Having reached Matochkin Shara by steamer, he began to study geological rocks along the shores of this strait, dividing Novaya Zemlya into two islands. The next year Rusanov crossed the Northern Island of Novaya Zemlya from east to west and from west to east, and in 1909 sailed along the western shores of the island from Krestovaya Guba to the Admiralty Peninsula.
Together with the Nenets Ilya Tyko Vylka, with whom they became inseparable companions from that time on, they sailed about 400 miles in the Barents Sea on an old, half-rotten boat. This daring journey lasted from July 22 to August 10. They did not go ashore for days, did not drink tea or cook dinner, because it was impossible to land on the shore because of the stormy weather. I had to stay away so as not to bump into the pitfalls that suddenly appeared here and there from the seething water. Hands and feet were numb from the cold, clothes, wet from the icy spray, were staked.
Then a fog came and enveloped the shores of Novaya Zemlya in an impenetrable veil. Rusanov and Vylka only guessed by the roar of the surf which side was the coast. And they took the boat farther and farther into the sea, fearing to get into the surf: then only chips would remain from the boat.
