Expeditions of Ivan Papanin 75 years

75 years ago, on February 19, 1938, the legendary drift of the station ended off the coast of Greenland." North Pole-1". The expedition of Ivan Papanin was removed from the melting ice floe after 274 days of travel by the icebreakers "Taimyr" and "Murman". The experience of the pioneers was not in vain. Russia today retains priority in high-latitude Arctic research.

Hydrologist Pyotr Shirshov, radio operator Ernst Krenkel, station chief Ivan Papanin, geophysicist Evgeny Fedorov at the first drifting station "North Pole-1". Photo: RIA Novosti

In May 1937, the plane delivered the expedition to an ice floe measuring 3 by 5 kilometers. The four polar explorers had to solve a problem with many unknowns, because such experiments had not yet been carried out in world practice. During the long drift, they had to conduct unique hydrological and meteorological studies. Later, Ivan Papanin recalled: “There was a silence that I had never heard before, to which I had to get used to. We are at the top of the world. There is no west or east, no matter where you look, there is south everywhere.”

A few days later the ice floe passed over the North Pole point. In honor of this event, travelers hoisted a Soviet flag on it. At the end of January the following 1938, after a six-day storm, the ice floe began to intensively collapse. Its area was reduced to 200 square meters. It was no longer possible to continue the work. Director of the Museum of the Arctic and Antarctic Viktor Boyarsky says:

The head of the first Soviet drifting station "North Pole - 1" Ivan Papanin. Photo: RIA Novosti

Polar aviation pilot G. Vlasov, I. Papanin and the head of the rescue expedition, captain of the icebreaker "Taimyr" A.V. Ostaltsov during the meeting of the scientific station "North Pole-1" drifting on an ice floe on February 19, 1938. Photo: RIA Novosti

“On February 19, 1938, at 1:30 p.m., the icebreaking steamships Taimyr and Murman approached the ice floe where our legendary four were located. Eighty people got off board and went to meet the polar explorers. About five hours later, all the property of the station was transferred to the "Taimyr" and a draw was held - who would go on which ship. Ivan Papanin and Ernst Krenkel ended up on the "Murman", and Pyotr Shirshov and Evgeny Fedorov - on the "Taimyr". This was the finale of the rescue operation. the beginning was earlier, when on February 5 they decided to send an airship to help the expedition members. But, unfortunately, it crashed in the Kandalaksha area, and 13 crew members were killed. A flight expedition was also organized, but it was not necessary to use aviation.”

On March 15, the country greeted the polar heroes with jubilation. Their experience was not in vain. Today Russia is a recognized leader in scientific research Arctic, notes the head of the high-latitude Arctic expedition of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, Vladimir Sokolov:

Papaninites and members of the rescue expedition leave the camp of the North Pole-1 scientific station on February 19, 1938. Photo: RIA Novosti

“Now we have the 40th station operating. 15 people work there. A modern drifting station produces such a quantity of scientific information about the state of natural environment, which the station issued per year in the late 1980s. About 30 powerful complexes study the atmosphere, about a dozen study the ocean, and about four or five study ice. These complexes make it possible to obtain sufficiently detailed and good resolution data on the state of the climate system of the high-latitude Arctic. We checked a number of foreign automatic stations. Of course, the results are incomparable."

Mikhailov Andrey 06/13/2019 at 16:00

There are many glorious pages in the history of the discovery and exploration of the Russian Arctic. But there is a special chapter in it, from which the heroic polar epic began. On May 21, 1937, the polar air expedition of the USSR Academy of Sciences reached the North Pole and landed the North Pole-1 scientific station on drifting ice for nine long months.

With this expedition, the systematic development of the entire Arctic basin began, thanks to which navigation along the Northern Sea Route became regular. Its members had to collect data in the field of atmospheric phenomena, meteorology, geophysics, and hydrobiology. The station was headed by Ivan Dmitrievich Papanin, its employees were hydrologist Pyotr Petrovich Shirshov, geophysicist-astronomer Evgeniy Konstantinovich Fedorov and radio operator Ernst Teodorovich Krenkel. The expedition was led by Otto Yulievich Schmidt, the pilot of the flagship N-170 aircraft was a hero Soviet Union Mikhail Vasilievich Vodopyanov.

And it all started like this. On February 13, 1936, at a meeting in the Kremlin on the organization of transport flights, Otto Schmidt outlined a plan for an air expedition to the North Pole and the establishment of a station there. Based on the plan, Stalin and Voroshilov instructed the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route (Glavsevmorput) to organize an expedition to the North Pole region in 1937 and deliver equipment for the scientific station and winterers there by plane.

An air expedition squadron was formed consisting of four four-engine ANT-6-4M-34R "Aviaarktika" aircraft and a twin-engine reconnaissance aircraft R-6. To select the location of an intermediate base for the assault on the pole on Rudolf Island (Franz Josef Land), in the spring of 1936, pilots Vodopyanov and Makhotkin went on reconnaissance. In August, the icebreaking steamer Rusanov headed there with cargo for the construction of a new polar station and airfield equipment.

The whole country was preparing the expedition. For example, a tent for a residential camp was created by the Moscow Kauchuk plant. Its frame was made of easily disassembled aluminum pipes, the canvas walls were lined with two layers of eider down, and the rubber inflatable floor was also supposed to conserve heat.

The Central Radio Laboratory in Leningrad produced two radio stations - a powerful 80-watt one and a 20-watt emergency one. The main power source was two sets of alkaline batteries, charged from a small windmill or from a dynamo - a light gasoline engine (there was also a manually driven engine). All equipment, from the antenna to the smallest spare parts, was made under Krenkel’s personal supervision; the weight of the radio equipment was half a ton.

According to special drawings, the Leningrad Shipbuilding Plant named after Karakozov built ash sleds that weighed only 20 kilograms. The Institute of Catering Engineers prepared lunches for the drifting station for a whole year and a half, weighing about 5 tons.

On May 21, 1937, at about five in the morning, Mikhail Vodopyanov’s car took off from Rudolf Island. Throughout the flight, radio contact was maintained, the weather and the nature of the ice cover were clarified. During the flight, an accident occurred: a leak developed in the flange in the upper part of the radiator of the third engine, and antifreeze began to evaporate. The flight mechanics had to cut the wing skin in order to place a rag that absorbed the liquid, squeeze it into a bucket, and use a pump to pump the coolant back into the engine reservoir.

The mechanics had to carry out this operation until the landing, sticking their bare hands out of the wing in -20 degrees and a fast wind. At 10:50 we reached the pole. And on May 25, the remaining group of aircraft was launched.

After landing at the North Pole, explorers made many discoveries. Every day they took soil samples, measured depths and drift speeds, determined coordinates, carried out magnetic measurements, hydrological and meteorological observations. Soon after the landing, a drift of the ice floe on which the researchers' camp was located was discovered. Her wanderings began in the North Pole area, after 274 days the ice floe turned into a fragment of 200 by 300 meters.