Anton Lukitsch Omelchenko

Anton Lukitsch Omeltschenko ( Russian Антон Лукич Омельченко , *  1883 near Poltava , Russian Empire (now Ukraine ); † 1932 in Sinkiw Raion , Ukrainian SSR , Soviet Union (now Ukraine)) was a Russian stablehand and jockey who worked on the Terra Nova Expedition (1910-1913) of the British polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott took part in the Antarctic .

Life

Omelchenko was born in the Ukrainian village of Batki and grew up in a family of small farmers . He earned his living as a groom on a neighboring country estate.

In 1909 he worked as a jockey in Vladivostok . There he met Cecil Meares (1877-1937), who tried to buy Manchurian ponies as draft animals for the Terra Nova expedition on Scott's behalf . Omelchenko helped with the selection of the animals and was involved together with Meares and his compatriot Dmitri Girew (1888-1932) in the transfer to New Zealand and then to the base camp of the expedition on Ross Island . There he was subordinate to Lawrence Oates for looking after the horses. In the course of the expedition, Omeltschenko took part in several transport marches to set up supply depots. After the beginning of the South Pole March, which ended fatally for Scott and four other expedition members on November 1, 1911, in which all of the remaining ten ponies were used, the tasks for Omelchenko were done. Therefore, he belonged to that part of the team that left on March 4, 1912 with the expedition ship Terra Nova .

Omelchenko returned home and was a soldier in the Imperial Russian Army in World War I , and later in the Red Army . He helped set up a collective farm in his hometown and died in 1932 at the age of 49 from the effects of a lightning strike . Omelchenko Bay and Omelchenko Bluff are named after him in Antarctica .

Web links

Commons : Anton Omelchenko  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Anton Omelchenko. Illustrated short biography on coolantarctic.com (English)