Georgi Alexejewitsch Ushakow

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Georgi A. Ushakov

Georgi Alexeyevich Ushakov ( Russian Георгий Алексеевич Ушаков; born January 17 . Jul / the thirtieth January  1901 greg. In Lasarewo , Amur Oblast , † 3. December 1963 in Moscow ) was a Soviet geographer and Arctic explorer.

Life

Early years

Ushakov had an adventurous childhood. At the age of ten he often accompanied his brothers on their big game hunts through the Taiga of the Amur region . In 1916 Ushakov met the explorer Vladimir Arsenyev in Khabarovsk , where he attended school , and joined him for a summer. After the October Revolution, he finished high school and attended the teacher training college in Khabarovsk until September 1919 pages of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War took part. He joined the Communist Party of Russia in 1924 and worked for the state foreign trade company Gostorg .

Settlement of Wrangel Island

In 1926 the Soviet government decided to support its claim to Wrangel Island on the border of the East Siberian and the Chukchi Sea by establishing a settlement. The Canadian polar explorer Vilhjálmur Stefánsson had already initiated a settlement attempt in 1921 in order to persuade the Canadian government to annex the island. Four of the five settlers were dead by 1923, however. A second attempt by the American Charles Wells to live on the island with 12 Eskimos from Alaska was ended in 1924 by a Soviet gunboat. Now Ushakov got the order to organize a permanent settlement of the island. In 1926 the steamer Stavropol dropped 60 people on Wrangel Island: 10 Eskimo families from the Prowideniya area , Ushakov with his wife, a doctor with his wife and two Russian hunters with their families. They built a settlement and a weather station on Rodgers Bay, which was named Ushakovskoye in honor of its founder . The island turned out to be a good hunting ground. By 1929, when Ushakov left them again, 500  arctic foxes and 300  polar bears were hunted and 2.5 tons of walrus ivory were captured. Ushakov had learned survival techniques from the Eskimos and mapped the island on extensive journeys. Uschakowskoje remained inhabited until 1997, when the last residents were relocated to Mys Schmidta .

Expedition to Severnaya Zemlya

During his stay on Wrangel Island, Ushakov developed a plan for the exploration of Severnaya Zemlya , which was only discovered in 1913 by the Hydrographic Expedition of the Northern Arctic Sea under the direction of Boris Wilkizki north of Cape Chelyuskin . Wilkizki had only seen the south and east coasts. The size of the country was unknown, nor was it known whether it was an island or an archipelago. There had been plans for expeditions before, e.g. B. by Nikolai Pinegin (1883-1940) , a participant in the Sedov expedition 1912-1915 . However, they were not implemented because of the high costs. Ushakov now proposed a very inexpensive option. The expedition he led would forego the wintering of a ship and the usual supply teams. A small group of well-trained and experienced participants should go on discovery tours with dog sleds from spring to autumn and use the dark season to set up food depots for the next season. He wanted to feed the expedition mainly by hunting, and he wanted to contribute to the financing himself with the furs he captured.

It was a fortunate coincidence that the USSR in 1929 a polar station on the Pacific bay to Franz Josef Land belonging Hooker Island was established. In the summer of 1930, the station crew was to be replaced with the help of the icebreaker Georgi Sedov . On this occasion one could attempt to drop Ushakov's expedition on the west coast of Severnaya Zemlya. Ushakov's proposal was accepted within a month, and he himself became deputy director of the Institute for the Exploration of the North, later the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute . His expedition team consisted of the geologist Nikolai Urwanzew , who had already worked on the Taimyr peninsula and himself had envisaged an expedition to Severnaya Zemlya, the professional hunter Sergei Shuravlyov (1892-1937), who spent several winters on Novaya Zemlya and had experience leading Dog sled had, and the radio operator Wassili Chodow (1908–1981). The Sedow left Archangelsk under the direction of Otto Schmidt on July 15, 1930. After visiting Hooker Island, the Kara Sea was crossed and the Wiese Island was discovered. Approaching Severnaya Zemlya proved difficult. Ushakov's expedition team was finally dropped on August 22nd on Domaschni Island , one of the Sedov Islands . After the establishment of the base camp, the Sedov cast off again. Chodow stayed in the camp while the other men made an initial exploration of the area, went hunting and set up depots for future trips. On October 5, Ushakov was the first to set foot on the largest island in the archipelago, the October Revolution Island , at Cape Hammer and Sickle , and formally took possession of the land for the USSR. In the winter and early spring of 1931, Ushakow and Schurawlow set up additional depots on five sleigh journeys, where they also crossed the October Revolution Island for the first time. The first trip to take a topographical and geological survey of the archipelago lasted from April 23rd to May 29th. The men first followed the northwest coast of the October Revolution Island, then crossed the Red Army Strait and followed the east coast of Komsomolets Island to Cape Molotov, the northernmost point of the entire archipelago, and then the west coast. The coast of October Revolution Island was completely mapped in June and July, that of Bolshevik Island in spring 1932 and that of Pioneer Island in June . After Chodow had announced the completion of the work by radio, Schmidt, who was on the first crossing of the Northeast Passage with the Sibiryakov within a navigation period, made a detour to Domaschni and then passed Severnaya Zemlya for the first time north using the first map sketches. On August 15, 1932, the Russanov arrived and brought the expedition members home. Ushakov's expedition was extremely successful. Urwanzew made very precise maps of Severnaya Zemlyas, which later only had to be corrected a little. For this, 7000 km had been covered in the dog sled.

Rescue of the shipwrecked Chelyuskin

Ushakow in Alaska (in the middle between Slepnjow and Lewanewski)

In December 1932 the head office of the Northern Sea Route (Glawsewmorput) was established. Its first director was Schmidt and one of his two deputies Georgi Uschakow. After successfully mastering the Northeast Passage with an icebreaker in one season in 1932, Glawsewmorput started an attempt in 1933 to repeat the same thing with a cargo ship in order to prove the suitability of the northern sea route for freight traffic . Under Captain Vladimir Ivanovich Voronin (1890–1952) and the expedition leader Otto Schmidt, the Tscheljuskin reached the Bering Sea in early November when it was trapped by the pack ice and drifted back into the Chukchi Sea . The ship sank on February 13, 1934 in the southern Chukchi Sea 120 km northeast of the island of Kolyuchin . 104 passengers and crew members were able to save themselves on the ice and were waiting for help. Ushakov went himself on the spot. He traveled with the pilots Sigismund Lewanewski and Mawriki Slepnjow (1896-1965) over Europe to Alaska and bought two aircraft. On March 29th he came with Lewanewski from Nome to Wankarem and took over the coordination of the rescue work. He made radio contact with Schmidt and organized dog sledding to bring aviation fuel and food to Vankarem. On April 7, the first three aircraft were available, and by April 13, all castaways had been removed from the ice.

The first Soviet expedition to the high latitudes

In 1935 Ushakov led the first Soviet expedition to the high latitudes (Russian Первая советская высокоширотная экспедиция) with the icebreaker Sadko . The ship's captain was Nikolai Nikolajew (1897–1958), who in 1934 once again made the journey through the Northeast Passage with the Lütke , this time from east to west. The aim of the expedition was to gain a closer look at the meteorological and oceanographic conditions in the Arctic basin, which was urgently needed for the use of the northern sea route. On board the Sadko there were 28 scientists who worked under the direction of the oceanologist Nikolai Subow (1885-1960). The ship had been converted for the voyage and contained numerous well-equipped laboratories. Two planes were on board, primarily to clarify the ice conditions, an amphibious plane Shavrow Sch-2 flown by the well-known polar aviator Michail Babuschkin and a small float plane from the Heinkel company . In the event that the Sadko should freeze in the ice like the Chelyuskin a year earlier , the ship had two years of provisions and some prefabricated houses loaded. There were also three sledges and 35  sled dogs on board, which were again looked after by Shuravlyov.

The Sadko left Arkhangelsk on July 8, 1935 and steered past the North Cape to the southern tip of Spitsbergen . The machines were stopped every 30 miles and oceanographic, biological and meteorological observations were made. From Sørkapp, the ship drove directly west into the Greenland Sea , over which a grid of stations was laid. Then the Sadko passed Spitzbergen on a northerly course and entered the Barents Sea . Later, on the basis of aerial photographs from the two aircraft, some corrections could be made to the map of the north-east of the country . East of Kvitøya , Captain Nikolayev steered the Sadko to the south to avoid the ship being trapped in the ice. With a south-easterly course, Novaya Zemlya was reached, from where Franz-Joseph-Land was approached north . A landing on the barely explored and only roughly mapped Graham Bell Island failed when the coastal ice suddenly began to move. On September 1st, an as yet unknown island of 324 km² was discovered in the Kara Sea, which was named Ushakov Island . To the north of Severnaya Zemlya, the Sadko managed to leave the continental shelf and advance into the Arctic basin. No expedition ship had succeeded in this since Fridtjof Nansen's Fram expedition . On September 13, the northernmost latitude was determined at 82 ° 41 '6 "north and 87 ° 4' east, which had been reached by a free-floating ship. The depth of the sea here was 2365 m.

Further life

In 1936, Ushakov became the first director of the newly created Hydrometeorological Service of the USSR. Under his leadership, which lasted until 1939, further weather stations were created in the Arctic and the observation methods were modernized. In 1937 he represented his country at the International Conference on Aviation Meteorology in Paris . Ushakow was editor-in-chief of the magazines Sovetskaya Arktika (1935-1941) and Meteorologija i Gidrologija (1937-1939). From 1940 to 1957 he held various important posts at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR . From 1943 to 1945 he was deputy director of the Institute for Applied Geophysics. Then he founded the Institute for Oceanography of the Academy of Sciences with Pyotr Schirschow and became its deputy director. At the request of several important scientists such as Otto Schmidt, Nikolai Subow or Wladimir Obruchev , Ushakov was awarded his doctorate in 1950 without having to defend a dissertation .

Ushakov, who received numerous awards, including the Order of the Red Banner of Labor , the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Star , is reminiscent of a former village and a cape on Wrangel Island, Ushakov Island in the Kara Sea , the Ushakov Nunatakker in the East Antarctic Enderbyland and a river on the island of October Revolution.

Ushakov died in Moscow, but was buried on Domaschni Island.

Fonts

  • Робинзоны острова Врангеля, 1931
  • Unknown island country . Brockhaus, Leipzig 1954 (Russian: По нехоженой земле . Moscow and Leningrad 1951. Translated by Horst Wolf).
  • Остров метелей , 1972

literature

Web links

Commons : Georgi Ushakow  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Uschakow: Unbekanntes Inselland , 1954, p. 31 f.
  2. ↑ Avetissow: Uschakow Georgi Alexejewitsch (17 (30) .09.1901-03.12.1963) , 2003, accessed on August 28, 2017 (Russian)
  3. ↑ a b c Barr: Ushakov, Georgiy , 2003, p. 2113 (English)
  4. ↑ Uschakow: Unbekanntes Inselland , 1954, p. 35 ff.
  5. ↑ Uschakow: Unbekanntes Inselland , 1954, p. 48
  6. ↑ a b c d Mills: Exploring Polar Frontiers - A Historical Encyclopedia , 2003, pp. 667–669 (English)
  7. ↑ Ushakow: Unbekanntes Inselland , 1954, p. 102
  8. ↑ Uschakow: Unbekanntes Inselland , 1954, p. 417
  9. ↑ Uschakow: Unbekanntes Inselland , 1954, p. 420
  10. ↑ LM Sawatjugin, IN Sokratowa: Tscheljuskin: tragedija i triumf 1934 goda (PDF; 951, kB). In: Arktika. Ekologija i ekonomika 2 (14), 2014, pp. 96-107 (Russian)
  11. ↑ G. Uschakow: My pobjedili w boju pod Vankarenom (Russian)
  12. ↑ a b Barr: The First Soviet High-latitude Expedition , 1977 (English)
  13. ↑ a b c Uschakow Georgi Alexejewitsch on the website Meteorologija i Gidrologija (Russian)
personal data
SURNAME Ushakow, Georgi Alexejewitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ушаков, Георгий Алексеевич (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Soviet geographer and polar explorer
DATE OF BIRTH January 30, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Lazarevo , Amur Oblast , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH 3rd December 1963
Place of death Moscow , Soviet Union