"Above all on Earth". Unknown facts of the polar expedition of Ivan Papanin illustrated by the Presidential Library

November 26, 2019 marks the 125th anniversary of the birth of one of the most famous Arctic researchers, Ivan Papanin. The Presidential Library’s collections contain rare publications which spotlight his life.

The rare book “Heroic Four” of the 1938 edition describes the childhood of Ivan Papanin. The future rear admiral and doctor of geographical sciences was born in Sevastopol, in Korabushka - the area of ​​the sailor and fishing poor. From an early age he climbed fences, fished, dangled for hours in the water, made his way to the cemetery at night to check if the dead were leaving the graves...  

Later Vanya went to work at a factory for the manufacture of navigation devices, then worked at a shipyard in Revel (Tallinn), and at the beginning of World War I, Ivan was drafted into the army. He again ended up in his native Crimea, where during the Civil War, Papanin was instructed to form personnel for the Crimean Insurgent Army. In the early twenties, he already worked as commissioner of operational management under the commander of the naval forces of the Southwestern Front, commandant of the Crimean Extraordinary Commission, military commandant of the Ukrainian Central Executive Committee, secretary of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Black Sea Fleet.

In 1924, the young Chekist was transferred to Moscow, where he began to deal with communications issues, and later headed the Central Directorate of the Militarized Guard. When volunteers were recruited to the northern stations under construction, Papanin went there and in 1932 began working at the Tikhaya Bay polar station on Franz Josef Land, and then at Cape Chelyuskin.

Arctic!.. Ice, winds, currents cross here. Here are the secrets of nature, the mysteries of magnetic storms and northern lights, which worried many travelers, sailors and scientists. The Arctic also captured Papanin. The author of the essay on the polar explorer Vsevolod Vishnevsky wrote how one day Ivan Papanin saw a colossal ice floe that went past the cape, crushing everything in its path, and thought: “If you put a house on such a colossus, you can drift for a year, or maybe two". In 1935, Papanin shared this idea with O. Yu. Schmidt, who at that time was the head of the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route.

Many went to the pole, into the unknown Arctic, but there was catastrophically little practical information. “What do we know about the pole and what else do not know? After Nansen, Piri, Amundsen and other polar explorers, we knew that in the area of ​​the North Pole is not the mainland, but the sea. They knew that it was covered with ice. They knew, of course, that it was cold there. That’s about it. And we want to know a lot”, - the newspaper Pravda quoted May 22, 1937, as quoted by O. Yu. Schmidt.

As a result, the wintering project at the North Pole was approved, and the work began... On the third floor of the old Gostiny Dvor, in Rybny Lane, the headquarters of the expedition to the Pole was located. Considering every little thing, expedition equipment was brought into a small room: fur clothes, sample containers, binoculars, knives, kerosene stoves, tobacco, dishes, shoes, linen, scientific instruments... A diet was developed: dumplings, sausages, crackers... Political books were selected, fiction... In February 1937, a "dress rehearsal" took place. In a clean field near Moscow, they put up a tent on eiderdown, a radio station, and a wind turbine. Future conquerors of the Arctic Ivan Papanin, Ernst Krenkel, Evgeny Fedorov and Peter Shirshov in warm fur clothes for six days lived in a tent, "like on the pole", eating foods intended for the expedition.

“May 21, 1937 will go down in the history of the struggle between man and nature, as it entered on October 11, 1492, when Columbus saw the land of the new continent”, - wrote Boris Gorbatov in the essay “Pyotr Petrovich Shirshov”, - May 21, 1937 at the very northern edge of the earth Scarlet banner of the USSR with a portrait of Stalin. And on June 6, this banner had only four people left: Ivan Papanin, Ernst Krenkel, Evgeny Fedorov and Peter Shirshov. They wrote to Moscow: "In the realm of eternal silence, among the eternal ice, we will work calmly, knowing that a great country thinks and cares for us".  

Papanin followers explored the depths of the Arctic Ocean, determined the currents of the polar basin. Only the radio connected them to the mainland: they talked about their scientific observations and at the same time lived the life of the whole country. For example, during a parade on Red Square in honor of the 20th anniversary of the revolution, they ended their own rally on an ice floe with a three-shot volley of rifles.

Researchers also participated in the elections to the Supreme Council. From the Arctic, Papanin assured his voters: “Now I work in difficult conditions on a drifting ice floe to study the Arctic Ocean. And here, together with my comrades, I am doing my best to honor the responsible task of the party, the government, the initiator of the conquest of the Soviet Pole, beloved Comrade Stalin”. Of course, all four explorers of the North Pole were elected deputies...

The world was watching tightly the four polar explorers who were, according to Vishnevsky "above all on Earth". The Presidential Library’s portal features a unique footage of a scientific expedition to the North Pole led by Ivan Papanin, including newsreel fragments.

The research carried out for nine months. During this time, Papanin followers saw a lot: storms, hummocks, cracks in the ice, bears... After 274 days, February 19, 1938, the icebreakers Taimyr and Murman approached the ice. The Presidential Library’s portal has a unique photograph, depicted Papanin, after dismantling the North Pole camp on a drifting ice floe, treats the loading participants with the cognac left by the winterers.

Leaving the habitat, the expedition members transmitted the last radiogram from the drifting station. Papanin and his team were the heroes of their era.

From 1939 to 1946, Papanin headed the Glavsevmorput. In the course of the Great Patriotic War, he organized the dispatch of goods to the front, which came to the Soviet Union from the United States and Great Britain. After retiring for health reasons, Papanin led the department of marine expeditionary work at the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Biology of Inland Waters of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He lived a rather long life and died on January 30, 1986 at the age of 91 from heart failure. Ivan Papanin was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow.