Otto Yulievich Schmidt is a hero, navigator, academician and educator. Schmidt sits on an ice floe like a nix on a raspberry Tragedy and feat of the Chelyuskinites

126 years ago, a future scientist was born in Mogilev, whose name would become one of the main call signs of the 20th century. Otto Yulievich Schmidt was one of the most prominent servants of the Enlightenment.
Otto accomplished his first feat at the age of six, when he swam across the then full-flowing Dubravenka River. Not every adult could do this. In a report from 1900/01, the class teacher described Schmidt as a student of “exemplary behavior, hardworking and academically capable.” Otto Schmidt retained this hard work throughout his life.

So he became a student at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics Kyiv University, compiled a list of literature that he, as a future scientist, needs to read. And, without giving himself any concessions, he moved towards the heights of knowledge. A simple mathematical calculation showed that it would take a thousand years to read the books on his list! Otto, with a pain in his heart, shortened the list, counted again - it came out to 250...

Pages from the diary of student Schmidt demonstrate an ambitious worker or, as they say in our time, a workaholic - as he will remain in the history of science: “... all the time, starting in March or earlier, I studied, without ceasing and without rest. And yet I did not come to satisfactory results: my subjects are too extensive, they require more time. Lessons also take a lot of time, but this is perhaps not bad, it protects against dullness at the same work. In any case, I don't want to complain. If I fail, I won’t blame anyone.”

Otto Yulievich Schmidt - researcher, scientist, polar explorer.

The first-year student’s fears were not justified; on May 17, he wrote: “I left the classroom beaming. I could be satisfied with this exam. I was able to demonstrate knowledge in all disciplines, and they passed the test very well.”

In 1912, in the Proceedings of Kyiv University, Schmidt published a new proof of the theorem in group theory, which compares favorably with its predecessors. He also continued one of Jourdan’s studies in the work “On equations solvable in radicals, the degree of which is the degree of a prime number.” The result is a gold university medal and the decision to print the work at the expense of the university.

After February Revolution, in the summer of 1917, he moved from Kyiv to Petrograd to participate in the All-Russian Congress on the Affairs of high school and soon became interested in administrative work. He was involved in food supply and worked in the Ministry of Food of the Provisional Government, then as head of the Product Exchange Department. Schmidt compiled an “Address from the group of united socialists of the Ministry of Food outlining a draft political platform.” The essence of the “Appeal” is the willingness to cooperate with everyone who agrees with state regulation of the economy, regardless of political views citizens.

His fragmentary memories of that time convey some confusion, which Schmidt’s active mind overcame, plunging headlong into new projects - large and small.

“I felt confusion in my head, I could not grasp the entire totality of phenomena... I greeted the October Revolution with joy...”, however, “... I had not yet matured before the October Revolution... I had no experience of working with the masses, I poorly understood the power of the masses "

Still walking Civil War, and he has already become a member of the board of the People's Commissariat of Finance, also heading the tax department. Where is the science? Where is the mathematics and astronomy? He returned to science when he came up with the idea for the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. And already in the late twenties he found his main calling - travel, geographical discoveries, the discovery of new spaces and routes necessary for science and humanity.

Polar explorers got an energetic leader

First he went to the mountains and took part in expeditions to the Pamirs. Gained experience as a traveler. But since the late twenties, the Arctic has been considered the main front in the struggle for the “conquest of space and time.” And Schmidt was unexpectedly appointed head of the expedition to Franz Josef Land. Unexpectedly, because there were many more experienced polar explorers around...

The political subtext of the project was visible in the idea of ​​scientific and practical development of Franz Josef Land and its inclusion in our polar possessions, as declared by a note from the tsarist government in 1916 and confirmed by a Soviet note in 1926. They had to build a radio station on remote islands.

The finale of the campaign is described as follows in Schmidt’s diary:

“September 6, evening. The end of the epic is near. We go south, back to the ground. We made a hydrological section along 79° N. w. up to 70° E. for the longitude of Cape Zhelaniya. From the plan to get to about. I have to give up solitude even to Severnaya Zemlya... On the evening of September 5, the captain, with the sympathy of Samoilovich, began to convince me to turn back... the ship in this form can no longer enter the ice and will not survive a serious storm. The water ahead is clear... but the captain's arguments are serious... On the morning of the 6th, the moment for a decision has come... Sea level 6, the icebreaker is drifting heavily, scientists are struggling without success - it is impossible to work. V.Yu. is already here. Wiese lost his temper, declaring that since hydrological research was no longer possible, there was no need to go further... Having lost my last ally, I can no longer resist the general opinion of experts.”

He became seriously interested in the North. He became the best organizer of winter camps and expeditions, built stations, but this was a mysterious and risky business. The polar explorers received an energetic leader. He lacked specific knowledge and skills, but he was a true scientist, had an adventurous streak and skillfully handled himself in the offices of authorities.

Stalin, in his usual humorous manner in those years, compared the new organization with the English East India Company that existed in the 17th–19th centuries, which colonized India, but, unlike it, was built “not on bones.” local population, but on the basis of raising culture." I noticed that the East India Company had troops to suppress uprisings, but with us everything should be resolved peacefully, saying at the end: “Don’t give guns to Schmidt!”

The foreign press called him Red Columbus. Schmidt led six expeditions, each of which left a noticeable mark on the history of Arctic exploration. During the glorious expedition of 1932, Soviet polar explorers on the icebreaking steamer Sibiryakov, for the first time in the history of mankind, passed the Northern Sea Route without wintering, in one navigation. "Schmidt's men" fulfilled a dream that had captivated sailors for four centuries!

Bernard Shaw, meeting the Soviet ambassador to Great Britain Ivan Maisky, exclaimed: “What a country you are! They found a real Santa Claus with a big beard to play the role of the main character of the ice drama. I assure you that Schmidt’s beard has won you thousands of new friends!” And so it was. Few could resist Schmidt's charm. Even faded newspaper photographs of the long-bearded polar explorer radiated a romantic flair.

And it is not surprising that folk storytellers composed epics (more precisely, this genre was called novinas) about Schmidt and his associates. Of course, they were fulfilling an ideological order and the state widely advertised its own Arctic project. But no less important was the people's sincere attraction to science, to discoveries and to personalities such as Schmidt. Epic writers - such as the famous Marfa Kryukova - called him the hero Generation-Beard.

The children were named after Schmidt - not only Otto, but also Oyushminalds! This abbreviation name meant “Otto Yulievich Schmidt on Ice.” Loudly, in the taste of the era. Mostly, the happy owners of these names, upon reaching adulthood, were renamed into the most ordinary Olechek. But there was a lot of noise!

Yes, the Arctic project was in many ways a propaganda epic. It was customary to pass off even half-successes and outright failures as victories. But there were still more real victories - and, probably, without the hype they would not have happened. After all, we had to count pennies, the country was preparing for war, and here - large-scale research, travel, icebreakers, stations... Without an ideological side dish, even Schmidt would not have obtained subsidies for such “entertainment.”

The most notorious of his cases is, of course, the Chelyuskin epic. Then Schmidt was recognized by the whole world. He spent several months in ice captivity, at the head of the crew of the sunken steamship Chelyuskin. The whole world considered them suicide bombers. 104 people led by a heroic academician. And yet they were saved! On March 5, pilot Anatoly Lyapidevsky made his way to the camp on an ANT-4 plane and removed ten women and two children from the ice floe. Other polar pilots also made their way to the Chelyuskinites. As a result, everyone was saved. Nobody died! Schmidt became seriously ill in the last days of his stay on the ice floe, but behaved courageously and was the last to leave the camp.

Schmidt's next high-profile case was the expedition of Ivan Papanin. For the first time, planes landed in the North Pole area, and for the first time, a drifting station was organized. The whole country followed her work.

last years of life

In the early forties, Schmidt didn’t exactly fall into disgrace, but he was gradually pushed aside... Partly because of illness, partly because new favorites were found in power.

“In the last years of his life, he focused on creating a new theory of the origin of the Earth and planets. Seriously ill, out of the light of glory, removed by Stalin from the leadership of the Academy of Sciences, he, straining his last strength, continued to work. He could not help but work, and I remember a conversation with him when he no longer got out of bed.

The father asked: “Who do you think a true explorer resembles?” I answered some banality, and he said: “Why is it so beautiful? He resembles a bulldog who grabbed a stick and cannot let go of it until he gets the hang of it,” his son, Sigurd Ottovich Schmidt, recalled about his father.

And he added: “What can I say in conclusion about my father? He was a scientist of the Renaissance type, an encyclopedist, an active participant in state building with extraordinary personal qualities, a charming man who loved women and was loved by them.” He developed the same mutual love with science. And especially with its practical branches.

A talented scientist, an enterprising organizer of research, today he is a legend. We miss such cheerful devotees. And if they exist, they remain in the shadows. Nowadays there is even more ostentation everywhere than in the 1930s, there is no time for the Schmidts.

Arseniy Zamostyanov

Camp Schmidt

First day. Government commission. Everything is mobilized for our salvation. On dogs to Schmidt's camp. Discipline, discipline, discipline! Newspaper “We will not give up.” Meeting of the party cell. Headquarters tent. How we lived on ice. Government radiogram. Our airfields. Schmidt's stories. Lyapidevsky saves women and children. The ice is breaking our camp. Along with the planes, airships are ready to go. Schmidt's disease.

I don’t know whether God was satisfied on the first day of creation, but I saw the faces of the Chelyuskinites crawling out of their sleeping bags on the morning of February 14 with my own eyes. Looking around the tent city built overnight, we did not feel particularly delighted. After the cozy cabins, the cold tents, where people lay on top of each other, were not at all pleasant. However, no one complained. Everyone understood perfectly well that only the very first, most difficult hours had passed. It should be easier further. Our fate now largely depended on ourselves.

Of course, while still adrift, we knew that the threat of death hung over the ship like the sword of Damocles. Understanding our situation, we prepared for the most unpleasant thing. Now it was necessary to adapt to the current situation, and this was not at all easy...

A dozen lopsided tents, a pole proudly called a radio mast, a dull airplane and cargo scattered here and there... Not very fun.

Worldly wisdom says: what cannot be changed must be tolerated.

Even in tragic conditions there was room for jokes and laughter. Our senior mate Sergei Vasilyevich Gudin, a smart sailor who had sailed for twenty-two years out of his forty years, was responsible for order on the ship. Goodin performed this duty with enviable pedantry. There was laughter when Pyotr Shirshov talked about how scary eyes Gudin looked at him when Petya, instead of running around for some instruments he really needed, without thinking twice, broke the window in the cabin and took everything out through the broken glass.

And just think! Deliberately, deliberately break the glass of the cabin!

There was no need to strain to imagine the condemning expression on the face of our strict and unshakable Sergei Vasilyevich in matters of order. And someone has already told a different story:

Guys, did you hear what our senior mechanic did? The Chelyuskin was sinking, and he went into his cabin, opened the closet, and there was a brand new foreign suit. He looked at it and closed the cabinet: well, why take it on ice, it will get wrinkled and dirty. It's easier to wear the old one!

Our place, even in the Arctic, was considered a remote bear corner. There was no hope for a quick rescue. Hence the conclusion: do everything possible to prevent the elements from swatting us away like a fly. At the site of the ship's death, people were constantly swarming around, diligently extracting everything that the ocean had returned. There were carpenters, stove makers, and engineers among us, but the construction was not easy. We had experience of sailing, experience of drifting, experience of wintering, but we had no experience of shipwrecks. In the absence of such, we were guided, however, from memory, by literary sources. It was easier for the heroes of these books. Robinson Crusoe, as you know, ended up not on an ice field, but on a tropical island, where, by the will of Daniel Defoe, he found many different things...

Having looked at the results of the night-time lightning construction in the morning, we realized that our structures were not suitable for very long. Without delay, we began reconstruction.

Oh, these reconstructions! They had to be produced several times. As a result, tents, in which at first it was not only impossible to stand, but even barely possible to sit, began to turn into a kind of frame houses with canvas walls, insulated on the outside with snow.

The ice floe produced a certain revaluation of my work. Communication has become even more important to us than on the ship. That's why radio operators were relieved of other duties. We had one task: not to let go of the invisible thread of communication with the mainland.

Moscow, and behind it the whole world, knew about the death of our ship. The message about the disaster with “Chelyuskin” was published with lightning speed. On February 13 we sank, on the 14th we transmitted Schmidt’s first telegram, on the 15th the full text of this telegram appeared on the newspaper pages.

With captivating frankness, the Soviet government published this message, which was especially sad because it came only a week and a half after the grave news of the death of comrades Fedoseenko, Vasenko, and Usyskin on the Osoaviakhim stratospheric balloon. No sooner had the pain of one tragedy subsided than another one loomed...

The fight for a hundred human lives began without a moment's delay. A few hours after Schmidt’s message, Valerian Vladimirovich Kuibyshev instructed Sergei Sergeevich Kamenev to convene a meeting to urgently outline plans for organizing assistance.

The choice of Kuibyshev was not accidental. S. S. Kamenev, Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR and Deputy People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, was involved in the Arctic for many years and was a great expert on it. Back in the spring of 1928, S.S. Kamenev headed the initiative group that created the Osoaviakhim committee to rescue the Nobile expedition, and then to search for the missing Amundsen.

A year later, Kamenev became the chairman of the commission for drawing up a five-year plan for the development of the Arctic. This commission, which included prominent scientists and polar explorers O. Yu. Shmidt, A. E. Fersman, V. Yu. Wiese, R. L. Samoilovich, N. M. Knipovich, G. D. Krasinsky, N. N. Zubov and others, became the center of all Arctic affairs, such as the creation of the Arctic Institute in Leningrad, drawing up a five-year plan for the development of the Arctic, coordinating the activities of various institutions dealing with issues of the north...

S. S. Kamenev was an invariable participant in all the big events that took place in the Arctic.

If we add to this that under the leadership of S. S. Kamenev, G. A. Ushakov’s expeditions to Severnaya Zemlya and the campaigns of “Sibiryakov” were organized, that S. S. Kamenev was a great friend of O. Yu. Schmidt, then it will become clear that the best V.V. Kuibyshev simply could not choose an assistant.

At the direction of Kamenev, the first outlines of the rescue plan were drawn up by Georgy Alekseevich Ushakov. The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR decided to organize a Government Commission. It was headed by Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars V.V. Kuibyshev. The commission included People's Commissar of Water N.M. Yanson, Deputy People's Commissar of Military Sea S.S. Kamenev, Head of the Main Air Fleet I.S. Unshlikht and Deputy Head of the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route S.S. Ioffe. The names of these people, who occupied very responsible positions, testified to how great the powers of the commission were.

A few more hours - and the commission began to act.

However, even for the most authoritative commission, the ten thousand kilometers separating Moscow and Schmidt’s camp were a serious obstacle. It was impossible to delay; it was decided, first of all, to use local means, forming an Emergency Troika in Chukotka under the chairmanship of the head of the station at Cape North, G. G. Petrov.

A radiogram from the Chukchi Sea worried millions of people. She appeared on the front pages of Pravda and Izvestia. Next to Schmidt’s first radiogram, newspapers published the Resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR “On organizing assistance to the participants of the expedition of comrade. Schmidt O.Yu. and the crew of the lost ship “Chelyuskin”.

Perhaps there will be skeptics who will say that I have taken on the wrong business, that instead of presenting in detail what I saw with my own eyes, I devote an unjustifiably large amount of space to what, of course, there is no way to see while on the ice. could not.

Let me disagree. Of course, I didn’t see everything, but my profession as a radio operator made me a witness (or rather, a listener) of a lot.

We often say: the concern of the party, the concern of the government, the attention of the people... The number of such expressions can be increased without the slightest difficulty; moreover, from immoderate use, words are erased and, perceived by hearing and sight, do not always reach the mind, the heart.

For me personally, the history of our salvation filled all these familiar expressions with great content, but, strangely enough, this history has not yet been truly written in its entirety. Written down on newspaper sheets, it never made it into books. Even the excellent thick volume “How We Saved the Chelyuskinites,” created right on the heels of the events and containing many exciting details, cannot claim completeness of presentation, since it tells mainly about the feat of seven pilots, the seven first Heroes Soviet Union.

The feat of these people is enormous, and I will try to write everything I remember about them, especially since I became very friendly with some of the pilots. But while paying tribute to these wonderful people who found themselves at the forefront of the attack, one cannot remain silent about the enormous work of many others, about the swift and precise measures of the state, which did everything to ensure that this feat was accomplished.

Re-reading old documents, I want now, almost four decades later, people of the middle generation - those who were just running to school or just born, people of the younger generation, who were not even born then, to know about this immortal feat, the feat of more than one a person, not a dozen people, but the entire people, the entire country, which sent a hundred people to difficult work and mobilized thousands to help these hundred out of trouble. I was among those who were rescued. It is my duty to tell about those who saved us. I would be a great debtor to my people if I did not write down this whole story, if I did not publish most of the forgotten and unknown details associated with our salvation.

The Government Commission and newspaper editorial offices received many letters. Volunteers put themselves at the disposal of the commission. Young, strong, trained, they were ready to take any risk, any hardship for the sake of our salvation.

Then an incredible fountain of inventive imagination began to flow. Many different projects were born, and although most of these projects were in highest degree utopian, I can’t help but remember the warm words of their authors.

One advised making a huge ice hole near the camp so that a submarine could dive into it. Another proposed equipping airplanes with balloons with a diameter of 4–5 meters. In his opinion, such a combined device should have been much safer than a conventional aircraft when landing on uneven ice. The third recommended using the catapult he invented to make it easier for planes to take off from the ice floe. The flow of projects was truly inexhaustible. Conveyor rope with baskets for lifting people onto a moving aircraft. Amphibious tank. Bouncing balls.

Thank you all, dear friends. Time has done its work. From ardent youths we have turned into people of respectable age, but even today, remembering these, sometimes naive ideas, there is no need to be ashamed of them. All these projects, including the most incredible ones, were generated by the best feelings, and therefore deserve respect...

So, the Emergency Troika had to take the first practical steps. It was both a great honor and no less responsibility. The position of the Emergency Troika turned out to be far from simple. Only two types of transport - dogs or airplanes could become a real life-saving means. However, in a land equal in area to two of France, in a land where only 15,000 people lived, both the oldest transport of these places and the youngest were represented very modestly. Chukotka had only a few aircraft. The N-4 pilot F.K. Kukanov, having completed a lot of work on removing passengers from wintered ships, was at Cape Severny with a damaged landing gear. Other planes were stationed in the Wellen area. On one of them, the crew of A.V. Lyapidevsky (co-pilot E.M. Konkin, flight engineer L.V. Petrov) was the first to reach Schmidt’s camp.

At the suggestion of S.S. Kamenev, it was decided to bring the planes closer to our camp. The dogs carried fuel from the Northern Cape and Uellen to Vankarem.

The pace of rescue work can only be described as amazing. The government commission did not have time to communicate its decisions to local workers, but district party and Soviet organizations in Wellen had already begun to act. A rescue expedition was organized: across the ice on sleds with dog sleds to Schmidt’s camp. The expedition was led by meteorologist N. N. Khvorostansky, head of the Wellen polar station.

All this became known when the following radiogram was received:

“We have organized an emergency commission, we are mobilizing all dog transport. By order of the district party committee, I intend to leave tomorrow at the head of an organized expedition on dogs to meet you. There is a snowstorm in Laurentia. When the blizzard ends, planes will take off. I am waiting for your orders and further instructions.

Khvorostansky."

There are about 150 kilometers across the ice from the mainland to the camp, but the shortness of the distance was relative, the distance was small, but very difficult to overcome.

Should we be rescued by dogs or by air? Opinions differed on this matter, and even the cautious Schmidt, responding to Khvorostansky’s radiogram, initially considered his option quite real.

“Since there are no planes yet,” I relayed Schmidt’s answer to Khvorostansky, “and our airfield can be damaged, then, apparently, the most realistic way is to help with dog sleds, which you started preparing. I just remind you: you need to take with you a navigator or surveyor with a sextant and a chronometer to determine the route, because your operations will be very difficult. It is necessary to immediately mobilize, perhaps more sledges, including in Naukan, Yandagai and other places. It’s better to set out later, but with 60 sledges, to finish the job at once...”

Having dictated the answer, Schmidt called us to a general meeting, one of the most unforgettable meetings of my life. A hundred people gathered, covered from head to toe and therefore sometimes simply unrecognizable. The stand is an ice floe. The main speaker, the head of the expedition, Otto Yulievich, talks about everything: that communication with the shore has been established, that a sleigh expedition is being prepared, and that planes will fly to us at the first opportunity.

Schmidt reports on measures of assistance being prepared in a large, distant world, and formulates what we have to do. He talks about organization, discipline, love and respect for each other.

The main idea of ​​the speech is clear - in the conditions that befall us, we are obliged, first of all, to remain true Soviet people.

The Arctic knows many tragedies in which death triumphed as a result of confusion and discord between people. This is the worst thing, when opinions diverge and parties of adherents of one or another version of salvation are formed. A sad fate befell the American expedition on the Jeannette, which perished in the area of ​​the New Siberian Islands. Shortly before the revolution, a tragedy occurred with the crew of the St. Anne, lost in ice, when navigator Albanov left the ship and set off on a difficult two-hundred-kilometer journey south, to Franz Josef Land. Calmly, without affectation, Schmidt told us about all this. We had such enormous faith in this man that the feeling of isolation from the whole world receded; we remained a team that had been tightly welded together during the months of sailing and rush jobs.

Otto Yulievich's position at this meeting was not easy. The composition of the expedition looked motley. Among us were scientists who had visited the Arctic more than once, experienced sailors, experienced people who had repeatedly gotten into trouble, but there were also people who were purely land-based. Many of them grew up and were formed even before the revolution.

Otto Yulievich suddenly uttered a phrase that was completely unlike him. Finishing his thoughts about iron discipline, he suddenly said unexpectedly harshly:

If anyone leaves the camp without permission, keep in mind that I will personally shoot!

We knew Otto Yulievich very well as a man who not only shot, but also gave his orders as requests. And yet, perhaps, these words were accurate and timely. They very accurately formulated the most important thing for all of us: discipline, discipline and discipline again!

As for the shooting, it happened only once, when Pogosov killed a mother bear and her cub, providing us with meat. The only person who left the meeting upset was cameraman Arkady Shafran. Cloudy weather and lack of light did not allow him to film this event.

True to his professional duty, Shafran tirelessly impressed upon Schmidt that the meeting must be repeated only when the weather was clear. In order not to upset the enthusiast, Schmidt nodded his head in agreement, although a repetition was out of the question. There were too many things to do every hour to make such sacrifices on the altar of cinematography. The first of these urgent matters was the construction of a barracks. Of course, it would have been better not to drown, but when this did happen, one could not help but be glad that we had a team of builders with us, who never ended up on Wrangel Island. These were professional carpenters, healthy and strong, in whose hands the ax felt like playing. They were excellent masters of their craft, but I won’t lie - they didn’t read Shakespeare.

Against the background of this brigade, its leader, travel engineer Viktor Aleksandrovich Remov, stood in sharp contrast. Very neat, extremely polite, he confidently commanded his masters. Long before the death of the ship, Remov had to prove himself when, at the first encounter with ice, our ship was damaged. While I was transmitting and receiving radiograms in which Schmidt consulted with Moscow on what to do: go further or return, Remov and his carpenters were strengthening the ship from the inside. Thus, our Viktor Aleksandrovich Remov answered the classic question “to be or not to be” to a certain extent positively with his actions.

When the ship sank, the ropes holding the building material were cut. When the Chelyuskin, standing on end, went under the ice, most of the building materials surfaced and became our inheritance.

True, to receive this inheritance, hard labor was required. Hummocking continued even after the sinking of the ship. Boards and logs interspersed with pieces of ice in a chaotic disorder. Getting them out of this mess was no easy task. I had to break the ice, which clamped all this vermicelli.

The site was cleared and the builders began building the barracks. Of course, there were no projects or drawings approved by the relevant authorities. The logs were probably not sawed. The length of the logs and beams largely determined the size of the barracks.

Such construction required ingenuity and resourcefulness. The technical supply department of our ice floe could not always provide the builders with a full range of necessary materials. No one was bothered by the lack of window glass. When it came to glazing, they used washed-out photographic plates and bottles, which were lined up, pressing, against each other in the window openings, and the gaps between the bottles and logs were caulked with any rag that could be found at hand.

At the same time as the construction of the barracks, a little to the side, the carpenters were building a galley.

Another, no less important job that fell to our lot was the construction of airfields. Concern for their research and equipment began long before the death of the ship, after Lyapidevsky’s group was aimed at removing people from the drifting ship. Perhaps the word “airfield” sounds too loud for a patch measuring one hundred and fifty meters by six hundred, but these patches required a lot of effort to find and maintain in proper form.

An aviation literate person could find the airfield. This work was entrusted to Babushkin. Each new movement of ice, and they occurred here often, turned the smooth fields into icy chaos, least of all suitable for landing such a thin apparatus as an airplane.

The sites found did not last long. The ice raged and broke them. The number of airfield prospectors had to be increased. Babushkin prepared a group of people who, having dispersed in different directions, could complete the task assigned to them in the shortest possible time.

One of the airfields, found a day or two before the death of Chelyuskin, became the first airfield of the ice camp.

This damn spot was quite far from the camp. The first one to go there in the morning workers' party, in the middle of the day the second shift came out.

The work was hellish. If the ice was compressed and hummocked, then the formed shafts had to be cut down and then pulled to the sides on plywood sheets - drags. If cracks appeared, then it was necessary to urgently drag ice on the same drags to caulk the cracks.

Since there were severe frosts all the time, within a matter of hours everything was set again, and our little patch, proudly called the airfield, was again ready to receive planes. Nobody knew when these planes would arrive, but we had to be ready to receive them every day, every hour.

Our airports were short-lived. It was necessary to create a special airfield team. It consisted of mechanics Pogosov, Gurevich and Valavin. Our airfield workers lived on their own farm. In case sudden cracks cut them off from the camp, they had an emergency supply of food and prepared their own food.

From the very first days, everything necessary was done to accept the help of the Mainland. Everything that happened on the ice floe was of interest not only to our family and friends. After the death of “Chelyuskin”, the life of the camp on the ice floe interested the whole world. That is why, after hard work, journalists took notes, artist Reshetnikov made drawings, and cameraman Shafran and photographer Novitsky continued filming. The press and cinema did not offend us with their attention, but we offended the press. From the first days of our stay on the ice floe, we had to save batteries very much - so much so that not a single private radiogram was transmitted either to or from the camp. No exceptions were made. No matter how much we tried to persuade Schmidt to send at least five words of greetings to his son on his birthday, Otto Yulievich categorically refused.

The journalists who found themselves among us ground their teeth in anger. It's no joke, sitting on information that the whole world was eager to receive, and not being able to convey this information! But there was simply no other way out. Break the thread of communication for the sake of newspapermen? We couldn't afford such luxury.

And there, in Moscow, far from us, the newspaper world continued to live its usual life. In all editorial offices, journalists were preparing to leave for the Arctic - and not those naive young people, hung from head to toe with weapons and cameras, who sometimes went to the North. The most experienced, most skilled people were called into the editorial offices to send them closer to us, closer to the information that was so difficult to get in Moscow.

The experience of experienced editors suggested that the aces of journalism should go ahead. A big and very important job awaits them. This conclusion was logical and accurate.

While the journalists were sharpening their pens, not yet having the opportunity to swing at full width, the Government Commission began its information. She regularly published communiqués that appeared in print signed by Kuibyshev. The commission became the center where everything that was done for our salvation flowed.

In the very first message of the Government Commission it was said that the entire vast Arctic apparatus was involved in the rescue work.

“All polar stations,” Comrade Kuibyshev concluded the message, “have been asked to maintain continuous vigil to receive Comrade Schmidt’s radiograms and transmit them out of turn. Polar stations in the eastern sector were asked to provide reports four times a day on weather conditions, ice conditions and preparations for both transport and the organization of intermediate food and feed bases in the direction from the station to the location of the camp. Radio communication with Comrade Schmidt is maintained continuously.”

A special category of radiograms was introduced, code-named “Equator”. “Equator” went out of line, breaking through all sorts of traffic jams.

It was a big emergency in which the entire Arctic took part. Despite its wide scope, this emergency was only the beginning, and a beginning with considerable difficulties...

The old saying “the first pancake is lumpy” quickly received another confirmation during the organization of our salvation. Supporters and opponents of going to the camp on dogs did not argue for long. The very next day after the death of the ship, Khvorostansky, carried away by the idea of ​​a sled throw, mobilized 21 teams and set off, with the expectation of mobilizing the remaining 39 teams along the way.

Border guard Nebolsin, a great connoisseur of dogs and an experienced person in using this transport, was very much against this campaign. He considered Khvorostansky’s campaign to be reckless. The mobilization of 60 teams threatened to leave the Chukchi without hunting, which meant starvation.

Khvorostansky moved for four days. On the fifth day, Nebolsin caught up with the dog caravan and conveyed the order of the Chairman of the Emergency Troika, Petrov, to stop the expedition. In a word, the luge option (sitting on the ice floe, we knew nothing about it) was relegated to the background. Aviation came first.

Meanwhile, while the general line of our salvation was being groped, life in the Schmidt camp went on as usual. Gradually everything fell into place.

After the general meeting, a camp newspaper was born with the proud name “We Will Not Surrender.” We really didn’t want to give up, which was immediately felt in the greatest creative activity of all the correspondents of our newspaper with the address “Chukchi Sea, on drifting ice.” A lot of people were busy with the newspaper, and the first issue (there were three in total) came out great.

“This newspaper, published in such an unusual setting - in a tent on drifting ice on the fourth day after the death of Chelyuskin, is a clear evidence of the vigor of our spirit. In the history of polar disasters, we know few examples of such a large and diverse team as the “Chelyuskinites” meeting the moment of mortal danger with such great organization,” wrote one of its editors, Sergei Semenov, in the editorial of our wall newspaper.

“We're on the ice. But here too we are citizens of the great Soviet Union. Here too we will hold high the banner of the Republic of Soviets, and our state will take care of us.” This is from an article by Schmidt published in the same first issue of “We Will Not Surrender.”

The most different authors, a variety of correspondence. If Fedya Reshetnikov drew pictures for the newspaper in which a walrus, a bear and a seal demanded that Schmidt present his passport with registration on an ice floe, and in another drawing, which did not fit in the dimensions of the tent, he was depicted lying on the snow with a radio transmitter, then other authors, published very serious correspondence in the same newspaper. The “information department” reported on the organization of the Emergency Troika under the chairmanship of Petrov, and the “science department” represented by Gakkel proposed to burn and carve the inscription “Chelyuskin, 1934” on all suitable objects. Gakkel approached his proposal as a scientist, believing that with further drift, these wooden objects will give researchers another piece of information. As for another scientist, Khmyznikov, he burst into a detailed essay about the fate of polar expeditions that found themselves in a situation similar to ours.

It is no coincidence that I describe our wall newspaper in such detail. I want the reader to feel the role she played.

The leadership of the expedition and the party organization paid great attention to the moral state of the inhabitants of the ice floe. Maintaining firmness of spirit in our conditions was no less, but rather more important, than physical strength, of which a lot is required in the conditions of the polar Robinsoniad.

On February 18, the party bureau met for its first meeting. The protocol has been preserved, as well as a drawing by Fyodor Reshetnikov, who depicted this meeting in one of the tents, under the light of a bat lantern. There was only one question - “Message from O. Yu. Schmidt.”

"ABOUT. Yu. Schmidt, - written in the protocol, - begins by noting with great pride the organization, discipline, endurance and courage shown by the entire team of Chelyuskinites at the time of the disaster. The team, very diverse in its composition, nevertheless showed itself to be united at the most crucial moment of the expedition.”

Schmidt qualified this behavior of the team as an act of high consciousness, explaining it largely by the work carried out by the party organization of the expedition. Even before the Chelyuskin went to sea, Schmidt turned to the Leningrad Transport Institute with a request to select a group of senior students, intelligent, honest and enterprising communists who would become the party core of the expedition. Schmidt’s wish was granted, and our expedition included a number of good, smart and energetic people, for whom the trip was not only an excellent industrial practice, but also a serious life exam.

After the sinking of the ship, the communists were distributed throughout all the tents of the camp and largely contributed to maintaining good spirits and discipline.

One should not think that everything from the first to last day the drift was impeccably smooth. We also had breakdowns, which it would be dishonest to keep silent about, although they were so insignificant and happened so rarely that some boss would simply prefer to turn a blind eye to them so as not to “spoil the overall impression,” but Schmidt was not like that, not This is how members of the party bureau looked at the matter. That is why the meeting of the party bureau, which took place on February 18, turned out to be stormy and passionate.

The facts that became the subject of lively debate among our communists were indeed not major: one or two people, when unloading the sinking Chelyuskin, gave preference to personal belongings over expeditionary property, which, for the good of the cause, had to be saved, first of all. The other two people, when loading food, grabbed a couple of cans of canned food, which, however, were returned to the common pot without a sound at the first request. Well, and finally, the last emergency happened on the day of the meeting itself. While waiting for Lyapidevsky's plane, which, by the way, failed to break into the camp that day, one of the participants in the campaign tried to transport his foreign gramophone, which he valued very much, to the airfield in order to take it to Mainland.

Each fact in itself is small, but the trend looked extremely dangerous. That is why, without talking to each other, members of the party bureau demanded harsh measures, and when Schmidt proposed organizing a “tent court” over the offenders, his proposal, despite the high authority of our boss, was rejected by the majority.

They were punished differently. All members of the expedition gathered in the barracks building where the friendly trial took place. The guilty were ashamed. The most severe sentence was given to the owner of the gramophone: “At the first opportunity, be among the first to be sent by plane.”

There was nothing like this in our lives during the difficult two months of the ice camp’s existence.

The tents were set up in such a way that they soon had to be reconstructed. The headquarters tent, which housed the radio station, was no exception. Of course, in the form in which it was erected immediately after the disaster, it was extremely uncomfortable.

The appearance of the tent with its low-sagging ceiling is firmly etched in my memory. We didn't heat at night. By the morning, frost, which turned into breath, decorated the tent with snow-white noodles and made our home especially impressive.

At first, Schmidt settled separately in a tiny tent that had traveled with him on mountaineering trips in the Pamirs, but his loneliness was short-lived. It was more convenient for the head of the expedition to live next to the line of communication that we, the radio operators, held in our hands, and besides, it was warmer here, and Otto Yulievich moved to the headquarters tent.

Having written about Schmidt's small tent, I do not want the reader to think that the headquarters tent was some kind of palazzo. It was only relatively large and comfortable. There are tarpaulins and some rags thrown on the floor, with plywood laid on them. There was no need to think about standing up to full height. The visitors (and there were many of them due to the move of the head of the expedition) crawled into the tent bent over and could no longer straighten up. So on their knees they crawled to Schmidt for reports. The spectacle was unique. The bearded Otto Yulievich sat cross-legged and listened to the kneeling visitors, like an eastern ruler who, due to some misunderstanding, was accommodated not in a luxurious palace, but in a nasty, cold tent. Since we obviously had to spend more than one day on the ice floe, the problem of comfort immediately became vital. Each tent - and people gathered into tent groups mainly on professional grounds, forming communities of scientists, stokers, machinists, sailors - tried to outstrip their neighbors in the convenience of life. The more convenient it is to live, the easier it is to work. Hence the desire for improvement.

Tents began to be placed on wooden frames and dug somewhat into the ice to reduce the blowing out of the most precious thing for us on the ice - heat. In this regard, many of our tent groups have been very successful. In some places it was even possible to stand at full height, and some even had two “rooms” set up. And finally - this was our pride - we managed to build the most monumental building - our famous barracks, where the weak, sick, women and children were immediately resettled.

The builders were erecting a covered space for the galley. The most interesting thing was the kitchen equipment that our mechanics made. From two barrels and a copper boiler, they managed to combine a device that one of the Chelyuskinites called a union of a soup maker and a water heater.

The economy of this union was remarkable. After the fuel gave off heat to the soup maker, the combustion products went up the chimney, melting the ice along the way, preparing the necessary fresh water.

Thus, experience gradually accumulated, which significantly made our existence easier. A threat arose - lack of fuel. Twenty bags of coal could not last long. We solved this problem too.

Heating at its best high level hosted by Leonid Martisov, a man about whom I want to speak with great respect, and although the words “golden hands” sound like a banal, shabby cliche, you can’t find others to define his skill. Probably, I, as an old “pot maker” who soldered and repaired a lot of junk during the years of war communism, more than anyone else, appreciated the level of professional skill of this man and his comrades.

The first problem that Leonid Martisov and his assistants faced was the tool. Or rather, the lack of tools, since, having picked up everything that could be picked up, Martisov’s team had a hammer, a brace, two fragments of a drill, sewing scissors and a large knife. Agree that this was not enough for serious work, and the almost complete lack of proper materials significantly reduced the already low chances of success. If the carpenters could still, to some extent, count on the fact that their material would float or float, then the metal with which Martisov had to work completely excluded this kind of possibility.

The discrepancy between desires and capabilities threatened Martisov’s team with disaster. While our mechanics were thinking about where to get tools and materials, the camp demanded products - it was urgently necessary to make chimneys necessary for both the barracks under construction and the galley. There was practically no time left for searching and thinking.

Artistic mastery of the profession allowed Martisov, quickly adapting to the situation, to complete this and many other tasks. Martisov had a rare talent. He made everything out of nothing. Using parts of crushed boats and non-working engines, he made many useful and necessary things, including excellent heating in our tent.

The master took a copper tube, used a needle (he simply had no other tool) and punched several holes. It turned out to be a homemade nozzle. He placed a barrel of fuel outside. Through this homemade nozzle, fuel flowed into the firebox, a small cast-iron fireplace, the kind that are usually installed in freight cars when transporting people.

The appearance of the heating system made me very happy, and not because I was afraid of the cold. The radio equipment was afraid of the cold. The equipment was in poor conditions. At the back wall of the tent there was a narrow table made from unplaned boards. There are batteries under the table, a transmitter and receiver on the table. A kerosene lantern hung from above on a wire.

The table was a sacred place, and I would snarl savagely if anyone dared to put mugs of tea or tin cans on it.

The radio equipment received significantly more than its design capabilities provided. At night the temperature dropped below zero. In the morning, when the fire was lit, the equipment began to sweat. No wonder she tried to go on strike.

I had to carefully disassemble the receiver and dry its offal near the fireplace. It was not recommended to talk to me at such moments. I looked like a keg of gunpowder. Poking around in the receiver and transmitter, I muttered all sorts of things under my breath. Aware of the danger of being left without contact, Schmidt watched my actions in silence, without interrupting his angry monologues with a single word. Of course, I really appreciated this sensitivity of Otto Yulievich.

I even slept next to the equipment, covering countless wires and wires with my body.

With no less diligence, I also took care of the radio log, where all outgoing and incoming radiograms were recorded. The journal was kept under my head as a secret document requiring round-the-clock security. Some news coming from outside was not subject to wide publication, because numerous enterprises for our salvation did not always go smoothly, and if pleasant things immediately went into wide circulation, then Schmidt sometimes preferred to remain silent about temporary failures.

All this was business as usual. Just as there is a medical secret, so for us, radio operators, there was a secret of correspondence, especially such an acute one as correspondence on the organization of our salvation.

The day started early. According to the established procedure, it was necessary to get up at six o'clock in the morning. This was the hour of the first conversation with Wellen. At half past five, shivering from the cold, Sima Ivanov got up. During the night, the temperature in the tent usually dropped and by morning differed little from the outside temperature. Ivanov lit a fire and put a makeshift bucket of ice on the fire to prepare water. I was the second to jump up, three or four minutes before six o’clock. He immediately sat down at the transmitter. Wellen was always accurate, so there was no need to repeat calls.

Then everyone else woke up, and the latest news of camp life began to burst into the tent. Voronin reported to Schmidt about visibility, ice condition, cracks and hummocks. Komov presented the weather report. Babushkin reported airfield news. Khmyznikov brought new coordinates. In a word, the flow of information grew and, having reached its maximum, subsided. At noon the cooks were fed lunch. Obesity was not a threat to us. Lunch usually consisted of one dish. Mainly canned food and cereals were used.

At three o'clock in the afternoon the supply manager began to issue dry rations for the next day - condensed milk, canned food, tea, sugar and 150 grams of biscuits - this was our diet.

At 4:30 a.m. the tent was filled with people. The entire expedition headquarters arrived here. Tass reports were coming from the mainland, transmitted specifically for us. From them we learned all the news - international, all-Union and news on the organization of our salvation.

On February 18, the second message from the Government Commission stated: “Measures are being taken to send two additional aircraft from Kamchatka and three from Vladivostok to Providence Bay, which is usually associated with very great difficulties at this time of year.”

In the evenings - the same dominoes. Schmidt, Bobrov, Babushkin, Ivanov occupied the entire tent, and I had only one thing left to do - go on a visit. “I’m going to visit” meant that I was going to bed. I climbed into one of the tents, looked for a free place and fell asleep.

Sometimes he went into the tent of scientific workers. There was a gramophone playing. It was interesting to listen to the voice of Josephine Becker in the dimly lit tent, among the grimy camp inhabitants overgrown with wild beards.

All this happened on quiet, non-flying days. On summer days there was no need to “visit”. I ate lunch in fits and starts between two negotiations, often without taking off my headphones. Communication was required every quarter of an hour, until late in the evening or until the shore reported that the flight was being postponed. It happened that we were informed about the departure of the plane. Women and children got dressed and walked to the airfield, but immediately there was a clear signal: the plane had returned.

Somehow, we already understood these difficulties. In Petropavlovsk-on-Kamchatka, the steamer "Stalingrad" was in full swing, in order to load aircraft on board and move them as far north as possible. In Vladivostok, another steamer, the Smolensk, was loaded with coal, food, Arctic property and airplanes, on which Kamanin and Molokov set off. The plenipotentiary representative of the Government Commission, G. A. Ushakov, with pilots S. A. Levanevsky and M. T. Slepnev, went to America to purchase Consolidated Flayster aircraft, which were also to be involved in rescue operations. At the same time, our plenipotentiary representative, as ambassadors were called then, in the United States, Troyanovsky, was sent instructions: to make every effort for quick and effective negotiations that Ushakov was to conduct.

Scope rescue operations attracted a lot of attention from the foreign press. “The matter of rescue,” wrote the English newspaper “Daily Telegraph,” “will be directly dependent on the endurance of the victims and the speed with which the rescue expedition can reach them. While both sides are talking on the radio.” The German newspaper Berliner Tageblatt was much more categorical: “They have enough food to live, but how long will they live?” She was echoed by another fascist newspaper, Volksstimme: “It seems that we should expect a new Arctic tragedy. Despite the radio, the airplane and other advances of civilization, at this time no one can help these hundred people during the entire arctic night; if nature does not come to their aid, they will perish.”

No, nature was in no hurry to come to the rescue. Rather, it's the other way around. Due to the winds and sea currents, our situation turned out to be too unstable to live without fear for tomorrow. In the first days, nature was relatively merciful, but we understood that complacency would not last long, and therefore we prepared for the worst.

The troubles started in the morning. The first to notice them were those who came to dismantle the wood that had surfaced at the scene of death. The 15-20 centimeter wide crack that opened to the eyes of those gathered looked harmless, but the harmlessness was apparent. At about 10 o'clock in the morning a crash was heard. The ocean went on the attack, and the black stripe ran to where it was least expected - straight to the camp. The first to be attacked was the forest, which had been so laboriously plucked from the icy water. The logs began to fall into the water again. We had to urgently pull them away from the edges, but that was just the beginning. There was a threat to the food warehouse. Its protection was organized instantly and in the hot emergency we quickly transferred the food away from the dangerous place. However, even this seemed to be not enough for the crack. She tore off the wall of the galley and passed under one of the antenna masts. During the existence of the camp, the crack closed and opened more than twenty times. It’s easy to guess that this didn’t give any of us much pleasure.

The first reports have appeared about the preparation of the Litke icebreaker and the Krasin icebreaker for the voyage. It should be noted that this was a difficult step. Both ships, fairly worn out by polar navigation, required serious repairs. In addition, the Krasin was in the docks of Kronstadt, and in order to provide assistance to us, it had to travel around the world.

We didn’t know this then, but later it became known that Valerian Vladimirovich Kuibyshev turned for help to Sergei Mironovich Kirov, who headed the Leningrad party organization, with the following telegram:

“The icebreakers Ermak and Krasin are undergoing repairs in Leningrad. The situation of Schmidt's expedition is such that the final rescue of the entire expedition may take until June or longer due to ice drift. If measures are taken for urgent repairs of “Ermak” and “Krasin”, then they could play a decisive role in saving Schmidt and a hundred people of his expedition... I ask you to familiarize yourself with this matter in detail and raise the entire party organization and the masses of workers to their feet for urgent repairs "Krasina", bearing in mind that, perhaps, the salvation of the heroes of the Arctic will depend on this."

This step of the Government Commission was also approved by the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Chairman of the Polar Commission A.P. Karpinsky. “If before the onset of heat,” he said, “not all Chelyuskinites are delivered to the shore, the Krasin will pick up those who remain on the ice. The Krasina package is a wise insurance policy for this case.”

Communists and non-party workers realized how responsible the work that lay ahead of them was. Hot work began to boil, which became another facet of the great feat that the country was accomplishing. On February 27, Schmidt received a radiogram. Everyone gathered in the barracks in the evening. Questions from all sides:

Ernst, what happened, why were we gathered?

There is some news. TASS has prepared a special review “TASS Summary for Chelyuskinites”...

He answered as indifferently as possible in order to enhance the surprise effect, but our insightful Pinkertons guessed:

Old man, you're darkening something!

I throw up my hands, try to move the conversation to other topics, but they don’t back down. At this moment, Otto Yulievich enters the barracks, and conversations stop. Ugh! You can finally breathe easy.

Schmidt reads out several telegrams about the preparation of aviation matters, then about the progress of the repair of the Krasin and, finally, most importantly, why the team was assembled.

“Camp of the Chelyuskinites, Polar Sea, to the head of the expedition, Schmidt.

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Polar explorer, one of the first Heroes of the Soviet Union. And also an academician, vice-president of the USSR Academy of Sciences. A brilliant mathematician and a passionate mountaineer. Statesman and creator of one of the theories of the origin of the Earth. All this is about Otto Yulievich Schmidt, the famous polar explorer, who was born on September 30, 1891 (new style) in Mogilev, where his father served as a clerk in a writing instruments store. His ancestors were settled Germans who moved to Little Russia at the end of the 18th century.

Otto showed a penchant for science as a child, when he was still at the gymnasium. young Schmidt surprised his mentors with his unprecedented performance in all subjects. In 1909 O.Yu. Schmidt graduated from the Kyiv Classical Gymnasium with a gold medal and entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Kyiv University.

In 1917, along with the beginning of the revolution, the darkest part of Schmidt's biography begins. The official history tells that in 1918, Otto Yulievich was appointed head of the product exchange department of the People's Commissariat of Food. In those years, the department was engaged in regulating the supply of the young Country of Soviets. Schmidt participates in the development of regulations on food detachments and on workers' food inspection.

Otto showed a penchant for science as a child, when, while still at the gymnasium, young Schmidt surprised his mentors with his unprecedented performance in all subjects.

Here is what Schmidt himself writes about that period: “This time, starting in 1918, was the happiest for me. I often saw Vladimir Ilyich and received his instructions. I attended almost all meetings of the Council of People’s Commissars, party congresses, plenums of the Central Committee, I could talk with members of the Central Committee - all this created the opportunity for great growth, not only from books, but from living examples.”

So Schmidt becomes a professional manager. Schmidt – Chairman of the Cooperative Commission, Head of the Institute economic research. Schmidt is a member of the boards of the People's Commissariat for Food, the People's Commissariat of Finance, and the People's Commissariat for Education. Schmidt is the head of the State Publishing House.

In his youth, Schmidt fell ill with pulmonary tuberculosis, which was initially suppressed, but the disease returned every ten years. In 1924, as a major party official, he went to Austria, where he took mountaineering courses in Tyrol. And four years later, Schmidt heads a Soviet-German group that explores the glaciers of the Pamirs.

Drift of "Chelyuskin".

In 1929, he was appointed head of an expedition to Franz Josef Land to consolidate the sovereignty of the USSR in this territory and study the possibility of a through passage through the Northern Sea Route in one navigation. He headed the famous Arctic expeditions on the icebreaking ships Sedov, Sibiryakov and Chelyuskin. During the expeditions he proved the possibility of active economic development of the Arctic. For organizing an expedition to North Pole with the aim of creating the first drifting station there (later named “SP-1”), he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

During his expeditions, Schmidt was the first to prove the possibility of active economic development of the Arctic.

Director of the All-Union Arctic Institute, since 1932 - head of the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route, for several years he was vice-president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, in 1939–1942 - director of the Institute of Geography of the USSR Academy of Sciences, one of the founders and editor-in-chief of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1924– 1941) - this is an incomplete list of high positions of the famous scientist and public figure.

The last period of O.Yu.’s life Schmidt turned out to be the most heroic for him. Since the winter of 1943–1944, tuberculosis progressed and spread not only to the lungs, but also to the throat. O.Yu. Schmidt was periodically forbidden to speak; he spent a lot of time in sanatoriums in the Moscow region and in Yalta. In recent years, he was practically bedridden - mainly at a dacha near Zvenigorod - where he died on September 7, 1956.

On the day of his funeral, mourning was declared in the Arctic. All polar stations and ships of the coastal fleet lowered their flags. And at the funeral meeting in Moscow, some spoke about the famous mathematician Schmidt, others about the Earth explorer who first paved the way in the Pamirs, and then made the Arctic and the North Pole accessible, and still others about the man who founded the cosmogonic theory. They seemed to be talking about many wonderful people, but there was only one name - Otto Yulievich Schmidt.
Read on Don’t Panic: http://dnpmag.com/2014/10/06/otto-shmidt/

Russia (USSR)

Domestic Pamir explorer, polar explorer; I suffered from tuberculosis since childhood.

Otto Schmidt Graduated from high school in Kyiv with honors.

Characteristic episode: student Otto Schmidt made a list of books he should read. It turned out that even if you read one book a week,serious reading will take a thousand years...

In 1918 Otto Yulievich Schmidt joined the Bolshevik party.

In 1928 Otto Schmidt at the head of an international expedition he studied the glaciers of the Pamirs.

In 1929 and 1930, he led expeditions on the icebreaking steamer "", which organized the first Soviet polar scientific station on Franz Josef Land.

In 1933, to check the possibility of ships passing along the Northern Sea Route, the Chelyuskin steamship was sent from Murmansk, led by Otto Yulievich Schmidt and V.I. Voronin. But the ship was covered in ice and sank, and 104 people who found themselves on the ice floe were forced to spend two months on it in polar winter conditions until they were rescued by polar aviation.

In 1937 Otto Yulievich Schmidt organized an expedition to the North Pole to create a drifting station.

Otto Yulievich Schmidt- one of the founders and editor-in-chief of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1924-1942).

“A number of prominent scientists are opponents of any kind of plan.
They believe that scientific work- this is a creative activity, and creativity is not subject to planning, it must develop completely freely, and scientists create only what they have an inclination for at a given time.
A number of convincing examples are given to confirm this point of view.
Myself , for example, according to a given plan, he could not have discovered the law of gravity, since this happened spontaneously; he was inspired when he saw the famous falling apple. Obviously, it is impossible to plan the moment when a scientist sees a falling apple and how it will affect him. The most valuable thing in science - and what constitutes the basis of great science - cannot be planned, since it is achieved by a creative process, the success of which is determined by the talent of the scientist.

To reconcile these contradictions, a compromise view is put forward. At our meeting this view was put forward by academician O.Yu. Schmidt. He believes that there really are scientific discoveries and, of course, no one can force scientists to plan their discoveries in advance, and here we give scientists freedom.
But there is a lot of work besides creative work, and we will plan this work.
I consider this view to be unfounded.

This would be the same as if, when evaluating a painting in a museum, although we know that we are deprived of the opportunity to evaluate, for example, a painting,since artistic quality cannot be expressed in money, we would still accept that we can evaluate the frame, paints, etc., and thus determine some part of the value of the museum’s art holdings. Such assessments do not express anything and can only satisfy the bureaucratic administration.

I think that the proposal of O.Yu. Schmidt, like all others, does not solve the problem and we need to look for a broader approach, which should be based on the following principle: in science the most valuable thing is creative element, therefore, the plan and report should be drawn up in such a way as not to restrict the freedom of creativity, but to support it.”

,Experiment. Theory. Practice, M., “Science”, 1987, pp. 160-161.

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Otto Yulievich Schmidt (1891–1956) - academician, organizer was born 125 years ago scientific life, whose name in our country is associated with such concepts as “Chelyuskinites” and “Northern Sea Route”.

In the 1930s, Academician Schmidt was undoubtedly one of the most famous people countries. And he was well known throughout the world - both by his accomplishments and by sight. Poems and newspaper praises were written about him. And folk storytellers composed epics about the conqueror of the Arctic. He was one of the “notable people of the Soviet state.” The colorful appearance of the determined scientist was memorable: bright eyes, a long dark gray beard... We don’t know whether he consciously built his image, but there is no doubt about the success: Schmidt’s fame thundered.

As a student he was considered the hope of Russian mathematical science. However, after the revolutions, he began to show not so much research as organizational talent. Was involved in supply, finance, and organization scientific institutes. He taught mathematics and studied astronomy. By the way, it was Schmidt who at one time coined the word “graduate student,” without which it is difficult to imagine university life today. He was the initiator and energetic leader of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. True, all-Union fame came to him when Schmidt became the leader of polar expeditions and the head of the Northern Sea Route.

“If you want to become a good polar explorer, first climb the mountains,” Otto Yulievich used to say. It all started with the fact that, while being treated for tuberculosis in Europe, he took a mountaineering course. His fate was decided when “while watching a film about last year’s Pamir expedition (in March 1929 - Author) N.P. Gorbunov (manager of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, participant in the Pamir expedition. - Author) told me about the expedition to Franz Josef Land and offered to go as its leader... In May I agreed, received the appointment of the Council of People's Commissars and in June I was in Leningrad, at the Institute for the Study of the North, where with R.L. Samoilovich and V.Yu. Wiese has agreed on the basics.” The political subtext of the project was visible in the idea of ​​scientific and practical development of Franz Josef Land and its inclusion in our polar possessions, as was declared by a note from the tsarist government in 1916 and confirmed by a Soviet note in 1926. On March 5, 1929, the Council of People's Commissars approved a project for organizing an expedition to Franz Josef Land, where it was planned to build a radio station. The most experienced polar explorer among the participants in the expedition to Franz Josef Land was undoubtedly Vladimir Wiese, who in 1912 received Arctic baptism as a geographer for Georgy Sedov’s expedition. Rudolf Samoilovich was not inferior to him in terms of experience. However, the Council of People's Commissars appointed Schmidt as head of the expedition. They trusted him. He was considered a kind of commissar.

Schmidt wrote: “The first reasonable, justified idea about the geographical structure of the Central Polar Basin belongs to Nansen.” His contemporaries did not want to listen to him. It is known that this energetic, courageous man nevertheless did not waver in his theoretical views and managed to put them into practice while drifting the Fram. The drift of the Fram is still considered the greatest event in the history of the polar countries. But the Fram's drift, which occurred in the 1890s, remained lonely. The Fram passed from the New Siberian Islands, slightly beyond 85 degrees, through a significant part of the Central Polar Basin, but was not at the Pole. Fridtjof Nansen intended to repeat the trip under different conditions, namely, to freeze a ship of the same type into an ice floe somewhere north of Alaska, hoping that it would pass closer to the pole and, drifting for 4–5 years, would collect more material than “ Fram."

Over the course of several years, Schmidt managed to firmly seize the initiative from the Norwegians and Americans in the development of the Arctic. The achievements of Soviet polar explorers in Schmidt's time are impressive. In 1929, an Arctic expedition was formed on the icebreaking steamship Sedov, which successfully reached Franz Josef Land. In Tikhaya Bay, Schmidt created a polar geophysical observatory that examined the lands and straits of the archipelago. In 1930, during the second expedition, islands such as Isachenko, Vize, Dlinny, Voronina, and Domashny were discovered. In 1932, the icebreaker Sibiryakov made the passage from Arkhangelsk to the Pacific Ocean for the first time in one navigation. Every child in the USSR heard about the Northern Sea Route in those years. Great hopes were placed on him, primarily economic ones. We saw the Northern Sea Route as one of the levers for transforming life. Schmidt headed the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route. Much was under his jurisdiction. And the construction of weather stations, and the organization of polar aviation, and shipbuilding issues, as well as radio communication problems...

In 1933, he headed an expedition on the steamship Chelyuskin, which was supposed to prove the viability of the Northern Sea Route. But Chelyuskin was unable to enter the Pacific Ocean. The ship was crushed by ice and sank. 104 people found themselves on the ice in a seemingly hopeless situation. Schmidt proved himself to be a real commander. When a large crew landed on an ice floe, one person died. Accident! No more such incidents occurred in the Schmidt camp. Under the leadership of the academician, the Chelyuskinites quickly erected a tent city, created conditions for preparing food and treating the sick. Ernst Krenkel managed to establish radio contact with the mainland. The Chelyuskinites lived like a big family. Schmidt instilled in his comrades faith in salvation and the will to live. It was here that his main talent manifested itself - communication, pedagogical influence. On the ice floe he gave entertaining lectures to the Chelyuskinites. The whole world followed the life of the Schmidt camp as a kind of “reality show”. It all ended in a miraculous rescue. The pilots took every single Chelyuskin resident to the mainland. Nobody died.

In the last weeks of his stay on the ice floe, Schmidt became seriously ill. Tuberculosis, pneumonia... At first he hid his illness from his comrades, then he could not hide it. He fell off the ice and went straight to the hospital. However, when rewarding the heroes, he was not deprived. Moscow greeted the academician as a triumphant.

In 1937, Schmidt acted as the organizer of the North Pole drifting station. Together with the Papaninites, he flew to the ice floe, checked everything, passionately spoke at the rally and returned to the mainland. And Ivan Papanin returned after a year of drifting as an all-Union hero. Soon Joseph Stalin found it necessary to replace Schmidt as head of the Northern Sea Route with Papanin. Then a comic song arose: “There are many examples in the world, But it’s really not better to find: Schmidt took Papanin off the ice floe, And he took him off the Northern Sea Route.” Although even at that cruel time, Schmidt did not fall into disgrace. He was engaged in science, headed departments and institutes, unfortunately, he was often treated for a long time.

All R. In the 1940s, Schmidt put forward a new cosmogonic hypothesis about the appearance of the Earth and planets solar system. The academician believed that these bodies were never hot gas bodies, but were formed from solid, cold particles of matter. Otto Yulievich Schmidt continued to develop this version until the end of his life together with a group of Soviet scientists. All R. the war worsened the disease. Schmidt was forced to retire, but continued to engage in scientific research. Unfortunately, increasingly, illness took him away from science for a long time. The great lover of life (he was rightfully considered the “Soviet Don Juan”) died before reaching the age of 65. He remained in the memory and in many implemented endeavors.