The Arctic, the North, unknown distances … They have always attracted romantics looking for the unknown, researchers seeking to discover new lands.
This year is the anniversary of two Arctic expeditions at once and the 160th anniversary of the birth of the legendary polar explorer Baron Eduard Toll. These expeditions are associated with Yakutia, with its Arctic zone.
The 285th anniversary of the Second Kamchatka Expedition is celebrated.
The Second Kamchatka (Great Northern) Expedition - the largest Russian expedition of the 18th century, lasted from 1733 to 1743. It took place under the command of Vitus Bering. Its goals were a comprehensive study of Siberia, clarification of state borders in the East of Russia, study of the possibilities of navigation in the Arctic Ocean, solution of the question of the existence of a strait between North Asia and America, search for routes to Japan and the shores of North-West America. These tasks were mainly solved by the Marine detachments of the expedition under the leadership of V. Valton, V. V. Pronchishchev, A. I. Chirikov, M. P. Shpanberg, brothers Khariton and Dmitriev Laptev, and others.
The expedition also included the Academic Detachment, which was engaged in a comprehensive natural-scientific and historical-geographical description of Siberia and its peoples. The Academic detachment included professors - historians G. F. Miller and I. E. Fisher, natural scientists I. G. Gmelin and G. V. Steller, astronomer L Delisle de la Croyer, translators, students, including Stepan Krasheninnikov, subsequently the first Russian professor of natural history and botany at the Academy of Sciences.
For the first time, the Great Northern Expedition made an inventory of individual sections of the coast of the Arctic Ocean, confirmed the presence of a strait between Asia and America, discovered and mapped the South Kuril Islands, surveyed the coast of Kamchatka, the Sea of Okhotsk and some parts of the coast of Japan.
Many species of flora and fauna were described and sketched, among them there are now extinct, of which the most famous is the "Steller's cow".
According to the results of the expedition, the world-famous works of G. F. Miller were published - "History of Siberia", "Description of the Siberian kingdom and all things that happened in it from the beginning, and especially from the conquest of it by the Russian state to this day", "Description of the Tomsk district of the Tobolsk province in Siberia in its current position, in October 1734 " and other works.
Promotional video:
Published studies by IG Gmelin - "Siberian flora", "Travel in Siberia from 1741 to 1743.", SP Krasheninnikov - "Description of the land of Kamchatka".
75 years since the beginning of the work of the First Kolyma geological exploration expedition.
On July 4, 1928, the first Kolyma exploration expedition landed on the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk, near the village of Ola. It was headed by engineer-geologist Yuri Bilibin. The result of the expedition of Yu. A. Bilibin in 1928-1929 was the discovery of industrial gold-bearing areas in the areas of the Utina River, Kholodny and Yubileiny springs, which became the main objects of gold mining in Kolyma until 1933. Gold was found in other valleys as well, some patterns of its distribution and the geological structure of the area began to become clear. Bilibin put forward a hypothesis about the existence of a gold-bearing zone here with a length of hundreds of kilometers.
The third anniversary date is associated with the name of Baron Eduard Toll - a famous polar explorer, zoologist and geologist, a man with a mysterious fate. The 160th anniversary of the birth of this scientist and traveler is celebrated. Today we will pay our attention to this particular researcher.
The mysterious disappearance of Eduard Toll in the ice of the Arctic is still a mystery for two centuries … Eduard Toll devoted his whole life to searching for the legendary Sannikov Land.
The merchant and collector of mammoth bones Yakov Sannikov from Yakutia was the first to see this unknown, uncharted land. It happened in 1810 during the first Russian expedition to the New Siberian Islands. From the northern tip of Kotelny Island, Sannikov clearly saw high stone mountains located at a distance of 70 versts.
And it was not a hallucination or a mirage. First, the fact of the "vision" was officially certified by the head of the expedition, the collegiate registrar Matvey Gedenshtrom. Secondly, Sannikov was an experienced person, able to distinguish a mirage from a real picture. It was he who discovered the three islands of the Novosibirsk archipelago - Stolbovoy, Faddevsky, Bunge Land.
After 10 years, with the specific purpose of exploring the Sannikov Land, an expedition was equipped under the command of Fleet Lieutenant Pyotr Fedorovich Anzhu. But Anjou did not find any land, although he was armed with excellent optical tubes. After wandering with the guides on dog sleds in the area where Gedenstrom had drawn "Sannikov's Land" with a dotted line, he returned to St. Petersburg with nothing.
However, they did not stop looking for Sannikov Land, although it was believed that there was no land to the north of the New Siberian Islands. And suddenly, in 1881, the American George De Long discovered an archipelago of small islands, located far north of the dotted line drawn by Gedenstrom.
A new round of searching for a land that could conceal priceless treasures began. These included, first of all, mammoth tusks.
There was a number of evidence that the Sannikov Land could have unique natural and climatic characteristics. For example, in autumn, polar geese flew from the northern coast not to the south, but to the north, approximately in the direction of Sannikov Land. And with the onset of the warm period, they returned with their offspring. Do not discount the mythology of indigenous peoples. According to ancient legends, in the far north there was a "continent of mammoths", where they freely grazed in green meadows. However, evil underground forces intervened in this happiness, destroying the idyll.
De Long's discovery spurred American industrialists, who began to create a joint stock company to develop northern resources. Naturally, Russia could not but react to this.
In 1885, a research expedition was sent to distant shores under the leadership of a physician of the Baltic Fleet Alexander Bunge. Zoologist and geologist Baron Eduard Vasilievich Toll was appointed his assistant. Russia was in a hurry to formalize its right to the legendary Land.
On August 13, 1886, Toll, standing on the same shore of the same island as Sannikov, saw the same mountains and literally fell ill with the thought of searching for an unknown land. He saw these massifs quite clearly, determined the distance to them (about 160 kilometers), and did not even admit the thought that there, in the distance, there were only blocks of ice. For many years, Baron Toll has been building a theoretical proof of his theory.
The next expedition, led by Toll, took place in 1893. And finally, on July 4, 1900, Eduard Vasilyevich left Kronstadt on the Zarya whaling ship to put an end to the protracted dispute about the existence of Sannikov Land. He was absolutely sure of her reality.
The expedition was perfectly prepared, which was facilitated by 150 thousand rubles in gold allocated by the Ministry of Finance. Young scientists were recruited - energetic enthusiasts for the study of the High North. The most advanced equipment and equipment were purchased. The stock of provisions allowed an autonomous existence of up to three years.
Toll, considered one of the leading experts in the field of practical exploration of the circumpolar territories, was perfectly suited to the role of expedition leader. He was looking with great interest for the solution to the secrets of the recent geological past: did the continent exist in the area of the modern Novosibirsk Islands, when and why did it disintegrate, why did mammoths die out?
The voyage of Toll's expedition lasted three years. Toll was sure that the land seen by Sannikov really exists. But Eduard Vasilyevich could not fulfill his dream.
Remaining to spend the winter on one of the islands, he planned to resume his searches in the spring. Toll's group, not waiting for the schooner Zarya, decided to independently move south towards the continent, but further traces of these four people have not yet been found.
In 1903, a search expedition led by Admiral Alexander Kolchak discovered Toll's camp on Bennett's Island, his diaries and other materials.
In his diary, Toll announced his departure. Since then, no one has seen either him or the people who were with him. Many mystics associate the mysterious disappearance of Eduard Toll and three other scientists with the mysterious Sannikov Land.
Toll's diary, according to the will, was transferred to his widow. Emmeline Toll published her husband's diary in 1909 in Berlin. In the USSR, in a heavily truncated form, it was translated from German in 1959.
Another scientist was fascinated by the idea of finding the mysterious Sannikov land. It was Vladimir Obruchev - a prominent scientist, holder of the Orders of St. Vladimir of the 4th degree, Lenin and the Red Banner of Labor, academician, geologist, paleontologist and geographer, explorer of Siberia and Central Asia, author of numerous scientific works and textbooks on geology, which retained their relevance until our days.
The northern Yakuts have a myth about a mysterious warm land, lost somewhere far away in the Arctic Ocean. Birds fly there every year to winter and the Onkilons left there - a semi-legendary people who supposedly lived in Chukotka, and then expelled by other tribes to the islands of the Arctic Ocean. Obruchev combined this beautiful fairy tale with reports about the Sannikov Land and the really unresolved issue of migratory birds that return after wintering with their offspring.
At the very beginning of the twentieth century, Obruchev worked on a geological and geographical expedition in Yakutia. From local residents, Vladimir Afanasyevich heard a mysterious legend about the blooming land, located among the endless expanses of the Arctic Ocean. It was said that the presence of a warm oasis in the coldest ocean is indicated by flocks of migratory birds that fly at a certain time each year to the north towards the snowy and uninhabited expanses of the Arctic. It was in that direction, according to local residents, that the Onkilon tribe once left.
Since Obruchev was primarily a scientist, he had to present the legend so as not to contradict scientific data. As a result, his Sannikov Land remained warm and fertile due to the fact that it was formed by volcanic activity, and this volcano has not cooled down yet. Along with the Onkilons, there live Wampu - people from the Paleolithic - and fossil animals led by mammoths. This is how the novel "Sannikov's Land, or the Last Onkilons" appeared.
In 1924 Obruchev completed work on the novel Sannikov's Land, or The Last Onkilons. But it was just a novel - a fantasy of a talented writer. But the plot was still built on real events. The prototype of the protagonist may have been a scientist, arctic explorer, talented geologist Eduard Vasilievich Toll.
But what did Sannikov and Toll see? Mirage? A pile of ice floes? The most popular theory now is that they actually saw an island of fossil ice that melted before it was discovered. This is confirmed by the fate of two other islands of the Novosibirsk archipelago - Vasilievsky and Semyonovsky. They were discovered at the beginning of the 19th century and completely disappeared by the 30-50s of the 20th century.
The search for Sannikov Land did not stop in the 20th century either. There are modern legends about this amazing Earth, exciting the imaginations of researchers and our time. At various times, non-explanatory notes began to appear in the press. Whether there is some truth in them or is it fiction, we will not judge, just consider these myths of our days.
In the middle of the 20th century, military specialists are trying to get to Sannikov Land. For their hikes, they use the northern form of transport - reindeer and dog sleds. There were several such attempts. All members of the expeditions claim that they have seen this unexplored land from afar. But each time on their way an insurmountable obstacle arose in the form of a huge hole. Until now, this mythical land remains inaccessible to researchers.
There are stories among sailors that confirm the legends of an inhabited island in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. Only this can explain the finds of various objects floating from the Pole. And this at a time when there was not a single expedition to the area. Polar travelers unanimously repeat about the fact that the temperature rises when moving to the Pole. Another amazing phenomenon: huge open spaces of water, completely free of ice cover, suddenly appear among the solid ice.
Of course, modern space technology makes it possible to take a very good picture of any territory on the Earth's surface. There are such photographs and Poles. Strange shadows are visible on them. The Americans assumed that these were Russian military installations. Surprisingly, it was not possible to find these "shadows", but they are visible from space.
The search for "Sannikov Land" was carried out not only by Russian researchers. So, in the twentieth century, the British Admiralty received an amazing report. British sailors have landed on one of the Scottish Islands. Unusual events happened to them. Suddenly, people appeared who were not like the British. Quite strange things began to happen with the minds and eyes of the sailors. They managed to return safely to the ship, but they were completely demoralized.
In addition, according to the testimony of a famous pilot who flew over the Pole in the 30s, he saw a large green oasis among the polar ice. Nobody believed his story, it was assumed that the pilot saw a mirage.
The members of the American expedition, having found the ruins of an ancient city on one of the Arctic islands, believed that they had found traces of the mythical Atlantis or the so-called Arctida - the island where an ancient highly developed civilization lived. In their report, the travelers described the structures they found. Among them are houses, temples, palaces and cultural objects. Although most of the buildings are under a layer of eternal ice and only the tops of the buildings are visible, scientists believe that they were built several millennia ago. In the Arctic, it is very difficult to carry out excavations, but, according to experts, the architectural style of the city resembles the ancient Greek one. Perhaps this city was built at a time when there was a subtropical climate and was a heavenly place.
Scientists have recently found out that often a so-called confluence band occurs on the mainland and large islands. According to observations, such a confluence band often occurs in the Laptev Sea, not far from Tiksi. This optical phenomenon occurs in three places: off the coast of the mainland, near the New Siberian Islands and north of the Archipelago. That is, exactly where the merchant Sannikov first saw the new Earth, later called the Sannikov Land. Given this discovery, we can say with a high degree of probability that Sannikov Land does not exist.
There is also a Tibetan legend about the White Island. It says that this island is the only territory that will escape the fate of all continents. It cannot be destroyed by fire or water - this is the Eternal Earth.
It is possible that the merchant and Christian writer Kozma Indikoplovt spoke about this land in the sixth century after the Nativity of Christ in the theological and cosmographic treatise “Christian Topography”. He argued that in the North there is a land where human life originated.
Helena Blavatsky believed that Sannikov's land is that polar country inhabited by creatures that have lived for ten thousand years. There are no diseases here, and people living on this earth are perfect.
It is surprising that many travelers saw Sannikov Land, but no one was able to set foot on its shore. And what do the prophets say about this?
Nostradamus wrote that a select few would live beyond the Arctic Circle, the rest near the Equator. There will be no politics in the lives of these people.
Medieval prophet, astrologer Ragno Nero in his manuscript of predictions "The Eternal Book" wrote that the time will come and the ice will melt in the North and a blooming land will appear there. Or maybe Sannikov Land is this mysterious land?
This mysterious Earth still excites the imagination of many.
In connection with these significant dates within the framework of the "Days of the Arctic in Neryungri", the department of local history literature of the Neryungri library held an event "Arctic. Autograph on the map ", where the readers got acquainted with the history of the development of the northern lands and met with representatives of the indigenous peoples of the Arctic in the person of students of ESH" Arctic ", heard the ancient speech of the peoples of the North, fascinating songs and legends of distant times.
Varvara KORYAKINA, Leading Librarian of the Department of Local Lore Literature of the Neryungri City Library
