The legendary Sannikov Land has been searched for by the best Russian navigators and polar explorers for almost two centuries. But the ghost island remained undiscovered, nevertheless giving rise to a large number of scientific hypotheses and mysteries.
Mammoth tusk
Maybe this whole "race" for the Sannikov Land would not have arisen if it had not been for the Yakut hunters, who at the beginning of the 18th century realized that the Arctic fox is not hunted in such volumes as before, and, therefore, another source of income is needed. This new trade was the search for mammoth tusks or mammoth bones. In search of valuable ornamental material, the hunters began to go deeper and deeper to the north and saw the islands, which they could reach on the ice. Subsequently, these islands were named Novosibirsk. In 1770, the merchant Lyakhov was the first to correct the license for the extraction of mammoth tusks, so Catherine II ordered the two islands closest to the mainland to be named after the merchant - Bolshoy Lyakhovsky and Maly Lyakhovsky. After the death of Lyakhov, in 1806, the right to fish was transferred to his colleague, the merchant Syrovatsky,which sends a team of Yakut industrialists to the archipelago, headed by Matvey Gedenshtrom. The goal is to find the mammoth tusks.
Eureka
The mammoth bone has indeed been found. However, this is not what made the Novosibirsk archipelago and its first explorers famous. The team of the first Russian expedition included the same Yakov Sannikov, who saw "high stone mountains" rising above the sea. His opinion that there are "vast lands" to the north of Kotelny Island was not questioned - and this is not surprising. An experienced polar traveler who had previously discovered three New Siberian Islands - Stolbovoy, Faddeevsky and Bunge Land - could hardly be wrong. Gedenshtrom puts “The Lands Seen by Sannikov” on the map and writes down “… to the northwest, at an approximate distance of 70 versts, high stone mountains are visible”. Scientists who watched birds also spoke in favor of the existence of lands. For example, polar geese flew north, from where they returned with their young. Couldn't they nest and raise offspring in the ice? Maybe the relatively warm Sannikov Land became a temporary home for them?
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Fog
It was not so easy to deny or confirm the existence of Sannikov Land. It was possible to swim to the islands only two or three months a year, and even then, if the end of summer and autumn are warm. Otherwise, even in summer, the ocean is frozen by ice. Researchers in the 19th century favored dog sledding. One of these attempts was made by Sannikov himself. And in the 20s of the XIX century, Pyotr Fedorovich Anzhu went in search of the Earth, who came to the point from which Sannikov saw his Earth. But, despite the clear horizon, in the north-west of Anjou, I saw nothing but a flat ice surface, while, unlike Sannikov, he had excellent optics. For two days the expedition moved in the indicated direction, but "the supposed land was not visible." The samples taken of the bottom soil and the 34-meter depth of the sea indicated thatthat there is no sushi nearby. Anjou's verdict - Sannikov saw "a fog like the ground."
A new round
After Anju's statement about the Sannikov Land, it seems, they forget. But 60 years later, a new impetus to the search is given by the discovery by the American explorer George De Long of an archipelago of small islands located far to the north of the island of New Siberia, and an article by the scientist of the Russian Geographical Society, Mr. Grigoriev, who makes the assumption that the islands of De Long are "Those" lands. By the way, it was Grigoriev who first used the phrase "Sannikov Land" in print. A few years later, in 1885, the Academy of Sciences decided to organize, in fact, the first research expedition to study the New Siberian Islands. Alexander Bunge was appointed as its head, and Baron Eduard Toll became his assistant.
Life's work
The expedition of 1885 radically changes Toll's life - he will try to reach Sannikov Land again and again. And how could it be otherwise, if on August 13, 1886, he saw with his own eyes "the clear contours of the four mesas, which in the east were connected with the low-lying land"! Clear weather allowed Toll not only to visually determine the distance to the mountains - about 150 versts, but also to talk about their structure, similar to the islands of Franz Josef Land. In 1893, he again went to the archipelago - the Academy instructed him to investigate the discovered corpse of a mammoth in the area of the Yana River. The item "Studying the Unknown Parts of Siberia" gives Toll a relative freedom of action: before starting to study the remains of the animal, he decides to visit the New Siberian Islands again and again sees on the horizon a strip of mountains that he identifies with Sannikov Land. Toll is almost sure that a continent once existed in the region that attracts him and, as a true explorer, he is tormented by endless questions, the main of which becomes a riddle: how and why did this continent, if it was, disintegrate? In subsequent years, Baron Toll will subordinate the available facts to his conviction: Anjou did not see the land, but the industrialists did not doubt its existence, and those who did not find it, perhaps, passed to the north or they were hindered by a thick fog. Toll's ideas found a warm response among the leading people of that time - Mendeleev, Schmidt, Karpinsky, Makarov.broke up? In subsequent years, Baron Toll will subordinate the available facts to his conviction: Anjou did not see the land, but the industrialists did not doubt its existence, and those who did not find it, perhaps, passed to the north or they were hindered by a thick fog. Toll's ideas found a warm response among the leading people of that time - Mendeleev, Schmidt, Karpinsky, Makarov.broke up? In subsequent years, Baron Toll will subordinate the available facts to his conviction: Anjou did not see the land, but the industrialists did not doubt its existence, and those who did not find it, perhaps, passed to the north or they were hindered by a thick fog. Toll's ideas found a warm response among the leading people of that time - Mendeleev, Schmidt, Karpinsky, Makarov.
Catch up and overtake
At the turn of the century, it becomes known about the plans of the Canadians, who decide to send a polar expedition to the Arctic under the leadership of Bernier. It was decided to organize the Russian polar expedition immediately, on a grand scale and with wide coverage in the press. A Norwegian whaling vessel named "Zarya" was bought especially for the expedition. Toll personally formed a team of talented, young and promising specialists, the best equipment and equipment were purchased. Zarya left Petersburg on June 21 (old style) 1990. Toll, accompanied by Friedrich Seeberg, Vasily Gorokhov and Nikolai Dyakonov, set off for Bennett's Island, where Zarya was supposed to arrive two months later. However, due to serious damage and severe ice conditions, the Zarya could not approach the island on time. Without waiting for "Dawn"Toll's group decides to make their way towards the continent … In 1903, an expedition led by Alexander Kolchak discovers Toll's anchorage on Bennett, diaries and valuable research materials. Toll and his colleagues have not been found. A detailed description of the journey is presented in the Baron's diary, first published in Berlin in 1909, and then in an abridged form in 1959, and in our country.
There is only a moment…
The point was set by researchers of the last century. First, in 1937, the team of the Soviet icebreaker "Sadko" bypassed the place of the supposed Earth from all sides - south, north, east. Apart from ice, nothing was found. At the request of Academician Vladimir Obruchev, who is known to the general public as the author of the fantasy novel "Sannikov Land", Arctic aviation planes are sent to the region. The titanic efforts to find Earth are paying off. Negative! Sannikov Land does not exist! A number of scientists come to the conclusion that, like most of the New Siberian Islands, which eventually disappeared (Vasilievsky, Semenovsky, Mercury, Diomis), the mysterious island was a permafrost with a relatively small layer of soil. Sannikov's land has simply … melted.