Open meeting of the Commission for the Geography of Polar Countries of the Moscow Geographical Society was held to mark the 90th anniversary of the start of the expedition of the steamer "Chelyuskin"

к 90-летию начала экспедиции парохода «Челюскин»

On October 12, 2023, in the cinema hall of the museum, as part of the “Voice of the North” project, an open meeting of the Commission for the Geography of Polar Countries of the International Geographical Society of the Russian Geographical Society was held, dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the beginning of the Chelyuskin epic. The curator of the “Voice of the North” Yana Shklyarskaya welcomed the guests and said that the initiator of the meeting was the Friendship Society of Russia and Iceland. Its director, Elena Barinova, reminded the guests about the outstanding polar explorers who were members of the Polar Commission at different times, and about the long history of its cooperation with ODRI. Fedor Romanenko, senior researcher Geographical Faculty of Moscow State University, a participant in many polar expeditions and a polar historian, made a report on the main facts of the “Chelyuskin” campaign and the rescue operation. Despite the fact that dozens of books and hundreds of articles have been written about these events, many episodes and their participants remain in the shadows, or even deliberately hidden. Scientific editor of the Paulsen publishing house Olga Petrova spoke about how the editors’ intention to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Chelyuskin epic was embodied in the publication of a new study by Nikolai Veligzhanin “In the shadow of the first heroes. White spots of the Chelyuskin epic." The author himself recorded a video message in which he admitted that he considered the topic of the Chelyuskinites exhausted until he began to carefully study even well-known facts; in the end, after working with archives, interviews with relatives of the Chelyuskinites and comparing all the data, a completely new picture of the incident emerged.

Svetlana Boldyreva, the great-granddaughter of the Chelyuskin polar rescue pilot Mikhail Vodopyanov, announced the creation of a Committee to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the end of the Chelyuskin epic in April 2024, consisting of relatives of both the Chelyuskin people and their rescuers. Some of them were present at the evening.

The head of the Chelyuskin-70 search expedition, Alexey Mikhailov, spoke about two attempts to find a sunken steamship at the bottom of the Chukchi Sea. The second, which was successful, brought several valuable artifacts, which are now on display in the local history museum.

Fyodor Romanenko shared the results of studying the poetry of Ilya Selvinsky, a participant in the Chelyuskin expedition, which reflected both well-known events and those not described anywhere. The poet was one of the first artists who was able to transform his experiences and objective reality into a phenomenon of Soviet culture.

At the end of the evening, the screenwriter and documentary director, author of the book and film “The Chelyuskin Epic” of 1974, Yuri Salnikov, took the floor. He conveyed greetings to everyone present from Karina Vasilyeva, the youngest participant in the trip, who was born when the ship was passing the Kara Sea, and told an amazing story about how Karina fell out of the sleigh during the evacuation, but was soon found by the dog - the leader of the dog sled.

And finally, the guests watched the 1934 documentary “Heroes of the Arctic “Chelyuskin,” kindly provided for screening by the author of the “Unknown Heroes of the North” project, Boris Dvorkin.

All participants and guests of the evening expressed a desire to continue the theme of “Chelyuskin”, to watch and discuss other films about him.

The recording of the broadcast of the meeting is available at the link: https://clck.ru/365B5x

About the project “Voice of the North”: https://clck.ru/32mnty

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