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Chelyuskin drifting with the ice-fields

Chelyuskin («Челюскин» in Russian) was a Soviet steamship reinforced to navigate polar ice that became ice-bound in Arctic waters during navigation along the Northern Maritime Route from Murmansk to Vladivostok. The expedition's task was to determine possibility of travel by non-icebreaker through Northern Maritime Route in a single navigation season.

It was built in Denmark in 1933 by Burmeister and Wain (B&W, Copenhagen) and named after the 18th century Russian polar explorer Semion Ivanovich Chelyuskin. The head of the expedition was Otto Yuliyevich Shmidt and the ship's captain was V. I. Voronin. There were 111 people on board the steamship. The crew members were known as Chelyuskintsy, "Chelyuskinites".

The steamship had been drifting with the ice fields before sinking on February 13, 1934, crushed by the icepacks near Kolyuchin Island in the Chukchi Sea. The crew managed to escape onto the ice and built a makeshift airstrip using a tractor. They were rescued in April of the same year and flown to the town of Uelen.

The aircraft pilots who took part in search and rescue operations were among the first people to receive the newly established highest title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Those pilots were Anatoly Liapidevsky, Sigizmund Levanevsky, Vasili Molokov, Mavrikiy Slepnev, Mikhail Vodopianov, Nikolai Kamanin and Ivan Doronin. They were flying ANT-4, civilian version of a TB-1 heavy bomber. Two American air mechanics, Clyde Armistead and William Latimer Lavery,^[1] who also helped to search and rescue the steamship, on September 10, 1934 were awarded the Order of Lenin.

As steamship became ice-bound in the mouth of the Bering Strait, USSR considered expedition mainly successful, as it proven that regular steamship has a chance to navigate whole Northern Maritime Route in a single season without wintering en route. After a couple more trial runs in 1933 and 1934, the Northern Sea Route was officially open and commercial exploitation began in 1935. Next year, part of the Soviet Baltic Fleet made the passage to the Pacific where an armed conflict with Japan was looming.

In the wake of the catastrophe, a central square in Yaroslavl was renamed after the Chelyuskintsy, while Marina Tsvetayeva wrote a poem applauding the rescue team. Efforts to find the wreck of the ship have been made across at least four different expeditions. The wreck of the ship was finally discovered in September, 2006^[2]. The polar explorer Arthur Chilingarov argued that the ship should be raised and converted into a museum.

1. ^ The Junior Aircraft Year Book, 1935, p.8
2. ^ Ingram, Judith. "Russian TV lauds apparent ship discovery." Associated Press. Internet, available from http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060922/ap_on_re_eu/russia_legendary_ship. Accessed 22 September 2006.

• Rescue of Chelyuskin (Russian)
• The Chelyuskin and the Dzhurma in 1933: [1]