GOOD OLD DAYS

Rising To the High Latitudes

Ian Strugach,
Economic Observer

        "The North's attraction…" Sometime during the first years of active research in the Russian Polar Regions, this strange and controversial phrase became popular with the researchers and even became part of everyday language. What can be attractive about severe winds and frosts, snow deserts, endless ice fields, lifeless space for thousands of kilometers around? Nonetheless the North really attracts people. It attracts them not for a season or two as the Klondike did during the gold rush by the illusory promise of fast enrichment even at the price of hardships and deprivations. It attracts them for life.
        Throughout the 20th century northern researchers were guided by the romanticism of the unknown, which demanded great willpower and stamina but promised many unexpected discoveries. By the way, the centuries-old hypothesis about the existence at the North Pole of the Land of Hyperboleya, the ancient motherland of Europeans, which later disappeared as a result of gigantic catastrophe such as the mythical Atlantis, is still alive. And how many other legends does the Far North keep as it keeps its natural wealth that is little prospected and hardly accessible?
        For Russia, a major part of which is situated in latitudes higher than the Arctic Circle and has a few thousand kilometers of the shoreline of the Arctic Ocean, the North has always been a kind of laboratory, a "weather kitchen". It boasts St. Petersburg, the northernmost city in the world with a population of nearly 5,000,000. It is also a place where thousands and thousands of people live, the native population who adapted to the difficult local conditions and developed the North, who discovered and built new transport routes, ports, cities, factories and mines.
        It goes without saying that suitable technical means were required, just as for penetration to the ocean depths and to cosmic heights. Such means did not yet exist at the beginning of the 20th century. Those first expeditions of Brusilov, Andreev, Vilnitsky, Nobile and other Russian and foreign researchers failed but confirmed the possibility and necessity of developing arctic vast land. Photos taken in those years are witnesses to the romanticism, heroism and scientific and practical foresight of those who organized arctic expeditions on fragile wooden ships, who took the first steps into high latitudes.
        Steamships, the first icebreakers, airplanes and radio communication brought the North closer to the mainland. The rescue of the Nobile expedition and the Cheliuskin epic confirmed once more how treacherous and dangerous ice could be. At the same time, they demonstrated for the first time the abilities of man equipped with modern technical equipment. A northern sea passage became a reality in the 1930's, even though each step along it was perceived both in our country and abroad as a heroic undertaking. Arctic researchers coming home from polar expeditions were as much admired by the public, as the first astronauts would be a few decades later.
         Analogies and parallels with the beginning of the space era are not accidental. Just as the sputniks of the "Cosmos" earth series and orbital stations have their ordinal numbers, the North Pole ice-drift research station founded in 1937 was given the number one - NP-1. Later, there were others whose numbers consisted of two digits, but the first one for many years was referred to as Papanin station. As man's ability increased, equipped with more and more powerful technical equipment, exploration gave way to the era of research and finally to the era of northern practical development.
        The Arctic began by providing priceless data for hydro-meteorological services to the rest of the country. Northern sea passages played an important role during World War II; all enemy attempts to penetrate from the North failed in the Arctic. Caravans of ships regularly arrived in Murmansk, delivering thousands of tons of cargo. From the Vorkuta coalmines, the coal delivered to Leningrad broke through the ring of the siege. Norilsk, beyond the Arctic Circle, became a major amalgamation providing the Soviet Union with nonferrous metals. Nickel concentrate, gas, oil and many other natural resources have also been provided by this vast territory where, it was believed until recently, civilized human concourse could not possibly exist.
        The first Soviet icebreakers achieved the dream of Russian scientists and Arctic researchers by opening regular navigation along the North Sea passage. Nowadays, the passage is becoming one of the most viable ones, along with other international routes connecting Europe to Asia.
        The North Pole, which was long believed to be the pole of inaccessibility is no longer, considered such. Having traveled under water and above the ice cupola, nuclear submarines surface. Of course, a journey to the top of the world is still very difficult and risky but these days only adventure tourists brave the snow, ice reefs and clearings. Skydivers and other groups descend from helicopters and broadcast TV programs to the whole world. Even tour programs feature routes to polar ice fields on board comfortable liners, as though symbolizing man's complete victory over rugged nature.
        However, the North remains the North, and one should think not about conquering it, but about man's ability to live and work there under reasonable conditions by virtue of the achievements of modern science and technology. It is not an accident that designers and technologists have long used the term, "northern execution", i.e., the design and production of mechanisms made to work at low temperatures. Among sea vessels, for example, there are special fortified ice-class ships.
        We have entered the 21st century. The North is becoming more and more accessible and hence, more and more attractive. Attracting that same romanticism needed to discover the unknown, it reveals its natural wealth, geographical and geopolitical merits. These are discussed in this issue of our magazine, specially dedicated to the problems of this part of our planet.