Matochkin's ball on the map. Mother's ball
: 73°23′19″ n. w. 55°12′56″ E. d. / 73.38861° N. w. 55.21556° E. d. / 73.38861; 55.21556(G) (I) Matochkin Ball- a strait separating the Northern Island of Novaya Zemlya from the Southern Island and connecting the Barents Sea with the Kara Sea. Matochkin Shar is quite deep (about 12 m) and has anchorages (the best one is at Cape Baraniego). The banks are high and steep in places. The length is about 100 km, the width at the narrowest part is about 600 m. Covered with ice most of the year. In the summer, the long-defunct fishing villages of Matochkin Shar and Stolbovoy were located on the shore.
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Notes
Sources
- Great Soviet Encyclopedia: [in 30 volumes] / ch. ed. A. M. Prokhorov. - 3rd ed. - M. : Soviet encyclopedia, 1969-1978.
Excerpt characterizing Matochkin Shar
“If they knew that you wanted this, the holiday would be cancelled,” said the prince, out of habit, like a wound-up clock, saying things that he did not want to be believed.- Ne me tourmentez pas. Eh bien, qu"a t on decide par rapport a la depeche de Novosiizoff? Vous savez tout. [Don’t torment me. Well, what did you decide on the occasion of Novosiltsov’s dispatch? You know everything.]
- How can I tell you? - said the prince in a cold, bored tone. - Qu "a t on decide? On a decide que Buonaparte a brule ses vaisseaux, et je crois que nous sommes en train de bruler les notres. [What did they decide? They decided that Bonaparte burned his ships; and we too, it seems, are ready to burn ours.] - Prince Vasily always spoke lazily, like an actor speaking the role of an old play. Anna Pavlovna Sherer, on the contrary, despite her forty years, was full of animation and impulses.
Being an enthusiast became her social position, and sometimes, when she didn’t even want to, she, in order not to deceive the expectations of people who knew her, became an enthusiast. The restrained smile that constantly played on Anna Pavlovna’s face, although it did not match her outdated features, expressed, like spoiled children, a constant awareness of her dear shortcoming, from which she does not want, cannot and does not find it necessary to correct herself.
01.12.2015
The narrowest strait in Russia is located in the Arctic Ocean, it separates the North and South islands of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. The strait at its narrowest point is 600 meters wide. Its name is Matochkin Ball. The word “shar” in the language of the Pomors simply means “sea strait,” and the name Matochkin (from the word “uterus”) was allegedly given to the strait because these places are very rich in game animals, especially birds.
From the Finno-Ugric “uterus” is translated as “path” or “direction”, this is what these peoples called the compass and in this sense the name of the strait warns that it is impossible to swim here without this device, it is dangerous to life. For most of the year, Matochkin Shar is covered with ice. It freezes on November 11 and opens only on July 10. When it is ice-free, you can walk through here, because the strait has an impressive depth (average 12 meters, maximum up to 120 meters).
The width of the strait is narrow in only one place, although sufficient for the passage of ships. In other places its width reaches 8 kilometers. However, now navigators know at what time and how they can overcome this boundary, which many researchers have studied for a long time and heroically. This corner reminds us of the first Russian polar explorers and explorers, of lost expeditions and travelers.
The first reliable information about the strait was received from the helmsman, hereditary Pomor and original explorer Yakov Yakovlevich Chirakin in 1767, who, in a report to the governor of Arkhangelsk, reported that he passed through the strait between the islands of Novaya Zemlya several times and even plotted part of it on the plan. To “put the strait on the map,” an expedition of 14 people was equipped, including Ya.Ya. Chirakin, navigator Fedor Razmyslov, co-navigator Matvey Rubin and other participants.
During the winter on the coast of Novaya Zemlya, Ya.Ya Chirakin and several of his comrades died from illness or disappeared after going hunting. The expedition of Fyodor Razmyslov, with great difficulty and losses, accomplished a tremendous amount of work; it gave in detail the first descriptions of the strait, which remain accurate to this day. In addition to Y. Chirakin, the expedition lost Andrei Pospelov from Yemetsk, Epifan Popov from Ludsky Posad, Dementy Bernov from Nyukhcha, and Ivan Kazimerov.
In the 20th-21st centuries, all living things on the islands and strait regretted that man had once come here. In 1954, a testing site for Soviet nuclear weapons was opened on the archipelago. One of the three test sites was Matochkin Shar, where underwater tests of nuclear weapons were carried out. In total, 132 nuclear explosions were carried out on Novaya Zemlya until 1990, when a moratorium was declared, including a powerful hydrogen bomb.
- MATOCCHKIN BALL
- MATOCCHKIN BALL
Shar, a strait between the Northern and Southern islands of Novaya Zemlya. Connects the Barents and Kara seas. The banks are high and steep in places. Length … - MATOCCHKIN BALL
a strait separating the northern island of Novaya Zemlya from the southern one and connecting Severny with the Kara Sea. Strait, from Cape Stolbovoy to Cape... - MATOCCHKIN BALL in the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedia:
? a strait separating the northern island of Novaya Zemlya from the southern one and connecting Severny with the Kara Sea. Strait, from Cape Stolbovoy to ... - MATOCCHKIN BALL
M'atochkin Sh'ar, M'atochkin Sh'ar and M'atochkin Sh'ar... - MATOCCHKIN BALL in the Spelling Dictionary:
M'atochkin sh'ar, M'atochkin's sh'ara and M'atochkin's sh'ar... - MATOCCHKIN BALL
strait between the North and Yuzh. islands of N. Earth. Connects the Barents and Kara seas. Length 98 km, smallest width approx. 0.6... - BALL
name mor. straits in northern Europe. parts of Russia (eg Matochkin Shar); some river... - BALL in the Directory of Settlements and Postal Codes of Russia:
461836, Orenburg, ... - BALL in the Dictionary of Economic Terms:
BALLOON - see BALLOON... - BALL in the Big Encyclopedic Dictionary:
- BALL in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB:
a geometric body obtained by rotating a circle around its diameter; A grid is a set of points whose distance from a fixed point (the center of the grid) is ... - BALL in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Euphron:
- a geometric body limited by a spherical or spherical surface. All normals to the surface of the sphere converge at the center of the ball and all points... - BALL in the Modern Encyclopedic Dictionary:
- BALL in the Encyclopedic Dictionary:
a set of points in space whose distances from a fixed point (the center of the ball) do not exceed a given number R (the radius of the ball). The border of the ball is... - BALL in the Encyclopedic Dictionary:
, -a and (with quantities) -a, pl. -s. -ov, m. 1. In mathematics: part of space limited by a sphere. Radius of the ball. 2. ... - BALL in the Big Russian Encyclopedic Dictionary:
geom. the body obtained by rotating a circle around its diameter. Sh. is limited by a sphere; the center of this sphere is called. the center of Sh., and its ... - BALL in the Big Russian Encyclopedic Dictionary:
(Char) Rene (1907-88), French. poet. At the turn of the 20-30s. was close to surrealism (collection of poems "A Hammer without a Master", 1934). Active… - MATOCHKIN in the Big Russian Encyclopedic Dictionary:
MATOCKIN SHAR, prol. between North and Yuzh. islands of N. Earth. Connects the Barents and Kara seas. Dl. 98 km, name. lat. ... - BALL
sha"r, balls", sha"ra, sharo"v, sha"ru, sha"m, sha"r, balls", sha"rum, sha"mi, sha"re, ... - BALL in the Complete Accented Paradigm according to Zaliznyak:
sha"r, sha"ry, sha"ra, sha"rov, sha"ru, sha"ram, sha"r, sha"ry, sha"rum, sha"rami, sha"re, ... - BALL
Sphere in... - BALL in the Dictionary for solving and composing scanwords:
Geometric... - BALL in the Dictionary for solving and composing scanwords:
Billiard… - BALL in the Dictionary for solving and composing scanwords.
- BALL in the Thesaurus of Russian Business Vocabulary:
Syn: sphere, orbit, circle, ... - BALL in the Russian Language Thesaurus:
Syn: sphere, orbit, circle, ... - BALL in Abramov's Dictionary of Synonyms:
|| launch a test balloon, even a balloon... - BALL in the Russian Synonyms dictionary:
Syn: sphere, orbit, circle, ... - BALL in the New Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language by Efremova:
1. m. 1) A geometric body formed by the rotation of a circle around its diameter and having a surface all points of which are equally distant from ... - BALL in Lopatin’s Dictionary of the Russian Language:
Shar, -a: M'atochkin Sh'ar, Yug'orsky Sh'ar ... - BALL
Shar, -a: Matochkin Shar, Yugorsky Shar... - BALL in the Complete Spelling Dictionary of the Russian Language:
ball, -a and (in the billiard game) -a, pl. -s,... - BALL in the Spelling Dictionary:
shar, -a: m'atochkin sh'ar, Yug'orsky sh'ar... - BALL in the Spelling Dictionary:
ball, -a and (in the billiard game) -`a, plural. -`s,… - BALL in Ozhegov’s Dictionary of the Russian Language:
In mathematics: part of space bounded by a sphere. The radius of the sphere. ball an object of this shape Billiard w. Sh.-probe (hydrogen-filled rubber ball for ... - BALL in Dahl's Dictionary:
husband. , old , church vape, paint. Having anointed with various balls, Solomn. Shara (fem.) for painters: wild paint, chalk with soot. ... - BALL in the Modern Explanatory Dictionary, TSB:
a geometric body obtained by rotating a circle around its diameter. The ball is limited to a sphere; the center of this sphere is called the center of the ball, and its... - BALL
ball, plural no, m. (geographical). The name of the straits in the North. Matochkin... - BALL in Ushakov’s Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language:
ball and (with number) ball, plural. balls, m. 1. (ball). A geometric body formed by rotating a circle about its diameter and... - ROSMYSLOV
Rozmyslov is a remarkable traveler of the 18th century who laid the foundation for Russian exploration of Novaya Zemlya. Setting out to find mineral wealth on Novaya Zemlya... - PAKHTUSOV PETER KUZMICH in the Brief Biographical Encyclopedia:
Pakhtusov (Petr Kuzmich, 1800 - 1835), famous navigator. He received his education at the Kronstadt Navigation School, participated in the expedition under the command of F.P. ... - BORISOV ALEXANDER ALEKSEEVICH in the Brief Biographical Encyclopedia:
Borisov, Alexander Alekseevich, - landscape painter, born in 1866, a student of Shishkin and Kuindzhi, who specially devoted his work to depicting nature... - 1833.08.25 in Pages of History What, where, when:
The Russian expedition of Peter PAKHTUSOV explores Matochkin Shar (New ... - NEW EARTH in the Big Encyclopedic Dictionary:
group of islands in the North. Ledovit approx. (territory of the Russian Federation), between the Barents and Kara seas, stretching from southwest to northeast approximately ... - RUSANOV VLADIMIR ALEKSANDROVICH in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB:
Vladimir Aleksandrovich, Russian Arctic explorer. Graduated from the Oryol Theological Seminary (1897). For participation in... - ROSMYSLOV FEDOR in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB:
Fedor (birth year unknown - died 1771), Russian navigator. In 1768-69 he led an expedition to study Novaya Zemlya. Made the first inventory... - Pomeranian Bay in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB:
bay, Pomorskaya Bay, bay on the southern shore of the Matochkin Shar (Novaya Zemlya) Strait, at its western end at the exit to ... - PAKHTUSOV PETER KUZMICH in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB:
Pyotr Kuzmich, Russian navigator and hydrographer. In 1820 he graduated from the navigation school in Kronstadt. In 1820-32 he participated... - NEW EARTH in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB:
Earth, an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean between the Barents and Kara seas; is part of the Arkhangelsk region of the RSFSR. Consists of two… - MAGNETIC OBSERVATORIES in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB:
observatories, research institutions in which continuous recording of temporary changes (variations) of the Earth’s magnetic field is carried out and regular measurements of absolute values are carried out ... - KRENKEL ERNST TEODOROVICH in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB:
Ernst Teodorovich, Soviet polar explorer, Doctor of Geographical Sciences (1938), Hero of the Soviet Union (1938). Director of the Scientific Research Institute of Hydrometeorological...
Matochkin Ball
Matochkin Ball
strait between O. Northern and O. South Novaya Zemlya; Nenets Autonomous Okrug Pomor, term ball - "strait", Matochkin - along the flow into this strait R. Matochka, and its name can be traced back to Pomor, the name of the Novaya Zemlya Matka.
Geographical names of the world: Toponymic dictionary. - M: AST. Pospelov E.M. 2001.
Matochkin Ball
strait between the North and Yuzh. about you Novaya Zemlya. Named after it flows into the strait. R. Matochka (ball in Pomeranian - “strait”). Connects Barentsevo And Kara Sea. Length approx. 98 km, name. width 0.6 km, name. depth 12 m. The banks are high, steep in places. B.h. covered with ice for years.
Dictionary of modern geographical names. - Ekaterinburg: U-Factoria. Under the general editorship of academician. V. M. Kotlyakova. 2006 .
Matochkin Ball
the strait between the Northern and Southern islands of Novaya Zemlya, connecting the Barents Sea with the Kara Sea. Dl. OK. 98 km, smallest latitude. 0.6 km, shallowest depth. 12 m. The banks are high, steep in places. Most of the year it is covered with ice.
Geography. Modern illustrated encyclopedia. - M.: Rosman. Edited by prof. A. P. Gorkina. 2006 .
Synonyms:
See what “Matochkin Ball” is in other dictionaries:
The strait between the North. and Yuzh. about you N. Earth. Connects the Barents and Kara seas. Length 98 km, smallest width approx. 0.6 km, minimum depth 12 m. Covered with ice most of the year... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
MATOCHKIN SHAR, the strait between the North and South of Novaya Zemlya. Connects the Barents and Kara seas. Length 98 km, smallest width approx. 0.6 km, minimum depth 12 m. B.h. covered with ice for years. Source: Encyclopedia Fatherland ... Russian history
Noun, number of synonyms: 2 polygon (10) strait (24) ASIS synonym dictionary. V.N. Trishin. 2013… Synonym dictionary
This term has other meanings, see Matochkin Ball (meanings). Coordinates: 73°15′ N. w. 55°00′ E. d. / 73.25° n. w. 55° E. d. ... Wikipedia
The strait between the North and South islands of Novaya Zemlya. Connects the Barents and Kara seas. Length 98 km, smallest width about 0.6 km, smallest depth 12 m. Covered with ice most of the year. * * * MATOCHKIN SHAR MATOCHKIN SHAR, strait between the North. And… … encyclopedic Dictionary
The strait between the North and South islands of Novaya Zemlya. Connects the Barents and Kara seas. The banks are high and steep in places. The length is about 100 km, the width (at the narrowest part) is about 0.6 km. Depth is about 12 m. Covered most of the year... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Matochkin Ball- Sp Mãtočkino sąsiauris Ap Matochkin Shar/Matochkin Shar L RF tarp N. Žemės salų … Pasaulio vietovardžiai. Internetinė duomenų bazė
Matochkin Ball- strait between o. Northern and about. South Novaya Zemlya; Nenets Autonomous Okrug Pomor, the term Shar Strait, Matochkin along the river flowing into this strait. Matochka, and its name can be traced back to Pomor, the name of the New Earth Matka... Toponymic dictionary
The strait separating the northern island of Novaya Zemlya from the southern one and connecting Severny with the Kara Sea. The strait, from Cape Stolbovoy to Cape Vykhodny, is long. 83 centuries, along the bends 95 centuries, the width of the western mouth is 7 centuries, and the eastern one, at Cape Bull, is 4 centuries;... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Ephron
Matochkin Ball- Matochkin Shar, a strait between the Northern and Southern islands of Novaya Zemlya. Connects the Barents and Kara seas. Length 98 km, smallest width about 0.6 km, smallest depth 12 m. Covered with ice most of the year... Dictionary "Geography of Russia"
TO When our ship left the Pomeranian Bay roadstead and headed east, we could no longer sit in the cabin and, crowded in the wheelhouse, watched as more and more new panoramas opened up at every turn, contrasting with the blue of the water, the whiteness of the ice and the darkness of the mountains ...
Our path lay to Novaya Zemlya, to the Matochkin Shar Strait.
The Matochkin Shar Strait is not only the road of Pakhtusov and Tsivolka, Litke and Baer, Holtedahl and Wiese, the path of discovery and glory for many explorers and navigators. This corner of Novaya Zemlya also reminds us of the first Russian polar voyages and campaigns, of disappeared travelers and entire expeditions; it promises yet unread pages in the history of Arctic discoveries.
That is why, in addition to the special tasks of our expedition, we set out to find in Matochkin Shar traces of the presence of the first Russian expedition to study Novaya Zemlya. Its participants remained for the winter in the eastern part of the strait in 1768–1769. One of the leaders of the voyage, the original Arctic explorer Yakov Chirakin, ended his life there. ...In the 60s and 70s of the 18th century, a hereditary Pomor, a native of the Shueretsk volost, Yakov Yakovlevich Chirakin, sailed for nine years from the shores of the Icy Sea to the distant Matochka, as the largest polar archipelago in Eurasia was called. The navigator's Koch walked from the mouth of the Dvina to the White Sea throat, leaving the rocky shores of the Terek coast from the west, and the sandy shallows of the Zimny coast from the east. There, on the sloping back of Kanin Nos, covered with lichen tundra, those who went into the ocean were escorted by a tall wooden cross erected by their grandfathers. “God, give us wind” was carved on its powerful dark crossbar...
From the Seven Islands, Chirakina’s koch turned to the northeast, where the “Stone in the Sea Belt,” covered in fogs, awaited him, protruding above the waters of the Arctic Ocean, the ridge of Novaya Zemlya.
In the fall of 1767, having returned from another Novaya Zemlya voyage, the helmsman handed over a report to the office of the Arkhangelsk governor, in which it was reported that he, Chirakin, “passed across this Novaya Zemlya through to another, called the Kara Sea, twice from there and returned to the White Sea and along the strait and in one place he made a plan with his own hands.”
The Arkhangelsk port office was faced with the question of exploring a new waterway that would lead to rich Siberia, to the shores of distant America. According to the office’s proposal, on November 16, 1767, the “Chirakin plan” was heard at the Admiralty Collegium in St. Petersburg. By the highest rescript, Arkhangelsk Governor A.G. Golovtsyn was asked to send an expedition to inventory the unknown strait.
The leadership of the research was entrusted to navigator Fyodor Rozmyslov. The expedition, in addition to Rozmyslov and Chirakin, included navigator Matvey Rubin, two sailors and nine Pomor industrialists. There are 14 people in total. For the long-distance voyage, the merchant Anton Barmin allocated a three-masted boat that had been on voyages many times.
The lengthy instructions given by the governor “for the description and inspection of the strait found by Chirakin through Novaya Zemlya” defined in detail the tasks of the future voyage. It prescribed: “... having arrived at this Kara Strait and this strait with parts of the land that you can see, put it on a map, and measure the depth of that strait and at what latitude those islands and the strait are, and beyond the strait what position in places describe ; and if it is possible for a large vessel to pass through it, then use effort in that too...
If, by the goodness of God and after crossing through this strait, according to your inspection, there is a sea beyond that strait that is capable of navigation, and there is no ice, but it will be impossible for such vessels to have a passage capable of passage to the mouth of the Ob River; note everything in detail and describe it. And if the distance turns out to be not far, then you will not be able to enter the Ob River on this ship: and if there is no obstacle in that, then, inducing the helmsman and workers to do so in a decent manner, to the Ob mouth, or how deep that river will allow; but if it is not possible, then at least take a voyage to the lip... Beyond that strait, during the voyage to the mouth of the Ob River, you will see the rivers, and then describe in detail which ships, from where and where, and with what and in what places they go... »
A week after the start of the voyage, Goose Land was discovered from the side of the Koch, and on August 15 the ship entered Matochkin Shar. Here, at the mouth of one of the rivers, an old fishing hut was found. In anticipation of wintering, the disassembled hut was loaded onto the ship in addition to the one already captured from Arkhangelsk. “And it was decided,” the head of the expedition wrote in the journal, “in order to place them in different places for better fishing.”
Fearing shallows, Rozmyslov set off on his further journey in a boat, from which he measured all the way to Cape Morzhov. In the following days, he traveled all the way to the eastern exit from Shar. The entire route to the mouth of the Shumilikha River was mapped and described in detail. However, it was not possible to enter the Kara Sea. “The opposite winds do not allow this,” the navigator noted in his journal. In the east of Shar, Rozmyslov chose the vast Beluga Bay bay as a place for wintering, which he called Tyuleny, “for there are many sea animals, beluga whales and various kinds of seals swimming in herds here.”
During wintering, the travelers were divided into two equal groups. The first, led by Rozmyslov and Chirakin, remained on the shore of Tyuleny Bay in the brought fishing hut. With the onset of cold weather, people “caulked their hut windows from the unbearable snow and strong winds.” The hut, brought from Arkhangelsk, was placed by navigator Matvey Gubin with six workers on the shore of the Shar, near Drovyanoy Cape.
Back in the fall, the expedition's helmsman, Yakov Chirakin, fell seriously ill. In Rozmyslov’s journal he is listed first as “sick”, then as “severely ill”. And on November 17, Chirakin “ended his long-term suffering.”
“His grave is near the hut where he lived. The coffin was lowered to a shallow depth and covered with stone slabs... It probably won’t be difficult to find it,” Professor M. I. Belov, an expert on the history of the development of the Soviet Arctic, wrote today in the book “In the Footsteps of Polar Expeditions.”
Of course, before heading to the legendary wintering site, we tried to determine its location as accurately as possible. To do this, before the expedition began, it was necessary to carefully study the documents of Rozmyslov’s voyage, the travel records of subsequent explorers, and the works of historians covering the events of the tragic winter.
The first to discover the wintering places of Rozmyslov’s troops was P.K. Pakhtusov, who visited the eastern part of Matochkina Shar twice, in 1833 and 1835. He found Rozmyslov's hut already destroyed, with the ceiling and walls collapsing. It is known that the Pakhtusovs built a semblance of a guria here, in the stones of which a bottle with a note was placed, certifying the fact of the visit and the memorial significance of the ruins. Gubin's hut on Drovyanoy Cape was still in good condition by this time, and Pakhtusov left in it a supply of provisions for the detachment of Lieutenant Tsivolka heading to this area.
Forty years after Pakhtusov, the vast cape separating Tyuleniy Bay from the rest of Beluga Bay was visited by the famous Nordenskiöld on the Vega. “I was on this cape in 1876,” he wrote. The walls of the hut were preserved, but the flat roof, covered with earth and stones, had collapsed... The small hut consisted of a vestibule and an upper room with a huge stove and sheets.”
In 1897, the wintering site was examined in detail by English naturalists Feilden and Pearson. Their descriptions are very similar to each other. An artificial pile of stones was discovered on the already mentioned rocky peninsula. The grave was crowned by a wooden pillar, the transverse cuts on which indicated that there had once been crossbars. A few steps from the grave, a pine board was raised, partly broken, with the text carved on it: “Summer... 835... reminder to Orthodox Christians... February... day on the spot... Yakov Yakovlev Chirakin was buried.” A copy of this inscription was sent by G. Pearson to Yu. M. Shokalsky. “This board with an Old Church Slavonic text,” said Shokalsky’s response letter, “was erected in memory of the death of Yakov Chirakin, who was one of the participants in Rozmyslov’s expedition, the helmsman of his small ship... I can tell you that in 1845 Pakhtusov was there for some time time in Matochkin’s Ball and it is most likely that the board was installed by his people.”
Not far from Chirakin’s grave, the British discovered another one, and during subsequent searches they found three more burials...
The ruins of the winter hut are preserved on a pebble terrace near the shore. Having removed the crowns and flooring, the English travelers found fragments of pottery, carpentry tools, pieces of matting, and fishing equipment. Pearson and Feilden also examined the ruins of Rubin’s hut on Drovyanoy Cape, where there was a cross in memory of the wintering events, but found no traces of burials.
Finally, V.A. Rusanov also mentioned the winter quarters in Tyuleniy Bay. Judging by his diary entries, during his first trip to Novaya Zemlya, in 1898, the traveler landed in the bay on a carbass and, together with his companion, the French doctor Candiotti, visited a rocky cape crowned with a white cross. There Rusanov and Candiotti also saw the graves of Chirakin, his comrades and the ruins of the winter hut.
When our ship dropped anchor at the mouth of Beluga Bay, we found ourselves at the crossroads of two waterways. One of them was Matochkin Shar, the other was a whole system of valleys and gorges, occupied in the north by the waters of Beluga Bay itself, and in the south by the bed of a river that went upstream to nearby glaciers. At the corners of the “crossroads,” spiky mountains rose, the steep slopes of which were covered with scree and firn fields. The harsh panorama was clearly reflected in the calm waters of the bay. Directly along the bow of the ship towards Matochkin Shar, the rocky ridge of the peninsula jutted out, behind which a bay jutting into the land could be seen.
We boarded a boat and, rounding the rocky cape, entered the waters of Tyuleniy Bay. It turned out to be shallow, and the keel of the boat kept scraping the bottom. We managed to approach the shore only after several attempts.
So, we reached that part of the coast where the events unfolded, traces of which we had to find. It was here that Rozmyslov filled the darkest pages of his journal, laconically telling about the terrible winter. Let's turn these pages.
“The winter was very frosty, snowy and whirlwind; the winds blew continuously... the snows were very deep, so that our dwelling was covered with double snow, as high as it was. And continuous night was with us from November to the first of February; and so in the aforementioned three months we already found no light at all and thought, others, that we had already lost daylight forever. And so we continued our time in this desert in very poor health, for there was incessant smoke from the heating and, after warming up, there was always drops and cold from above; for food we received water from the snow, which brought us great suffocation and coughing.”
On January 31, one of the workers at Drovyany Cape, Taras Kolyzanov, went out hunting for deer, got caught in a snowstorm and did not return, “which is why they decided to count him among the dead without burial.”
Then, one after another, the dates of death of other winterers follow...
July is the time of Novaya Zemlya spring. The snow-covered shell of the strait cracked, revealing a greenish layer of ice. Gusts of wind shifted the ice fields, freeing the surface of the water, making movement in the opened creeks accessible.
It seemed that for the surviving members of the expedition, exhausted by illness and the hardships of winter, the time had come to say goodbye to the graves of their comrades, gather their remaining strength and try to return home. But Rozmyslov decided differently. Already with the appearance of the sun, he resumed astronomical observations. Then, with the remnants of the detachment, he returned to the mouth of the Shumilikha River to continue the work interrupted by the winter on the description of Matochkin Shar. Finally, using the expression of the instructions given to him, he “induces in a decent manner” his comrades to enter the Kara Sea. He goes east until he encounters impassable ice fields. Turns back. He opens an unknown yet vast bay, giving it the name of the Unknown and... buries another companion in the ocean Vasily Myrtsov. Returning to Matochkin Shar, the travelers met here the ship of the Arkhangelsk peasant Vodokhlebov, who took on board the remnants of the expedition, “for it is already impossible to sail across the vastness of the sea on a fragile ship, which is also sentenced by law that one can receive unauthorized death and be called murderers.” At the end of the fishing, the boat delivered Rozmyslov and his companions to Arkhangelsk.
Thus ended this unprecedented expedition, which collected the first geographical information about the previously unknown to science of the central part of Novaya Zemlya. The expedition that first studied Matochkin Shar and carried out, according to F.P. Litke, these studies “so thoroughly that its description remains most accurate to this day...”.
We spent the night on the shore of Tyuleniy Bay, near the fire. Having warmed up and chased away sleep with a few sips of boiling water, we boarded the boat and moved to the opposite shore of the bay.
From the shore we began to climb onto a narrow rocky terrace. We climbed it and found ourselves in a chaotic pile of stone blocks. Obviously, the graves should have been looked for on the cape, closer to the coastline, since it was difficult to imagine the very possibility of burial in this stone labyrinth. Making our way through piles of angular shale blocks, climbing shaky stone hillocks, we began to descend to the southern tip of the peninsula. And among the dark stones they saw the same dark wood of the cross...
Yes, that was the goal of our search - the graves of the brave northern sailors. On top of one, larger stone structure, there was a small, strong wooden cross covered with greenish lichen with a vaguely visible inscription. On its top crossbar was carved: “To Yakov Chirakin.” On the bottom: “Steamboat Pakhtusov”. The date varied even further: 1901. Apparently, this was the same cross that Rusanov saw in 1908. It was still fresh and white then. However, unlike Rusanov’s description, but in agreement with Pearson’s data, there was not a “lonely grave” here. Ten meters away, another expedition member found peace. But his burial was damaged... There was neither a cross nor any inscription that would allow us to find out the name of the pioneer of Novaya Zemlya who rested here. In a short distance the same ruins of stone slabs were visible.
When we reached the shore of the bay, we immediately came across the remains of the winter quarters of Rozmyslov’s expedition. Only the lower crown of the hut has been preserved from the winter hut. It looked like a rectangle, about eight meters long and about four meters wide, with an exit to the south. A log has been preserved that served as the basis of an internal wall that separated a small entryway from the living space. Thus, the area of the living part of the hut is a little more than fifteen square meters. The wood of the only surviving crown was split, partly crumbled, and the palm felt only stronger transverse branches. The surface of the tree was covered with a thin layer of green moss. Scant traces of a miserable dwelling that once served as a shelter for a detachment of brave...
The names of those who remained here forever are not engraved either on the gravestones or on the memorial plaque. According to historian N. Chulkov, a list of participants in this Arctic voyage was not found even in the “expedition file” stored in the Arkhangelsk archives. Using the entries in Rozmyslov’s journal located in the Central State Archives of the Navy, we have the opportunity for the first time to name the names of peasants and sailors, those who, together with Yakov Chirakin, were interred on the peninsula named after him in the spring of 1769:
Andrey Pospelov from Yemetsk. Epifan Popov from Ludsky Posad. Dementy Bernov from Nyukhcha. Ivan Kazimerov.
The memory of these people, as well as of the entire Rozmyslov expedition that “put this strait on the map,” must be perpetuated.
B. Koshechkin, Candidate of Geographical Sciences
