SS Chelyuskin

SS Chelyuskin
Chelyuskin sinking
Chelyuskin sinking
Career
Name: Chelyuskin
Owner: Flag of the Soviet Union.svg Soviet Union
Operator: Glavsevmorput[1]
Builder: Burmeister and Wain (B&W) Copenhagen, Denmark
Launched: March 11, 1933
Christened: Semion Chelyuskin
Completed: 1933
Maiden voyage: May 6, 1933
Out of service: February 13, 1934
Fate: sunk
Status: sunk
General characteristics
Class and type: commercial steam ship[2]
Tonnage: 7,500t
Length: 310.2’
Beam: 54.3’
Height: 22.0’
Installed power: 2400hp
Speed: 12,5 knots
Crew: 111

SS Chelyuskin[3] (Russian: «Челю́скин», IPA: [t͡ɕɪˈlʲuskʲɪn]) was a Soviet steamship reinforced to navigate through 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 the possibility to travel by non-icebreaker through the 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".

After leaving Murmansk on August 2, 1933, the steamship managed to get through most of the Northern Route before it was caught in the ice fields in September. After that it drifted in the ice pack 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 only a few spades, ice shovels and two crowbars. They had to rebuild the airstrip thirteen times, until they were rescued in April of the same year and flown to the village of Vankarem on the coast of the sea. From there, some of the Chelyuskintsy were flown further to the village of Uelen, while fifty-three men walked over 300 miles to get there.

The aircraft pilots who took part in search and rescue operations were the first people to receive the newly established highest title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Those pilots were Anatoly Liapidevsky, Sigizmund Levanevsky (who didn't actually fly to the camp on the floe, but delivered medicians to care the survivors), Vasily Molokov, Mavriky Slepnyov, Mikhail Vodopianov, Nikolai Kamanin and Ivan Doronin. Anatoly Liapidevsky flew an ANT-4, the civilian version of the TB-1 heavy bomber, while Slepnev and Levanevsky flew a Consolidated Fleetster specially brought in from the US for the mission, and the other pilots flew the Polikarpov R-5. Two American air mechanics, Clyde Goodwin Armitstead, and William Latimer Lavery,[4] also helped in the search and rescue of the Chelyuskintsy, on September 10, 1934, and were awarded the Order of Lenin.

As the steamship became trapped in the entrance to the Bering Strait, the USSR considered the expedition mainly successful, as it had proven that a regular steamship had a chance to navigate the whole Northern Maritime Route in a single season. After a few additional trial runs in 1933 and 1934, the Northern Sea Route was officially opened 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, as was Chelyuskinites Park in Minsk; Marina Tsvetayeva wrote a poem applauding the rescue team. On 1970, the East German television had produced Tscheljuskin, a film about the ship's voyage, directed by Rainer Hausdorf and featuring Eberhard Mellies as Prof. Schmidt, Dieter Mann as the surveyor Vasiliev and Fritz Diez as Valerian Kuybyshev.[5] Efforts to find the wreck of the ship have been made by at least four different expeditions.

The wreck of the ship was finally discovered in September 2006 at a depth of about 50 metres in the Chukchi Sea.[6] The polar explorer Arthur Chilingarov argued that the ship should be raised and converted into a museum.

Contents

Gallery

See also

References

  1. ^ (Russian)Chelyuskin and Pijma: All dots above i by Lazar Freidgame
  2. ^ Lloyd's Register: "+ 100 A1 strengthened for navigation in ice", "A1" means for special commercial navigation
  3. ^ Also Cheliuskin.
  4. ^ The Junior Aircraft Year Book, 1935, p.8
  5. ^ Tscheljuskin on the IMDb.
  6. ^ В Чукотском море найдены фрагменты «Челюскина» — in Russian

External links


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  • Chelyuskin — or Cheliuskin may refer to one of the following. Semion Chelyuskin SS Chelyuskin, a 1933 Soviet ship named after Semion Chelyuskin; crushed and sunk in pack in 1933 Cape Chelyuskin This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the… …   Wikipedia

  • Chelyuskin steamship — Chelyuskin ( ru. «Челюскин») 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… …   Wikipedia

  • Chelyuskin — Chelyuskin, cabo …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Chelyuskin — [chel yoos′kin] Cape northernmost point of Asia, on the Taimyr Peninsula, Siberia …   English World dictionary

  • Chelyuskin — Semjon Iwanowitsch Tscheljuskin (russisch Семён Иванович Челюскин, wiss. Transliteration Semёn Ivanovič Čeljuskin; * vermutlich 1700; † vermutlich 1764) war ein russischer Polarforscher. Tscheljuskin wurde an der Moskauer Schule für Mathematik… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Semion Chelyuskin — Chelyuskin, Semion Ivanovich ( ru. Семён Иванович Челюскин) (c. 1700 1764) was a Russian polar explorer and naval officer.Chelyuskin graduated from the Navigation School in Moscow. He first became a deputy navigator while serving in the Baltic… …   Wikipedia

  • Chelyuskin, Cape — geographical name headland Russia in Asia on Taymyr Peninsula; northernmost point of Asian mainland, at 77°35′N, 105°E …   New Collegiate Dictionary

  • Chelyuskin — Semion Tcheliouskine Pour les articles homonymes, voir Tcheliouskine. Semion Ivanovitch Tcheliouskine (en russe : Семен Иванович Челюскин) (c. 1700 – après 1760) est un explorateur polaire et un officier de marine russe. Tcheliouskine sortit …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Chelyuskin,Cape — Che·lyus·kin (chĕl yo͞oʹskĭn, chĭ lyo͞oʹ ), Cape A cape of north central Russia on the Taymyr Peninsula. It is the northernmost point of Asia. * * * …   Universalium

  • Chelyuskin — /chel yoos kin/; Russ. /chyi lyoohs kyin/, n. Cape, a cape in the Russian Federation in Asia: the northernmost point of the Asia mainland. * * * …   Universalium

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