The northernmost point of Eurasia is Cape Chelyuskin

The contribution of Russian travelers to the history of great geographical discoveries was partly forced, because the empire's huge lands beyond the Urals were the true "Terra incognita." In the vast northern expanses, due to the severe Arctic climate, there could not be permanent settlements, and the northernmost point of Eurasia was achieved only thanks to the great courage and sense of duty of the Russian explorers.

From Indian to the Arctic

Eurasia is a continent, occupying more than a third of the land and the largest on the planet. Most people live on it. But if in the south of the continent there are overpopulated areas, the circumpolar arctic regions are a huge deserted ice desert.

When in the south the heat pushes all the living things into the warm waves of the Indian Ocean, only the polar bear feels comfortable in the waves of another ocean - the Arctic Ocean, to which the northernmost point of Eurasia - the Chelyuskin Cape - is exposed.

Great Northern Expedition

At the end of 1732, at the initiative of the great Russian navigator Vitus Bering , preparations were begun for the expedition, which later received the name of the Great Northern. Five groups of travelers were to explore the Russian coast from the mouth of the Pechora to the shores of Japan. The coordinates of the northernmost point of Eurasia remained unknown. The outlines of the shore of the Arctic Ocean had on the maps of that time an approximate character - colossal arctic regions remained a blank spot for Russian and world geographers.

From Lena to Taimyr

One of the most difficult sections - from the mouth of the Lena to Taimyr - went to the detachment under the command of Vasily Pronchishchev. He acted in places almost uninhabited, where there was no mass indigenous population. The main ship of the expedition was a sail-rowing double-boat (that is, twice as large as those used by warships, about 20 meters in length). Yakutsk was crushed by ice, later Lieutenant Pronchishchev and his wife were killed. The expedition continued with three detachments moving on dry land. The two detachments succeeded in successfully completing the task of exploring and mapping the sections of the northern coast.

One unit commanded Khariton Laptev, the other, who reached the northernmost point of Eurasia - the navigator of the dub-boat "Yakutsk" Semyon Ivanovich Chelyuskin. The surname of the first commander and his cousin remained in the name of the circumpolar Laptev Sea, the name of Chelyuskin was truly a legend.

Eastern Northern Cape

Together with the eighteenth century, a future naval sailor, whose name is the most extreme northern point of Eurasia, discovered by him after forty years, was born in the far from the great seas of the Tula province. These years included studies at the Moscow School of Mathematics and Navigation, opened at the behest of the founder of the Russian fleet - Peter I, and service in the Baltic in the rank of under-navigator.

On the orders of the ill V. V. Pronchishchev, he had to command the "Yakutsk" and withdraw it from the advancing ice to the mouth of the Siberian rivers. During the study of the western coast of the Taimyr, conducted by a detachment led by Chelyuskin, the coastal line was marked with unprecedented accuracy, and on May 7, 1742 the detachment reached a stone low promontory, to which a lighthouse was brought from a log and collected stones.

No one came further than this place. Calculated latitude and longitude -77 ° 43'00 "s. W. 104 ° 18'00 "in. Etc. Chelyuskin carefully entered in his diary, calling the Cape Eastern North. These were the coordinates of the northernmost point of Eurasia. But this became clear much later, when the results of the expedition were processed in the Russian Geographical Society.

Man and ship

The next expedition reached the northern tip of Taimyr after only one hundred years. In honor of the centennial anniversary of the feat of the participants of the Great Siberian Expedition, the Eastern North Cape, the northernmost point of Eurasia, was renamed the Chelyuskin Cape.

The name of the legendary navigator was received in 1932 by a cargo passenger steamship, specially built for navigation in ice at the shipyards of Denmark. "Chelyuskin" was to pass from the mouth of Lena to Vladivostok, since the leadership of the USSR attached special attention to the development of the Far North and the Far East.

Chelyuskin epic

The voyage, which set out to start the Arctic navigation, began on August 2, 1933, and on September 1 the steamer reached Cape Chelyuskin, the northernmost point of Eurasia. By that time a polar station with an observatory was founded there, led by the legendary ID Papanin.

Further dramatic events made the name of the ship, and with it the name of the polar navigator, world-famous. In the Chukchi Sea the ship was blocked by ice and began to drift to the Bering Strait. February 13, 1934 "Chelyuskin" plunged into the icy abyss, unable to withstand the pressure of the ice masses. People and equipment were unloaded in advance on the ice floe, an operation began to rescue them.

The cape is located at the circumpolar tip of Taimyr. This is the northernmost point of Eurasia, located on the territory of Russia, so the radio station of the polar explorers, who was on Cape Chelyuskin, played an important role in establishing communication between the participants of the operation. For two months, all the people - 104 people - were taken out of the ice on the planes. The glory of the polar explorers and heroic pilots was fantastic, the pilots became the first Heroes of the Soviet Union, the whole country knew the name of the Chelyuskin people from small to large.

Arctic today

Today's Russia has proclaimed the importance of its interests in the Arctic zone. The territorial possessions in the Arctic are legally fixed, and funds are invested in scientific and geological research. The northernmost point of Eurasia also finds its place in these programs. The scientific station at Cape Chelyuskin was smaller in comparison with the Soviet period, but its work continues, which means that the victims of the pioneers of the Arctic were not in vain.