Traveler Yuri Sienkiewicz: biography, history and life journey

It's hard to imagine a man born in the USSR who would not know who Yuri Senkevich is. Traveler, public figure, journalist, candidate of medical sciences, presenter of the beloved television program "Club of travelers". During his life this man had done a lot. Expedition to the Indian Ocean, a trip to the North Pole, the conquest of Everest - all this is only a small part of its interesting, causing true delight among contemporaries of life.

Yuri Sienkiewicz: biography and ancestral roots

The future travel explorer was born on March 4, 1937 in the Mongolian People's Republic in the city of Cholbalsan, where his father worked as a doctor of the aviation unit. The Senkevich family has very deep roots. It is known that Yuri Senkevich, along the line of his father, comes from the clergy. Grandfather Yuri Alexandrovich - a wealthy man who had a family estate in the Poltava region in the pre-revolutionary period.

Immediately after the October Revolution of 1917, the Senkevich family moved to Izmail, where Osip Georgievich, Yuri's grandfather, also had his parish. On the maternal line it is known that the grandfather Yu.A. Senkevich, Kupriyan Alekseevich Machulsky, was associated with the St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy.

Exhibit of the Abkhazian Museum

Yuri Senkevich since childhood was an inquisitive boy. While on vacation with his parents in the city of Sukhumi, he found an unusual rectangular object on the shore of the Black Sea. Upon closer examination, an incomprehensible inscription was found on a white stone.

As it turned out later, this discovery of the boy was a fragment of an antique marble stele, which was of great historical and archaeological value. Today, the discovery of a young archaeologist can be seen among many other exhibits in the Abkhazian State Museum in Sukhumi.

The dream of space

After graduating from high school in 1954, Yuri Senkevich entered the Military Medical Academy. From the second year of university he began to take an active interest in science. The subject of his scientific research was biology and colloid chemistry. In 1960, the graduate of the Military Medical Academy was offered work in the city of Bologoye, Tver region, where he went as the head of the medical unit of one of the military units. April 12, 1961 Yuri Gagarin made the world's first flight into outer space. This fact agitated the minds of all mankind.

At that time, there was not a single person in the Soviet Union who did not dream of following the example of the first cosmonaut. Yury Senkevich, who after long bureaucratic delays in 1962, is seeking his transfer to the newly created Moscow Institute of Aviation and Space Medicine, was no exception.

Later, after moving to the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the USSR Ministry of Health, Yuri Senkevich was engaged in the preparation and medical support of space flights with animals on board in 1964. All this time he does not lose hope for space and is trained as a doctor-researcher in the Cosmonaut Training Center. However, the dream does not come true, Senkevich never flew into space.

Arctic station "Vostok"

The first travels of Yuri Sienkiewicz begin in January 1967. At the suggestion of the head of the institute V. V. Parin, an experiment was conducted on survival in extreme conditions. A group of scientists, including Yuri Alexandrovich Sienkiewicz, was invited to land at the Arctic station Vostok for research experiments.

In addition, the editor-in-chief of the magazine Druzhba Narodov suggested to Yu. Senkevich to keep a diary, in which he was to cover all the events connected with the expedition's stay in the Arctic. So Senkevich becomes a special correspondent.

With a great interest, the readers of the magazine followed the course of the Arctic experiment described by the Special Narot "Friendship of Peoples". Upon his return to Moscow, Yu. A. Senkevich defends his thesis and becomes a candidate of medical sciences.

Invitation from Tour Heyerdahl

In 1969, Mstislav Keldysh, president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, received a letter from the Norwegian travel explorer Tour Heyerdahl, where he offered one of the Soviet scientists to go with him on an expedition on the boat "Ra" across the Atlantic Ocean, made of papyrus.

The main condition was that it was a doctor with knowledge of English, experience in expeditions, good health and a sense of humor. This candidate, which meets all the requirements of the Norwegian, turned out to be Yuri Senkevich.

Yuri Senkevich: statements about the ocean aboard the "Ra"

On board the boat "Ra", which started from the coast of Norway on May 25, 1969, there were seven sailors and a monkey Safi. It was not a very successful experiment. In his diaries Yu. Senkevich wrote: "The ropes connecting the papyrus are constantly torn ... The ship threatens to tear itself away from the ship, everything is moving ... The suitcase with medicines in the water ... Boxes and bed splash on the water ..."

On July 16, the expedition picked up the yacht Shenondoa. Thus ended the first expedition, the purpose of which was the establishment of transatlantic relations between Mesopotamia, Egypt and the countries of the Mediterranean with the valleys of the Indus, Africa and America.

Exactly one year later, on board the Ra-2, Thor Heyerdahl, who gathered the crew of the first expedition for the second time, finally realized his dream. The researchers reached the shores of Barbados, and the hypothesis of a Norwegian scientist about the ancient transoceanic passages in the Atlantic was confirmed.

Leading to television

After the death in 1973, documentary writer Vladimir Schneiderov, the author and ideological mastermind of the television program about travel, became the question of replacing the TV host. Combine research work at the institute and conduct a popular television program, agreed Yuri Senkevich. "Club of travelers", which Yuri Alexandrovich devoted the rest of his life, he led about 30 years. During the whole time the program was broadcast, the audience managed to visit all corners of the world, thanks to the talent of the narrator and the irreverent traveler Yuri Sienkiewicz. The film crew of the "Travelers' Club" climbed Mount Everest, was exhausted from the heat in the sands of Africa, frozen at the North Pole, visited the most beautiful places of our planet, capturing viewers.

It is no coincidence that the transfer of the Central Television of the Soviet Union was recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as a record traveler, and its permanent presenter became an honorary academician of the television academy of the Russian Federation. In addition, the "Travelers Club" program received the highest award of Russian television "TEFI" in 1997.

Other expeditions of Yu. A. Senkevich

The new purpose of Tour Heyerdahl was to prove the possible long voyage along the Indian Ocean of ancient Sumerians. To this end, the Norwegian in 1977 gathers around like-minded people, among whom is Yuri Senkevich. Reed vessel "Tigris" is sent for new adventures.

However, seafarers failed, and they were forced to give the SOS signal. To come to the aid of unsuccessful explorers the "Slavsk" motor ship hurried, which brought travelers to the shores of Bahrain. Only six months after the repair of the ship "Tigris" reached the coast of Africa.

1979 - polar expedition of the newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda". Participants on skis reached the North Pole.

Summing up

All his life this man devoted to travel. The author of more than 60 publications on medicine, space research in the field of psychology and physiology, human behavior in extreme conditions is Yuri Senkevich. "Journey to Life", "To" Ra "across the Atlantic", "They were called horizon" - these memoir books, written by the author after the next travels, have become a textbook for future conquerors of unknown corners of our planet.

The first heart attack in Yuri Alexandrovich happened after the news of the death of his closest friend Tur Heyerdahl. There was no excellent man with whom, according to Yu. A. Senkevich, they drowned together and rose up together, shared the last drops of fresh water, came out of the difficult situations presented by the oceans.

The second heart attack happened at the TV presenter in the workplace. Doctors five times launched the heart of Yuri Sienkiewicz, but he could not be saved.

September 25, 2003 Yuri Alexandrovich died. At the Novodevichye cemetery, where Yu. A. Senkevich is buried, fresh flowers always lie.

In memory of Senkevich, the Aeroflot airline named the A-319 aircraft its name, and the Sovcomflot shipping company was an ocean tanker.