Seafarers of pre-revolutionary Russia pursued the goal - to find the Great Way in the northern waters, allowing you to freely sail from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. They reached places where no human foot had ever set foot. They were able to discover new lands and make incredible discoveries in sea waters.
In September 1913, a research expedition made a great discovery. It turned out that the waters washing Cape Chelyuskin from the north are not a spacious sea, but a narrow channel. Subsequently, this part was given the name - Vilkitsky Strait.
Location of the Strait
The Severnaya Zemlya archipelago is separated from the Taimyr Peninsula not by wide oceanic waters, but by a narrow water area. Its length does not exceed 130 meters. The narrowest part of the strait is located in the region of Bolshevik Island, where two capes converge - Chelyuskin and Taimyr. The width of this part of the water area is only 56 meters.
If you look at the map, you can see that where the Vilkitsky Strait is located, northeast of Bolshevik Island, there isanother small area. This is the Evgenov Strait. It isolates two tiny islands (Starokadomsky and Maly Taimyr) located in the southeast of the archipelago from the rather large Bolshevik.
In the west there are 4 small islands of Geiberg. In this place, the depth of the water area ranges from 100-150 meters. The eastern part of the strait descends to a depth of more than 200 meters.
The map clearly shows which seas are connected by the Vilkitsky Strait. Thanks to a small channel, the water areas of the two seas - the Kara and Laptev seas - are interconnected.
History of the opening of the strait
Attempts to explore the northern parts of the Great Sea Route began at the end of the 19th century. In 1881, the Jeannette ship, commanded by D. De Long, cruised in the waters surrounding Taimyr. The campaign was unsuccessful: the ship was crushed by powerful northern ice.
An expedition led by the Swedish navigator Adolf Erik Nordensheldom plowed the ocean near Severnaya Zemlya in 1878. However, they failed to find a narrow channel. Then who discovered the Vilkitsky Strait?
In 1913, a Russian expedition sets out to explore the expanses of the Arctic Ocean. The navigators equipped two ships - "Vaigach" and "Taimyr". B. Vilkitsky was appointed captain of the second icebreaker. The researchers had to photograph the coasts and islands scattered across the Arctic Ocean. In addition, they should have found an area in the ocean suitable forconstruction of the Northern Waterway. The seafarers sailing on the Taimyr icebreaker were lucky enough to discover a large archipelago that occupied 38,000 m2 of land. Initially, at the initiative of Boris Vilkitsky, he was given the name Land of Emperor Nicholas II. Now his name is Severnaya Zemlya.
The same expedition will discover and describe several more small islands. The world will learn about Little Taimyr, the islands of Starokadomsky and Vilkitsky. The most important discovery of the 20th century will be the Vilkitsky Strait. Boris Andreevich will call the water area the Tsesarevich Alexei Strait.
Results of the expedition voyage
The expedition started in 1913 and lasted more than two years. At the end of the navigation period on November 25, 2013, the ships moored in the Golden Horn Bay of Vladivostok to survive the winter in tolerable safe conditions. In 1914, with the beginning of navigation, the icebreakers, having left Vladivostok, moved in a westerly direction. Having sailed to Taimyr, the ships stopped for the winter in Tollya Bay. As soon as navigation became possible, they again went out into the ocean, paving the Northern Route for through sea crossings. Boris Andreevich managed to prove that navigation in the Arctic seas is not a myth, but a reality.
Meaning of the Strait
Sailors passed on an icebreaker through the Vilkitsky Strait, which became the main part of the Great Sea Route, which allowed free movement from the Far East to Arkhangelsk. The first unhindered crossing of the Arctic Ocean, carried out by Boris Andreevich, was completed inSeptember 1915 in the port of Arkhangelsk.
Whose name is the strait?
Officially, the name of the strait, given by the discoverer in honor of the Tsesarevich, lasted only two years - from 1916 to 1918. After the October Revolution, it will be renamed. Disputes about who the Vilkitsky Strait is named after will not subside. Whose name does the water area bear - the navigator A. Vilkitsky or his son, Boris Andreevich?
There is evidence that in 1913-1916 he bore the name of Andrei Vilkitsky, a prominent Russian cartographer. They also say that with the advent of Soviet power, it was called the "Boris Vilkitsky Strait". The name in honor of the one who discovered the water area lasted until 1954.
Once again, the channel was renamed solely for the convenience of reading on the maps. The name of the person who led the great expedition was cut off from the name. They began to write on the maps simply - the Vilkitsky Strait. And this despite the fact that the spelling of the name in the title was considered a fundamentally important aspect.
In the Arctic, a considerable number of toponyms bear the name of Father Boris Andreevich. Islands, a glacier, several capes are named after him. However, there is an opinion that the name of the water area, most likely, was deliberately distorted, guided by political background.
Boris Vilkitsky: biography facts
Without knowledge of the biography of the hydrographer-surveyor, researcher of the Arctic expanses, it is difficult to explain the changes in the name of the strait. The birthplace of Boris Andreevich, who was born on 1885-03-03 -Pulkovo. His father, Andrei Vilkitsky, is a legendary navigator.
A graduate of the Naval Cadet Corps, having taken the rank of midshipman in 1904, became a participant in the Russo-Japanese War. For courage in bayonet attacks, the brave sailor was awarded four military orders. In the last battle, he was badly wounded, captured and repatriated.
After the war, the hereditary officer graduated from the Naval Academy of St. Petersburg. After receiving an education, he became an employee in the Main Hydrographic Directorate of Russia. He was engaged in the study of the B altic and the Far East.
In World War I, he took command of the destroyer Letun. For a daring sortie into the camp of the enemy, he received an award for courage - St. George's weapon. Three years after the October Revolution, in 1920, the GESLO officer, having decided to emigrate, left Soviet Russia.
Punishment for a traitor to the Motherland
Apparently, an unseemly act caused reinsurers to remove his name from the name of the strait. At the same time, it is surprising that the hereditary officer who served in the tsarist fleet was not branded an enemy of the people and did not bother to add him to the lists of sworn counter-revolutionaries. In addition, the name of the white emigrant was not erased from the map of the Arctic, although with the advent of Soviet power, the names of toponyms discovered and named by the navigator were removed from it. The Vilkitsky Strait acquired its former name in 2004.
To the name of the navigator, his name was added again, restoring justice. The opening of the strait, which provided through navigation innorthern waters, is still considered the largest discovery of the 20th century in world history.
