Schmidt's contribution to the study of children's groups. Schmidt's camp

Camp Schmidt

First day. Government Commission. Everything is mobilized for our salvation. On dogs to Schmidt's camp. Discipline, discipline, discipline! Newspaper "Don't Give Up". Party cell meeting. Command tent. How we lived on ice. Government radiogram. Our airfields. Schmidt's stories. Lyapidevsky saves women and children. Ice breaks our camp. Airships are ready to go along with the planes. Schmidt's disease.

I don’t know if the Lord God was satisfied on the first day of creation, but I saw the faces of the Chelyuskinites who got out of their sleeping bags on the morning of February 14 with my own eyes. Looking around the tent city built overnight, we were not particularly delighted. After cozy cabins, cold tents, where people lay on top of each other, did not please us at all. However, no one complained. Everyone understood perfectly well that only the very first, most difficult hours had passed. It should be easier next. Our fate now largely depended on ourselves.

Of course, while still adrift, we knew that the threat of death hung over the ship like a sword of Damocles. Understanding our position, we prepared for the most unpleasant. Now it was necessary to adapt to the current situation, and it was not at all easy ...

A dozen crooked tents, a pole proudly called a radio mast, a dull airplane and loads scattered here and there ... Not very fun.

Worldly wisdom says: what cannot be changed must be endured.

Even in tragic conditions there was room for jokes and laughter. Our senior assistant to the captain, Sergey Vasilievich Gudin, a smart sailor who had sailed for twenty-two years out of his forty years, was responsible for the order on the ship. This duty Gudin performed with enviable pedantry. There was laughter when Pyotr Shirshov told about how terrible eyes Gudin looked at him, when Petya, instead of running around for some instruments he really needed, without thinking twice, broke the window in the cabin and took everything out through the broken glass.

And just think! Deliberately, deliberately break the glass of the cabin!

It was not necessary to strain to imagine the condemning expression on the face of our strict and unshakable in matters of order, Sergei Vasilyevich. And someone already poisoned another story:

Guys, did you hear how our starmech did a trick? "Chelyuskin" is sinking, and he went into his cabin, opened the closet, and there was a brand new foreign suit. He looked at him and closed the closet: well, where to take it on the ice, it will get dirty, it will get dirty. Feel free to put on the old one!

Our place, even in the Arctic, was considered a dead bearish corner. There was no hope for a quick release. Hence the conclusion: to do everything possible not to let the elements swat us like a fly. At the site of the death of the ship, people were constantly swarming, diligently extracting everything that the ocean had returned. Among us were carpenters, and stove-makers, and engineers, but the construction was not easy. We had sailing experience, drifting experience, wintering experience, but we had no shipwreck experience. In the absence of such, we were guided, however, from memory, by literary sources. It was easier for the characters in these books. Robinson Crusoe, as you know, did not end up on an ice field, but on a tropical island, where, at the behest of Daniel Defoe, he found a lot of different differences ...

Looking around in the morning, the results of the night construction-lightning, we realized that our constructions were not suitable for very long. Without delay, we began reconstruction.

Oh those reconstructions! They had to be made several times. As a result, the tents, in which at first it was not only impossible to stand, but even barely able to sit, began to turn into a kind of frame houses with tarpaulin walls, insulated from the outside with snow.

The ice floe made a certain reassessment of my work as well. Communication has become even more important to us than on a ship. That's why the radio operators were relieved of other duties. We had one task: not to let go of the invisible thread of communication with the mainland.

Moscow, and behind it the whole world, knew about the death of our ship. The message about the catastrophe with "Chelyuskin" was published at lightning speed. On February 13 we sank, on the 14th we transmitted the first Schmidt telegram, on the 15th the full text of this telegram appeared on the newspaper pages.

With captivating frankness, the Soviet government published this message, especially sad because it came only a week and a half after the grave news of the death of comrades Fedoseenko, Vasenko, Usyskin on the Osoaviakhim stratospheric balloon. Before the pain of one tragedy subsided, another approached ...

The fight for a hundred human lives began without a moment's delay. A few hours after Schmidt's message, Valerian Vladimirovich Kuibyshev instructed Sergei Sergeyevich Kamenev to convene a meeting in order to urgently outline plans for organizing assistance.

The choice of Kuibyshev was not accidental. S. S. Kamenev, Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR and Deputy People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, for many years studied the Arctic and was a great expert on it. Back in the spring of 1928, S. S. Kamenev led an initiative group that created the Osoaviakhim committee to save the Nobile expedition, and then to search for the missing Amundsen.

A year later, Kamenev became chairman of the commission for drawing up a five-year plan for the development of the Arctic. This commission, which included the largest scientists and polar explorers O. Yu. Schmidt, A. E. Fersman, V. Yu. Vize, R. L. Samoilovich, N. M. Knipovich, G. D. Krasinsky, N. N. Zubov and others, became the center of all Arctic affairs, such as the creation of the Arctic Institute in Leningrad, the preparation of a five-year plan for the development of the Arctic, the coordination of the activities of various institutions dealing with issues of the north ...

S. S. Kamenev was a constant participant in all the big things that took place in the Arctic.

If we add to this that under the leadership of S. S. Kamenev, the expeditions of G. A. Ushakov to Severnaya Zemlya and the campaigns of Sibiryakov were organized, that S. S. Kamenev was a great friend of O. Yu. Schmidt, it becomes clear - the best V. V. Kuibyshev simply could not choose an assistant.

At the direction of Kamenev, the first sketches of the rescue plan were drawn up by Georgy Alekseevich Ushakov. The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR decided to organize a Government Commission. It was headed by Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars VV Kuibyshev. The commission included Narkomvod N. M. Yanson, Deputy Narkomvoenmor S. S. Kamenev, head of the Glavvozdukhflot I. S. Unshlikht and deputy head of the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route S. S. Ioffe. The names of these people, who occupied very responsible positions, testified to how great the powers of the commission were.

A few more hours - and the commission began to act.

However, even for the most authoritative commission, the ten thousand kilometers separating Moscow and the Schmidt camp were a serious obstacle. It was impossible to delay, it was decided, first of all, to use local funds, forming in Chukotka an Extraordinary Troika under the chairmanship of G. G. Petrov, head of the station at Cape Severny.

A radiogram from the Chukchi Sea excited millions of people. She appeared on the front pages of Pravda and Izvestia. Next to Schmidt's first radiogram, the newspapers published the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR “On the organization of assistance to the members of the expedition of comrade. Schmidt O.Yu. and the crew of the lost ship "Chelyuskin".

Perhaps there will be skeptics who will say that I have not taken up my job, that instead of describing in detail what I saw with my own eyes, I give unjustifiably, a lot of space to what, being on an ice floe, of course, you can’t see could not.

Allow me to disagree. Of course, I did not see everything, but my profession as a radio operator made me a witness (more precisely, a listener) of a lot.

We often say: the concern of the party, the concern of the government, the attention of the people ... The number of such expressions can be increased without the slightest difficulty, moreover, words are erased from immoderate use and, perceived by hearing and sight, do not always reach the mind, to the heart.

For me personally, the story of our salvation filled all these familiar expressions with great content, but, oddly enough, this story has not yet been truly written in its entirety. Written down on newspaper sheets, it never migrated to books. Even the excellent thick volume “How We Saved the Chelyuskinites”, created right on the heels of the events and containing many exciting details, cannot claim to be complete, since it mainly tells about the feat of seven pilots, the first seven Heroes of the Soviet Union.

The feat of these people is enormous, and I will try to write everything I remember about them, especially since I became very friends with some of the pilots. But, while paying tribute to these wonderful people who were at the forefront of the attack, one cannot remain silent about the enormous work of many others, about the swift and precise measures of the state, which did everything to make this feat happen.

Rereading old documents, I want that now, almost four decades later, people of the middle generation - those who then just ran to school or were just born, people of the younger generation, then not even born, knew about this immortal feat, the feat of more than one a person, not a dozen people, but the whole people, the whole country, which sent a hundred people to hard work and mobilized thousands to help this hundred out of trouble. I was among those who were rescued. My duty is to tell about those who saved us. I would be indebted to my people if I did not describe the whole story, if I did not publish most of the forgotten and unknown details related to our salvation.

A lot of letters came to the Government Commission and to the editorial offices of newspapers. Volunteers put themselves at the disposal of the commission. Young, strong, trained, they were ready for any risk, for any hardship for the sake of our salvation.

Then an unheard-of fountain of inventive fantasy began to work. A lot of various projects were born, and although most of these projects were extremely utopian, I cannot but recall the warm words of their authors.

One advised to make a huge hole near the camp so that a submarine could emerge into it. Another proposed equipping aircraft with balloons 4–5 meters in diameter. In his opinion, such a combined device should have been much safer than a conventional aircraft when landing on uneven ice. The third recommended using the catapult he invented to facilitate the take-off of aircraft from the ice floe. The flow of projects was truly inexhaustible. Conveyor rope with baskets for lifting people onto a moving aircraft. Amphibious tank. Jumping balls.

Thank you all dear friends. Time has done its job. From ardent youths we have turned into people of venerable age, but even today, remembering these sometimes naive ideas, we should not be ashamed of them. All these projects, including the most incredible ones, were generated by the best feelings, and therefore deserve respect ...

So, the first practical steps were to be taken by the Extraordinary Troika. It was both a great honor and no less responsibility. The position of the Extraordinary Troika turned out to be far from simple. Only two types of transport - dogs or planes - could become a real lifesaver. However, in a region equal in area to two France, in a region where only 15,000 people lived, both the oldest transport of these places and the youngest were presented very modestly. Chukotka had only a few aircraft. H-4 pilot F. K. Kukanova, having completed a lot of work on the removal of passengers from wintered ships, was at Cape Severny with a damaged chassis. Other planes were in the Wellen area. On one of them, the crew of A.V. Lyapidevsky (co-pilot E.M. Konkin, pilot L.V. Petrov) was the first to reach the Schmidt camp.

At the suggestion of S. S. Kamenev, it was decided to bring the planes closer to our camp. On dogs, fuel from Cape North and from Wellen was taken to Vankarem.

The pace of rescue work can only be called amazing. The government commission did not have time to convey its decisions to the local workers, and the regional party and Soviet organizations in Wellen had already begun to act. A rescue expedition was organized: across the ice on sleds with dog teams to Schmidt's camp. The expedition was led by meteorologist N. N. Khvorostansky, head of the Wellen polar station.

All this became known when the following radiogram was received:

“We have organized an emergency commission, we are mobilizing all dog transport. By order of the district committee of the party, I suppose to leave tomorrow at the head of an organized expedition on dogs to meet you. Snowstorm in Laurentia. When the blizzard stops, planes will take off. I await your orders, further instructions.

Khvorostansky.

On the ice from the mainland to the camp about 150 kilometers, but the shortness of the distance was relative, the distance is small, but very difficult to overcome.

Rescue us on dogs or through the air? On this occasion, opinions differed, and even the cautious Schmidt, responding to Khvorostansky's radiogram, at first considered his version to be quite real.

“Since there are no planes yet,” I relayed Schmidt’s answer to Khvorostansky, “and our airfield can be broken, it seems that the most real help is with dog sleds that you have begun to prepare. I only remind you: you must take with you a navigator or surveyor with a sextant, a chronometer to determine the path, because your operations will be very difficult. We must immediately mobilize, perhaps more sleds, including in Naukan, Yandagai and other places. It is better to come out later, but with 60 sleds to finish the job at once ... "

Having dictated the answer, Schmidt called us to a general meeting, one of the most unforgettable meetings of my life. A hundred people gathered, wrapped from head to toe and therefore sometimes simply unrecognizable. The tribune is an ice floe. The main speaker, the head of the expedition, Otto Yulievich, tells about everything: that communication with the coast has been established, that a sledge expedition is being prepared and that planes will fly to us at the first opportunity.

Schmidt reports on measures of assistance being prepared in a large world far from us, and formulates what we have to do. He speaks of organization, discipline, love and respect for each other.

The main idea of ​​the speech is clear - in the conditions that have fallen to our lot, we must, first of all, remain real Soviet people.

The Arctic knows many tragedies in which death won as a result of confusion and discord between people. This is the most terrible thing, when opinions differ, parties of adherents of this or that variant of salvation are formed. A sad fate befell the American expedition on the Jeanette, which died in the area of ​​the New Siberian Islands. Shortly before the revolution, a tragedy occurred with the crew of the “St. Anna” jammed in the ice, when the navigator Albanov left the ship and set off on the hardest two-hundred-kilometer trip south to Franz Josef Land. Calmly, without affectation, Schmidt spoke to us about all this. We had such great faith in this person that the feeling of isolation from the whole world receded, we remained a team that was firmly soldered during the months of swimming and hands-on work.

Otto Yulievich's position at this meeting was not easy. The composition of the expedition looked motley. Among us were scientists who had visited the Arctic more than once, experienced sailors, experienced people who repeatedly got into trouble, but there were also people who were purely land-based. Many of them grew up and formed even before the revolution.

Otto Yulievich suddenly uttered a phrase that was completely unlike him. Finishing his reflections on iron discipline, he suddenly said harshly:

If anyone arbitrarily leaves the camp, please note that I will personally shoot!

We knew Otto Yulievich very well as a man who not only shot, but also gave his orders as requests. And yet, perhaps, these words were accurate and timely. They very precisely formulated the most important thing for all of us: discipline, discipline and once again discipline!

As for the shooting, it was only once, when Pogosov killed a bear with a cub, providing us with meat. The only person who left the meeting upset was cameraman Arkady Shafran. Cloudy weather and lack of light prevented him from filming the event.

True to his professional duty, Saffron bored Schmidt with the idea that the meeting should definitely be repeated only when the weather was clear. In order not to upset the enthusiast, Schmidt nodded his head in agreement, although there could be no question of repetition. Too many things happened every hour to make such sacrifices on the altar of cinema. The first of these urgent matters was the construction of the barracks. Of course, it would have been better not to sink, but when this nevertheless happened, it was impossible not to be glad that a team of builders was with us, which never ended up on Wrangel Island. They were professional carpenters, healthy and strong, in whose hands the ax played like that. They were excellent masters of their craft, but I will not lie - they did not read Shakespeare.

Against the background of this brigade, its leader, travel engineer Viktor Aleksandrovich Remov, contrasted sharply. Very neat, extremely polite, he confidently commanded his masters. Long before the death of the ship, Remov had to prove himself, when at the first meeting with the ice, our ship was damaged. While I was transmitting and receiving radiograms in which Schmidt consulted with Moscow on what to do: go further or return, Remov and his carpenters strengthened the ship from the inside. Thus, to a certain extent, our Viktor Alexandrovich Remov answered the classic question “to be or not to be” in a positive way with his actions.

When the ship was immersed, the ropes holding the building material were cut. When the Chelyuskin, standing on end, went under the ice, most of the building materials surfaced and we inherited.

True, to receive this inheritance, hard labor was required. The hummocking continued even after the sinking of the ship. Boards and logs were interspersed with chunks of ice in a chaotic mess. Pulling them out of this mess was no easy task. I had to break the ice, which clamped all this vermicelli.

The place was cleared, and the builders began to build the barracks. Of course, there were no projects, drawings approved by the relevant authorities. The logs, as far as possible, were not sawn. The length of logs and beams largely determined the size of the hut.

Such a construction required ingenuity and resourcefulness. The technical supply department of our ice floe could not always provide the builders with a complete range of necessary materials. No one was embarrassed by the lack of window glass. When it came to glazing, washed-out photographic plates and bottles were used, which were lined up, pressing against each other in the window openings, and the gaps between the bottles and logs were caulked with all sorts of rags that could be tucked under the arm.

Simultaneously with the construction of the barracks, a little to the side, the carpenters were building a galley.

Another, no less important work that fell to our lot was the construction of airfields. Care for their research and equipment began long before the death of the ship, after Lyapidevsky's group was aimed at removing people from the drifting ship. Perhaps the word "airfield" sounds too loud for a patch measuring one hundred and fifty meters by six hundred, but these patches required a lot of effort to find and maintain in proper form.

An aviation-literate person could find an airfield. This work was entrusted to Babushkin. Each new movement of ice, and they often arose here, turned smooth fields into ice chaos, least of all suitable for landing such a thin apparatus as an airplane.

The sites found did not last long. The ice ran amok and broke them. The number of airfield surveyors had to be increased. Babushkin prepared a group of people who, dispersing in different directions, would be able to complete the task assigned to them in the shortest possible time.

One of the airfields, found a day or two before the death of the Chelyuskin, became the first airfield of the ice camp.

This damn piglet was quite far from the camp. In the mornings, the first batch of workers went there, in the middle of the day the second shift came out.

The work was hellish. If the ice was compressed and hummocked, then the resulting shafts had to be cut down, and then pulled apart on plywood sheets - drags. If there were cracks, then on the same drags it was necessary to urgently drag the ice in order to caulk the cracks.

Since there were severe frosts all the time, in a matter of hours everything was seized again, and our patch, proudly called the airfield, was again ready to receive aircraft. No one knew when these planes would arrive, but one had to be ready to receive them every day, every hour.

Our airports were short-lived. I had to create a special airfield team. It consisted of mechanics Pogosov, Gurevich and Valavin. Our airfield workers lived on their farm. In case the cracks that suddenly appeared cut them off from the camp, they had an emergency supply of food and cooked their own food.

From the very first days, everything necessary was done to accept the help of the Great Land. Everything that happened on the ice floe interested not only our relatives and friends. After the death of the Chelyuskin, the life of the camp on the ice floe interested the whole world. That is why, after hard work, the journalists kept their records, the artist Reshetnikov made drawings, the cameraman Shafran and the photographer Novitsky continued to shoot. The press and cinema did not offend us with their attention, but we offended the press. From the first days of our stay on the ice floe, we had to save a lot of batteries - so much so that not a single private radiogram was transmitted either to the camp or from the camp. No exceptions were made. No matter how we persuaded Schmidt to send at least five words of greetings to his son on his birthday, Otto Yulievich categorically refused.

The journalists in our midst gritted their teeth in anger. It's no joke to sit on the information that the whole world longed to receive, and not be able to convey this information! But there was simply no other way out. Break the thread of communication for the sake of newspapermen? We could not afford such a luxury.

And there, in Moscow, far from us, the newspaper world continued to live its usual life. In all editorial offices, journalists were preparing to leave for the Arctic - and not those naive young people, hung from head to toe with weapons and cameras, who sometimes went to the North. The most experienced, the most skillful were called into the editorial offices to send them closer to us, closer to the information that was so difficult to get in Moscow.

The experience of seasoned editors suggested that the aces of journalism should be put forward. They have a big and very important job ahead of them. This conclusion was logical and accurate.

While the journalists were sharpening their pens, not yet having the opportunity to swing in full breadth, the Government Commission began its information. She regularly published communiqués that appeared in the press signed by Kuibyshev. The commission became the center where everything that was done for our salvation flowed.

In the very first report of the Government Commission, it was said that the entire vast Arctic apparatus was involved in rescue work.

“All polar stations,” Comrade Kuibyshev concluded the message, “were asked to keep a continuous watch to receive Comrade Schmidt’s radiograms and transmit them out of turn. The polar stations of the eastern sector were asked to report four times a day on the state of the weather, the position of the ice, and the preparation of both transport and the organization of intermediate food and fodder bases in the direction from the station to the location of the camp. Radio contact with Comrade Schmidt is maintained continuously.”

A special category of radiograms was introduced under the code name "Equator". "Equator" went out of any queue, breaking through all sorts of traffic jams.

It was a big rush, in which the whole Arctic took part. Despite the wide scope, this rush was only the beginning, and the beginning with considerable difficulties ...

The old saying “the first pancake is lumpy” quickly received another confirmation when organizing our rescue. Supporters and opponents of the hike to the camp on dogs did not argue for a long time. The very next day after the death of the ship, Khvorostansky, carried away by the idea of ​​a sledge throw, mobilized 21 teams and set off, with the expectation to mobilize the remaining 39 teams along the road.

The border guard Nebolsin, a great connoisseur of dogs and an experienced person in the use of this transport, very much objected to this campaign. He considered Khvorostansky's campaign a reckless affair. The mobilization of 60 teams threatened to leave the Chukchi without hunting, which meant starvation.

Hvorostansky moved for four days. On the fifth day, Nebolsin caught up with the dog caravan and gave the order to the chairman of the Extraordinary Troika Petrov to stop the expedition. In a word, the sledge version (sitting on an ice floe, we didn’t know anything about it) receded into the background. Aviation came first.

In the meantime, while the general line of our salvation was being groped for, life in Schmidt's camp went on as usual. Gradually everything fell into place.

After the general meeting, a camp newspaper was born with the proud title "We Will Not Surrender." We really did not want to give up, which was immediately felt in the greatest creative activity of all the correspondents of our newspaper with the address "Chukchi Sea, on drifting ice." A lot of people were busy with the newspaper, and the first issue (and there were three of them in total) turned out to be a hit.

“This newspaper, published in such an unusual setting - in a tent on drifting ice on the fourth day after the death of the Chelyuskin, is a clear evidence of our good spirits. In the history of polar catastrophes, we know few examples of such a large and diverse team as the “Chelyuskinites” meeting the moment of mortal danger with such great organization,” wrote one of its editors, Sergei Semenov, in the editorial of our wall newspaper.

“We are on ice. But even here we are citizens of the great Soviet Union. Here, too, we will hold high the banner of the Republic of Soviets, and our state will take care of us.” This is from an article by Schmidt published in the same first issue of Let's Not Surrender.

A variety of authors, a variety of correspondence. If Fedya Reshetnikov drew pictures for the newspaper in which a walrus, a bear and a seal demanded that Schmidt present a passport with a residence permit on an ice floe, and in another drawing, not fitting in size in a tent, I was depicted lying on the snow with a radio transmitter, then other authors, published very serious correspondence in the same newspaper. The “Information Department” reported on the organization of the Extraordinary Troika under the chairmanship of Petrov, and the “Science Department”, represented by Gakkel, proposed burning and carving the inscription “Chelyuskin, 1934” on all suitable objects. Gakkel approached his proposal as a scientist, believing that in the future drifting, these wooden objects will give researchers another piece of information. As for another scientist, Khmyznikov, he burst into a detailed essay on the fate of polar expeditions that fell into a situation similar to ours.

It is no coincidence that I describe our wall newspaper with such details. I want the reader to feel the role played by her.

The leadership of the expedition and the party organization paid great attention to the questions of the morale of the inhabitants of the ice floe. Maintaining firmness of spirit in our conditions was no less, but rather more important than physical strength, which in the conditions of the polar robinsoniade is required a lot.

On February 18, the party bureau met for its first meeting. The protocol has been preserved, as well as a drawing by Fyodor Reshetnikov, who depicted this meeting in one of the tents, by the light of a bat lantern. There was only one question - "Message of O. Yu. Schmidt."

"ABOUT. Yu. Schmidt, - it is written in the protocol, - begins with the fact that with great pride he notes the organization, discipline, endurance and courage shown by the entire team of Chelyuskinites at the time of the disaster. The team, very diverse in its composition, nevertheless, showed itself to be united at the most crucial moment of the expedition.

Schmidt qualified this behavior of the team as an act of high consciousness, explaining it to a large extent by the work that was carried out by the party organization of the expedition. Even before the Chelyuskin went to sea, Schmidt turned to the Leningrad Transport Institute with a request to allocate a group of senior students, intelligent, honest and enterprising communists, who would become the party core of the expedition. Schmidt's wish was granted, and a number of good, smart and energetic people became part of our expedition, for whom the campaign became not only an excellent industrial practice, but also a serious life test.

After the death of the ship, the communists were distributed among all the tents of the camp and in many ways contributed to maintaining good spirits and discipline.

It should not be thought that everything from the first to the last day of the drift was flawlessly smooth. We also had breakdowns, which it would be dishonest to keep silent about, although they were so negligible and happened so rarely that some boss would simply prefer to turn a blind eye to them so as not to "spoil the overall impression", but Schmidt was not like that, not this is how the members of the party bureau looked at the matter. That is why the meeting of the party bureau that took place on February 18 turned out to be stormy and passionate.

The facts that became the subject of lively disputes among our communists were indeed not of great importance: one or two people, when unloading the sinking Chelyuskin, preferred personal belongings in comparison with expeditionary property, which, for the good of the cause, had to be saved first of all. The other two people, when loading food, took a couple of cans of canned food, which, however, without a sound, were returned to the common boiler at the first request. Well, finally, the last emergency happened on the day of the meeting itself. While waiting for Lyapidevsky's plane, which, by the way, did not manage to break into the camp that day, one of the participants in the campaign tried to smuggle his foreign, gramophone, which he treasured, to the airfield in order to take him to the mainland.

Each fact is small in itself, but the trend looked dangerous in the extreme. That is why, without agreeing with each other, the members of the party bureau demanded harsh measures, and when Schmidt offered to organize a “trial of the tent” over the guilty, his proposal, despite the high authority of our boss, was rejected by the majority.

They were punished differently. All members of the expedition gathered in the building of the barracks, where the comrades' court took place. The guilty were ashamed. The most severe sentence was handed down to the owner of the gramophone: "At the first opportunity, be sent by plane among the first."

There was nothing similar in our lives during the difficult two months of the existence of the ice camp.

The tents were set up in such a way that they soon had to be reconstructed. The headquarters tent that housed the radio station was no exception. Of course, in the form in which it was erected on the move after the disaster, it was highly uncomfortable.

The appearance of a tent with a low sagging ceiling is firmly engraved in my memory. We didn't heat at night. By morning, the frost, which the breath turned into, decorated the tent with snow-white noodles and made our dwelling especially impressive.

Schmidt at first settled separately in a tiny tent, which traveled with him on mountaineering trips in the Pamirs, but his loneliness was short-lived. It is more convenient for the head of the expedition to live next to the communication thread that we radio operators held in our hands, and besides, it was warmer here, and Otto Yulievich moved to the headquarters tent.

Having written about Schmidt's little tent, I don't want the reader to think that the staff tent was some kind of palazzo. It was only relatively large and comfortable. Tarpaulins, some rags are thrown on the floor, plywood is laid on them. There was no need to think about standing up to his full height. Visitors (and there were a lot of them in connection with the move of the head of the expedition) crawled into the tent bent over, they could no longer unbend. So on their knees they crawled to Schmidt for reports. The spectacle was unique. The bearded Otto Yulievich sat in Turkish style and listened to the kneeling visitors, like an eastern ruler, due to some misunderstanding, settled not in a luxurious palace, but in a nasty cold tent. Since it was clearly more than one day to be spent on the ice floe, the problem of comfort immediately became vital. Each tent - and people huddled together in tent collectives, mainly on professional grounds, forming communities of scientists, stokers, machinists, sailors - tried to overtake neighbors in the convenience of life. The more comfortable it is to live, the easier it is to work. Hence the desire for improvement.

Tents began to be set up on wooden frames and dug into the ice a little in order to reduce the blowing out of the most precious thing for us on the ice floe - heat. In this regard, many of our tent collectives have been very successful. In some places, it even became possible to stand at full height, and some even had two “rooms” arranged. And finally - this was our pride - we managed to build the most monumental building - our famous barracks, where the weak, sick, women and children were immediately resettled.

The builders erected a covered room for the galley. The most interesting part was the kitchen equipment that our mechanics made. From two barrels and a copper boiler, they managed to combine a device that one of the Chelyuskinites called the union of a soup cooker and a water heater.

The economy of this union proved to be outstanding. After the fuel gave off heat to the soup cooker, the combustion products went into the chimney, melting the ice along the way, preparing the necessary fresh water.

In this way, experience gradually accumulated, which noticeably facilitated our existence. There was a threat - lack of fuel. Twenty sacks of coal couldn't last long. We also solved this problem.

Heating at the highest level was arranged by Leonid Martisov - a person about whom one wants to speak with great respect, and although the words "golden hands" sound like a banal shabby stamp, you can't pick up others to determine his skill. Probably, I, as an old "pot-maker" who re-soldered and repaired a lot of all sorts of junk during the years of war communism, more than anyone else, appreciated the level of professional skill of this man and his comrades.

The first problem faced by Leonid Martisov and his assistants was the instrument. Or rather, the lack of a tool, since, having picked up everything that could be picked up, Martisov's team had a hammer, a brace, two fragments of a drill, sewing scissors and a large knife. Agree that this was not enough for serious work, and the almost complete absence of proper materials significantly reduced the already low chances of success. If the carpenters could still to some extent count on the fact that their material would float or float, then the metal with which Martisov had to work completely ruled out such a possibility.

The mismatch of desires and opportunities threatened the Martisov brigade with disaster. While our mechanics were thinking about where to get tools and materials, the camp demanded products - it was necessary to urgently make chimneys, necessary for both the barracks under construction and the galley. There was practically no time left for searching and thinking.

Artistic mastery of the profession allowed Martisov, quickly adapting to the situation, to complete this and many other tasks. Martisov had a rare talent. He made everything out of nothing. Using parts of crushed boats, idle engines, he made many useful and necessary things, including excellent heating in our tent.

The master took a copper tube, with a needle (he simply had no other tool) punched several holes. It turned out a homemade nozzle. Outside put a barrel of fuel. Through this makeshift nozzle, fuel flowed into the stove, a small cast-iron stove, which is usually installed in freight cars when transporting people.

The appearance of the heating system made me very happy, and not because I was afraid of the cold. The radio equipment was afraid of the cold. The equipment was in bad conditions. At the back wall of the tent was made a narrow table, hammered together from unplaned boards. Batteries are under the table, transmitter and receiver are on the table. A kerosene lantern hung down on a wire from above.

The table was a sacred place, and I snapped savagely if anyone dared to put mugs of tea or cans on it.

Radio equipment got much more than what its design capabilities provided for. At night the temperature dropped below zero. In the morning, when the stove was lit, the equipment was sweating. No wonder she tried to strike.

I had to carefully disassemble the receiver and dry its offal near the stove. It was not recommended to talk to me at such moments. I looked like a barrel of gunpowder. Poking around in the receiver and transmitter, I mumbled everything under my breath. Aware of the danger of being left without communication, Schmidt watched my actions in silence, without a single word interrupting his angry monologues. Of course, I greatly appreciated this sensitivity of Otto Yulievich.

I even slept next to the equipment, covering my body with countless wires and wires.

With no less diligence, I took care of the radio equipment log, where all outgoing and incoming radiograms were recorded. The magazine was kept under my head like a secret document requiring round-the-clock protection. Some news coming from outside was not subject to wide publication, because numerous enterprises for our salvation did not always go smoothly, and if pleasant things immediately went into wide circulation, then Schmidt sometimes preferred to keep silent about temporary failures.

All this was commonplace. As there is a medical secret, so for us, radio operators, there was a secret of correspondence, especially such an acute one as correspondence on the organization of our salvation.

The day started early. According to the established order, it was necessary to get up at six o'clock in the morning. It was the hour of the first conversation with Wellen. At half past six, shivering from the cold, Sima Ivanov got up. During the night, the temperature in the tent usually dropped, and by morning it differed little from the outside temperature. Ivanov kindled the fire, put a makeshift bucket of ice on the fire to make water. The second, three or four minutes before six o'clock, I jumped up. Immediately sat down at the transmitter. Wellen was always accurate, so there was no need to repeat the challenges.

Then everyone else woke up, and the latest news of camp life began to burst into the tent. Voronin reported to Schmidt on visibility, the state of the ice, cracks and hummocks. Komov presented the weather report. Babushkin reported airfield news. Khmyznikov brought new coordinates. In a word, the flow of information grew and, having reached a maximum, wilted. At noon, the cooks served dinner. Obesity did not threaten us. Lunch usually consisted of one course. In the course were mainly canned food and cereals.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, the supply manager began to give out dry rations for the next day - condensed milk, canned food, tea, sugar and 150 grams of biscuits - that was our diet.

At 4:30 a.m., the tent was filled with people. The entire headquarters of the expedition was pulled up here. From the mainland there were reports from Tass, transmitted especially for us. From them we learned all the news - international, all-Union and news on the organization of our salvation.

On February 18, the second report of the Government Commission reported: “Measures are being taken to send two additional aircraft from Kamchatka and three from Vladivostok to Providence Bay, which is usually associated with very great difficulties at this time of the year.”

In the evenings - the same dominoes. Schmidt, Bobrov, Babushkin, Ivanov occupied the entire tent, and there was only one thing left for me - to go on a visit. "I'm going to visit" meant that I was going to bed. I climbed into one of the tents, looked for a free place and fell asleep.

Sometimes he went into the tent of scientific workers. There was a gramophone playing. It was amusing in the dimly lit tent, among the grubby campers overgrown with wild beards, to listen to the voice of Josephine Becker.

All this happened on quiet, non-flying days. On summer days, it was not necessary to “go to visit”. I ate in snatches between two conversations, often without taking off my headphones. Communication was required every quarter of an hour, until late in the evening or until the shore informed that the flight was being postponed. It happened that we were informed about the departure of the plane. The women and children dressed and went to the airfield, but immediately there was a release: the plane returned.

Someone who, but we already understood these difficulties. In Petropavlovsk-on-Kamchatka, the steamer "Stalingrad" was in full swing in order to load the planes on board and move them as far as possible to the north. In Vladivostok, another ship, the Smolensk, was loaded with coal, food, Arctic property and aircraft, on which Kamanin and Molokov set off. Plenipotentiary representative of the Government Commission G. A. Ushakov with pilots S. A. Levanevsky and M. T. Slepnev left for America to purchase Consolidated Flayster aircraft, which were also to be involved in rescue work. At the same time, our plenipotentiary, as ambassadors were then called, in the United States Troyanovsky was instructed to make every effort for quick and effective negotiations that Ushakov was to conduct.

The scale of the rescue operations attracted a lot of attention from the foreign press. “The cause of salvation,” wrote the English newspaper “Daily Telegraph”, “will be directly dependent on the endurance of the victims and the speed with which the rescue expedition can reach them. While both sides are communicating on the radio. The German newspaper Berliner Tageblat was much more categorical: "They have enough food to live, but how long will they live?" Another fascist newspaper Volksstimme echoed it: “It seems that we should expect a new Arctic tragedy. Despite the radio, the airplane and other achievements of civilization, at this time no one can help this hundred people during the entire arctic night; if nature does not come to their aid, they are lost.”

No, nature was in no hurry to come to the rescue. Rather, the opposite. Due to the winds, sea currents, our situation turned out to be too unstable to live without fear for tomorrow. The first days, nature was relatively merciful, but we understood that complacency would not last long, and therefore prepared for the worst.

Trouble began in the morning. The first to notice them were those who came to dismantle the forest that surfaced at the place of death. A crack 15-20 centimeters wide, which opened up to the eyes of those gathered, looked harmless, but the harmlessness was apparent. There was a crack at about 10 am. The ocean went on the attack, and the black stripe ran to where it was least expected - straight to the camp. The first to be attacked was the forest, fished with such difficulty from the icy water. The logs began to fall into the water again. I had to urgently pull them away from the edges, but this was only the beginning. There was a threat to the food warehouse. His defense was organized instantly and in a hot rush, we quickly transferred the products away from the dangerous place. However, even this crack seemed to be not enough. She tore off the wall of the galley, passed under one of the antenna masts. During the existence of the camp, the crack closed and opened more than twenty times. It is easy to guess that it did not give much pleasure to any of us.

The first reports appeared about the preparations for the campaign of the Litke icebreaker and the Krasin icebreaker. It should be noted that this was a difficult step. Both ships, fairly worn out by polar navigation, required serious repairs. In addition, the Krasin was at the docks of Kronstadt, and in order to help us, he had to travel around the world.

At that time we did not know this, but later it became known that Valerian Vladimirovich Kuibyshev turned for help to Sergei Mironovich Kirov, who headed the Leningrad party organization, with the following telegram:

“In Leningrad, the icebreakers Ermak and Krasin are being repaired. The position of Schmidt's expedition is such that the final rescue of the entire expedition may drag out due to ice drift until June or longer. If measures are taken to urgently repair the Yermak and Krasin, then they could play a decisive role in saving Schmidt and a hundred people of his expedition ... I ask you to familiarize yourself with this matter in detail and raise the entire party organization and the masses of workers to their feet for urgent repairs "Krasin", meaning that, perhaps, the salvation of the heroes of the Arctic will depend on this.

This step of the Government Commission was also approved by the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Chairman of the Polar Commission A.P. Karpinsky. “If before the onset of warm weather,” he said, “not all Chelyuskin residents are delivered to the shore, the Krasin will take those who remain on the ice. The Krasin package is a wise insurance in this case.”

Communists and non-Party workers realized how responsible the work that lies ahead of them. Hot work began to boil, which became another facet of the great feat that the country was accomplishing. On February 27, Schmidt received a radiogram. Everyone gathered in the evening in the barracks. Questions from all sides:

Ernst, what happened, why were we gathered?

There is some news. TASS has prepared a special review “TASS summary for Chelyuskinites”…

He answered as indifferently as possible to enhance the effect of surprise, but our astute Pinkertons guess:

Old man, you're on to something!

I shrug my shoulders, I try to transfer the conversation to other topics - they do not retreat. At this moment, Otto Yulievich enters the barracks, and the conversations stop. Phew! you can finally breathe easy.

Schmidt read out several telegrams about the preparation of aviation affairs, then about the progress of the repair of the Krasin, and, finally, most importantly, because of which the team was assembled.

“Camp of the Chelyuskinites, Polar Sea, to the head of the expedition, Schmidt.