Mikhail Babushkin (russian: Михаи́л Серге́евич Ба́бушкин; October 6, 1893 – May 18, 1938) was a Soviet polar aviator and a Hero of the Soviet Union (June 27, 1937). Together with

Mikhail Vodopyanov Mikhail Vasilyevich Vodopyanov (russian: Михаил Васильевич Водопьянов; – 11 August 1980) was a Soviet aircraft pilot, one of the first Heroes of the Soviet Union, and a Major General of the Soviet Air Force. Togeth ...

, he was the first to land an airplane on the North Pole.

Biography

Mikhail Babushkin was born in a village of Bordino (which was merged into the city of Moscow in 1960), started military service in 1914, graduated from Gatchina aviation school (one of the first Russian aviation schools) in 1915. Since 1923 he served in the Arctic aviation. He took part in an expedition to rescue Umberto Nobile in 1928, and in the Chelyuskin expedition in 1933. He took part in the flights to the

Soviet drifting ice station A drifting ice station is a temporary or semi-permanent facility built on an ice floe. During the Cold War the Soviet Union and the United States maintained a number of stations in the Arctic Ocean on floes such as Fletcher's Ice Island for rese ...

"North Pole-1" in 1937. Between 1937 and 1938, Mikhail Babushkin participated in a search for Sigizmund Levanevsky. He died in 1938 in a flight accident and was interred at the

Novodevichy Cemetery Novodevichy Cemetery ( rus, Новоде́вичье кла́дбище, Novodevichye kladbishche) is a cemetery in Moscow. It lies next to the southern wall of the 16th-century Novodevichy Convent, which is the city's third most popular tourist ...

. Mikhail Babushkin was also a recipient of the Order of Lenin. A district of Moscow (in the area where he was born) and the Babushkinskaya station of the Moscow Metro are named after him.

References

Heroes of the Soviet Union Soviet polar explorers Russian explorers Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery 1893 births 1938 deaths Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner Recipients of the Order of Lenin Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in the Soviet Union {{hero-USSR-stub