Steamer ''Pravda'' was a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

merchant freighter of about 3,100 tonnes displacement, which was active in the

Arctic during the 1930s. This ship had been normally used for carrying timber. It was named after Soviet newspaper ''

Pravda ''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, 'Truth') is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most in ...

''. In 1933, the newly formed

Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route The Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route (), also known as Glavsevmorput or GUSMP (), was a Soviet government organization in charge of the maritime Northern Sea Route, established in January 1932 and dissolved in 1964. History The organiz ...

sent ''Pravda'', under Captain Kh. A. Belitskiy, to Nordvik on the first

oil exploration Hydrocarbon exploration (or oil and gas exploration) is the search by petroleum geologists and geophysicists for hydrocarbon deposits, particularly petroleum and natural gas, in the Earth's crust using petroleum geology. Exploration methods V ...

expedition to Northern Siberia. This venture was led by N.N. Urvantsev who travelled on ''Pravda'' along with his wife, Dr. Yelizaveta Ivanovna who was in charge of medical care. ''Pravda''s cargo consisted of 2,430 tonnes of equipment and supplies for this important expedition, including four experimental NATI-2 half-track vehicles built by the Nauchnyy Avtotraktornyy Institut in Moscow. These were the first

tracked vehicle Continuous track or tracked treads are a system of vehicle propulsion used in tracked vehicles, running on a continuous band of treads or track plates driven by two or more wheels. The large surface area of the tracks distributes the we ...

s to be used in the Russian Arctic. They would be used to haul the drill, buildings and supplies, from the landing site to the drilling site. Apart from the detachable drill rig and a fully equipped drilling camp, ''Pravda'' also carried the rails, ties and rolling stock for a

narrow-gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curv ...

railway. ''Pravda'' travelled along with steamers ''Tovarich Stalin'' and ''Volodarskiy'', which were on their way to the mouth of the

Lena Lena or LENA may refer to: Places * Léna Department, a department of Houet Province in Burkina Faso * Lena, Manitoba, an unincorporated community located in Killarney-Turtle Mountain municipality in Manitoba, Canada * Lena, Norway, a village in ...

. By 4 September ''Pravda'' was in the

Khatanga Gulf The Khatanga Gulf or Khatanga Bay () is a large tidal estuary in the Laptev Sea. It is relatively narrow, its length being with a maximum width of . Geography The Bolshoy Begichev Island divides the gulf into two straits: Northern Strait ( wide) ...

, close to Nordvik. Captain Belitskiy had decided to approach

Nordvik Bay Nordvik Bay (; , ''Nordvik xomoto'') is a gulf in the Laptev Sea in the north of Russia. Lat 73° 45' and long 112°. Nordvik Bay and most of its surrounding area belongs to the Sakha Republic administrative division of the Russian Federation. ...

from the east, between Poluostrov Paksa and Bolshoy Begichev Island. Despite having no knowledge of the depths in the channel Belitskiy went ahead, without taking the elementary precaution of sounding and ''Pravda'' ran aground in the centre of the channel two times. Ice conditions in the

Vilkitsky Strait : Vilkitsky Strait () is a strait between the Taimyr Peninsula and Bolshevik Island in the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago of Russia. The strait connects the Kara and Laptev Seas. The length of the Vilkitsky Strait is 128 km, the width approx. ...

(between

Severnaya Zemlya Severnaya Zemlya (, ) is a archipelago in the Russian high Arctic. It lies off Siberia's Taymyr Peninsula, separated from the mainland by the Vilkitsky Strait. This archipelago separates two marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean, the Kara Sea i ...

and

Cape Chelyuskin Cape Chelyuskin (, ''Mys Chelyuskina'') is the northernmost point of the Eurasian continent (and indeed of any continental mainland), and the northernmost point of mainland Russia. It is situated at the tip of the Taymyr Peninsula, south of Sever ...

), forced the three freighters of the convoy to winter at Ostrov Samuila in the Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands. A shore station was built and a full scientific programme maintained all winter by Urvantsev and Ivanovna. These ships were released in the following year by icebreaker ''Feodor Litke''. ''Feodor Litke'' made such a great effort to break a channel through the thick ice that it caused damage to its hull. Once freed, ''Pravda'' proceeded to

Maria Pronchishcheva Bay Maria Pronchishcheva Bay (, or ''Bukhta Marii Pronchishchevoy'') is a body of water in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russian Federation. It was named after pioneering Russian explorer Vasili Pronchishchev's wife Maria. Geography Maria Pronchishcheva Bay ...

to retrieve the fuel and boats she had had to jettison there, after which she sailed to

, her initial destination.

References

* Ships of the Soviet Union Laptev Sea Polar exploration by Russia and the Soviet Union Arctic exploration vessels {{arctic-stub

See also

References