It was reported in the January issue of this journal (Barr Reference Barr2007) that in mid-September 2006, Russian divers had discovered a sunken wreck on the bed of the Chukchi Sea that was almost certainly that of the Soviet steamer Chelyuskin which, while attempting the first accident-free, one-season transit of the Northern Sea Route, was crushed by the ice and sank on 13 February 1934. The divers were able to recover two relatively small components from the wreck: a metal deck stanchion that would have supported part of the ship's rail, and a ventilation grille. These components were sent to the ship's builders, Burmeister and Wein of Copenhagen, for positive identification. Experts with that company have now confirmed that these were indeed parts of the steamer Chelyuskin (Pravda Reference Pravda2007; Vremya Reference RIA Novosti2007; RIA Novosti Reference Vremya2007).

The official announcement of this confirmation was released at the opening of an exhibition to commemorate the voyage of Chelyuskin, held on the anniversary of her sinking, on 13 February 2007 (Vremya 2007). The two recovered components of the ship were on display, as also were photos, archival documents and some relevant personal effects of the ship's company including, for example, a knife used by Otto Shmidt, (Fig. 1) expedition leader and head of Glavsevmorput’ (Glavnoye Upravleniye Severnogo Morskogo Puti) [Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route] for cutting kolbasa [sausage] at the camp on the ice after the ship sank.

Fig. 1

Otto Yul'yevich Shmidt, head of Glavsevmorput’ [Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route] and leader of the Chelyuskin expedition.

Present at the opening of the exhibition were the only two surviving members of the Chelyuskin expedition, Anna Buyko and Karina Vasil'yeva. Anna Buyko was only two years old at the time and Karina Vasil'yeva was born on board the ship in the Kara Sea. Also present at the unveiling were Otto Shmidt's three sons: one of them, Sigurd Ottovich Shmidt, aged 80, a senior professor of history at Rossiyskiy Gosudarstvennyy Gumanitarnyy Universitet [Russian State University for the Humanities] expressed his delight, as an historian, that the story of the Chelyuskin expedition would not be forgotten by the ‘younger generation’ (Vremya 2007).

Several of the divers who discovered the wreck were also present. Aleksandr Kosshelev reported that Chelyuskin was lying on an even keel in a depth of 50 m, her hull sunk to a depth of 3 m into the silt. Despite the use of extremely powerful lights, visibility was very limited, probably not more than 50 cm. This combined with a water temperature of around −1.5°C made exploring the ship extremely difficult.

According to Aleksey Mikhaylovich, leader of the ‘Chelyuskin-70’ expedition that discovered the sunken wreck, there are plans to return to the site in August 2007 (Pravda Reference Pravda2007; Vremya 2007). Iosif Rabinovich, academic secretary to the expedition, reported that it is hoped to recover the ship's bell, steering wheel and radio equipment (RIA Novosti 2007).

One trusts that the choice of the date for the opening of the exhibition, that is the anniversary of Chelyuskin's sinking, rather than the anniversary of the air evacuation of the last of the expedition members from the camp on the ice, namely 13 April, was guided by some completely innocuous controlling factor. As it is it would be comparable to celebrating the date of the sinking of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Endurance, rather than the date of his rescue of his crew from Elephant Island. Were the organisers of the exhibition trying to perpetuate the myth that the Chelyuskin voyage was a praiseworthy success, rather than a predictable disaster? It was noted previously (Barr Reference Barr2007) that the selection of the ship was made despite the assessment by experts that it was very unsuitable for a voyage in Arctic ice.

Significant here is a report by geologist/geographer Mikhail Mikhalovich Yermolaev concerning a conversation he had with the captain of he vessel, Vladimir Ivanovoch Voronin, some time after the event. Voronin recalled that after Chelyuskin sank, he and Shmidt were sitting in the tent they shared in the ice-camp, totally dismayed and terrified by the outcome of the expedition. Given the climate in Stalin's USSR they anticipated that their fate, at best, would be a prolonged imprisonment in the Gulag or, at worst, execution. Then, to their amazement they received a radio message from Moscow: ‘We congratulate you as heroes of the Arctic!’ (Yermolayev and Dibner Reference Yermolayev and Dibner2005: 560).

Well aware that Chelyuskin had been selected for this widely publicised attempt at the Northern Sea Route despite the fact that experts (including Voronin) had insisted that she was a totally inappropriate vessel for tackling Arctic ice, Stalin had already stimulated his propaganda machine to convert this disaster into a triumph of Soviet technology and skill. By pure good luck, as much as any other factor, the later successful evacuation of all but one of Chelyuskin's complement by air, gave the appearance of confirming this undeserved positive slant that had been put on the story, even at this early stage. The selection of the date for the recent opening of the Chelyuskin exhibition might appear to suggest that the organisers of the exhibition are determined to perpetuate the myth of the ‘success’ of Chelyuskin's voyage.