ROAD TO POLE
Kuchiev Yuri S.
The captain of the atomic icebreaker "Arctic" Hero of Socialist Labor
It was August.
In the last forty years had at that time did not think about snow, not a mountain, on which the wandering shade of blue, but the beloparchovom, polar. It would seem, well, you do not see it once, and, as they say, thank God. Here, however, something sank in my chest when I came under the Moscow night sky. Although present in his table was surrounded by friends, not just delivshie with the hardships of Arctic navigation, Kuchiev nevertheless felt some kind of painful for him cut off from that distant world, piled with snow, now resting under a canopy of leaving the White Nights.
Here the stars shone above his head. Yuri S. found his, smiled quite a while not seen her in this your day, which began its life. De Long Islands, the Strait of Vilkitski, Laptev Sea, Cape Chelyuskin and more than thirty different points of the Arctic, that's where he had to celebrate the day of his birth. I do not know whether there will be all over the world with dozens of people who can aim a blow at this "record". And is not it too much for the fifty-eight years? But perhaps he is a star. He, at least, believes her happy. Here's one I saw as a child star, silver mountain peaks, spill quiet rest in the valleys, and before it struck him as a native, that even a little hand reached out and stroked her mind. And, in response to his kindness, the star has since kept over him.
Yuri Sergeyevich said that she took him from his home. Stole because she knew what he wanted.
He walked the streets of Moscow, and thoughts were far away from them, perhaps because the table and all the talk swirled around the last event: as the "Arctic", driven them Kuchiev captain, reached the North Pole. Nuclear hero ... This event, and on his lips, and on newspaper pages. And the captain Kuchiev, naturally ... And Yuri S. thoughts all the time saw the dying Georgy Sedov. That room was the power, if the suffering of this man taught courage and the courage it fascinates us.
Serve as a dream, that Georgy Sedov carried to his last breath through the ice cold and wild, Kuchiev started right away, almost fell to the North. Arctic robbed him of much of what modern man lives. What is really there to the theater, if the newspapers are from case to case, and yet still want to upholster the dew on the grass, take a walk with his wife on the Nevsky Prospect. But someone had to spend almost all his life in the attic, only to give people the knowledge of the stars. Someone had to die, by studying the nature of lightning. And somebody has been making way to the pole. If this one is not going to sacrifice, the world was busy somewhere else would be behind us.
Walking through the night streets of Moscow, Kuchiev thought of his comrades, who shared the hardships of the last transition. No matter how heroic or a technique, it is nothing if not for these strong-willed, courageous, dedicated people dream. But let's leave Moscow on 26 August and fast forward a few days ago, will reveal some of the fifty-eight pages of his life, let us consider some character traits Osipov. On the "Arctic" has raised the ladder, when the order was given:
- Boatswain, watermelon rinds away from the pole!
In this order, the whole Kuchiev. If possible, he rubbed the sky to see stars lured more people. Watermelon on the pole. The captain saw the mind of those who eat on the way here, and dog-boots ... Pole, though not a temple, but under his dark vaults all should be elevated and a gust of the soul, and memory, and attitudes towards the vanquished. The Arctic has been defeated. But seventeen hours ago ... It was late at night, but the "Arctic" No one slept, the pole was only a few miles, the most severe, and people with their energy, will, if he wanted to spur the nuclear-powered power plants, which are barely promoted the ship in Torosyan, frightening his thick ice.
Steel bulwarks, granite monoliths, concrete dam ... come to mind all sorts of comparisons, but they were not good, because everything has its own clearly and precisely delineated areas, a sort of a firmament, and here ... Where does a white field, what is true, its thickness, five or seven meters, where the limit is the force with which it hits the building nuclear-powered? I remembered the line from Nansen's diaries: "If to imagine anger around the world, and even then the ice could not have done us more violent attacks than do now." It seemed that around the depth charges exploded. Bulkheads creaked, groaned case, it seems to constantly hit a huge hammer, everything inside the ship trembled, and exhausting to enter the soul shaking. Chunks of ice, like shrapnel, flew far and wide, tore the mist on the dvadtsatimetrovoy height, but almost no movement forward, we did not feel. In short, those anxious moments were experienced by many before us, who are the Arctic and not admitted to the point where intertwined in one site all the three hundred and sixty terrestrial channels.
At such moments a man usually seizes or despair, or it is given to the whole struggle with the elements. How many of these fights happened here, and retreat from the bold, even daring. Only frantic single reached the pole, but to the vessel to him, yes it is seen a thing! And on the nuclear-powered ship armada fell upon the most powerful ice. Although sheltered armor, and dragged "team" at seventy-five thousand horsepower, but it was impossible to say for sure, "we reach." Close to the cherished goal of many came, but every time unfolded the Arctic pole to the stern of the court and "laughing" after departing.
The blood rush to his head at the thought that here he is very close to the pole, and, of course, was not a dream. Nerves frayed expectation-touch would stop. If at that moment went mushroom rain or rang the ice bird, obviously, I was surprised would be less than what he saw: the sea around the parade, he lay in his chair, his head was thrown back, his hands hanging like vines, the captain's cabin on the carpet lay Uniforms a cap. I would pass by, because I knew the value of this moment, which is carved out of sleep immensely tired man, and yet what he saw impressed so much that I stopped. And why the memory is immediately answered, referring to the war. So the soldiers fell asleep just after heavy fighting, when there is no gunfire, except for the battalion commander shouting: "Go for the Motherland!" Could not wake them up. What is it dry clicks the shutter of my camera, the roar of breaking ice, if not cause any movement of the muscles on the face Osipov Kuchiev.
Now we look at the pictures of the war years, and if we see them sleeping, where necessary, a soldier, then a human being with all my heart understand how he was given the last attack, how much physical and moral strength, and nerve it took away from him, and did I could walk past the cabin, where he saw the captain of a soldier, prikornuvshego on the bottom of the trench?
What is he, a clot of human stress? Only in such moments and to judge him, when neither freshly shaven face, neatly pressed trousers or carefully, or snow-white shirt can not hide the power expended when mowing a dream place. However, a courageous man, collected, strong-willed transcends any physical features of the organism and has lived outside of medics understandable dimensions, while preserving and clarity of mind and firmness of character, and ability to lead people. Do not be sinning if I say: this is Kuchiev.
Nuclear-powered ship was near the poles, however, as four hours ago when the Earth to the crown was only ten miles. These are the ten miles that we were in a continuous mist, crippling ice, and took away so much effort from the captain. No wonder, since there was only one step, and here it is, the dream of many explorers, will be made thee. And she kept it for a long time. I remember thirteen years ago, when Yuri S. went to the captain of the nuclear-powered icebreaker "Lenin", he told me: "I want the pole, you know, on such vessels can break ..," The dream grew stronger, and a ray of hope became brighter with the advent of "the Arctic". As soon as I saw her at Kuchiev factory wall on the Neva water, all the simple moments in it sights on approach to the pole. Experienced, vysokoerudirovanny, Kuchiev absorbed by that time, having many universities in the Arctic, polar knowledge of many famous captains. They prepared him for this step, too, have always lived for the dream-to get to the North Pole. And just a step away from him, he fell asleep ... It struck me at the same time reassured: it means that he believes in success, then we arrive, if he allowed himself to relax like that.
A few minutes later I again saw him on the bridge, energetic, calm, and only one betrayed him tired, he often held his hand over his eyes.
... August 17, 1977 at four o'clock, Moscow time, Yuri S. Kuchiev the first time in the history of maritime surface vessel brought to the North Pole. But the approaches to it, he "felt the" six years ago, when the nuclear-powered icebreaker "Lenin" held in the eastern sector of the Arctic ice-breaker "Vladivostok". In an unprecedented early then they are gone from Murmansk. Along the shores were still powerful ice fell, and therefore had to wade to Pevek high latitudes - around Severnaya Zemlya and New Siberian Islands. The proximity of the pole fever compasses. Stars do not, it is difficult to determine. On the map, the solid white spots: not known that under the keel. Were in the drift, waiting for a successful ice conditions, beaten with hummocks acceleration. Sometimes before the courts get up real ice cliffs. But they are gone.
Look at the map and you will understand how unprecedented was the flight. At the Cape of the Arctic, far northern point of the Earth, which perhaps can only dream of lovers and exotic travels, Osipov said Kuchiev thirty years of his service on the icebreaker fleet. Leaf through the records made captain in those days:
"Gains in Pevek June 22, when normally out of Murmansk."
"October 14. Since the beginning of navigation "Lenin" has passed 21,600 miles, circumnavigate the globe along the equator. "
"Dec. 31. Arrived in Murmansk. Navigation lasted 216 days. Covered 31,143 miles in the ice and fresh water only 4385 miles. "Here in the blog is attached telegram famous polar explorer, director of the Institute of Arctic and Antarctic AF Treshnikov:
"Congratulations on your successful completion of the very early historic voyage marked the beginning of the development of high-latitude Northern Sea Route." A few days later, Yuri Sergeyevich was appointed to a new icebreaker. "Arctic"-seems to be a modest name for the flagship of the ice roads. But when you reflect on that name, followed by the courageous stand researchers ice deserts, brave mariners, intrepid polar pilots. And behind them, unseen, astounded the world drifts, crossings and flights. And serve as the "Arctic" Captain-honor.
We met with him shortly after his appointment. He was dashing all the same as the day of our acquaintance, with the same brush neat mustache and a shaved head. I asked him: "As my mother?" For navigation remembered sixty-four years old when Kuchiev often repeated this word, "mama." Do not have time to visit with her in front of Ordzhonikidze, swimming and all concerned, somehow it din. For some, it seemed strange that here it is, ice captain, flaunting their feelings: do not suit all sorts of sentiments polar explorer. And then there's the canary in the cabin, just like a prim young lady, if we go further. Listening to her, I remembered the Barents flute, which is more than a hundred years ago, found in the New Earth in the abandoned cabin Norwegian whaler Elling Carlsen. Whistling her folk motifs, intrepid explorer trying to somehow help mitigate the severity of his fellow winter. Furious Nansen dreamed apple color, and his heart is not grown dull and hardened, had a gentle, sympathetic, though, apparently, white and silent monotony of dull frost in many human emotions, and the constant struggle with the elements in it erases all of the sublime, leads him to thoughts about the very small: through the day and right. In such circumstances, the characters inside out and outside-the falsity of all low-lying, there is a weakness. Is it because the Arctic, the evil and treacherous, hiding is not a tragedy, and left her in obscurity is not a destiny, preserved for us the names of Dezhnev and Bering Sea, Laptev Sea, and DeLong, Makarov and Amundsen and Nobile Sedov, Rusanov and Brusilov ... Retained the names of people who have the brave hearts and always kind, generous soul, loyal idea, do not leave with a song and the beauty of the Earth, which represented the flute and apple orchard, a volume of Heine and yellow handmade bird.
Small songstress looked like Yuri Sergeyevich of home and family with which he is captain of the ice, sometimes not seen for more than two hundred days a year. Thus, we can say without a father and grown sons, a daughter. The eldest, Michael, Postgraduate Institute of Physics and Technology, Sergei and Tanya twin: he aviator, she learns from the designer. From his father the children have absorbed a deep respect for their elders. Integrity, honesty, inability to play up, frankness reared by his example.
They inherited from the mother's gentleness, sensitivity. We met the parents thirty years ago at Dixon. In the distant, rocky piece of land Nellie K. then worked in the newspaper. Maybe because her character was already formed the North, Yuri Sergeyevich, and liked this modest, with kind eyes, the economic woman.
He was always at sea, and she waits. Waiting is always hard. Jumps up at night, he sees her on the bridge and into the night, and in the fierce cold, haggard, with the eternal conundrum: how to rescue the caravan iso ice? And in those late hours when we have overcome the last mile to the pole, Nellie K. is not closed my eyes. What you want, and she felt: there it difficult to Jura. And was it ever easy for him and can easily be a person who day in and day out, year after year sees the same monotony of white, yet a man, as you know, even boring resort atmosphere. All he had a hard ... He told me something about his father, Red partisan, one of the first director of MTS in North Ossetia. He told me about the mountains, which had nurtured him, the celestial his village of Tib. Hummocks Arctic Ocean is not occupied in his mind the place, given that the snowy peaks of the Caucasus. But how then to explain his nearly four decades, the Arctic?
He, a southerner, accustomed to the northern winds person, character, seasoned high latitudes. And yet he often misses the mountains, brave, brilliantly vodyaschy most powerful icebreaker in the world, climbing to the peak of nuclear-powered Earth. But then raging Fridtjof Nansen, crossed Greenland on skis, all the while thinking about his cozy house in a boiling apple in Norway and was eager for him to
then go into the chilling to the bone white desert.
In the Arctic Kuchiev got, we can say casually. I wanted to fly, because he lived very close to the sky. And the Eagles seemed to him the happiest. After high school, completed with honors, went to Moscow. But in the pilots did not have, skinny, not too much. Enrolled in the Institute of Railway, but dropped it when he saw one curry frills airline.
He came to his deputy Mark Ivanovich Shevelyov known polar explorer, Hero of the Soviet Union, which was then deputy chief of the NSRA. He talked about his passion. Shevelev saw a strong nature in his young interlocutor, and because he spoke with a man, therefore, advised to safely:
- Go a look at Dixon sailor. Cook among real people. I believe you will find yourself ...
- I remembered his eyes, for how many years have passed, and now, as I see them, told me recently, Shevelev,-they had a surprisingly clear, to the bottom of a person in sight.
Marc I. closely followed his "godson." The most memorable was their meeting at the North Pole August 17, 1977. "Before leaving, lubricate the earth's axis ..." This humorous advice Shevelev gave the captain, "the Arctic" ice reconnaissance from aircraft. Kuchiev spent pleasantly rocking the wings of IL-14 and said thank you man, getting him to the Arctic. In the early days of the war Kuchiev stepped onto the snow-covered deck of the tugboat "Basil Milk" and then on the icebreaker "Taimyr". Began a difficult, full of dangers marine science. A small dark-haired boy immediately fell in love with seasoned polar explorers of his diligence, candor, generosity, courage, warmth of the Caucasian. He was lucky with the teachers. Famous polar captains brought up in it and a sailor and a man. Detached from the house for a long time, Kuchiev nevertheless continually relied on his father's real hands. How could I forget it the science of Mikhail Yakovlevich Sorokin or guidance of Karl Pavlovich Aggie. With them, as well as Andrei Ivanovich Koyvunenom, Dmitry Nikolasevich Chuhchinym, Andrei Vladimirovich Tatarchuk, Sergei Mikhailovich Svechihinym, Boris Makarovich Sokolov, Alexei Vasilievich Marysheva, Nikolai Pavlovich Zhirnov he served on the "Ermak", "Sibiryakov", "Malygin", "Elijah Muromets "," Krasin "," Lenin "and other vessels, blended memorable page in the history of Arctic exploration.
About Kuchiev say differently. Some clever-it, others emphasize his will, the third-intuitive to people. They say he ... Yeah, he's good and hard, obscure and open to the end, soft and demanding, simple and complex, the wise and childishly naive. It does not happen to all coexisted in the same person? Nonsense. It happens. It is beautiful and attractive is multifaceted. But it should also dominate a single entity, a particularly distinguishes it, approximating to the familiar formula of everyday life, "he is the soul," "he is clever," "it is a simple"? .. And yet no, it's not so simple to characterize. Would not it be Kuchiev then, if he came under some of these definitions. Perhaps Gorky's expression: "Man it sounds proudly" because it became a classic, which suggests a high moral, intellectual and heartfelt wealth. After a voyage to the North Pole, treating my house, in Leningrad, the national pie, Yuri Sergeyevich admitted:
- I hate ice. Probably because we are always behind me helpless convoy in the Arctic atmosphere vessels. And I have to grind the ice ...
- What is the difference between an ordinary captain on the ice?-Ask him.
- The main thing in our work, the ability to adjust to a monotonous environment.
The Arctic does not spare even the seasoned. Sometimes I get tired before the captain of the endless polar nights, and dense, like a wall of fog that sleep is not a dream, but falls to the ground. And then he thinks of a mountain meadow, over which the bird ringing and hangs near the sky.
Going ... to the North Pole set of Hero of Socialist Labor Yuri Sergeyevich Kuchiev in line with the brave Arctic explorers, whose names are known all over the world.
