Ivan Papanin

Ivan Dmitrievich Papanin
Ivan Papanin on the Polar Station North Pole-1
Born	(1894-11-26)26 November 1894 Sevastopol
Died
Nationality	Soviet Union
Occupation	Polar explorer, scientist

Ivan Dmitrievich Papanin (Russian: Иван Дмитриевич Папанин, 26 November [O.S. 14 November] 1894 – January 30, 1986) was a Soviet polar explorer, scientist, Counter Admiral, and twice Hero of the Soviet Union, who was awarded nine Orders of Lenin.

Life and career

Ivan was born in Sevastopol into the family of a sailor. In 1914 he was conscripted into the Imperial Russian Navy. He took part in the Russian Civil War on the Bolshevik side, fighting in Ukraine. In 1920 he was sent to the Crimea to organize a guerrilla movement against the forces of the White Movement leader General Baron Pyotr Wrangel.

In 1923-1932 he worked for Narkomat of Communications. In 1931 he took part in the expedition of the icebreaker Malygin to Franz Josef Land. In 1932-1933 he was the head of a polar expedition on Tikhaya Bay on Franz Josef Land. In 1934-1935 he was in command of a polar station on Cape Chelyuskin.

In 1937-1938 he was in charge of the famous expedition North Pole-1. Four researchers, Ivan Papanin, Ernst Krenkel, Yevgeny Fyodorov and Petr Shirshov, landed on the drifting ice-floes in an airplane flown by Mikhail Vodopyanov. For 234 days, Papanin's team carried out a wide range of scientific observations in the near-polar zone, until taken back by the two icebreakers Murman and Taimyr. It was the first expedition of its kind in the world. All members of the expedition received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, which was extremely rare before World War II.

In 1939-1946 Papanin was the successor to Otto Schmidt as head of the Glavsevmorput' (Glavniy Severniy Morskoy Put') - an establishment that oversaw all commercial operations on the Northern Sea Route. In 1940 he received a second Hero of the Soviet Union title for organizing the expedition that saved the icebreaker Sedov. During World War II he was the representative of the State Defence Committee (Gosudarstvennij Komiet Oborony) responsible for all transportation by the Northern Sea Route. In 1941-1952 he was a member of the Central Revision Commission of the Communist Party.

In 1948-1951 he was the deputy director of Institute for Oceanology of the USSR Academy of Sciences and from 1951 until his death in 1986 he was the Head of the Academy's Department of Maritime Expeditions. In 1956-1972 he was also the director of the Institute for the Biology of Inland Waters (Bilogii Vnutrennikh Vod).

Papanin's name has been given to a cape on the Taimyr Peninsula, a mountain in Antarctica, and an underwater mountain in the Pacific Ocean. Ivan Papanin's name was also given to an ice-class cargo and research ship (call sign: UCJE) built in 1990 that operates in both Arctic seas and the Antarctic.

Honours and awards

• Hero of the Soviet Union (1937, 1940)
• 9 Orders of Lenin (1937, 1938, May 1944, November 1944, 1945, 1956, 1964, 1974, 1984)
• Order of the October Revolution (1971)
• Order of the Red Banner, twice (1922, 1950)
• Order of Nakhimov, 1st class (1945)
• Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class (1985)
• Order of the Red Banner of Labour, twice (1955, 1980)
• Order of Friendship of Peoples (1982)
• Order of the Red Star (1945)
• Medal for Combat Service
• Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary since the Birth of Vladimir Il'ich Lenin"
• Jubilee Medal "XX Years of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army"

other medals and foreign decorations.

• Doctor of Geography (1938)
• Rear-Admiral (1943)
• Honorary Citizen of the Hero City of Murmansk (1974), Arkhangelsk (1975), Hero City of Sevastopol (1979), Lipetsk and the Yaroslavl Region