Georgy Sedov- Arctic explorer.

[Anatol]

The future lieutenant of the navy Georgy Sedov was the youngest son in a large family of Yakov Evteevich - a fisherman from the Krivaya Kosa farm in the Donetsk region. He was born on May 5, 1877. He began to study late. Only when he was fourteen years old, his parents gave him to the parish school, where he showed extraordinary abilities. Having mastered the reading and writing, George was carried away by reading, and he had a dream to become a captain of distant voyage - a desire absurd and unattainable for a village boy. Secretly from all the young man began to prepare for a trip to Rostov-on-Don, where seaworthy courses were opened at that time. When, after prolonged ordeals, he finally reached the goal of his first journey in life, the inspector treated him very kindly, but as a test he sent for a few months a sailor to the steamboat Trud, which made voyages through the Azov and Black Seas. Having thus received a sea baptism, George began his studies.
Three years later, from the walls of the college, graduated navigational navigator Sedov Georgy Yakovlevich. In the course of a short time he passed additional training and soon he was a captain on the ship "Sultan". But I wanted more. Standing on the bridge, Georgy Sedov thought about marine science and expeditionary activity. The goal is achievable, but for this it was necessary to go over to the navy.
After parting with his dry cargo ship, the young captain went to Sevastopol, where he entered into the training team as a volunteer. Soon he was given the rank of lieutenant, and with a letter of recommendation from the inspector of naval courses of Rear Admiral AK Drizhenko, Georgy went to St. Petersburg to work at the Admiralty Main Cartographic Directorate. There was wide open space for his research activities. In 1902, an expedition was formed to study the Arctic Ocean. Together with its other participants, Georgy Sedov is sent to the islands of Vaigach and to the mouth of the Kolyma River .
Since then his biography has reached a completely different level. Georgy Sedov is no longer just a sailor, many in the Russian navy, he is a passionate explorer, a man obsessed with a thirst for discovery. The next year, as an assistant to the chief of the expedition, he studies the Kara Sea and, having met there with the captain of the vessel "America" Anthony Fial, becomes infected with him by the idea of conquering the North Pole. But soon the Russian-Japanese war begins, and so ambitious plans have to be postponed.
Instead of long journeys, life prepared him in the military years to serve in the Siberian military flotilla, and upon termination of hostilities - work as an assistant to the master-master Nikolayevsky-on-Amur fortress. Here, for merits in work to improve the shipping conditions on the Amur, Senior Lieutenant Georgy Sedov was granted the Order of St. Stanislaus of the third degree.
In 1909 he returned to St.Petersburg.
Georgy Sedov's expedition to the North Pole became one of the links in his obsession and thirst for discoveries.Work on its preparation began in 1912. By that time, already two Americans had announced the conquest of the pole, and Sedov could not lay claim to the laurels of the discoverer, but he found this journey, made exactly in that year, necessary. The fact is that in 1913 the celebrations connected with the 300th anniversary of the Romanovs' house were to be held, and the Russian flag on the extreme northern point of the globe could be a wonderful gift to the sovereign, and the traveler would have earned unquestioned authority and fame.
To meet the upcoming anniversary, it was necessary to hurry, since there was very little time left. First of all, the preparation of the expedition required money, and considerable. Applying to the Main Hydrographic Office, Sedov received a polite but categorical refusal.
But nature more than endowed him with energy. Turning through the press to the general public, Sedov managed to collect the required funds in a short time among voluntary donors. The idea was so exciting that even the sovereign made a private contribution of ten thousand rubles, which amounted to twenty percent of the required amount.
The collected money was bought by the old sailing-steam schooner "Holy Great Martyr Fock", which had to be repaired and brought to the proper view. Haste is a bad helper, and from the very beginning it affected the preparation of the expedition. It was not possible not only to assemble the professional crew of seamen, but they could not even find real sled dogs and already in Arkhangelsk they caught on the streets homeless mongrels. It was the fact that they were sent from Tobolsk at the last moment. Merchants, taking the opportunity, slipped the most unfit products, most of which had to be thrown away. On top of all the troubles it turned out that the ship's carrying capacity does not allow taking all the provisions of the ship on board, some of which remained on the quay.
Anyway, on August 14, 1912 the ship left Arkhangelsk and headed for the open sea. Their journey lasted two years. Twice reckless daredevils made winterings among the ice hummocks, submerged in the darkness of the polar night. But even in such conditions, they did not waste time and made geographic maps and descriptions of all sections of the coast where they had occasion to visit. During the second wintering a group of seamen with papers for transfer to the Geographical Society of Petersburg was sent to Arkhangelsk. They contained the results of research and a request to send a ship with a supply of food and other provisions, which was never carried out.
The decisive assault on the North Pole began on February 2, 1914. On this day, the Russian explorer Georgy Sedov and two sailors from his team left the Tikhaya Bay and went to the north with a dog sled. Even before the start of the journey, they all suffered from scurvy, and a few days later the condition of Georgy Yakovlevich deteriorated sharply. He could not go, ordered to tie himself to sledges, and on February 20, 1914 died. Of the two thousand kilometers of the sledding that were to come to this point, only two hundred were passed.
According to the official version, the sailors, before turning back, buried him, making a grave in the snow and putting a cross on it on skis.
In the history of science traveler Sedov George Yakovlevich entered as a tireless hydrographer and explorer of the Arctic Ocean. Son of a poor fisherman, he became an officer of the fleet, a member of the Russian Geographical and Astronomical Society, was awarded several orders. On the map you can see the geographical objects named after George Sedov. His name was worn by a famous icebreaker. Once the drift of "George Sedov", withered in the ice of the ocean, was in the center of attention not only to the public of our country, but the whole world.
Today, many of the heroes of past years have receded into the background, giving way to the modern times. However Sedov George Yakovlevich will remain in our history as a dedicated traveler, a man of unbending will and unbending character. He always set himself a super task, and it was not his fault that the latter cost him his life.
See also: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13923.
PMR 2019; [P].
Source: https://en.delachieve.com/polar-explore ... scoveries/.