Initially, the gift was intended for the captain of the Dudinsky seaport Valery Shanduro. Shanduro Jr. meeting the film crew of the documentary “30 days in the Arctic with Ville Haapasalo” brought the sextant to the museum after the filmmakers left.
At the family council, it was decided that the device that had traveled with Ville Haapasalo by the Northern Sea Route should become a museum piece. Giving the box with the sextant to Valery Shanduro’s son, the captain of the Putorana tugboat Vyacheslav Shanduro, Ville told the date of the device – 1962.
It is known that the sextant was invented in the 18th century. Any navigator will guide his ship to the target point if he uses a sextant (plus a compass and a chronometer). This navigation device is used to determine the height of celestial bodies. It operates on the principle of double reflection. By rotating the large mirror, the reflection of the luminary is sent to the smaller mirror, then the edge of the reflected star (for example, the Sun) is aligned with the horizon line, and the instrument readings are taken. Optical tubes and colored eye filters have been added to modern sextants.
The staff of the Taimyr Museum of Local Lore was delighted not only by the piece of technology itself related to the development of the Arctic, but also by the fact that the sextant became the hero of the project. You can see the exhibit not only in the museum, but also in the seventh part of the documentary “30 days in the Arctic with Ville Haapasalo”. True, that Ville does not take the sextant out of the box, but only opens it, and then goes with Vyacheslav Shanduro to the sea tug Putorana, which joined the fleet of the Polar Transport Branch in 2012.
In the Dudinka episode of the film, not only the sextant and the tug crew starred, telling about the seaport and themselves. In it, Ville Haapasalo catched omul together with the famous Nganasan bone carver Alexei Chunanchar. Alexey shared fishing secrets with the actor, the history of his ancient people, the modern state of affairs. In Dudinka, the star of the Peculiarities of the National Hunting and other films was traditionally initiated into Taimyrians and invited to the College of Arts where a meeting with students was organized.
The ten-part television project “30 Days in the Arctic” was filmed four years ago. In it, Ville Haapasalo showed the Russian North the way the northerners see it. Traveling along the Northern Sea Route from Solovki to Chukotka, he communicated not with the authorities, but, as a rule, with charismatic characters as he himself is. The whole project is distinguished by the amazing organic nature of the host and his interlocutors. They all have much to tell about the business they do and the place they live in.
After the release of the film, Ville Haapasalo said that in all tele-travels (their whole cycle), the most important thing for him has always been people, and the inhabitants of the Russian North surprised him most of all.
One of the project parts, the sixth one, is dedicated to Norilsk. In the northern city Ville visited the mines, talked with Larisa and Stanislav Stryuchkov, who got the celebrity acquainted with the history of Norilsk. Gennady Poltorykhin hosted the film crew in his kennel for sled dogs, and Vladimir Larin, a former director of the Putoransky nature reserve, told about how and why he had come to Norilsk.
Read in the Artefacts: about the ancient brass sundial, mammoth tusk tubes, tambourine of the last Nganasan shaman and other unique items from local museums, using the Artefacts tag.
Text: Valentina Vachaeva, Photo: Taimyr Museum of Local Lore, ok-magazine.ru
