#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. The expedition consisted of only four people: leader Ushakov, geologist Urvantsev, radio operator Hodov and hunter Zhuravlev. But in Ushakov’s book On the Unexplored Land, which described the heroic two-year wintering, at first only three of them were mentioned.
It is hard to imagine what it is like – to black out one of the main participants in the events in a multi-page work, mentioning only like ‘our geologist’.
The thing is that the book was printed in 1951 and republished in 1953. By that time Urvantsev was though a former but not yet rehabilitated prisoner of the Norillag forced labor camp.
In later editions of the book, the mysterious fourth member of the expedition was returned. And it remains for readers to compare these versions – and see traces of editorial ‘surgery’.
In the History Spot’s previous publication, we told that in the first books about Norilsk it was impossible to mention its name.
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Text: Svetlana Ferapontova, Photo: Nornickel Polar Branch archive
