Georgy Alekseevich
Ushakov
1901-1963
Georgy Alekseevich Ushakov was a Soviet Arctic researcher, Doctor of Geographical Sciences (1950), author of the numerous scientific discoveries. He was born in a family of Amur Cossacks. Since 1912 he studied in Khabarovsk, in 1916 he graduated from the Second Higher primary 4-class City School named after P. F. Unterberger in Khabarovsk. He participated in V. K. Arsenyev’s excursion to the Khekhtsir ridge. In 1921 he entered the Far Eastern University in Vladivostok. He participated in the Civil War. He was a member of the Amur Partisan Army and the People’s Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic. After the end of the Civil War, he was engaged in party work in Vladivostok, served in state trade bodies. In 1926-1929 he was the first representative of Russia for the management and settlement of Wrangel and Herald Islands. In 1930-1932, together with N. N. Urvantsev, V. V. Khodov and S. P. Zhuravlev, he compiled the first map of the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago, discovered the Shokalsky Strait, a tin ore deposit. The book «On the Untrodden Land» is dedicated to this expedition. He was appointed commissioner of the government commission for the rescue of the crew and passengers of the steamer Chelyuskin, which sank in the Chukchi Sea in 1934. He headed the First High-latitude expedition of the Main Sea Route on the icebreaking steamer «Sadko» in 1935. He set a world record for free swimming in the Arctic Circle (82°4’s). He discovered Ushakov Island. In 1936-1939 he was the first Head of the established Main Directorate of the Hydrometeorological Service of the USSR under the SNK of the USSR. Georgy Alekseevich Ushakov was one of the founders of the Institute of Oceanology of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He also acted as the initiator of the conversion of the ship «Equator» («Mars») to the world-famous scientific vessel «Vityaz». He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Star.
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