Alexander Kuchin
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Aleksandr Kuchin | |
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| Born | 1888 |
| Died | c. 1913 (aged 24–25) |
| Occupation | Oceanographer |
Alexander Stepanovich Kuchin (Russian: Александр Степанович Кучин; 28 September 1888 in
Background
Hailing from a humble background, Alexander Kuchin became a seaman in a Norwegian ship already when he was seventeen. The young man loved the Norwegian language, which he mastered in one year.
In 1907 Alexander Kuchin worked in
In 1910–1911, Alexander Kuchin was the only foreigner on Amundsen's expedition to the South Pole on the Fram. He made numerous observations in the Southern Atlantic as an oceanographer and navigator. After his return to Norway, in December 1911, Alexander Kuchin was engaged to 18-year-old Aslaug Paulson, the daughter of Andreas Paulson, a prominent Norwegian journalist.
In 1912, Kuchin returned to Russia, where he joined Vladimir Rusanov's expedition as captain of the ship Gerkules to Svalbard. This expedition's goal was to investigate the coal potential of the Archipelago. He sailed from Aleksandrovsk-na-Murmane (now Polyarnyy, near Murmansk) on 26 June. The personnel consisted of thirteen men and one woman, Rusanov's French fiancée. Apart from Rusanov there was another geologist and a zoologist.
Disappearance
At the end of a very successful summer's field work, three members of the expedition (the geologist, the zoologist and the ship's bosun) returned to Russia via
The last to be heard of Rusanov's expedition was a telegram left at
In 1914–15 the almost impossible task of searching for Rusanov's expedition (as well as for similarly disappeared Captain Brusilov from another expedition), was entrusted to Otto Sverdrup with the ship Eklips. His efforts, however, were unsuccessful.
In 1937, the
Two small islets off Salisbury Island in Franz Josef Land have been named after Alexander Kuchin. Aslaug Paulson, Alexander Kuchin's Norwegian fiancée, died in 1987.
Works
- "Малый русско-норвежский словарь" ("Small Russian–Norwegian dictionary"), 1907
See also
- List of people who disappeared at sea
References
- William Barr, Otto Sverdrup to the rescue of the Russian Imperial Navy.
- S2CID 131293842.
- Biographical data
External links
- Contains an elegy to the lost captain in Russian Archived 29 January 2010 at the Wayback Machine
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