How Antarctica was discovered message. Who discovered the continent of Antarctica: the world of ice

Antarctica is an entire continent located in the very south of the Earth. Its center almost coincides with the south pole. Washed by the Southern Ocean. The area of ​​the entire continent is 14.4 thousand square kilometers. The territory of Antarctica also includes islands located in the waters of the Southern Ocean.

Who discovered Antarctica?

In 1820, on January 16, two boats named “Vostok” and “Mirny” landed on the coast of Antarctica. It was an expedition led by Thaddeus Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev. They are considered the official discoverers of Antarctica. After this expedition, the existence of a sixth continent was confirmed. Previously, its presence was assumed hypothetically. And it was often associated with South America. But after an expedition of Russian scientists who circumnavigated the globe through the ice of the south pole, accurate evidence was established of the existence of a continent at the south pole of the Earth. Bellingshausen and Lazarev approached the glaciers. And the first people to descend on the continental part of Antarctica were the captain of the Antarctic ship, Christensen, and natural science teacher Karsten Borchgrevink.

American Antarctic explorer Richard Byrd wrote in 1947: “ On the edge of our planet lies, like a sleeping princess, a land covered in blue. Ominous and beautiful, she lies in her frosty slumber, in the folds of the mantle of snow, glowing with amethysts and emeralds of ice. She sleeps in the shimmer of the icy halos of the Moon and the Sun, and her horizons are painted with pink, blue, gold and green pastel tones... This is Antarctica - a continent almost equal in area South America, the inner regions of which are actually known to us less than the illuminated side of the Moon».

The very first guesses about the existence of a continent at the south pole were made in 1501-1502. The expedition led by Amerigo Vespucci, the purpose of which was to explore the southern latitudes, reached the island of South Georgia. It is located quite far from Antarctica. Vespucci later wrote about the reason for the return of the expedition: “ The cold was so strong that none of our flotilla could bear it».

The voyage of the expedition under the leadership of Bellingshausen and Lazarev lasted 751 days. The distance traveled by “Vostok” and “Mirny” was 100 thousand kilometers. This distance is equal to two and a half revolutions of the Earth along the equator. As a result of the expedition, 29 new islands were mapped. These studies marked the beginning of a long journey of exploration of the new sixth continent, an unknown southern land Antarctica.

A little about Antarctica:

Antarctica is the most high continent on the ground. Average height above sea level is more than 2 thousand meters. In the center of the continent, the height reaches 4 thousand meters. Antarctica is divided into two parts by the Trans Antarctic Mountains. They cross the entire length of Antarctica. Thus, Antarctica is divided into East and West. The entire continent is covered by a large ice sheet, and only some parts of the Trans Antarctic Mountains are ice-free. The most high point Antarctica is 5140 meters above sea level. This is the Vinson Massif in the Ellsworth Mountains. The most low point, which is 2555 meters below sea level, is located in the Bentley Deep.

The discovery of Antarctica led humanity to realize that the planet on which it lives is fraught with enormous secrets and unresolved questions. Interest in the study of southern latitudes is growing every year. This is due not only to the originality of the continent and its topography, but also to the ozone hole that appears annually over Antarctica in September-October.

"Everyone knows from childhood that such and such is impossible. But there is always an ignoramus who does not know this. He makes the discovery"(Albert Einstein)

In 2015, it was exactly 195 years since Russian navigators Admiral Thaddeus Bellingshausen and Admiral Mikhail Lazarev discovered the last continent - Antarctica.


Latest of the Greats geographical discoveries happened in 1820, January 16, or 28 - according to the new style: on this day the ships "Mirny" and "Vostok" approached uncharted land.

Discoverers of Antarctica

Today Antarctica is a whole “list of lands”, by the names of which one can judge who discovered Antarctica for a long time after Russian navigators. Each new or new discoverers gave the explored area a name.

Thus, Adélie Land is an administrative (by claim) district of France, a section of the mainland discovered by Jules Dumont d’Urville in 1837 and named by the traveler in honor of his beloved wife Adélie.

Victoria Land is claimed by two states at once - New Zealand and Australia, and the site was discovered and explored in 1841 by the British Sir James Clark Ross, a rear admiral since 1856. The brave sailor dedicated his discovery to Queen Victoria.

Queen Maud Land is the territory claimed by Norway (the site is named after the Norwegian queen), Queen Mary Land is Australia, Mary Byrd Land is the only one without territorial claims, and it received its name after the wife of Richard Burle, an American aviator who was the first in 1929 was able to fly an airplane over the South Pole.

Since December 1, 1959, when the Antarctic Treaty was concluded, all claims to ownership of the lands of Antarctica have been frozen indefinitely, and the mainland itself and the adjacent islands have been declared a zone free of nuclear weapons and intended for peaceful research for the benefit of all mankind.

Odyssey of Lazarev and Bellingshausen

The last great discovery before the discovery of Antarctica occurred in 1606: the world learned about Australia.
Thaddeus Faddeevich Bellingshausen. Wikimedia Commons / Svetlana Nik ()
However, the suspicion that further, to the south, there was something else, an unknown rich land, lived in the minds of people. But for more than three centuries, the island of South Georgia was the far south for travelers.

In 1601, A. Vespucci swam to it. James Cook followed in the footsteps of Vespucci “for a new continent”, discovering the island of South Thule and the islands of Sandwich Land. Briton W. Smith discovered the South Shetland Islands in search of gold.

In 1819, the Russian Maritime Ministry received a letter of appeal from Admiral Ivan Kruzenshtern, who wrote about the urgent need to equip expeditions to the poles - the South and North.

"Through Ice and Despair"

Already on July 15, the sloops of the First Russian Antarctic Expedition, led by Captain Bellingshausen, left the Kronstadt fortress. In November they were off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, from where they sailed towards South Georgia, reaching it in December.

Further, moving in a southern direction, the expedition discovered Annenkov Island - it was named so in honor of Lieutenant Mikhail Annenkov, who was part of the expedition, because the lieutenant made the discovery.

Behind Annenkov Island there were others - Leskov, Zavadovsky. The group was named after the Minister of the Navy Traverse. The next rocky island group on the way was called the Candlemas Islands.
Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev. Engraving by P.F. Borel, from a drawing by I. Thomson (1834)
The water road to the south became increasingly difficult. The water, as far as the eye could see, was filled with thick broken ice. Avoiding the ice porridge, the sloops turned north several times, but did not give up.

In 1820, on January 27, the ships crossed the line of the Antarctic Circle. Continuing to sail, the ships found themselves among “hardened ice of extreme heights,” which seemed to stretch indefinitely... Before the brave sailors lay the ice sheet of Antarctica.

The sloops did not reach only three kilometers to the northeastern Antarctic ledge - only 110 years later the Norwegians would see it and, according to the established local tradition, would call it the Princess Martha Coast.

February 1820 - the expedition leaves for the Indian Ocean. Then follow two more unsuccessful attempts to break through solid ice and a stop in the Australian Port Jackson (modern Sydney), where they dropped anchor in April.

29 new islands and only one mainland...

In November, the odyssey to the South Pole continued. In January 1821, researchers also saw an island, which they named after the great pioneer, craftsman and sailor Peter I. It can be assumed that the crews thereby trusted his patronage, the lucky “Peter’s Star”.

On January 28, 1821, the sloops observed the coast, mountainous and extending beyond the visible. They called the coast the Land of Alexander I. This discovery dispelled the last doubts that Antarctica is a continent, and not just an icy shell of the pole.


In February, the Vostok was damaged, and a small flotilla - via Rio de Janeiro, then Lisbon - sailed to Kronstadt. In August 1821, sailors set foot on native land.

The Arctic odyssey lasted 751 days. Sloops and people traveled over 92,000 kilometers. Russian navigators discovered 29 islands and only one continent - Antarctica.

January 28, 1820 (January 16, old style) went down in history as the day of the discovery of the sixth continent - Antarctica. The honor of its discovery belongs to the Russian round-the-world naval expedition led by Thaddeus Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev.

At the beginning of the 19th century. ships of the Russian fleet made a number of trips around the world. These expeditions enriched world science with major geographical discoveries, especially in the Pacific Ocean. However, the vast expanses of the Southern Hemisphere still remained a “blank spot” on the map. The question of the existence of Southern mainland.

In July 1819, after long and very careful preparation, a south polar expedition set out from Kronstadt on a long voyage, consisting of two military sloops - “Vostok” and “Mirny”. The first was commanded by Thaddeus Faddeevich Bellingshausen, the second by Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev.

The Maritime Ministry appointed Captain Bellingshausen, who already had extensive experience in long-distance sea voyages, as head of the expedition. The expedition was tasked with penetrating as far south as possible in order to finally resolve the question of the existence of the Southern Continent.

In the large English port of Portsmouth, Bellingshausen stayed for almost a month to replenish provisions, purchase chronometers and various seafaring instruments.

At the beginning of autumn, with a fair wind, the ships headed across Atlantic Ocean to the shores of Brazil. From the very first days of the voyage, scientific observations were made, which Bellingshausen and his assistants carefully and in detail recorded in the logbook. After 21 days of sailing, the sloops approached the island of Tenerife.

The ships crossed the equator, and soon approached Brazil and anchored in Rio de Janeiro. Having stocked up on provisions and checked their chronometers, the ships left the city, heading south to unknown areas of the polar ocean.

At the end of December 1819, the sloops approached the island of South Georgia. The ships slowly moved forward, very carefully maneuvering among the floating ice.

Soon Lieutenant Annenkov discovered and described big Island, which was named after him. On his further journey, Bellingshausen made several attempts to measure the depth of the ocean, but the survey did not reach the bottom. Then the expedition encountered the first floating “ice island.” The further to the south, the more often giant ice mountains - icebergs - began to appear on the way.

At the beginning of January 1820, sailors discovered an unknown island completely covered with snow and ice. The next day, two more islands were seen from the ship. They were also put on the map, named after the expedition members (Leskov and Zavadovsky). Zavadovsky Island turned out to be active volcano more than 350 meters high.

The open group of islands was named in honor of the then Minister of the Navy - the Traverse Islands.

On ships that made long voyages, people usually suffered from lack of fresh fresh water. During this voyage, Russian sailors invented a way to obtain fresh water from the ice of icebergs.

Moving further south, the ships soon again encountered a small group of unknown rocky islands, which they called the Candlemas Islands. Then the expedition approached the Sandwich Islands discovered by the English explorer James Cook. It turned out that Cook mistook the archipelago for one large island. Russian sailors corrected this error on the map.

The whole group open islands Bellingshausen named it the South Sandwich Islands.

At the end of January 1820, sailors saw thick broken ice stretching to the horizon. It was decided to bypass it by turning sharply north. Again the sloops passed the South Sandwich Islands.

The expedition ships crossed the Yuzhny Arctic Circle and on January 28, 1820, reached 69 degrees 25 minutes south latitude. In the foggy haze of a cloudy day, the travelers saw an ice wall blocking their further path to the south. As Lazarev wrote, the sailors “met hardened ice of extreme height... it extended as far as vision could reach.” Moving further to the east and whenever possible trying to turn south, the researchers always encountered an “ice continent”. Russian travelers came less than 3 km to the northeastern protrusion of that section of the coast of Antarctica, which Norwegian whalers saw 110 years later and called Princess Martha Coast.

In February 1820, the sloops entered the Indian Ocean. Trying to break through to the south from this side, they approached the shores of Antarctica two more times. But heavy ice conditions forced the ships to move north again and move east along the ice edge.
March 21, 1820 in Indian Ocean A severe storm broke out and lasted for several days. The exhausted team, straining all their strength, fought against the elements.

In mid-April, the sloop Vostok dropped anchor in the Australian harbor of Port Jackson (now Sydney). Seven days later, the sloop Mirny arrived here. Thus ended the first period of research.

During all the winter months the sloops sailed in the tropical part Pacific Ocean, among the islands of Polynesia. Here the expedition members carried out many important geographical works: they clarified the position of the islands and their outlines, determined the height of the mountains, discovered and mapped 15 islands, which were given Russian names.

Returning to Zhaksoi, the crews of the sloops began to prepare for a new voyage to the polar seas. The preparation took about two months. In mid-November, the expedition set out to sea again, heading southeast. Continuing to sail south, the sloops crossed 60 degrees south latitude. Finally, on January 22, 1821, happiness smiled on the sailors. A black spot appeared on the horizon. The island was named after Peter I.

On January 29, 1821, Bellingshausen wrote: “At 11 o’clock in the morning we saw the shore; its cape, extending to the north, ended high mountain, which is separated by an isthmus from other mountains." Bellingshausen called this land the Coast of Alexander I. The Land of Alexander I has still not been sufficiently explored. But its discovery finally convinced Bellingshausen that the Russian expedition had approached the still unknown Southern continent.

On February 10, 1821, when it became clear that the sloop Vostok had leaked, Bellingshausen turned north and, via Rio de Janeiro and Lisbon, arrived in Kronstadt on August 5, 1821, completing his second circumnavigation.

The expedition members spent 751 days at sea and covered more than 92 thousand kilometers. 29 islands were discovered and one coral reef. The scientific materials she collected made it possible to form the first idea of ​​Antarctica.

Russian sailors not only discovered a huge continent located around the South Pole, but also conducted important research in the field of oceanography. This branch of science was just in its infancy at that time. The discoveries of the expedition turned out to be a major achievement of Russian and world geographical science of that time.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources

This day in history:

On January 28, 1820, Russian navigators Thaddeus Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev discovered new continent- Antarctica. Before the discovery of Antarctica, there was no consensus on the existence of another part of the world. Some scientists argued that in the south there is not a continent, but a continuation of South America.

In addition, a common misconception prevailed, the culprit of which was the famous navigator James Cook. In his trip around the world he came close enough to Antarctica, but saw ice and decided that a further journey was impossible.

In the summer of 1819, the First Russian Antarctic Expedition began, the main task of which was precisely the search for a new continent or the final refutation of its existence.

Makar Ratmanov was initially expected to be the leader of the expedition, but due to health problems he was unable to take command, and the position went to Thaddeus Bellingshausen, a native of the Baltic Germans, who had already taken part in the first Russian circumnavigation of the world.

The expedition consisted of two sloops, Vostok and Mirny, Russian and British built. The Mirny was commanded by Mikhail Lazarev, who also had experience in circumnavigation.

In July 1819, two ships left Kronstadt and headed south. On January 28 of the following year, the sailors reached the ice of Antarctica at a point that is now called the Bellingshausen Glacier (see route).

They did not try to land on the shore - after passing by, the researchers headed to Australia, and then returned with the onset of the Antarctic summer, in more favorable weather. On the way, the sailors discovered about 30 new islands - and, of course, a new continent, circumnavigating Antarctica and thus proving that it is a separate continent.

Bellingshausen and Lazarev

The expedition returned to Kronstadt two years later, in July 1821. Emperor Alexander I himself took part in the solemn meeting of the ships in the port.

The sailors were given numerous awards. Both officers were promoted to two ranks at once and subsequently occupied the highest positions. Bellingshausen rose to the rank of admiral, received many orders, during the Russian-Turkish War he commanded the Guards crew and eventually became the military governor-general of Kronstadt.

Mikhail Lazarev also rose to the rank of admiral and commanded for 17 years Black Sea Fleet- at that time the main naval force of Russia. After him, no admiral held this post for so long.

Antarctica became the last continent to be marked on the geographical map of the world. Its large-scale study began almost a century later, when technological progress allowed researchers to survive in the harsh polar climate.

DISCOVERY OF ANTARCTICA:

Thaddeus Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev

“On the edge of our planet lies, like a sleeping princess, a land clad in blue. Ominous and beautiful, she lies in her frosty slumber, in the folds of the mantle of snow, glowing with amethysts and emeralds of ice.

It sleeps in the shimmering icy halos of the Moon and the Sun, and its horizons are painted with pink, blue, gold and green pastel tones... This is Antarctica - a continent almost equal in area to South America, the interior of which is actually known to us less than the illuminated side of the Moon "

This is what the American Antarctic explorer Richard Byrd wrote in 1947. At that time, scientists had just begun the systematic study of the sixth continent - the most mysterious and harsh region of the globe.

The final, reliable discovery of Antarctica dates back to 1820. Previously, people only assumed that it existed. The very first guesses arose from the participants of the Portuguese expedition of 1501 - 1502, in which the Florentine traveler Amerigo Vespucci took part (his name, thanks to a bizarre coincidence, was subsequently immortalized in the names of huge continents). But the expedition was unable to advance further than the island of South Georgia, which lies quite far from the Antarctic continent.

“The cold was so strong that none of our flotilla could bear it,” Vespucci testified.

But he was forced to limit himself to only an assumption: “I will not deny that there may be a continent or significant land near the pole. On the contrary, I am convinced that such a land exists, and it is possible that we have seen part of it. Great cold, a huge number of ice islands and floating ice - all this proves that the land in the south must be...”

He even wrote a special treatise, “Arguments for the existence of land near the South Pole.”

However, the honor of discovering the sixth continent fell to Russian navigators. Two names are forever inscribed in the history of geographical discoveries: Thaddeus Faddeevich Bellingshausen (1778-1852) and Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev (1788-1851).

Bellingshausen was born in 1778 on the island of Saaremaa (now the territory of Estonia) in the Baltic Sea, and received his education in the Naval Cadet Corps.

From early childhood he dreamed of the sea. “I was born in the middle of the sea,” he wrote, “just as a fish cannot live without water, so I cannot live without the sea.” In 1803-1806, Bellingshausen took part in the first Russian trip around the world on the ship Nadezhda under the leadership of Ivan Kruzenshtern.

Lazarev was ten years younger, having completed three trips around the world in his entire life. In 1827 he took part in the naval battle of Navarino against the Turks; later, for almost 20 years, he commanded the Black Sea Fleet.

Among Lazarev's students were outstanding Russian naval commanders Vladimir Kornilov, Pavel Nakhimov, Vladimir Istomin.

Fate brought Bellingshausen and Lazarev together in 1819, the Naval Ministry planned an expedition to the high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere. The two well-equipped ships had a difficult journey ahead of them. One of them, the sloop "Vostok", was commanded by Bellingshausen, the other, named "Mirny", was commanded by Lazarev. Many decades later, the first Soviet Antarctic stations would be named after these ships.

On July 16, 1819, the expedition set sail. Its goal was formulated briefly: discoveries “in the possible vicinity of the Antarctic Pole.” The navigators were instructed to explore South Georgia and Sandwich Land (now the South Sandwich Islands, once discovered by Cook) and “continue their research to the remotest latitude that can be reached,” using “all possible diligence and the greatest effort to reach as close to the pole as possible, looking for unknown land."

The instructions were written in “high calm,” but no one knew how it could be implemented in practice. However, luck favored Vostok and Mirny. The island of South Georgia was described in detail; It was established that Sandwich Land is not one island, but an entire archipelago, and Bellingshausen named the largest island of the archipelago Cook Island. The first instructions in the instructions were fulfilled.

Endless expanses of ice were already visible on the horizon; along their edge the ships continued their journey from west to east. On January 27, 1820, they crossed the Antarctic Circle and the next day came close to the ice barrier of the Antarctic continent.

Only more than 100 years later, these places were visited again by Norwegian explorers of Antarctica: they called them Princess Martha Coast.

On January 28, Bellingshausen wrote in his diary: “Continuing our way south, at noon in latitude 6°21"28", longitude 2°14"50", we encountered ice that appeared to us through the falling snow in the form of white clouds.”

Having traveled another two miles to the southeast, the expedition found itself in “solid ice”; “an ice field dotted with mounds” stretched around.

Lazarev's ship was in conditions of much better visibility. The captain observed “hardened (i.e., very powerful, solid) ice of extreme height,” and “it extended as far as vision could reach.” This ice was part of the Antarctic ice sheet. And January 28, 1820 went down in history as the date of the discovery of the Antarctic continent. Two more times (February 2 and 17), the Vostok and Mirny came close to the shores of Antarctica.

The instructions prescribed to “search for unknown lands,” but even the most determined of its compilers could not foresee such an amazing implementation.

Winter was approaching in the Southern Hemisphere. Having shifted to the north, the ships of the expedition plied the waters of the Pacific Ocean in tropical and temperate latitudes.

A year has passed. "Vostok" and "Mirny" again headed for Antarctica; They crossed the Antarctic Circle three times. On January 22, 1821, an unknown island appeared before the eyes of travelers.

Bellingshausen called it the island of Peter I - “the high name of the culprit of existence in Russian Empire navy." January 28 - exactly one year has passed since historical event- in cloudless, sunny weather, the crews of the ships observed the mountainous coast, stretching to the south beyond the limits of visibility.

On geographical maps Land of Alexander I first appeared. Now there is no longer any doubt: Antarctica is not just a giant ice massif, not an “ice continent,” as Bellingshausen called it in his report, but a real “earthly” continent.

However, he himself never spoke about the discovery of the mainland. And this is not a matter of false modesty: he understood what to do final conclusions it is possible only by “stepping overboard the ship” and conducting research on the shore. F. Bellingshausen could not even form an approximate idea of ​​the size or outline of the continent. This took many decades.

Completing their “odyssey,” the expedition examined in detail the South Shetland Islands, about which previously it was only known that the Englishman W. Smith observed them in 1818. The islands were described and mapped. Many of Bellingshausen's companions took part in the Patriotic War of 1812.

Therefore, in memory of her battles, individual islands received appropriate names: Borodino, Maloyaroslavets, Smolensk, Berezina, Leipzig, Waterloo.

However, they were later renamed by English sailors, which seems unfair. By the way, at Waterloo ( modern name his - King George) in 1968 the northernmost Soviet scientific station in Antarctica - Bellingshausen.

The voyage of the Russian ships lasted 751 days, and its length was almost 100 thousand km (the same amount would be obtained if you circled the Earth along the equator two and a quarter times).

29 new islands were charted. Thus began the chronicle of the study and development of Antarctica, in which the names of researchers from many countries are inscribed.

At the beginning of the 19th century, there were conflicting legends about this continent. The first guesses about the existence of a mysterious continent dawned on travelers on the expedition of Amerigo Vespucci back in 1502.

But the cold stopped the Portuguese sailors many miles from the expected mainland. James Cook penetrated further into Antarctic waters than others, but he was also stopped by great frosts. Cook believed in the existence of Antarctica.

Thaddeus Faddeevich Bellingshausen was born on the island of Ezel, into a noble German family. There were many of them in Russian service - glorious Ostsey (Baltic) Germans.

At birth, the future sea pioneer had a name that was unusual for Russian ears: Fabian Gottlieb Thaddeus von Bellingshausen. Nowadays, the island of Ezel is called Saaremaa and is located in Estonia. There were serious battles there during the First and Second World Wars.

Bellingshausen could not imagine any other calling for himself than naval service. “I was born at the sea, the sea is my whole life,” was the captain’s credo.

Bellingshausen took part in the first Russian trip around the world - and gained the trust of Krusenstern. But he was not seen as the leader of the first Antarctic expedition.

Idea sea ​​travel the idea of ​​going to the South Pole had been in the air for a long time, but only at the beginning of 1819 did Russian sailors turn to the government with a detailed plan for the expedition.

Emperor Alexander I approved the idea. He was not a fleet enthusiast, but in this endeavor he saw a continuation of the great deeds of Peter. And the plan was not shelved; they got down to business energetically.

Who should be appointed as the boss? Kruzenshtern was going to entrust this mission to Vasily Golovnin, but during the preparation of the expedition Golovnin was on a trip around the world.

The candidacy of Bellingshausen arose, but the government proposed Makar Ivanovich Ratmanov, a famous brave man and experienced captain.

But it was then that Ratmanov suffered a shipwreck, returning to his homeland from a voyage to Spain. He had to stay in a Danish hospital. So Bellingshausen stood at the head of the expedition, dreaming of discovering the mysterious continent.

We approached preparation thoroughly, although we did not avoid mistakes. The sloops were built according to the designs of Russian engineers. The craftsmen thoroughly strengthened them in case of a possible fight with ice.

The restructuring of the ships was led by Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev, the second captain, the second man in the expedition. Lazarev recruited the team, meticulously checking experienced sailors. The best went on the expedition.

The sloop “Vostok” was commanded by Bellingshausen, the other sloop, which was called “Mirny”, was commanded by Lazarev. It truly was a peaceful mission that required dedication and courage from the participants. Many years later, the first Soviet Antarctic stations would be named after these ships. “Vostok” showed itself to be a faster ship, “Mirny” was more reliable and required repairs much less often.

The ministerial instructions instructed Bellingshausen not just to step into the unknown, but to record all observations: “Try to write down everything in order to communicate this to future readers of your journey.” Quite a suitable program for the sons of the Age of Enlightenment.

In August the ships headed to the Atlantic. On November 2, we dropped anchor in Rio and rested for three weeks in Brazil. We replenished supplies and repaired the sloops. And - the ocean again.

In mid-December, Bellingshausen and Lazarev saw the islands discovered by Cook - primarily South Georgia. From there we went to Sandwich land. Icebergs appeared. It became frosty - like winter in the Russian north.

It was then that they refuted Cook's assumption, who stated: “The risk involved in sailing these unexplored and ice-covered seas in search of the Southern Continent is so great that I can safely say that no man will ever venture further south than this.” how did I succeed."

In the last days of 1819, Russian ships were already making their way through the ice - to the South, to the South! On January 15, they crossed the southern polar circle.

On January 22, 1821, an unknown island appeared before the eyes of travelers. Bellingshausen called it the island of Peter I - “the high name of the culprit behind the existence of the military fleet in the Russian Empire.”

Finally, on January 28 (16th old style), the sailors saw a bright strip of solid ice and at first mistook it for a bank of clouds. No one had seen this picture before: Antarctica! Bellingshausen led the ships along the ice mass. He was not yet sure that the mainland was in front of him.

"Here, beyond the ice fields fine ice and islands a continent of ice is visible, the edges of which are broken off perpendicularly and which continues as we see, rising to the south like a shore. The flat ice islands located near this continent clearly show that they are fragments of this continent, for they have edges and an upper surface similar to the mainland,” wrote Thaddeus Faddeevich.

They walked for a long time along the icy shores - towards danger. New islands were discovered and explanations were given for natural phenomena. The name of Emperor Alexander the First was also immortalized. The existence of Antarctica has been proven.

A remarkable scientist, at that time still a young astronomer, Ivan Mikhailovich Simonov, took part in the expedition. He stoically endured all the hardships of the journey. During the voyage, within a year and a half, Simonov became a competent sailor. He was the first to establish that the Earth's South Magnetic Pole is located at 76° south latitude and 142.5° east longitude - for that time these were accurate data. He will continue his research at Kazan University; the experience of the expedition will be useful to him for the rest of his life.

The voyage lasted 751 days. “Vostok” and “Mirny” covered almost 50 thousand miles.

Bellingshausen showed unprecedented determination: he went towards the cold, did not take into account the warnings of Cook and other predecessors. At that time it was an unheard of dangerous journey. Wooden sloops had to maneuver in the fog among ice and icebergs.

Experienced sailors said that Bellingshausen and Lazarev were accompanied by the blessing of the Lord. They went through all the troubles with minimal losses, achieved the most daring goal - and returned alive. This was perceived as a miracle.

This was a miracle - bold but prudent navigation. Two captains, two outstanding naval commanders, they knew how to tame ambition for the common cause. How often do contradictions between commanders appear during campaigns, how often does this interfere with success? Bellingshausen and Lazarev worked in concert.

Russian ships circumnavigated the entire Antarctic continent. Dozens of new islands were discovered and mapped, and unique natural science and ethnographic collections were collected, which are stored at Kazan University. Excellent sketches of Antarctic species and the animals living there were made.

The harshest continent on earth has become related to Russia. It was in Antarctica, at the Soviet Vostok station, that on July 21, 1983, scientists noted the lowest air temperature on Earth in the entire history of meteorological measurements: 89.2 degrees below zero.

Thaddeus Bellingshausen completed his major work “Twice explorations in the Arctic Ocean and sailing around the world on the sloops Vostok and Mirny...” Thaddeus Bellingshausen finished in 1824, but had to wait seven years for publication. The book was translated into several languages, it aroused the admiration of specialists, and has been republished more than once in our time.

Bellingshausen will finish his service with the rank of admiral, in the post of military governor-general of Kronstadt. Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev would also rise to the rank of admiral, become commander of the Black Sea Fleet, and train a galaxy of outstanding naval commanders: Nakhimov, Kornilov, Putyatin.

And yet, the finest hour of both outstanding navigators was precisely January 1820, the blinding ice of the mysterious continent. A discovery that is not subject to cancellation or revision. The names of the heroes are forever written in the ice. They were far ahead of their time: attempts to explore Antarctica will begin only in 70 - 75 years!

The bicentenary of the glorious expedition, which is associated with perhaps the most famous of Russian geographical discoveries, is just around the corner.

There is still no worthy feature film about the exploits of Columbus in Antarctica, but a short cartoon from 1972 based on the script by Leonid Zavalnyuk, in which an old sailor tells the children about the expedition of Bellingshausen and Lazarev, remains in my memory.

There are also good children's books about brave travelers. This means that the memory of the pioneering sailors lives on for generations.