Salt composition of the East Siberian Sea. East Siberian Sea in Russia

This sea is located in the region of the Arctic Ocean, where the influence of the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean is no longer felt at all and does not yet reach the influence Pacific Ocean. It can be called the most severe northern sea.
Occupying an area of ​​936 thousand square kilometers, it is relatively shallow - its average depth does not reach 50 meters, and its maximum depth is 155 meters.

On the map of the Arctic Ocean, you can see the East Siberian Sea.

Depths that do not exceed the average occupy more than 70% of the sea area. From the west, it borders on the Laptev Sea, on the east - on the Chukchi Sea, on the north - on the Arctic basin of the ocean. The coastal zone of the southern part of the sea is not as strongly indented as that of neighboring seas, only a few flowing rivers, and bays diversify the coastline a little.

In the western part the coast is low, in the east (from the Kolyma River) it is mountainous, sometimes steep. The East Siberian Sea is rich in islands. Here are the Novosibirsk (on the border with the Laptev Sea) islands, Bear, Aion, Shalaurova. Many of these islands are made up of sand and fossil ice and are therefore subject to erosion.
Of the large rivers flowing into its waters, Kolyma, Indigirka, Alazeya should be noted.
The tides are low, but wind drifts in bays and bays can reach 2 meters in height.

Climate East Siberian Sea arctic. Here, almost all year round, the air temperature is below zero, the surface of the sea is covered with drifting ice, the thickness of which can reach several meters. Only in its western part, during the warm season, a coastal strip of several tens of kilometers is formed, free from floating ice. In the east, ice covers the sea for almost the entire year.
Even if you find yourself in these parts in the summer, under the roof of some house, you involuntarily think of a warm fireplace - a saving and cozy source of heat in the most severe climatic conditions.

The bottom is formed by sandy, silty-sandy and silty deposits. In many places there are plateaus of fossil ice.

The severity of the climate could not but leave an imprint on the development of life in the waters of the East Siberian Sea. Only the most resistant to low temperatures forms of fauna and flora have taken root here. However, the species composition differs little from the neighboring Laptev Sea, but the quantitative composition is somewhat poorer. All the same microscopic organisms and phytoalgae, mainly diatoms, occasionally brown and red algae are found in the coastal zone of the western part of the sea.
Bottom living creatures are also poorer than in neighboring seas. Here it is very rare to find some species of crustaceans, worms, coelenterates, echinoderms and molluscs.

Fish are represented by the indigenous inhabitants of the northern seas - European smelt, capelin, cod and herring, and some species of bottom fish. In the coastal zone at the mouths of the inflowing rivers, you can find valuable fish of the salmon, whitefish and sturgeon families, which come here from the rivers and do not move far to the north. Many islands are chosen by sea birds - bird colonies, typical of the coasts of the northern seas, are often found here.

Mammals are represented by beluga whales, seals, walruses and cetaceans, mainly minke whales. As in all coastal northern seas of Eurasia, walruses are harvested in the Kara Sea, but only for the needs of the local population, since walruses have been taken under state protection since 1956. present here and polar bear- a semi-marine mammal. On the shores, you can also meet smaller predators - arctic foxes, sea otters, who arrived for food.

There is no information about sharks living in the waters of the East Siberian Sea. It can be assumed that there is a frequenter of the Arctic waters here - a polar shark. This fish, reaching a length of 6 meters, almost never appears on the surface of the sea, preferring to stay in the middle layers of the water. According to its diet, the polar shark is a generalist. She can eat the smallest organisms, and fish trifles, and the remains of animals. It does not attack active prey, as it is itself an extremely slow predator, as, indeed, are most Arctic giants.

We can confidently say that bathers in the East Siberian Sea are not in danger of suffering from the teeth of man-eating sharks.

In the first half of the 17th century, the Cossacks who mastered Kolyma and Indigirka went downstream, went out to sea and went to Taimyr, where they reached the Yenisei, on the banks of which they hunted, by drag. This is confirmed by the decree of 1638 to the Yakut governor: “Take care so that no one crosses the trade and industrial people from the Kolyma, Indigirka, Lena rivers to Pyasina and Lower Tunguska.”
The first exploratory voyage in the historical era was made by the Yakut Cossack Mikhailo Stadukhin in 1644. His detachment built a ship (koch) on the Indigirka, went down to the mouth and reached the Kolyma by sea, where Stadukhin founded the Nizhnekolymsky prison. In 1645, Stadukhin returned by sea to Lena, from where he began his campaign.

Stadukhin's assistant Semyon Dezhnev 5 in June 1648 on 7 koches passed the entire eastern part of the sea from the mouth of the Kolyma and further through the Long Strait and the Bering Strait to the Gulf of Anadyr, where he founded the city of Anadyr. Thus, in 1648 the possibility of through navigation along the entire coast of the East Siberian Sea was shown.

The mainland shores of the sea were described in the first half of the 18th century by the Great Northern Expedition. were discovered by 1811: the Big and Small Lyakhovsky Islands in 1712 by Mercury Vagin and Yakov Permyakov, the Anjou Islands later - about. Boiler house in 1773 by Ivan Lyakhov, its Faddeevsky peninsula in 1805 by Yakov Sannikov, Fr. New Siberia in 1806 by the fishermen of the merchants Syrovatsky, Bunge Land in 1811 by Sannikov. The coast from the mouth of the Kolyma to Cape Shelagsky was described in 1820 by Ferdinand Wrangel, who in 1821 mapped the Bear Islands. The Chanu Bay was described in 1822 by Wrangel's assistant Fyodor Matyushkin8, the coast from Cape Shelagsky to the Chukchi Sea - by Wrangel in 1823. All these discoveries were made not on ships, but on sleds. In 1823, Wrangel heard a story from the Chukchi about big island in the north (), where storms sometimes carried away fishing boats.

Vilkitsky Island, the death of the ship "Hoarfrost", the crew escaped

The average depth is 66 meters, the greatest is 155 meters. Most of the year the sea is covered with ice. Salinity from 5 ‰ - near the mouths of the rivers to 30 ‰ - in the north.
Rivers flow into the sea: Indigirka, Kolyma.
There are several bays on the coast of the sea: Chaunskaya Bay, Omulyakhskaya Bay, Khromskaya Bay, Kolyma Bay, Kolyma Bay.
Large, Lyakhovsky, De Long Islands. There are no islands in the center of the sea.
Fishing for walrus, seal; fishing.
The main port is Pevek, the Ambarchik bay is also used.

East Siberian Sea Bennett Island, Cross in honor of the 100th anniversary of Kolchak's expedition

The sea lies on the shelf.
In the eastern part, the depths reach up to 54 meters, in the western and central parts - 20 meters, in the north they reach up to 200 meters (this depth is taken as the isobath - the boundary of the sea). The maximum depth is 915 meters.

Almost the whole year the sea is covered with ice. In the eastern part of the sea, even in summer, floating multi-year ice. From the coast, they can be driven north by winds from the mainland.
Ice drifts in a northwesterly direction as a result of water circulation under the influence of anticyclones near the North Pole. After the weakening of the anticyclone, the area of ​​cyclonic circulation increases and multi-year ice enters the sea.

Sea water temperatures are low, in the north they are close to -1.8 °C both in winter and in summer. To the south, in summer, the temperature rises in the upper layers to 5 °C. At the edge of the ice fields, the temperature is 1-2 °C. Maximum values the water temperature reaches by the end of summer in the mouths of the rivers (up to 7 °C).
The salinity of the water is different in the western and eastern parts of the sea. In the eastern part of the sea near the surface, it is usually about 30 ppm. River runoff in the eastern part of the sea leads to a decrease in salinity to 10-15 ppm, and in the mouths of large rivers to almost zero. Near ice fields, salinity increases to 30 ppm. With depth, salinity rises to 32 ppm.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, the sea was called differently, including Kolyma, Indigirskoe.

Indigirskaya Bay, the mouth of the Indigirka East Siberian Sea

GEOGRAPHY OF THE EAST SIBERIAN SEA
The name itself indicates that the sea washes northern shores Eastern Siberia. It is partly limited by natural boundaries, and in many places by imaginary lines. Its western border runs from the point of intersection of the meridian of the northern tip of about. Boiler house with the edge of the continental shoal (79°N, 139°E) to the northern tip of this island (Cape Anisii), then along its western coast and further along the eastern border of the Laptev Sea. The northern boundary runs along the edge of the continental shelf from the point with coordinates 79°N. sh., 139 ° in. to the point with coordinates 76° N. latitude, 180° east etc., and the eastern border - from the point with these coordinates along the meridian 180 ° then along its northwest coast to Cape Blossom and further to Cape Yakan on the mainland. The southern border runs along the mainland coast from Cape Yakan to Cape Svyatoy Nos (the western border of the Dmitry Laptev and Sannikov Straits).

By geographical position and hydrological conditions, different from the ocean with which the sea freely communicates, it belongs to the type of continental marginal seas. Within the accepted boundaries, the East Siberian Sea has the following dimensions: area 913 thousand km2, volume 49 thousand km3, average depth 54 m, maximum depth 915 m.

The sea is poor in islands. The coastline of the East Siberian Sea forms large bends, in some places going deep into the land, in some places protruding into the sea, between which there are sections with a flat coastline. Small meanders are rare and are usually confined to the mouths of rivers. By the nature of the landscapes, the western part of the coast of the East Siberian Sea differs sharply from the eastern part. In the area from to the mouth of the Kolyma, the banks are monotonous. Here the swampy tundra approaches the sea. The shores are low and gently sloping. The eastern Kolyma coast becomes mountainous, and its dull monotony ends. From the mouth of the Kolyma to about. Aion directly to the water approach low hills, abruptly breaking off in some places. The Chaun Bay is framed by low, but steep, even banks. Different in relief and structure, the coast of the sea in different areas refers to different morphological types of coasts (). The underwater relief of the shelf that forms the bed of this sea, in in general terms is a plain sloping from the southwest to the northeast. The bottom of the sea does not have significant depressions and elevations. Depths up to 20–25 m predominate. To the northeast of the mouths of the Indigirka and Kolyma, on seabed relatively deep gutters are marked (). It is believed that these are traces of ancient river valleys, now flooded by the sea. The area of ​​shallow depths in the western part of the sea forms the Novosibirsk shoal. The greatest depths are concentrated in the northeastern part of the sea, but nowhere do they exceed 100 m. A sharp increase in depth occurs in the range from 100 to 200 m.

Cape Shelagsky East Siberian Sea

SEA CLIMATE
Located in high latitudes, near permanent ice Arctic basin and the vast Asian continent, the East Siberian Sea is characterized by a certain climatic feature: it is located in the zone of contact between the atmospheric action of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In the western part of the sea, although rarely, cyclones of Atlantic origin still penetrate, and in its eastern regions- Pacific. All this characterizes the climate of the East Siberian Sea as polar maritime, but with a significant influence of the continent. Its main features are clearly seen in winter and summer, and to a lesser extent in transitional seasons, when large-scale baric fields are rearranged and atmospheric processes are unstable.

In winter, the main influence on the sea is exerted by the spur of the Siberian High, which extends to its coast, while the crest of the Polar Anticyclone is less pronounced. In this regard, southwestern and southern winds prevail over the sea at a speed of 6–7 m/s. They bring with them cold air from the continent, so average monthly temperature Air temperature in January stays around -28-30°. Winter is characterized by calm clear weather, which is disturbed on some days by cyclonic intrusions. Atlantic cyclones in the west of the sea cause increased winds and some warming, while Pacific cyclones, which have cold continental air in the rear, only increase wind speed, cloudiness and cause snowstorms in the southeastern part of the sea. In the mountainous areas of the coast, the passage of Pacific cyclones is associated with the formation of a local wind, the foehn. It usually reaches storm strength here, brings with it a slight increase in temperature and a decrease in air humidity.

In summer, the pressure over the mainland of Asia is lowered, and over the sea it is increased, so the northerly winds prevail. At the beginning of the season they are very weak, but during the summer the wind speed gradually increases, reaching an average of 6-7 m/s. By the end of summer, the western part of the East Siberian Sea becomes one of the most stormy sections of the Northern Sea Route. Often the wind blows at a speed of 10-15 m/s. southeastern part the seas are much calmer. The strengthening of the wind here is associated with hair dryers. Steady north and northeast winds cause low air temperatures. The average July temperature is only 0–+1° in the north of the sea and +2–3° in coastal areas. The decrease in temperature from south to north is explained by the cooling effect of ice and the warming effect of the mainland. In summer, over the East Siberian Sea, the weather is mostly cloudy with light drizzle. Sometimes it snows.

Autumn is characterized by an almost complete absence of heat returns, which is explained by the remoteness of the sea from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and, accordingly, their weak influence on atmospheric processes in this season. Relatively cold summers throughout the sea, stormy weather at the end of summer and especially in autumn in the marginal regions of the sea, and calm in its central part are the characteristic climatic features of the sea.

mouth of the Kolyma River in early summer East Siberian Sea

RIVER FLOW
In contrast to the Kara and Laptev Seas, the continental runoff into the East Siberian Sea is relatively small. It is about 250 km3/year, i.e., only 10% of the total river runoff to all Arctic seas. The largest of the rivers flowing into it (Kolyma) produces 132 km3 of water per year, the second largest river (Indigirka) discharges 59 km3 of water per year. All other rivers pour about 35 km3 of water into the sea during the same time. All river water flows into southern part seas, and approximately 90% of the runoff falls, as in other Arctic seas, in the summer months. The low power of the streams does not allow river water to spread far from the mouths even during the maximum runoff. In this regard, with such a vast size of the East Siberian Sea, coastal runoff does not significantly affect its general hydrological regime, but only causes some hydrological features coastal areas in the summer.

The change in water temperature with depth in winter and spring is hardly noticeable. Only near the mouths of large rivers does it decrease from −0.5° in the subglacial horizons to −1.5° near the bottom. In summer, in ice-free spaces, the water temperature drops slightly from the surface to the bottom in the coastal zone in the west of the sea. In its eastern part, the surface temperature is observed in the 3–5 m layer, from where it sharply drops to 5–7 m horizons and then it gradually decreases to the bottom. In the zones of influence of coastal runoff, a uniform temperature covers a layer up to 7-10 m, between horizons of 10-15-20 m it sharply, and then gradually decreases to the bottom. The shallow, slightly warm East Siberian Sea is one of the coldest Arctic seas in our country.

Surface salinity generally increases from southwest to northeast. In winter and spring, it is 4–5‰ near the mouths of the Kolyma and Indigirka, reaches 24–26‰ near the Bear Islands, increases to 28–30‰ in the central regions of the sea, and rises to 31–32‰ at its northern margins. In summer, as a result of the inflow of river waters and the melting of ice, the surface salinity decreases to 18–22‰ in the coastal zone, 20–22‰ near the Bear Islands, and 24–26‰ in the north near the edge of melting ice (see Fig. 26, b).

Salinity increases with depth. In winter, in most of the expanses of the sea, it slightly rises from the surface to the bottom. Only in the northwestern region, where they penetrate ocean waters from the north, salinity increases from 23‰ in the upper layer 10–15 m thick to 30‰ near the bottom. Near the estuarine sections, the upper desalinated layer up to horizons of 10-15 m is underlain by more saline waters. From the end of spring and during the summer, a desalinated layer 20–25 m thick forms in ice-free spaces, in which the salinity increases with depth. Consequently, in shallow areas (down to depths of 20-25 m), freshening covers the entire water column. In deeper areas in the north and east of the sea, at horizons of 5-7-10 m, in some places 10-15 m, salinity increases sharply, and then gradually and slightly rises to the bottom. The horizontal and vertical distribution of salinity in the sea is largely determined by the ice conditions and continental runoff.

Temperature and mainly salinity determine the density of water. In accordance with this, in the autumn-winter season, the water is denser than in spring and summer. The density is greater in the north and east than in the west of the sea, where desalinated waters from the Laptev Sea penetrate. However, these differences are small. Generally density increases with depth. Its vertical distribution is similar to the course of salinity in the water column.

The varying degree of water overdensity in terms of density creates unequal conditions for the development of mixing in different areas of the East Siberian Sea. On relatively weakly stratified and ice-free spaces strong winds in summer, the water is mixed up to horizons of 20-25 m. Consequently, in areas limited by a depth of 25 m, wind mixing extends to the bottom. In places of sharp stratification of waters in density, wind mixing penetrates only to horizons of 10-15 m, where it is limited by significant vertical density gradients.

Autumn-winter convection in the East Siberian Sea at depths of 40–50 m, which occupy more than 72% of its total area, penetrates to the bottom. By the end of the cold season, the winter vertical circulation extends to horizons of 70–80 m, where it is limited either by the bottom or by the stable density structure of the waters.

Due to the shallow water and the absence of deep trenches extending beyond the northern limits of the East Siberian Sea, the vast majority of its spaces from the surface to the bottom are occupied by surface Arctic waters with the corresponding characteristics. Only in relatively limited estuarine areas is a kind of water formed as a result of mixing river and sea waters. It is characterized by high temperature and low salinity.

Kolyma Bay East Siberian Sea

CURRENTS AND TIDES
Constant currents on the surface of the East Siberian Sea form a weakly expressed cyclonic circulation (see Fig. 27). Along the mainland coast, a steady transfer of water from west to east is expressed. At Cape Billings, some of them are directed to the north and northwest, carried to the northern margins of the sea, where they are included in the stream going to the west. In different synoptic situations, the movement of waters also changes. In some cases, outward currents prevail, and in others, pressure currents, for example, in the area of ​​the Long Strait. Part of the water from the East Siberian Sea is carried through this strait to the Chukchi Sea. Permanent currents are often disturbed by wind currents, which are often stronger than permanent currents. The influence of tidal currents is relatively small.

Regular semidiurnal tides are observed in the East Siberian Sea. They are caused by a tidal wave that enters the sea from the north and moves towards the coast of the mainland. Its front is stretched from the north-north-west to the east-south-east in to about. Wrangel.

The tides are most clearly expressed in the northwest and in the north, where the tidal wave only enters the sea. As they move south, they weaken, since the ocean tidal wave is largely extinguished in shallow water, so in the area from Indigirka to Cape Shelagsky, tidal level fluctuations are almost not noticeable. To the west and east of this area, the tide is also small (5-7 cm). At the mouth of the Indigirka, the configuration of the shores and the relief of the bottom contribute to an increase in tides up to 20-25 cm. Changes in the level caused by meteorological reasons are much more developed on the coast of the mainland.

The annual course of the sea level is characterized by its highest position in June-July, when there is an abundant inflow of river waters. The decrease in continental runoff in August leads to a decrease in the level by 50-70 cm. As a result of the predominance of surge winds in autumn, the level rises in October. In winter, the level decreases and in March-April reaches its lowest position.

IN summer season surge phenomena are very pronounced, in which level fluctuations are often 60-70 cm. At the mouth of the Kolyma and in the Dmitry Laptev Strait, they reach maximum values ​​for the entire sea (2.5 m). Rapid and abrupt changes in level positions are one of the characteristic features coastal areas of the sea.

Hydrobase on the island of New Siberia, the coast of the East Siberian Sea

ICE CONDITION
Significant waves develop in the ice-free areas of the sea. It is strongest during stormy northwestern and southeastern winds, which have the largest accelerations over the surface. clean water. The maximum wave heights reach 5 m, usually their height is 3-4 m. Strong waves are observed mainly in late summer - early autumn (September), when the ice edge recedes to the north. West Side the sea is more stormy than the eastern one. Its central regions are relatively calm.

The East Siberian Sea is the most arctic of the seas of the Soviet Arctic. From October-November to June-July it is completely covered with ice (see Fig. 28). At this time, the flow of ice from the Central Arctic Basin to the sea prevails, in contrast to other seas of the Arctic, where outward ice drift prevails. A characteristic feature of the ice of the East Siberian Sea is the significant development of fast ice in winter. At the same time, it is most widely distributed in the western shallow part of the sea and occupies a narrow coastal strip in the east. In the west of the sea, the fast ice strip reaches 400-500 km wide, connecting with the fast ice of the Laptev Sea, in the central regions - 250-300 km, and east of Cape Shelagsky - 30-40 km. The boundary of the fast ice approximately coincides with the 25 m isobath, which runs 50 km to the north, then turns southeast, approaching the coast of the mainland at Cape Shelagsky. By the end of winter, the thickness of fast ice reaches 2 m. From west to east, the thickness of fast ice decreases. Drifting ice is located behind the fast ice. Usually this is one-year and two-year ice 2-3 m thick. In the very north of the sea, multi-year Arctic ice is found. The prevailing southerly winds in winter often carry drifting ice away from the northern edge of the fast ice. As a result, significant expanses of clear water and young ice appear, forming the Novosibirsk in the west and Zavrangel in the east stationary ice polynyas.

At the beginning of summer, after fast ice breaks up and breaks up, the ice edge changes its position under the influence of winds and currents. However, ice is always found north of the New Siberian Islands. In the western part of the sea, on the site of extensive fast ice, the Novosibirsk ice mass is formed. It consists mainly of first-year ice and usually breaks up by the end of summer. The vast majority of spaces in the east of the sea are occupied by the spur of the Ayon oceanic ice mass, which largely forms heavy multi-year ice. Its southern periphery almost adjoins the coast of the mainland throughout the year, complicating ice conditions in the sea.

In the same seasons, there is a rather high content (from 25 to 40 μg/l) of phosphates in sea ​​water. This is due to the weak development of phytoplankton under the ice cover. In spring and summer, active gas exchange with the atmosphere and intense photosynthesis lead to an increase in the relative oxygen content in water up to 105-110% saturation. Phytoplankton, which develops rapidly, especially near the ice edge, actively consumes phosphates, due to which their content in the water drops to 20 and even to 10 µg/l.

East Siberian Sea Port City Pevek

Economic use.
The hard-to-reach East Siberian Sea is mainly used for transportation as part of the Northern Sea Route, through which transit traffic passes and supplies go through the port of Pevek to the northern regions of Eastern Siberia. Estuary fishing and sea animal production in coastal waters are of importance only to local residents.

The problems of studying the East Siberian Sea are similar to the problems of studying other Arctic seas. However, here more attention is paid to the study of the ice coverage of the sea, the behavior of the Ayon ice massif (the main obstacle to navigation), sea level fluctuations and their forecasts, currents, ice drift, etc. Important tasks are operational maintenance of navigation, finding ways to extend its time , the choice of the most rational shipping routes and other scientific and applied issues, the solution of which is associated with the further economic development of the sea.

Bear Islands East Siberian Sea

JOURNEY FROM TAIMYR TO CHUKOTKA
The idea to make a "round the world" trip along the Arctic Circle is as old as the world. Many enthusiasts set off on their journey, dreaming of closing the ring of their route, bypassing the northern cap of our planet along a conditional line, to the north of which the same Arctic begins, like a magnet attracting everyone who has ever visited its expanses. Incredible adventures awaited travelers on this heavy and dangerous path, which, as a rule, lasted more than one year. Brave people went on dog sleds, on foot or on skis, sailed on kayaks and yachts, traveled on snowmobiles and even took to the air in hot air balloons to cross the northern part of the Atlantic, to cross the Bering Strait.
Our main task was to ensure that the planned route could be covered by a single team, choosing a method of movement that would be equally suitable for the expanses of the tundra, and for the Arctic low forests, and for the drifting ice of the Arctic Ocean. Better than any other technique, the Antarctic wheeled all-terrain vehicles that we assembled in order to reach the South Pole could meet these requirements.
But before you hit the road, it was necessary to maximize their reliability. That is, practically create new car, which would incorporate into its design all the positive experience of our all-terrain vehicles of previous models, only would have even higher technical performance and maximum reliability. On such machines, we intended to make an attempt to pass the ring route along the coast of the Arctic Ocean. I must say that the new machines are really successful. There were no serious problems with the technique, and adventures, as one might expect from the very beginning, would be enough for more than one scenario of an adventure film.
Our path, with a total length of at least 25,000 km, which was called the "Polar Ring", we divided into three stages. At the first stage of the expedition, which passed along the Russian coast from Yamal to Chukotka, over 6,000 kilometers were covered in 50 days of travel. The second was to connect the coasts of Russia with the coasts of Greenland and Canada and pass through the point of the North Pole. The third and final stage is scheduled for the summer of 2004: starting in the Canadian village of Resolute Bay, passing along the coast of Alaska and overcoming the Bering Strait, we will again finish in Chukotka.

Chaun Bay, Bolshoi Routan Island

May 11, 2002. thirty fifth day
On this day we left Tiksi. The day before, I had to spend the whole day in the car repair shops at the frontier post - they put the cars in order. Most of the route has already been covered, and in recent days they have got a lot. These are heavy hummocks in the area of ​​Bolshoi Begichev Island, and real sandstorms in the Olenek channel, and encounters with the first spring water. In the mouths of small rivers and streams, water accumulates under the snow, forming large ice floes, or even just lakes. And yet, we were most struck by what we met in the middle reaches of the Olenek channel on the Lena River.
The river has formed here an infinite number sandbanks, spits, islands, which are the very gigantic delta of the Lena River. The coast is low. It was not always possible to understand whether we were moving on ice or on the ground. Winds constantly blow from the mainland, gaining strength in the expanses of Lena, their strength is such that snow cover does not form. Some kind of dense gray mass, tearing sand and small stones from the frozen sand dunes-sastrugi, rushes along the delta to the north, towards the Arctic Ocean. The air is filled with sand, which cuts the face, hands, knocks on clothes, hulls of all-terrain vehicles. You can't even open your eyes. Sand is stuffed into the car through the smallest cracks, forming sandy "drifts" in the most inappropriate places.
For a long time we remembered the overnight stay in the area of ​​Lake Kuogastakh-Aryta. A snow-sand storm completely deprived us of visibility. Wind - about 25 m / s. Cars simply glide in the wind, not obeying the helm, one has only to drive out onto clean ice. We barely managed to hide from the wind behind the steep bank of the cape, which goes into the channel, but this did not save us either. By morning, the cars were filled with some kind of gray-brown mixture of sand and snow. I'm terribly thirsty. Yesterday's dinner and today's breakfast are dry. It's scary even to think about water from melted snow.
Leaving Makar Island, we move along the coast of the Laptev Sea on May 16, 2002. fortieth day
We leave the island of Makar in the Janek Gulf. This island does not differ in anything special from dozens of others of the same kind in these parts, but there is one detail that turned it into an exceptionally attractive point for all radio amateurs in the world - not one of them has yet gone on the air from this island. And although it is difficult to say this - there was once a polar station and a lighthouse, but nevertheless, no one recorded the fact that it went on the air, and the IOTA international island radio program itself was born much later than the local polar station. And according to this, our radio operator Yuri Zaruba, who joined the route group in Nizhneyansk, could not hide his delight. The “radio discovery” of the island took place, and the distant English president of the IOTA radio program, having got in touch with Yuri, confirmed the decision of the special committee to assign the island special number AS-163, under which he entered all the amateur radio catalogs of the world.
There are some substitutions in our team. Vyacheslav Gosudarev had to fly from Tigsi to Moscow. There were several reasons, but one of the main ones was to save the photo archive and all the other information accumulated in the computer, which, having swallowed burning and sand, “forgot” all the passwords and did not want to continue working in any way.
In Nizhneyansk we were joined by Vitaly Zaruba from Novosibirsk, permanent radio operator of many of our expeditions. In general, Nizhneyansk today is a ready-made scenery for a horror movie. The most daring fantasies of the director who tried to draw an abandoned city can hardly compete with what happens to this city in reality. We approached him in the dead of night, with whitish twilight lighting. The first thing we saw was some old high and completely endless barbed wire fence. Gray blocks of two-story houses with black eye sockets of broken windows stretched into the depths of the city, forming gloomy streets. Fallen lampposts, broken electrical wires, mountains of snow-covered rubbish, abandoned equipment.
We stopped in search of a passage through the fence encircling the city from the west, talking to each other by internal radio. Suddenly, the excited and well-known voice of Yura Zaruba, who is on duty on our frequency, intervenes in the conversation, knowing that we are on the way to the city. With his navigational accompaniment on the radio, we slowly moved through the night Nizhneyansk. Here is Pervomaiskaya Street, here is the central square with a huge inscription on one of the buildings - the Umka Pool, here is the boiler room, reminiscent of the 4th block of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after the disaster ... Another 15 minutes of a confused walk around the city, and we meet with Yuri , which was waiting for us in the hostel, is one of the few city buildings where there is water, however, in the form of rusty boiling water flowing from all taps. Most of it is without heat and water at all. But people who are forced to survive here in the full sense of the word are surprisingly responsive. Despite the mountains of their own problems, they find an opportunity to help us with housing, and with minor car repairs, and with gas stations.
We learned there about absolutely wild, in our opinion, things. Somewhere “above” an order was given to dismantle the houses and everything that could be useful in order to make a new settlement for the indigenous population somewhere nearby. In broad daylight, trucks drove up and took out somewhere what could still be used for construction. Often, in excitement, they took over those houses in which Russians still lived, so often on the doors of the entrances one could see the inscriptions: “Do not break! We still live here!”
After the strongest blizzard, which we sat out in Nizhneyansk, it became sharply warmer. It flowed from the roofs, the snow was saturated with water, the ice crust became sour. At the exit from the city, we drove past the traditional for Soviet times "Honor Board". A rusted profile of Lenin cut out of metal, banners red with rust, torn off from the stand and emitting an ominous rattle in the wind. Above are the remains of an inscription calling for the implementation of the decisions of some congress of the CPSU. They tried not to look around, so as not to see this painful picture ...

We connect the cars in pairs and so, insuring and helping each other, we leave for several kilometers from the coast. And soon they got used to the position of "waterfowl", gradually gaining the first experience of moving through large open spaces.
Cars keep afloat due to the displacement of six large wheels. And since there is no special mover for water, we move only due to their rotation. In the cockpit, the water reached almost to the seats. The pedals and the battery are under water, the generator on the engine is also. The main thing was to keep the engines from getting water into the air intakes.
We just left Aion Island, trying to get on stronger ice
And therefore, it was necessary to move from the cockpit to the stern, so that the engine was at least a little higher, on the move. Moreover, the headwind strove to turn the cars sideways. The picture is absolutely fantastic, worthy of the brush of any eminent marine painter. It's just a pity that it was impossible to observe this picture from the side ...
But the time has come when all the tests are left behind. We are in the large and rather well-groomed Chukchi city of Pevek. Ahead is a long flight to Moscow through all of Russia.

P.S. Our cars remained in Chukotka to work in the State. By next spring, we had to make other...
And we made them. We will use them in March 2003 and will go first to the North Pole, and then further to Greenland and Canada. I am sure that it will be no less exciting journey, preparations for which we, without noticing it ourselves, began immediately, barely having time to return home, after the end of the first stage of the Polar Ring.

— owned by Russia an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean between the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea, administratively belongs to Yakutia. The area is 38.4 thousand km². The New Siberian Islands are part of the protected zone of the Ust-Lensky State Nature Reserve.
It consists of 3 groups of islands: the Lyakhovsky Islands, the Anjou Islands and the De Long Islands.

The first information about the islands at the beginning of the 18th century was reported by the Cossack Yakov Permyakov, who sailed from the mouth of the Lena to the Kolyma. In 1712, as part of a Cossack detachment led by Mercury Vagin, he landed on Bolshoi Lyakhovsky Island.

Geology, geography, climate
Geologically, the archipelago is dominated by permafrost and underground ice. The bedrocks that are hidden under loose Quaternary deposits and thick deposits of fossil ice are limestone, shale with intrusions of granites and granodiorites.
In coastal cliffs, the remains of fossil plants and animals (mammoths, rhinos, wild horses, etc.) thaw out of sandy-clay soil covering fossil ice, indicating that the climate in this area was milder many millennia ago. Max Height- 426 m (Bennett Island). The islands are dominated by an arctic climate. Winter is stable, there are no thaws from November to April. Snow cover lasts 9 months.
The prevailing temperatures in January are from -28 °C to -31 °C. In July, the temperature on the coast is usually up to 3 ° C, in the central part it is several degrees warmer, frosts are possible during the entire warm period, but there are no sharp temperature fluctuations due to the proximity of the sea. Annual rainfall is low (77 mm). The largest number precipitation falls in August (18 mm). The largest river is the Balyktakh.
The landscape of the islands is arctic tundra, lakes and swamps.

Flora and fauna
The surface of the islands is covered with arctic tundra vegetation (mosses, lichens), flowering plants: polar poppy, buttercups, grains, saxifrage, spoon grass). Of the animals permanently inhabit: reindeer, arctic fox, lemming, polar bear. From birds - snowy owl, white partridge. The abundance of reservoirs here attracts in the summer: ducks, geese, waders. Seagulls, loons, guillemots, and guillemots live in coastal areas. The archipelago used to be fished for arctic fox.
A polar station has been operating on Kotelny Island since 1933.

winter hut
In the pre-Soviet and Soviet periods, the following temporary settlements existed on these islands:
O. Boiler room - Ambardakh, Bhak Karga, Bunge polar station, Angu (Anzhu) camp;
O. New Siberia - Biruli, Bolshoye Zimovye;
O. Bolshoy Lyakhovsky - Small Zimovye;
O. Small Lyakhovsky - Fedorovsky (Mikhailova).

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SOURCE OF INFORMATION AND PHOTO:
Team Nomads
Shamraev Yu. I., Shishkina L. A. Oceanology. L.: Gidrometeoizdat, 1980
http://tapemark.narod.ru/
The East Siberian Sea in the book: A. D. Dobrovolsky, B. S. Zalogin. Seas of the USSR. Moscow publishing house. un-ta, 1982.
http://www.vokrugsveta.ru/vs/article/444/
M. I. Belov In the footsteps of polar expeditions. Part II. On archipelagos and islands
East Siberian Sea, Great Soviet Encyclopedia
http://www.pevek.ru
Vize V. Yu. // Seas of the Soviet Arctic: Essays on the history of research. - 2nd ed. - L .: Publishing House of the Glavsevmorput, 1939. - S. 180-217. — 568 p. - (Polar Library). — 10,000 copies.
http://www.polarpost.ru/Library/Belov-Po_sledam/main-po_sledam_expediciy.html
History of the discovery and development of the Northern Sea Route: In 4 volumes / Ed. Ya. Ya. Gakkelya, A. P. Okladnikova, M. B. Chernenko. - M.-L., 1956-1969.
Belov M. I. Scientific and economic development of the Soviet North in 1933-1945. - L .: Hydrometeorological Publishing House, 1969. - T. IV. — 617 p. — 2,000 copies.
http://www.photosight.ru/
photo: E. Gusev, A. Gorchukov
http://www.photohost.ru/
http://world.lib.ru/

The East Siberian Sea belongs to the Arctic Ocean. Limited from the west New Siberian Islands, and from the east by Wrangel Island. This reservoir is the least studied in comparison with others. northern seas. These places are characterized by a cold climate with poor flora and fauna and low salinity of sea water.

Sea currents are slow, tides reach no more than 25 cm. In summer, frequent fogs are observed, the ice stays almost all year round, it retreats only in August-September. sea ​​coast It was settled thousands of years ago by the Chukchi and Yukagirs, and then by the Evenks and Evens. These peoples were engaged in hunting, fishing and reindeer herding. Later, the Yakuts appeared, and then the Russians.

East Siberian Sea on the map

Geography

The area of ​​the water surface of the East Siberian Sea is 942 thousand square meters. km. The volume of water reaches 60.7 thousand cubic meters. km. The average depth is 45 meters, and the maximum is 155 meters. The length of the coastline is 3016 km. The western boundary of the reservoir passes through the New Siberian Islands. The northernmost of these is Henrietta Island, part of the De Long Islands group.

The eastern border passes through Wrangel Island and the Long Strait. North of the northern point Wrangel to Henrietta, Jeannette Island and further to the northern point of Kotelny Island. The southern border runs along the coast of the mainland from Cape Svyatoi Nos in the west to Cape Yakan in the east. The reservoir connects with the Laptev Sea through the Sannikov, Eterikan and Dmitry Laptev straits. And communication with the Chukchi Sea is carried out through the Long Strait.

Rivers and bays

The most important rivers flowing into the reservoir are the Indigirka with a length of 1726 km, the Kolyma with a length of 2129 km, the Chaun with a length of 205 km, the Pegtymel with a length of 345 km, the Bolshaya Chukochya with a length of 758 km, and the Alazeya with a length of 1590 km.

On the coast there are bays such as Chaunskaya Bay, Omulyakhskaya Bay, Goose Bay, Khromskaya Bay, Kolyma Bay. All these bays run deep into the land. There is also the Kolyma Bay, bounded from the north by the Bear Islands: Krestovsky, Pushkareva, Leontiev, Lysova, Andreeva and Chetyrekhstolbovoy.

The river flow is small and amounts to 250 cubic meters. km per year. Of these, the Kolyma River gives 132 cubic meters. km of water. Indigirka discharges 59 cubic meters into the East Siberian Sea. km of water. 90% of the total runoff occurs during the summer period. Fresh water concentrated near the shore due to a weak current and does not have a significant impact on the hydrology of the reservoir. But there is water exchange with neighboring seas and the Arctic Ocean.

The surface temperature of the water decreases from south to north. In winter, in river deltas, it is -0.2 and -0.6 degrees Celsius. And in the northern part of the sea it drops to -1.8 degrees Celsius. In summer, in the bays, the water warms up to 7-8 degrees Celsius, and in ice-free sea areas it is 2-3 degrees Celsius.

Salinity surface water increases from southwest to northeast. In the area of ​​river deltas in winter and spring it is 4-5 ppm. In open waters it reaches 28-30 ppm, and in the north up to 31-32 ppm. In summer, salinity decreases by 5% due to snowmelt.

The annual fluctuation in the level of the East Siberian Sea is 70 cm due to summer river flows. Winds bring storms with waves 3-5 meters high in the western part of the sea region, and in the east it is relatively calm. Storms usually last 1-2 days in summer and 3-5 days in winter.

The thickness of the ice by the end of winter reaches 2 meters and decreases from west to east. In addition, there are drifting ice floes with a thickness of 2-3 meters. The melting of ice begins in May from the delta of the Kolyma River. And completely the reservoir freezes in October-November.

Climate

The climate is arctic. In winter, southwestern and southern winds blow, carrying cold air from Siberia, so the average temperature in winter is -30 degrees Celsius. The weather is cloudy with storms and snowstorms.

In summer, northern winds blow, and the air temperature is 0-1 degrees Celsius in the open sea and 2-3 degrees Celsius on the coast. The sky is cloudy with frequent rain and sleet. The coast is covered with fog, it can last up to 70 days. The annual rainfall is 200 mm.

Flora and fauna are scarce, as the climate is harsh. There are a lot of plankton and crustaceans in the water. IN coastal zones live ringed seals, bearded seals, walruses, polar bears. Of the birds there are gulls, cormorants. The East Siberian Sea is frequented by bowhead and gray whales. Belugas and narwhals are found. Of the fish there are grayling, muksun, whitefish, smelt, polar cod, arctic char, saffron cod, flounder.

Shipping

Shipping is practiced to transport goods along north coast Russia in August-September. At the same time, navigation is difficult even in summer due to floating ice floes that bring wind to the shores. Fishing and hunting for marine animals is local.

The main port is Pevek with a population of about 5 thousand people. It is the northernmost city in Russia and is located in the Chaun Bay. The cargo turnover of the seaport is 190 thousand tons with a throughput capacity of 330 thousand tons. There are 3 berths with a length of 500 meters. Cargo transportation is carried out mainly between Pevek and Vladivostok.

The reservoir received its modern name in June 1935 in accordance with the decree of the Soviet government. Prior to that, it was called the Indigirsky, then the Northern, then the Kolyma, then the Siberian, then the Arctic Sea.

The largest share of the Arctic Ocean is occupied by the Arctic basin, by the nature of its bottom, half is shelf (the underwater margin of the mainland is called the shelf). The East Siberian Sea belongs precisely to its shelf half, and this determines a lot in it. Silt at its bottom is mixed with sand, crushed small stones, occasionally boulders are witnesses of the geological history of the sea. She continues. The bottom relief is almost even, with a slight slope from the southwest to the northeast, there are no seismic and volcanic centers, significant depressions or rises. Ideally, maps of the coasts of the East Siberian Sea should be corrected every year. The main part of the coast (in the west and in the center) is a swampy tundra, seized by permafrost. In recent decades, the permafrost layer has gradually become thinner and the coastline has changed its shape. The same applies to most of the islands, whose sandy soils are covered and punctuated by layers and fragments of fossil ice.
The most general characteristics location of the East Siberian Sea - between the New Siberian Islands and the island. Through the straits of Dmitry Laptev, Eterikan, Sannikov and the strait north of the island The boiler room (Anzhu archipelago) in the west is connected to the Laptev Sea, in the east - through the Long Strait - with. Conditional northern border coincides with the edge of the continental shelf. From the east, the boundary of the sea runs along the meridian of 180 ° east longitude to Wrangel Island, then - along the northwestern coast of this island to Cape Blossom and - along a conditional line connecting it with Cape Yakan on the Arctic coast of Chukotka. From the south, the coastal boundary of the sea extends from Cape Svyatoi Nos in the west to Cape Yakan.
Most of the year the sea is covered with ice, navigation is possible from August to October. The direction of ice drift depends on cyclonic processes in the atmosphere, which affects both the speed and direction of currents. In winter, an area of ​​high pressure develops near the pole, in addition, at western edge The seas are penetrated by cyclones from the Atlantic, although occasionally, not too often, but into its eastern regions from the Pacific Ocean, more often than the Atlantic ones. Plus, the spur of the Siberian High (an extensive anticyclone), which goes to the coast and carries cold air from the continent, exerts its influence. In summer, ice drifts to the northwest at a speed of 3-8 km per day. The most ice-free space is formed by the end of summer in the western part of the sea, when the so-called Novosibirsk (named after the islands) fast ice in the eastern part melts. The ice that separates from the Ayon oceanic ice mass stays near the eastern shores of the sea, as a rule, all summer, receding to the north only near the mouths of the rivers with their warmer waters.
The sea acquired its current name only in 1935 at the suggestion of the Russian Geographical Society. Prior to that, it was called either Indigirsky or Kolyma. Due to the harsh climate, the flora and fauna of the sea itself and the earth's firmament in its region are not very diverse and lag behind even the neighboring seas. And yet, at the end of summer (the warmest period in the tundra), even daisies appear along the banks of the rivers. Among the ice, polar bears prey on the walruses and seals that live here, herds of reindeer roam the tundra, arctic foxes run, guillemots, gulls, and cormorants nest on the rocks. In the mouths of the rivers there are omul, whitefish, white salmon, polar smelt, salmon char and nelma, and other species. At the same time, it should be noted that the waters of the sea and the rivers flowing into it are primordially clean, pollution that is not critical for the environment is noted in the area of ​​the Pevek port, where there are no treatment facilities yet, and the Chaun Bay.

As for the history of human settlement of the shores of this sea, all the information here is based mainly on the theoretical calculation of the migration routes of the ancestors of the Evens, Evenks, Yakuts and Chukchi. Fantastic figures are called up to 3 million years ago. But another figure seems to be more reliable, supported by archaeological finds in the mainland of Yakutia - about 10 thousand years ago. Although the question is, did these people get to the ocean in prehistoric times? This is indirectly confirmed by rock carvings near Pevek, but their age has not yet been established.
Since the 17th century Kochi of Russian Cossacks went by sea. They were brave, experienced and gambling people, but also pragmatic, and they, of course, already knew something about the fur-bearing animals of these regions, and about placer deposits of gold and tin in Indigirka and Kolyma. There is a mythology that the Pomors walked on the "open water" near these shores as early as the 13th century, but there is no exact evidence of these events. Between the mouths of the Indigirka and the Kolyma, the Cossack Mikhailo Stadukhin was the first to sail in 1644 and founded the Nizhnekolymsky prison. In 1648, his assistant Semyon Dezhnev went from the mouth of the Kolyma and further through the Long Strait and to the Gulf of Anadyr, where he founded the city of Anadyr. The history of the discovery of the islands of the sea begins in 1712, when Mercury Vagin and Yakov Permyakov discovered the Big and Small Lyakhovsky Islands. During the Great Northern Expedition (1733-1743) the first maps of the sea were drawn up. In 1849, the Briton Henry Kellett discovered Wrangel Island (belonging to the East Siberian and Chukchi Seas) and named it after his ship - Herald. But in 1867, the American whaler Thomas Long gave him a different name: in honor of the Russian navigator Ferdinand Wrangel. Wrangel himself knew about the existence of the island from the Chukchi, but could not find it. The last of the archipelagos of the sea were the islands of de Long, as a result of the drift of the American schooner Jeannette with captain J. De Long. In 1878-1879, the Swede N. Nordenskiöld became the first navigator who, in 1875, managed to pass the Northern by sea along the entire coast of Asia (with one wintering). At the beginning of the XX century. the sea was studied by geologist K. A. Vollosovich (1900-1901) and hydrographer G. Ya. Sedov (1909), as well as a hydrographic expedition of the Arctic Ocean on the icebreakers Vaigach and Taimyr (1911-1915). For the first time in one navigation sea ​​route(NSR) was passed by the expedition of O. Yu. Schmidt in 1932 on the icebreaker "Sibiryakov", transportation began in 1935 Modern period navigation is counted from 1978, from the beginning of the use of nuclear icebreakers of the Arktika series.
The first port of the East Siberian Sea was Ambarchik. In 1932, “enemies of the people”, mostly former “kulaks”, were brought here along the Kolyma from Vladivostok. In 1935, several thousand people already lived here, however, the word “lived” in this case is not entirely accurate, it was not a village, but a camp of Dalstroy, an industrial division of the Gulag. In 1935, the most important hydrometeorological station for monitoring this region of the Arctic was opened here. And a transit prison for the repressed. ... And here is the evidence of 2011. Six people live at the station, the port no longer exists, although ships sometimes anchor in the Ambarchik Bay. There are still some ruins of the Gulag era, entangled in rusty barbed wire, but the modest monument to the victims of repressions has not been abandoned. The port of Pevek was built in 1951, by the same forces, a city developed around it. But the economic cataclysms of the last 20 years have also affected him, work has become less and less, life is becoming more expensive, the city's infrastructure is getting worse. And, of course, people leave. However, Pevek still has prospects. Firstly, it works in conjunction with the port of Zeleny Mys on Kolyma, which gives room for maneuver, secondly, it has deep-water berths, and most importantly, a program for the industrial development of Chukotka until 2020 has been adopted, the development of significant gold deposits of Maiskoye and Kupol has begun .

general information

A sea in northeastern Russia, located entirely above the Arctic Circle, in the Arctic Basin of the Arctic Ocean.
Location: between the New Siberian Islands and Wrangel Island.
Major bays: Chaun Bay, Kolyma Bay, Omulyakh Bay.
Major flowing rivers: Kolyma, Indigirka, Alazeya, Big Chukochya.
Major islands: Novosibirsk, Bear, Aion Island.
The most important port: Pevek, 130 km from the mouth of the Kolyma, near the village of Chersky, is the port of Zeleny Mys.

Numbers

Area: 913,000 km2.
Volume: 49,000 km3.
Average depth: 54 m.
Water temperature in summer: from +4°С to +8°С (near river mouths), to 0°С and -1°С (in the open sea).
Water temperature in winter: from -1.2°C to -1.8°C.
Salinity: from 5-10% ° in the south to 30% ° in the north.
The area of ​​water freshened by rivers is more than 36% of the total area of ​​the sea.
More than 70% of the sea basin has average depths (about 50 m).
Tides - up to 0.3 m, semi-diurnal.
Annual runoff of river waters: about 250 km 3 .

Economy

Part of the Northern Sea Route.
Fishing in the mouths of rivers.
Fishing walrus, seal in the sea.

Climate and weather

Arctic.
January average temperature: 30°C.
July average temperature:+2°С.
Average annual rainfall: 200 mm.

Attractions

■ The Wrangel Island Nature Reserve, a World natural heritage UNESCO;
■ Pevek: Chaun Regional Museum of Local Lore, rock paintings on the banks of the Pegtylil River;
■ Ambarchik: monument to the victims of repressions; in the Ambarchik Bay - a memorial sign "Wind Rose" in honor of G.Ya. Sedov.

Curious facts

■ Kochs of Russian coast-dwellers were first described by the British in the 16th century. The bottom, as well as the cut bow and stern, saved these wooden ships from being squeezed by ice. Kochi XVI-XVII centuries. were about 20 m long and about 6 m wide on average, could carry up to 40 tons of cargo. During the day they covered 150-200 km, while the English ships - about 120 km. A small draft - up to 2 m - made it possible to transport the kochi by land or ice by dragging, to walk on them in shallow water. Design features kochey was first used by Fridtjof Nansen when creating his Fram, on which in 1893-1912. made three expeditions. Admiral S. O. Makarov, developing the design of the world's first icebreaker of the Arctic class "Ermak" in 1897, on the advice of Nansen, also applied the shipbuilding ideas of the Pomors. They are also used in modern icebreakers.
■ Passing Cape Stolbovaya on a rocky island near the Ambarchik Bay, all ships give a long horn when they see the three-meter metal sign "Wind Rose", installed in 1977 in memory of the polar explorer Georgy Yakovlevich Sedov (1877-1914). Sedov is one of the prototypes of Ivan Tatarinov in V. Kaverin's novel "Two Captains", along with Robert Scott, Georgy Brusilov and Vladimir Rusanov.
■ Pomors before going to sea always turned to him with a prayer, calling him "father". And they never talked about a comrade who died on a campaign, "drowned" or "died", only like this: "the sea took."