Wings №4526 04.24.2003 (2003)

"Polar Aviation".

In the 1930s, the word "polar explorer" was synonymous with the highest courage.

The people were ready to wear polar explorers in their arms.

The whole country was aiming for the North.

For several years, huge ports were built in the mouths of the northern rivers, and new ships went along the Northern Sea Route, but all of this would have been impossible without polar aviation and heroic polar pilots.

Regular airlines appeared, and all this was almost without navigation, in incredible weather conditions.

The north of the country is boiling ...

In 1945, Stalin was seriously afraid of Hiroshima, so in the postwar years, the development of the North was no longer a scientific, but a defense task.

The entire experience of polar aviation was turned into our answer to the Americans on their plans for the atomic bombing of the USSR ...

In the modern world, studies of the North continue, mainly due to sponsors who show a more persistent interest in this business, unlike the state.

The romantic period of Arctic exploration is over.

Maybe forever.

People still live and work here, children are born, and everyone understands that it is impossible to survive without aviation.

But it is very difficult to return to the Arctic today ...

The program was filmed by the commander of the crew of the Mi-8 Igor Obrazok, a polar aviation veteran Viktor Doroshenko, professor Arthur Chilingarov.

The shooting took place in the villages of Varandey and Ust-Kara, on the basis of polar pilots in Naryan-Mar.