Georgii Alekseevich Ushakov

Born Jan. 17 (30), 1901, in the village of Lazarevo, in what is now Amur Oblast; died Dec. 3, 1963, in Moscow. Buried on Domashnii Island, Severnaia Zemlia. Soviet explorer of the arctic. Doctor of geographic sciences (1950).

Ushakov was associated with the Main Northern Sea Route Administration from 1932 to 1936, the Chief Administration of the Hydrometeorological Service of the USSR from 1936 to 1940, and the Academy of Sciences of the USSR from 1940 to 1958.

In 1926, he founded the first Soviet settlement on Vrangel’ (Wrangel) Island (now the settlement of Ushakovskii), which he headed for three years. From 1930 to 1932 he led an expedition to Severnaia Zemlia and established the polar station Ostrov Domashnii. Together with the geologist N. N. Urvantsev, Ushakov was the first to explore Severnaia Zemlia, which he showed to be an archipelago. In 1935, he led the first Soviet high-latitude marine expedition, on the icebreaker Sadko.

Ushakov was awarded the Order of Lenin, two other orders, and various medals. Ushakov’s name has been given to mountains in Antarctica, a spit and a cape on Vrangel’ Island, an island in the Kara Sea, and a river on Oktiabr’skaia Revoliutsiia Island of Severnaia Zemlia.