"In 1937, he was in charge of the famous North Pole-1 expedition. Four researchers, Ivan Papanin, Ernst Krenkel, Yevgeny Fyodorov and Petr Shirshov, landed on the drifting ice-floes in an airplane flown by Mikhail Vodopyanov. For 234 days, Papanin's team carried out a wide range of scientific
observations in the near-polar zone, until they were taken back by the
two icebreakers Murman and Taimyr. It was the first expedition of its kind in the world. All members of the expedition received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, which was extremely rare before World War II. In 1939-1946 Papanin was the successor to Otto Schmidt as head of the Glavsevmorput' (Glavniy Severniy Morskoy Put') - an establishment that oversaw all commercial operations on the Northern Sea Route. In 1940 he received a second Hero of the Soviet Union title for organizing the expedition that saved the Sedov. During World War II
he was the representative of the State Defence Committee
(Gosudarstvennij Komitet Oborony) responsible for all transportation by
the Northern Sea Route. Between 1941 and 1952, he was a member of the Central Revision Commission of the Communist Party."
Another famous Red,
Brian
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