Vladimir Alexandrovich
Rusanov
1875-1913
Vladimir Alexandrovich Rusanov was a Russian Arctic explorer. He was born on November 15, 1875 in the city of Oryol, in a merchant family. The boy lost his father early, and the family went bankrupt. Despite the financial difficulties, the mother tried to give Vladimir a good education. At the age of 12, he was taken to the Oryol Seminary, which Rusanov graduated from in 1897. He attended underground clubs during his studies. In 1897 Vladimir Rusanov was arrested. He continued his self-education in prison, where he carefully studied Fridtjof Nansen’s book “Among the Ice and in the Darkness of the Polar Night”. He released after 2 years. Rusanov continued his revolutionary activities, for which he was arrested again and exiled to the city of Ust-Usolsk with his young wife. At that place he made his first trips to the Pechora region, working as a statistician in the zemstvo council of the city. Due to the ban on Vladimir Rusanov’s residence in major Russian cities, the scientist moved to Paris, where he graduated from the Sorbonne University and defended his doctoral thesis in geology. At the same time, he decided to study the New Earth. The Russian authorities supported his expedition to Novaya Zemlya. He made his first trip there in 1907 . In the period from 1907-1911 Vladimir Rusanov made five expeditions to the islands of Novaya Zemlya. He walked around the Southern and Northern Islands, crossed the islands on foot from west to east and back, described a number of specific features of the mountain glaciation of the islands, mapped newly discovered glaciers, made the first maps of the coast and the northern island of Novaya Zemlya, collected the first geological collection at the northernmost point of the archipelago – Cape Desire. In 1908 Vladimir Alexandrovich Rusanov was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir IV degree for his studies of the North by the French Academy of Sciences, and in 1910 for his study of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago by the Russian government. In 1912 Vladimir Alexandrovich Rusanov led a Russian government expedition to the Svalbard Archipelago. He completed research in the Svalbard archipelago in August 1912. He established 28 applications for coal deposits and secured Russia’s rights in Svalbard. Vladimir Alexandrovich Rusanov is considered to have died in 1913 during one of his expeditions in the Kara Sea. A memorial plaque has been erected in memory of him in Moscow.
Address: Moscow, Rusanova ave., 5
