MOSCOW, July 12. /TASS Correspondent Natalia Egovkina/. To see a monument to a ship, which used to be the first research vessel for many future scientific careers, we traveled the Kola Peninsula, then the Barents Sea to the Rybachy Peninsula in Motovsky Bay. In the morning, we went aboard the Northern Fleet's cartography service vessels hoping to reach the destination by lunch time and to open there a monument to the Perseus - a unique vessel that witnessed many eminent Russian scientists, who proved that the Barents Sea is full of life.

Ignorant opinion

The location where the Perseus sank has been known for quite a time. However, only in spring, 2023, specialists onboard the Northern Fleet cartographic service's ship the Nikolay Timoshenko registered the exact coordinates.

- The very basic knowledge about the Barents Sea, about the resources in it comes from the scientists who worked on the Perseus. Since the tsar times, there has been an ignorant opinion that the Barents Sea is not rich in biological resources and that it is not profitable to develop this region in terms of using biological resources. Hydro biologist, Academician Nikolay Knipovich was the first to question this point of view. Later on, the Perseus and outstanding researchers confirmed he was right in saying the Barents Sea and its surroundings are rich in fish and other biological resources that can feed a large number of people," said deputy head of the Polar Branch, the Scientific Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography (VNIRO), Konstantin Sokolov.

The Perseus was supposed to be a commercial hunting vessel. A big industrial entrepreneur, Epimakh Moguchiy, began its construction in 1916. However, the businessman could not complete it. After World War I, the October Revolution of 1917, and the subsequent Civil War, Russia's all northern territories and their economies collapsed. In the early 1920s, the country wanted to have a research organization to study the Barents Sea and other northern seas. That organization required its own watercraft.

- The idea was to create a research institute for comprehensive marine studies. Such an institute, in compliance with the government's order of March 10, 1921, was the so-called Plavmornin - the Floating Marine Research Institute. Its scientific base was in Moscow, and the expedition base was in Arkhangelsk. For building of the Perseus, the Arkhangelsk Ship Repair Plant provided a berth and workshops, but refused to complete the ship. Thus, the institute organized on its own the work of Arkhangelsk shipbuilders. They were searching for spare parts and equipment wherever possible - from sunk or expired military and civilian ships," VNIRO's senior researcher Evgeny Sentyabov said.

The national ensign was flown on the ship on November 7, 1922. A reporting telegram to the Kremlin read: "The Floating Marine Research Institute in Arkhangelsk today, on the fifth anniversary of October Revolution, completed construction and equipment of Perseus scientific vessel - one of the best vessels of the kind in the world."

The vessel's length, by sea standards, was small - just over 40 m, but it housed seven laboratories, a library and cabins for 24 crew and 16 scientists. For that time, it was an excellent research vessel, and working on it was very easy and convenient. The hull withstood sailing in the ice. Over 18 years of service, the Perseus made about 100 expedition voyages to the White, Barents, Kara and Greenland Seas. More than 700 scientists practiced skills in those expeditions.

- Not all of them have achieved outstanding results. Among those who worked on the ship and subsequently became great scientists were, for example, geologist, science promoter, geographer and writer, Academician Vladimir Obruchev; creator of a new direction in marine sciences - ocean geo-chemistry - Academician Alexander Vinogradov, as well as a founder of the Soviet ocean studies, an Arctic researcher, a hydro biologist, Professor Ivan Mesyatsev, who in 1921 organized Plavmornin. All these people either worked onboard the Perseus, or even led expeditions," Sokolov added.

According to him, an annual production of all hydrobionts in the northern fishery basin is between 500 and a million tons.

- Those are the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea, the Greenland Sea, which is near Spitsbergen. This is a common table, a common shelf, where is the life of our reservoir. Fish migrate along this table. There are two oceanic landfills. One goes to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, the second cliff goes down to the Atlantic Ocean bottom. And we are standing on this table in the Barents Sea and taking advantage of the warmth brought in by the Gulf Stream from the Atlantic, and of the oxygen that the Arctic waters bring. The Barents Sea is an extremely rich reservoir," the scientist said.

The Barents Sea's most important fishing resource is Atlantic cod. It is followed in terms of production by haddock, black halibut, herring, capelin, sea bass, and catfish. There is an incredible variety of hydrobionts - crabs, scallops, mussels, seaweed. The sea has many marine mammals - walruses, seals, cetaceans, whales - blue whales, fin whales, killer whales, narwhals.

- The Barents Sea's large-scale fishing, based on this community of hydrobionts, is highly productive. In this country, we are the second after the Pacific Basin. And a ship for sailors and researchers is a laboratory/home. We live together, work together in shifts, round the clock. It seems a rather routine job, but it is very interesting, believe me. Every year we sail and evaluate the stock. Using the same methods, sailing the same routes, we evaluate the sea, study, compare against previous years and give forecasts. Our main task is to make forecasts," the scientist stressed.

Sunk and found vessels

The Perseus existed until 1941. When World War II began, all civilian vessels were registered for military service, and the Perseus was equipped with guns. She carried cargo to supply the Rybachy Peninsula, which in those years was turned into a strategic point in the Arctic defense. On July 10, 1941, near the southern shore, the Perseus was hit by a series of air strikes. The crew, armed with a single machine gun, was fighting against 23 Nazi aircraft. A fire started on the ship, she sank, but the crew managed to escape. Even nowadays, the ship's bow can be seen at low tide. Throughout the war, it served as the berthing for the Navy, delivering cargo, since land transportation was impossible there. The ship, pushed away about 100 m from the bow, has been found only recently.

Crew of the Northern Fleet's cartography service vessel - the Nikolay Timoshenko - specified the exact coordinates of the Perseus in April, 2023 under the Remember War joint expeditions with the Russian Geographical Society (RGS).

- We have been working at archives, making notes. But, you understand, it was 1941. Even if someone did see the ship sank and the coordinates were taken, the accuracy of those coordinates leaves much to be desired. The error may be in kilometers. Therefore, we have coordinates from the archive that a ship sank at a certain place or approximately at that place. We break the location into squares roughly, use echo sounders to have the bottom image. Then, if we find something looking like a ship, we make a sonar side-view," said Alexander Zubarev, senior officer at the Northern Fleet's cartography service.

In those places, he continued, not only now, but in general, since the time of pioneer Willem Barents, year-round navigation has been active, and many sunk ships remain on the bottom. They threaten both transportation and fishing. The Northern Fleet together with RGS continues the Remember War expeditions to search for sunk artifacts of World War I and World War II. The expeditions continue for the third year. Their participants want to pay tribute to the dead and to put exact coordinates on the nautical map.

- Many vessels that are mapped, which we have examined, have different coordinates. The actual location and the archival data. With modern equipment we can determine the location of a sunk object with an accuracy of up to 10 m. In the Bay of Ur this year, we have found the Shtil patrol ship, which sank in 1941. Last year, we found two sunk planes in the Kola Bay. Last year we found the Meridian hydrographic vessel. The archival data quoted two locations of the sunk vessel. The distance between them was something like 40 km. Our main task for this year is to find watercraft of World War II most famous convoy PQ-17, which sank near Novaya Zemlya, and which never made it to Murmansk," the officer said.

The monument to the Perseus - a lowered pennant on two granite pillars with stars symbolizing bullet holes - was installed on the southern shore of the Rybachy Peninsula on June 22, 2023. The author of the idea and sketch is Konstantin Sokolov, deputy head of VNIRO's Polar Branch, who has been working in fisheries science for 30 years. He comes to the peninsula, to the ship wreckage - his hobby now - just to relax. It takes him three days to get to the location by bicycle.

- To a big extent, the Perseus is already a personal story. An example of faith. The pioneering initiative of those who built this vessel, who made first discoveries on it, has inspired my modest initiative. The history of this pennant is also interesting to me - the grandson of Prince Golitsyn, an amateur artist like me, managed to come up with a symbol, which became the flag of the first ship and which still remains on the flag of the entire fisheries science of Russia. It has outlived him for a century. I, by virtue of my modest abilities, came up with a monument," he said.

The Rybachy Peninsula's soil is filled with unexploded mines, which remind the descendants of the difficult fate of the Russian science and of the destructive war.