MOSCOW, June 27. /TASS Correspondent Dmitry Osipov/. Russian family names often originate from occupations. Nikolay Nakhodkin, a traveler, inventor and Arctic researcher, has a family name, which originates from 'nakhodka,' which in Russian means a discovery or innovation.
A circle over the Arctic
Nikolay Nakhodkin is an ornithologist. Back in 1988, at the Severtsov Moscow Institute of Ecology he defended his PhD thesis on adaptation of Central Yakutia's wintering passerine birds. For more than 10 years he worked as an ornithologist at the Institute of Biology (the Russian Academy of Sciences' Siberian Branch (presently - the Academy's Institute of Biological Problems of the Cryolithozone). He was a co-author of the Birds of Yakutia field guide, which is still in demand.
Academician Nikita Solomonov, a biologist, the creator of Yakutia's Red Data Book and one of the most high-ranking scientists in Yakutia, was his scientific supervisor. He recommended the graduate to the region's first president Mikhail Nikolayev (he was in the office between 1991 and 2002) for the position of executive director at the Northern Forum international organization of Northern governors, who exchanged experience to improve life in the Arctic.
Back then, Nikolay was the Northern Forum's vice-chairman, and Alaska's Governor Walter Hickel was the chairman. "A unique man - he was governor twice, 20 years apart. The US heavyweight boxing champion... was the US Secretary of the Interior (in 1969-1970 - TASS). He used to work with the US President Harry Truman. He initiated the Alaska Future Generations Fund, which directs oil and gas revenues to the state's entire population," Nikolay said.
In May, was the 30th anniversary of the world's first round-the-globe flight to the northern regions, organized by the Northern Forum. Onboard were delegations, governors and journalists from different countries. Over a week, the team flew above the entire region — Alaska, Chukotka, Tiksi, Naryan-Mar, Murmansk, Rovaniemi (Finland), Kiruna (Sweden), Bodo (Norway) and above Iceland, Greenland and Canada - to round up the circle. "We were welcomed everywhere. In Norway, for example, King Harald V greeted us. Within that week we got the understanding of how the northern regions live and develop," Nakhodkin said.
That expedition began cross-polar flights, where Yakutsk played a special role. "We have prepared a letter to Russia's Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin asking him to grant Yakutsk the status of an international airport within the framework of the Northern Forum's project. The idea was that flights from North America to Asia were much shorter than flying along the equator. Yakutsk should be a backup port for all types of aircraft," the polar explorer said. "Thanks to the Northern Forum, chartered flights from Yakutsk were to Anchorage (Alaska, the US), Rovaniemi (Finland), Sapporo (Japan), and regular flights from Anchorage to Sakhalin, Kamchatka, Magadan and Khabarovsk. Anchorage is an aviation hub, serving flights, including to Hawaii."
Nikolay was amazed to learn the flight from Yakutsk to Sapporo was shorter than to Vladivostok: "It has never occurred Sapporo is north and closer than Vladivostok. Discoveries of the kind have been numerous, including in tourism. For example, tourists visiting Alaska are invited to buy souvenirs made of deer droppings, I keep one such souvenir at home, it cost $6. Tourists laugh and buy it. Can you imagine our reindeer herders selling such souvenirs for 600 rubles? At the same time, there they know how to process deer skins so that they do not get wet from the inside and the hair does not fall out. They sell those skins for $100. In this country, in the North, however, after slaughtering, deer skins were often thrown away or used to insulate heating mains."
At the rescue service
While working for the Northern Forum, Nikolay visited almost all corners of the world's Arctic. In 2007, he headed the Emergency Monitoring and Forecast Center at the regional rescue service, created in Yakutia, and three years later, he was promoted to the service leader - due to his good knowledge of the region, including through expeditions. He knew his native Yakutia "not from the front porch," as he put it.
"It was difficult at first. I'm not a military man," he said. "The thing is that the regional rescue services, as well as departments of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, are part of a unified emergency response system. However, there are no ready-made solutions for the North, and the ministry's standard equipment not always suits the harsh conditions in Yakutia."
Over time, Nakhodkin built up the work and introduced innovations. For example, deerskin outfit for rescuers. Among the rescuers were professional hunters, and they introduced equipment suitable for those climatic conditions.
Back in 2010, the regional service used drones for the first time. "We have created a squadron of drones with thermal imagers to locate lost people by thermal traces. Unfortunately, after I quit the service, the drone group was dismissed. Like was a special scientific group of rescuers. It was only with the beginning of the Special Military Operation that it became evident how important drones are," he continued.
He has also implemented a unique recruitment system. In addition to standard requirements for education, physical training, and military service, what mattered was how applicants behaved during qualifying field tests. Candidates for positions of rescuers undertake orientation tests - 50 km in the taiga. Skill, teamwork, and stress tolerance were taken into account.
In 2019, having quit work at Yakutia's rescue service, Nikolay focused on developing technologies to improve lives of the Northerners, and tested them during expeditions. For this purpose, he created the Safe Arctic Company.
Catamarans on the Arctic Ocean
We were talking with Nikolay at his dacha, where he has a repair shop. He showed to us an inflatable catamaran, which he was assembling. On it, participants in the first-ever catamaran expedition sailed the islands of Bolshoy and Maly Lyakhovsky, the group of Anjou Islands, covering more than 1000 km in the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea. The modern researchers followed the route of Lieutenant Alexander Kolchak, who in 1903 reached Bennett Island in the East Siberian Sea in search of the missing expedition of Baron Eduard von Toll.
"Kolchak walked on ice most of the way. But due to climate change, the ice cover area in the Arctic Ocean has decreased significantly, and they chose an inflatable catamaran as the expedition's transport," the polar explorer explained.
At the sea, on the horizon, in clear weather, the expedition was unable to notice at once the high Bennett Island, although they were just 20 km away from it. "When we got closer, we could admire a fabulous view - high steep cliffs covered with ice and snow, hugged by a misty veil. The island's history is interesting. It was discovered in 1881 by American De Long's expedition, where the participants walked the ice from the sunken Jeannette ship. Over there, in search of the legendary Sannikov Land, the Baron Eduard von Toll expedition died in 1902. Alexander Kolchak, who later became an admiral, got to the island in search of the missing expedition," the polar explorer said.
He is confident that inflatable catamarans, assembled and tested during the expedition to Bennett Island, have shown their reliability and can be used on Yakutia's rivers. "The catamaran has passed severe tests. We have used it in the Arctic Ocean - thus, we have passed the Laptev Sea four times and the East Siberian Sea twice. Moreover, we were carrying building materials, food, fuel and the expedition equipment - the total weight was 6.5 tons. Such catamarans may be used for diving operations, and for shipping large oversized cargo - furniture, refrigerators, building materials. Fishers could have small refrigerated containers on catamarans so that in summer the caught fish could be quickly transported from the sites to the glaciers, and so on."
The main problem of the Arctic
"What worries me is that people in the Arctic live very poorly, and everything is very expensive there. For example, a regular packing bag in Nizhneyansk in 2022 cost 60 rubles ($0.68). I have most depressing impressions from visiting the village. In the past, they used to have even a warm swimming pool there, but nowadays every other house, mostly of two floors, is abandoned," he said regretfully. "Just think - the place is the sea gate to the Yana basin, where a nuclear power plant will be built in Ust-Kuiga to develop industry in the region."
Nikolay said this situation may be explained partially by the bureaucracy. "Too many ministries. The district official comes to Yakutsk, where regarding every issue he has to visit a dozen departments. I was happy when the Ministry of the Arctic was created, hoping it would be all in one place, but the reality is - it lacks authority. The food delivery, fuel shipments, support for communities, for farms - those are responsibilities for different authorities. Probably, it would be more rational if the Arctic development were supervised at the level of Yakutia's deputy prime minister, who could coordinate and not plead, rather to set tasks for different departments," the polar explorer said. "Russian President Vladimir Putin at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum once again stressed that the Arctic development is a priority. That definitely is inspiring."
Modern technologies and scientific research may improve the life quality in the North, he continued. The academic science and young creative people from the IT sector should be united to address common tasks.
"During all those perestroikas, the science lost the middle link. Nowadays, different generations have different mentalities and speak different languages. That's not just a generation gap, it’s a gap between at least two generations. However, if they are combined for complex scientific topics, then a breakthrough is possible," he said.
One of his proposals is to improve the Northern Supplies concept. Modern land-based all-terrain transport could be used to deliver goods to villages that are far from large rivers.
"The climate has changed, but the Northern Supplies [system] still follows Soviet patterns. Terms of winter roads are getting shorter: the Lena River crossing opens only near the New Year, while in the past the winter route there was available in early November already," he explained.
Nikolay has made several practical experiments. For example, last summer, Burlak all-terrain vehicles delivered food products, including potatoes to the northern village of Olenek. "The cost of the latter when delivered by ground turned out to be about 100 rubles a kilo ($1.15), while at local stores the price was 370 rubles ($4.24)," he said.
Nikolay's company has developed a walkie-talkie for truckers, herders and hunters. "Though our country is a space country, we do not have our own satellite phones. We use American ones, which can be cut off at any time. How could we talk between villages in case of, say, big forest fires, like those that happened in 2021? The (electric line equipment) poles will fall, and cellular communication does not work without electricity, while ground telephones are not in use any longer," he said.
His idea is to use small shortwave radio stations with a range of 300 km. "We have tested different walkie-talkies to see which suit us best. We have selected optimal specifications for Yakutia and have created our own radio - Erel ("Hope"). People have been using them for two years now, and they are very happy. This year we plan to launch a pilot project in Kobyai village to communicate with the Dispatch Service, truckers, fishers, hunters. They will use one common frequency, an in case of any emergency, they will report it to the Dispatch Service," he explained.
Nikolay has many developments, and yet more ideas. "I wish I could have enough time and enthusiasm," he said with a smile.