He conquered both tops of the Earth. In Antarctica, he became the first representative of the Soviet Union. And the hero owes all his achievements to those who convinced him to get a higher education.
After the success of Ivan Papanin's first research station on the top of the globe, polar explorers dreamed of conducting such expeditions annually, and the most daring ones were also going to give up to Antarctica. Our hero was among these romantics. The war forced to postpone all plans. After the victory, Somov was able to bring everything that was conceived to life.
Childhood
His parents were an amazing couple. Father, also Mikhail, studied at Moscow University. His wife Elena was the grand-niece of Alexander Pushkin's friend Konstantin Danzas, received an excellent education at home and was engaged in translations of fiction. Misha was born in Moscow in the spring of 1908.
The child only strengthened the romantic relationship of the couple. In the family, the baby was idolized and pampered with interesting stories. The boy happily leafed through the biology books with which his daddy worked. After his studies, he took up ichthyology, became famous and eventually received the title of professor at the Polar Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography named after V. I. N. M. Knipovich. From his mother, the baby inherited a vivid imagination and love of art.
Youth
After leaving school, the boy knew perfectly well what profession he wanted to get. In 1929 he left for Vladivostok and entered the Far Eastern Polytechnic Institute, the shipbuilding faculty. Soon the student realized that he was more interested not in ships, but in the inhabitants of the underwater world. In 1933 he dropped out and became a laboratory assistant at the Pacific Institute of Fisheries. In this service, he arranged his personal life - he married a colleague from Astrakhan Serafima Generozova. Soon the couple rejoiced at the birth of their son Gleb.
The young man was not afraid of difficulties, therefore he immediately agreed to an invitation to take part in the expedition. His duties included helping scientists who studied the fauna of the Pacific Ocean. Our hero was lucky to work under the supervision of such renowned hydrobiologists as Otto Schmidt and Konstantin Deryugin. Mikhail did not hide the facts of his biography, for which he received a reprimand about his older comrades - they did not approve of the young man's refusal from higher education.
Scientist and Warrior
Somov did not return to his university. In 1934 he applied to the Moscow Hydrometeorological Institute. This time our hero chose oceanology as his specialty. After graduating, he became an employee of the Central Forecasting Institute. In 1938, together with his colleagues, he went on an Arctic expedition, the purpose of which was to study ice drift. The debutant was able to make the first discovery in his career. The following year, Mikhail was part of the crew of the icebreaker I. Stalin , who in one navigation passed the Northern Sea Route from East to West and returned back.
Such successes inspired the polar explorer in 1940 to become a graduate student at the Arctic Institute in Leningrad. The next year, he had to take a break from his scientific activity - from the first days of the war, Mikhail Somov asked to be sent to the area where he could defend his homeland from the Nazis. The Arctic expert took part in the operations of the White Sea Flotilla, in 1942 he took part in the defense of Dixon Island from the cruiser Admiral Scheer.
Victory
A year before the defeat of the German fascists in the Soviet Union, the demobilization of the most valuable specialists began and their involvement in peaceful labor. Among those was Mikhail Mikhailovich. He was sent to Leningrad to continue his studies, and in 1945 he was appointed to the post of hydrologist at the Central Headquarters of Naval Operations of the Glavsevmorput.
It took the country years to resume the pre-war level of development of science. The first time our hero saw the top of the world from a bird's eye view was in 1945. Only in 1950 did it become possible to repeat the legendary expedition of the Papanin people. Mikhail Somov became the head of the North Pole-2 drifting station. Aviators took them to the ice of the northernmost point of the Earth. The nature of the highest latitudes of the Arctic was studied for a whole year. After completing the expedition in 1952, the researcher joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
South Pole
For the conquest of the North Pole, Somov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In 1955, the country sent its pundits to the shores of Antarctica. The expedition was headed by Mikhail Somov, Deputy Director for Scientific Affairs of the Arctic Research Institute. It was he who laid our research base on the white continent called "Mirny". The polar explorer managed to repeat the trip to the southernmost latitudes twice more. He made a significant contribution to the description of the coast of this continent, weather conditions, and movement of glaciers.
Our hero was entrusted with Antarctica. Since 1958, he represented the USSR at the international SCAR conference, participated in the development of principles of work on the uninhabited continent. The last visit to the mainland by Somov took place in 1963. For a year, the elderly scientist worked in the vicinity of the South Pole. Returning to his homeland, he settled in Leningrad and took up scientific activities and literary creativity.
Mikhail Somov died in December 1973. Two years later, his name was immortalized in the name of the scientific expedition vessel. The glacier and the sea washing Antarctica are named in honor of the great polar explorer.
