Today marks the 112th anniversary of the birth of the famous Soviet, Tajik scientist Kirill Stanyukovich.
Expedition to search for “Bigfoot”, Eastern Pamir, 1958.
At the Dushanbe city cemetery there is a modest grave of a famous person – Kirill Stanyukovich. Scientist and military officer, traveler and explorer, writer and geographer, philosopher and intellectual, teacher and photographer. He wrote books that sold hundreds of thousands of copies and were translated into many languages of the world in the USSR and abroad.
He was an art and science critic, reviewer of several newspapers and magazines, including Vokrug Sveta, Nauka i Zhizn, Tekhnika-molodezh.
He was an amazing romantic who, from a young age, looked for difficulties and found them. He dreamed of exploring the distant heights of the Pamirs and did it.
Kirill Vladimirovich Stanyukovich was born on July 29, 1911 (July 17, 1911 according to the old style) in St. Petersburg and came from an old noble family of Stanyukoviches.
His father was the famous Russian Soviet art critic, writer, curator of the Russian Museum Vladimir Konstantinovich Stanyukovich, a relative of the famous seascape writer Konstantin Stanyukovich.
His life path was typical for the scientific youth of the 1930s: a junior school circle, courses of collectors, and only later, after the first big expedition, a university … The youth circle at the Leningrad Zoo, the central circle of young naturalists were the first school.
The future scientist dreamed of traveling. And they went, according to him, “mostly people of a romantic warehouse and patriotic convictions went on the expedition.”
Immediately after graduating from the biological faculty of Leningrad State University in 1936, he left for the Pamirs and became a senior geobotanist of the Pamir expedition of the Central Asian State University.
Front
The working conditions were difficult: the supply of necessary equipment and food was lame, the main transport was camels, horses, donkeys, yaks. At that time, scientists could only dream of airplanes, helicopters, cars, two-way radio communications.
Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor, Honored Scientist of the Tajik SSR, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the Tajik SSR Kirill Stanyukovich in 1976
Trucks began to serve scientific expeditions in Central Asia only in the second half of the thirties, but their range was then limited by impassability. Where it was necessary to work, the cars could not penetrate, they remained at the base, from where the scientists left already on horseback or on foot.
From the first days of the Great Patriotic War, Stanyukovich was at the front. Participated in battles on the Leningrad and 3rd Baltic fronts. From July 1941 to September 1944 in the area of Neva Dubrovka, Leningrad-Novgorod, Narva and Tallinn operations.
He was slightly wounded twice. And already on September 24, 1944, the deputy battalion commander of the 92nd Infantry Regiment of the 201st Infantry Division, Senior Lieutenant Stanyukovich, was seriously wounded by grenade fragments.
Expeditions and miraculous rescue
In 1946, Kirill Vladimirovich returned to Tajikistan and devoted himself entirely to scientific work and expeditions. Working as director of the Pamir Biological Station of the Academy of Sciences of the Tajik SSR in 1951-1959, Stanyukovich compiled vegetation maps of all regions of the Eastern Pamirs. In 1949 he published a monographic work.
Speech by Stanyukovich in 1977. Academy of Sciences of the Tajik SSR
Under his leadership, maps of the vegetation of the Ak-Tash tract, the southern slopes of the Wakhan Range, the Tokuz-Bulak valley and the Upper Gunta, the Sarez Lake region and the Balyand-Kinka valley were compiled.
In July 1949, while on a geobotanical expedition near the village of Khait Stanyukovich, he managed to photograph the beginning of the earthquake: landslides rushing down the slope of the mountains, and a huge two-kilometer-high yellow dust fungus, wounded and affected in this terrible natural disaster and its consequences.
He himself was saved simply by a miracle, “he was lucky,” he told about this event in his story “Hayit”. Today, his detailed photo report on the Khait natural disaster is stored in the State Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan and is waiting for its researchers.
Looking for Bigfoot
In 1958, the scientific world was excited about the information about Bigfoot received from the Pamirs. He seemed to have been seen on the Balyand-kiik River, in the area of the Fedchenko glacier. But later this information was questioned. Therefore, the USSR Academy of Sciences decided to study this issue more carefully and appointed a special commission.
The license to catch “Bigfoot” was issued by the Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences No. 74 and was supported by the government.
According to the document, the leadership of the academy, “considering it necessary to take measures to clarify the issue,” formed a commission headed by Sergei Obruchev, a well-known geologist and geographer, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences from Leningrad. From the materials collected by the commission, it turned out that the greatest amount of information about the Bigfoot falls on the Pamirs.
It was there that the Academy of Sciences of the USSR decided to send an expedition. She had to study the least accessible and remote areas of the Pamirs, their flora and fauna, natural conditions that allowed for the possibility of human existence there.
It was decided to study Lake Sarez and the region of the Balyand-kiik river near the Fedchenko glacier. From there, information about the “Pamir yeti” most often came. Kirill Stanyukovich, who had already become Doctor of Biological Sciences and Professor, was appointed head of the expedition.
The scientific group of Stanyukovich completed all the tasks assigned to it. In the most difficult conditions of the high-mountainous Pamirs, she managed to explore the natural conditions of these regions.
The expedition became a scientific feat and a testament to the exceptional conscientiousness of all its participants, who, after a thorough examination of the designated areas in the summer and autumn, remained in the mountains for the winter to find out if it was possible to meet Bigfoot in winter conditions.
Alas, the expedition did not find any traces of Bigfoot. But thanks to her, Kirill Stanyukovich managed to complete the collection of the missing material for his main work, Atlas of the Tajik SSR (1968).
Expedition camp on the shore of Lake Sarez, in the center near the tent Kirill Stanyukovich.
The expedition compiled geobotanical maps of the survey area covering an area of about half a million hectares, studied the fauna of territories that had not yet been visited by zoologists, and collected speleological and archaeological materials.
The academic expedition to the Pamirs was the first and the last. But the epic with the search for “Bigfoot” was continued. A few years later, dozens of informal expeditions again plowed the highlands of the Pamirs in search of traces of the Yeti.
Traveler’s Notes
Based on the materials of his expeditions, Stanyukovich wrote numerous scientific and popular science works and books.
In stories and essays, Kirill Vladimirovich collected in popular science books: “The Path of Argali” (1959, 1965), “The Story of an Expedition” (1962), “In the Pamir and Tien Shan Mountains” (1977), “In the Sky on high” (1980) “Soldiers of the Caravan Trails” (1991), he talked about his travels in the Pamirs and Tien Shan, about his path to science, about the first Soviet expeditions that studied the nature of the Pamirs and other little-explored regions.
The book “In the wake of an amazing riddle” (1965) is dedicated to his impressions of the expedition in search of Bigfoot. The stories of Kirill Stanyukovich about scientific expeditions in Tajikistan, like adventure stories, are read easily and with interest, it is impossible to tear oneself away from them.
The author tells about guides, caravans and caravaneers, about car drivers, about four-legged “participants” of expeditions – horses and camels, donkeys and yaks.
This is a real encyclopedia of expedition everyday life, summarizing the great experience of an experienced traveler, full of interesting everyday observations.
Like many active people, Stanyukovich was not prone to introspection and reflection, so his characters turn out to be quite bright and warm, Stanyukovich, however, did not try to pretend to be deep psychologism: both he and the heroes of his stories were too busy for this.
And Kirill Vladimirovich wrote several science fiction works. Among them are the stories “Golub-Yavan” (1957), “The Man Who Saw Him” (1958; under the pseudonym K.S.), “In the wake of an amazing riddle” (1965), “Act” (1982), “In a strange trail “(1961),” Pay attention to the excitement of the lake at noon “(1965).
Most of these works are collected in the author’s collection The Flame Guards the Secret (1965). The central place in the collection is occupied by the story of the same name about an artifact discovered in the Pamir mountains, which remained after aliens visited the Earth and turned into a temple by local residents.
Novels and stories by Stanyukovich occupy a prominent place in the “geographical fantasy” of the 60-70s of the last century.
As a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Tajik SSR, Kirill Stanyukovich lived in Dushanbe until the end of his life and worked as head of the Geography Sector of the Department for the Protection and Rational Use of Natural Resources of the Academy of Sciences of the Tajik SSR.
In 1986, Kirill Vladimirovich Stanyukovich died and was buried in the city cemetery of Dushanbe.
Source : Asiais