Yet the pilots, not the scientists, won the hearts of Soviet compatriots, and none more than Valerii Chkalov. In toto, these expeditions proved, according to none other than Joseph Stalin, that scientific progress would inexorably improve human life. A second expedition no less chronicled in the press took place in 1937, when pilot Mikhail Vodopianov deposited a party led by Ivan Papanin near the pole, founding the first Soviet drifting station, North Pole I.
They were feted throughout the Soviet Union during the long route home. When weather permitted, aviators were able fly in and rescue the party intact, women and children (including one born during the expedition) first. The expedition made great strides in the study of life under polar conditions, and charted new territory it came during an end in the harsh winter months, when ice crushed the hull of the ship and stranded the crew on the ice. Scientists, mariners and aviators collaborated on the great expedition of the icebreaker Cheliuskin in 1934, led by Otto Schmidt, professor of mathematics at Moscow State University who would lead several highly-publicized expeditions to the Pole in the next few years. Still, Soviet readers who thirsted for adventure had the exploits of the pilots to follow.
Polar exploration was the darling of the western press, which chronicle the races of adventurers who sought to become the first to reach the North or South Poles, Soviet expeditions typically sought to establish viable communities in the polar regions, and to create conditions for long-term scientific investigation. Soviet pilots were involved in 1928 in the heroic rescue of a dirigible expedition led by the Italian Umberto Nobile, which crashed on the ice north-northeast of Spitsbergen (Norway), killing seventeen crew members and leaving seven stranded on the ice. At this point the Soviet Union, with its growing tradition of aviation innovation, a generation of world-class pilots, and the ability to marshal tremendous resources in pursuit of a single goal, entered the field and gained glory throughout the world for its polar exploits. The first polar flights were led by Richard Byrd and Roald Amundsen in 1926, followed up by the first flight across the Arctic Ocean in 1928 by George Hubert Wilkins and Carl Ben Eielson. Polar exploration was revolutionized by the advent of long-distance high-altitude aviation.
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