The book “On the ‘Dmitry Solunsky’ around Novaya Zemlya”, presented in the permanent exhibition of the Rusanov House Museum, is a description of the journey of Rusanov’s Novaya Zemlya expedition in 1910.
In 1910, Ivan Sosnovsky organized an expedition to Novaya Zemlya and invited Vladimir Rusanov to lead it. Rusanov was extremely interested in exploring Novaya Zemlya, so he willingly gave his consent. He decided to accept the invitation to prove the practical feasibility of shipping along the Northern Sea Route to Siberia. He believed that to clarify this fundamental issue, it was necessary to rise to the most northern point of Novaya Zemlya, to Cape Zhelaniya, and to go around it. Rusanov achieved his goal. In August 1910, the ship “Dmitry Solunsky” went round Cape Zhelaniya from the west, then entered the waters of the Kara Sea and went along the eastern shores of Novaya Zemlya to Matochkin Strait. Rusanov did what many of his glorious predecessors, including Litke, Pakhtusov, and Tsivolko, could not achieve.
Rusanov’s success was truly outstanding. In a
letter to the chief officer of land management and agriculture, Krivoshein,
Sosnovsky reported: