DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2023.3.40671

Abstract: The historical analysis of the research carried out during 1928-1934 within the framework of the Kola peninsula expedition of the USSR Academy of Sciences is presented. The initial boundary is due to the creation of the expedition, the final one is due to its reformatting into a stationary structure – the Kola base of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The sources for the preparation of the article are archival materials identified by the authors from the Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences, published expedition reports, as well as scientific literature prepared based on the results of the research under consideration. It is noted that the drivers of the Kola complex expedition were both purely cognitive interest and the needs of industrial development of high latitudes. The work carried out made it possible to show significant activity of researchers in studying the natural resources of the Kola Peninsula, identifying promising mineral deposits, determining various patterns of their distribution and searching for the optimal development methodology. Along with this, a certain place in the work of the expedition was given to other areas of research, both related to ensuring the possibility of developing the extractive industry (geocryological, partly ecological and biological), and having an indirect connection with this problem. In this regard, the importance of conducting research within the expedition aimed, among other things, at studying the traditional culture of the aboriginal ethnic groups of the Kola Peninsula is noted.

DOI: 10.25136/2409-8744.2023.3.40757

Abstract: The purpose of the article is a historical and anthropological reconstruction of the traditional economic practices of the Yakuts, in which the most important place was occupied by the exploitation of cryogenic resources (cold, snow, ice, "permafrost"). The work is based mainly on the analysis of observations by researchers of the second half of the XIX – first half of the XX centuries, who recorded in the course of their expedition surveys a number of stories concerning the practices of the use of cryogenic resources by the Yakuts in economic activities. Methodologically, the article is based on the principles of cryosophy, involving the study of the cold matter of the Earth through the prism of their role as an active element of the universe, a source of benefits and opportunities for humanity, as well as a historical and anthropological approach. The article for the first time shows a number of examples of successful and active exploitation of cold, snow, ice and "permafrost" in the traditional economic activities of the Yakuts within the framework of such a plan: cattle breeding and horse breeding, fishing and hunting, as well as in the organization of salt production. Based on accumulated materials, including documents from the Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences and its St. Petersburg branch, the State Archive of the Irkutsk Region, the Scientific Archive of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Scientific Archive of the Russian Geographical Society and the Manuscript Fund of the Archive of the Yakut Scientific Center SB RAS, the authors conclude that cryogenic resources were one of the important adaptation mechanisms Yakuts to the natural and geographical realities of Yakutia.

DOI: 10.7256/2453-8922.2023.1.39874

Abstract: The historical analysis of the studies carried out during the 1950s-1980s by the staff of the Yakutsk Permafrost Research Station of the Obruchev Permafrost Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences and since 1962 – organized on its basis by the Permafrost Institute of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences and aimed at studying the coastal-shelf zone of the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea. The sources for the preparation of the article were the archival materials identified by the author from the funds of the Russian State Archive of Economics and the Archive of the Melnikov Permafrost Institute of SB RAS, as well as scientific literature data. The work carried out made it possible to show the significant activity of researchers in the study of subbottom permafrost. Its drivers were both purely cognitive interest and the needs of the industrial development of high latitudes. In the course of the surveys carried out, data were obtained characterizing the prevalence and thickness of subpermafrost, its temperature regime, composition and other properties.