Ieske Nikolai Martynovich 
(01(13).11.1886 –17.01.1937)

One of the first Russian pilots. 
Born in Latvia. Participated in World War I, in 1915, by the Highest Order, was awarded the St. George Arms. In 1920, flew to Soviet Russia. In Russian aviation from its first years, he saw the flights of Nesterov, Utochkin, he himself flew a total of about 900 thousand kilometers. In 1924–1926 on the plane of the company "Junkers", known as "Sibrevkom", made a campaign flight through almost all of Siberia. The purpose of this voyage was to research new overhead lines, select landing sites, and demonstrate the Soviet government’s desire to strengthen the air fleet.Departing from Novo-Nikolaevsk (Novosibirsk), the plane landed in Nikolaevsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Kansk, Anzhersk, Barnaul, Biysk, in the village of Aleyskoye, Rubtsovka, Semipalatinsk. At each stop, "Sibrevkom" flew with passengers. On the route Novo-Nikolaevsk-Semipalatinsk, more than a hundred flights were made with peasants with a total duration of 100 hours. 
It turned out as a result that the whole of Central Siberia, the Altai and Semipalatinsk provinces are favorable for the development of airlines and aviation. There are good places for the construction of airfields and for forced landing. Flights "Sibrevkoma" paved the way for new routes. In the summer of 1929, the first passenger line was introduced between Semipalatinsk and Alma-Ata. In 1931, from Semipalatinsk, except for Alma-Ata, the air routes went to Pavlodar, Omsk, Aktyubinsk, Kustanaya, Taldy-Kurgan, Karkaralinsk, Akmolinsk, Atbasar, Ust-Kamenogorsk, Ayaguz and Bakhtami. In 1934, Ieske opened regular flights from Frunze to Osh in Tien Shan. 
He was one of the first pilots who overflew the Alps, the Carpathians and the Hindu Kush, was among the pilots who mastered the Arctic. In 1936, on the Rudolf Island of the Archipelago Franz-Josef Land Ieske was preparing the airfield for the first high-altitude air expedition, landed in 1937 at the North Pole Papanins.

He died on the island of Rudolph. I was unaware of the burial site of Ieske. And in December 2010, Alexander Georgievich Khropov, a senior researcher at the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, contacted me that, being a guide on a Yamal cruise to the North Pole in 2008 during a two-hour disembarkation at the abandoned polar station “Bay Tikhaya" on the island of Hooker the archipelago of Franz-Josef Land discovered the tomb of Ieske and photographed it Upon learning about my site, Alexander Georgievich kindly sent me photos. The gravestone is destroyed, but , fortunately, there is a plaque with the inscription on it.

In January 2012, I received another valuable information about Ieske from Yuri Borisovich Lyakhov, the son of magnetologist Boris Mikhailovich Lyakhov (1912–1994), who wintered in 1937 in Bukht e Tikhoy and who witnessed the last days of Jesque. Yuri Borisovich kindly provided me with fragments from his father's diary, the publication of which he is preparing for his 100th anniversary:

“ Nikolai Martynovich Ieske came to us when the last steamer“ Vladimir Rusanov ”, returning from the island of Rudolph, delivered us all the aviation workers. He was much older than all of us - he was under 50 years old ... ..

Nikolai Martynovich brought with him an old colitis. He told me that he had eaten some good tasting pork jelly recently, and this allegedly caused additional irritation of the intestines. One way or another, but his illness really began to escalate. He was fading right before our eyes. No tricks of our doctor could not do anything. Elisha (station doctor Elisha Filippovich Kovalev. Avetisov's note) even sought advice from the mainland. January 15, 1937, in the midst of the polar night, he died. Most likely he had cancer.

Here you can remember that a small group of polar explorers headed by Elena Ilinichna, in order of surprise to the team, made a Christmas tree from a usual billiard cue, iron wire and green paper. This Christmas tree was decorated for the New Year. During the New Year's meeting, the Christmas tree with lighted candles was carried to the lying Nikolai Martynovich. Carried it, though neatly, but at the door, a gust of air from the candles caught fire on the paper from which the similarity of the needles were made, and the “fir-tree” burned before the patient’s eyes. Nikolai Martynovich was very upset and said: “Well, that's how I will burn”.

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Nikolai Martynovich Ieske was buried according to his testament at Cape Sedov, west of the station.

To bury on ZFI is not such a simple procedure. The first difficulty - the manufacture of the coffin. None of us had ever made any coffins and, of course, we did not have a sample. With a sin in half, after many attempts the coffin was made by the attendant Ananias Stepanovich Melentyev. The second difficulty is digging the grave. The whole archipelago of Franz Josef Land is a basalt rock. Neither pickaxe nor scrap basalt takes. We tried to tear it with ammonal, but we didn’t have this experience either.It ended in that the grave was deepened no more than half a meter. The coffin was placed in an iron box in case the relatives wished to take the body to the mainland and bury it there so that no predator, bear or fox, could reach the corpse.On the day of the funeral, the coffin was placed in the mess-room, the station personnel stood in the guard of honor, and then they performed the sad funeral procedure.

On the polar day, an obelisk with a propeller was erected at the tomb of Nikolai Martynovich Ieske. Hard it all"!  
Islets at the southeastern tip of Salisbury Island, Franz-Josef Land Archipelago. Named in 1953.