Kuchiev Yury Sergeevich

(26.08.1919-14.12.2005)

Outstanding Soviet ice captain, Hero of Socialist Labor.

Born in the village of Aib now Alagir district of the Republic of North Ossetia - Alania. During the Civil War, his father was a red partisan, then the director of the Ardon machine-tractor station, rose to the post of Commissar of Agriculture of the Republic. In 1938 he was arrested and shot. The stamp of the son of the enemy of the people prevented Kuchiev from entering the flight school.

Shortly before the war, Kuchiyev, having enlisted a letter of recommendation from Mark Ivanovich Shevelev himself, left for Dickson. He began work in the Arctic as a sailor of the tug "Vasily Molokov", sailed as a junior officer on various vessels, in 1943/1944. wintered on Dixon.

After graduating from the courses of navigators of the small voyage in 1944, Kuchiev became the 3rd assistant captain of the icebreaker steamer "Taimyr", participated in convoys, after the war until 1962 he worked as assistant captain of the icebreakers "Yermak", "Malygin", "Sibiryakov", "Ilya Muromets", "Krasin".

In 1963, Kuchiev graduated in absentia from the Leningrad Higher Maritime Engineering School named after S.O. Makarov, after which he held already captain positions: 1964-1971 - doubler of the captain and captain of the nuclear-powered icebreaker "Lenin", 1966-1968. - captain of the icebreaker "Krasin". The pinnacle of Kuchiev’s production career was the position of captain of the nuclear-powered icebreaker Arktika, which he occupied in 1971, when the ship was just being built. Prior to his entry into service, the captain formed a well-trained and well-functioning team. He conducted the entire complex of tests of the nuclear-powered ship and achieved acceptance by his commission with an “excellent” mark. In 1976, the Arktika, led by Kuchiev, rescued the icebreaker "Yermak" from the ice captivity with the bulk carrier "Kapitan Chizhevsky" and the icebreaker "Leningrad" with the transport "Chelyuskin".

On August 17, 1977 an event occurred that forever inscribed the name of the nuclear-powered icebreaker "Arctic" and its captain in the history of Arctic research. For the first time, a surface vessel in active navigation was able to reach the North Pole. From Murmansk, the course was laid north of Novaya Zemlya, across the Kara Sea to Vilkitsky Strait, then into the Laptev Sea and east of Severnaya Zemlya along the 130th meridian northward to the pole. Skillful posting, maximum utilization of the ship’s capacities, constant aviation ice reconnaissance made it possible to carry out this flight in thirteen days instead of the planned twenty-eight. It has been almost fifteen years before the pole reached a foreign ship. The success of the "Arctic" contributed to the accelerated development of the Soviet atomic icebreaking fleet. During this historic flight, Kuchiyev was awarded the title Hero of Socialist Labor with the award of the Order of Lenin and the Sickle and Hammer gold medal. In addition, the achievements of Kuchiev were awarded orders of the Patriotic War of the 2nd degree and the Red Banner of Labor and several medals, including "For the Defense of the Soviet Arctic".

In 1981, on the recommendation of the medical commission, Kuchiyev was transferred to shore work.

He died in St. Petersburg. Back in 1999, after the death of his wife Ninel Konstantinovna, Kuchiev made a will in which he asked friends and associates of the atomic icebreaking fleet to fulfill his last will after his death - to give his ashes and dust of his wife to the Arctic Ocean. “You know well that I have always been and remain a romantic to the end and do not regret it in the least. And Dixon, the Arctic Ocean and the North Pole are directly related to our common fate with Ninel Konstantinovna”, Kuchiev wrote in his will.

Will Kuchiev was performed. On August 13, 2006, almost exactly 29 years after the pole was reached, the nuclear icebreaker Yamal delivered urns to the point of 89° 59.38′N and 65° 37.03′E, where, after the mourning rally, they were lowered in the divorce.

The island of the archipelago Franz-Josef Land, formed as a result of the separation of the southwestern part of Northbrook Island. Discovered in early 2008 during the expedition of the nuclear icebreaker "Yamal". Named by the decision of the Arkhangelsk Regional Assembly.