Sbityakov
Victor
Victor
01.06.1998
Victor Sbityakov joined the Vityaz factory in 1982. He was appointed a third-degree test driver for the security bureau and got the highest sixth degree as soon as 1985.
‘He was the most experienced high-class specialist in the community,’ head of Vityaz Warranty Department Gazinur Abzalov recounted. ‘He was a convivial person, no air of falseness about him. He played the harmonica and was a good singer. He knew cars inside out. I learned a lot from him.’
The enterprise Sbityakov worked at issued machines intended for specific tasks. Factory products were of interest to the leadership of Soviet Antarctic expeditions. Some polar stations operating all year round are situated 1500 km from the edge of the continent. Scientists, fuel, equipment and food have to be brought there. You cannot solve that with aviation. You have got to have autonomous heavy duty vehicles.
In 1986, the time came for the Vityaz to be featured in Antarctica full-time. The first DT-10P was dropped off on the icy continent.
The selection process for hiring the first Ishimbay polar explorer was handled in a responsible manner. They needed not only the best specialist, but someone who could ‘get himself together’ in the harsh circumstances of social isolation.
In 1987, Victor Sbityakov left Ishimbay to spend two long years as part of the 33rd Soviet Antarctic expedition. His wife Vera and two children stayed back home.
They rarely got in touch by phone. Often they had to wait for a satellite to come by the station and for their turn to communicate. There were a lot of explorers, all of whom had someone left behind on the mainland. Telegrams were sent out: ‘Happy birthday requested contact on 31st.’ Vera Sbityakova would visit the public call office, and there would be no communication at all, or the awful quality of connection would make Vera want to cry.
Victor wrote letters resembling diary entries. Ships from other stations would rarely come by for the post, and the letters would get long. He wrote about penguins; he wrote that he had to work on other machines as well, not just their own (not that it really mattered); that during trips he had to be a welder, a tinsmith and a motor mechanic all in one; that at the station they called him and his car Ishimbay.
When Victor returned from expeditions, he talked about friends, simple living conditions of polar explorers; he recounted how they had pulled vehicles out of pits and walked through storms month after month.
Antarctica was in his dreams, it called to him, he pined for it. Victor would leap up in alarm at night after dreaming of the dulnik (literally ‘something that blows’) – that was what explorers called a squall of more than 20 m per second. If you were light in body, you did not cross the station’s threshold – the wind would storm you away. A small patch of land named after Victor, the Sbityakov village, was left behind in Antarctica. They uphold a tradition at Komsomolskaya: if you pass the station on foot on your birthday, you have the right to your own piece of land.
Victor was good at personal communication, and it was easy for him to make friends. He missed the austere everyday life where a company of men would leisurely brew tea while playing guitar, shape dumplings, organise small celebrations for each other and long for home together. Victor missed the place where there was only one form of entertainment – an old cinema projector at the station or a guitar/harmonica during a trip; where you were sick of your neighbour’s face after three months of journeying on foot. What would you not give to just stop seeing him? But you share everything with him: that snowstorm, that route and that Antarctica.
Victor Sbityakov was sent to a polar station of another state, as he was one of the most outgoing and technically competent specialists.
The station’s employees were astonished by a lot of things. They asked him:
‘Are you a driver?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who’s your engineer?’
‘I act as the engineer.’
‘So, who’s the mechanic?’
‘I am.’
They could not comprehend that. When a foreigners’ vehicle broke down, the driver contacted the mechanic on the radio, called him over and listened to the recorder while the car was being repaired.
Sbityakov would return from one expedition and leave for another, promising himself that it was going to be the last one. There were 6 of them overall, each one took 18 months on average. He gave 9 years of his life to Antarctica. It took the rest itself.
During their last assignment, having finished the work, they were flying back from the ship to the station on a helicopter. There are a few theories as to why it fell. No one knows what happened in reality.
There is a pillar at the Mirny station that has the distance from Antarctica to Ishimbay on it. There are 13700,741 km between the sixth continent and the Vityaz factory. Victor Nikolaevich Sbityakov was the first to cover that distance.
‘He was the most experienced high-class specialist in the community,’ head of Vityaz Warranty Department Gazinur Abzalov recounted. ‘He was a convivial person, no air of falseness about him. He played the harmonica and was a good singer. He knew cars inside out. I learned a lot from him.’
The enterprise Sbityakov worked at issued machines intended for specific tasks. Factory products were of interest to the leadership of Soviet Antarctic expeditions. Some polar stations operating all year round are situated 1500 km from the edge of the continent. Scientists, fuel, equipment and food have to be brought there. You cannot solve that with aviation. You have got to have autonomous heavy duty vehicles.
In 1986, the time came for the Vityaz to be featured in Antarctica full-time. The first DT-10P was dropped off on the icy continent.
The selection process for hiring the first Ishimbay polar explorer was handled in a responsible manner. They needed not only the best specialist, but someone who could ‘get himself together’ in the harsh circumstances of social isolation.
In 1987, Victor Sbityakov left Ishimbay to spend two long years as part of the 33rd Soviet Antarctic expedition. His wife Vera and two children stayed back home.
They rarely got in touch by phone. Often they had to wait for a satellite to come by the station and for their turn to communicate. There were a lot of explorers, all of whom had someone left behind on the mainland. Telegrams were sent out: ‘Happy birthday requested contact on 31st.’ Vera Sbityakova would visit the public call office, and there would be no communication at all, or the awful quality of connection would make Vera want to cry.
Victor wrote letters resembling diary entries. Ships from other stations would rarely come by for the post, and the letters would get long. He wrote about penguins; he wrote that he had to work on other machines as well, not just their own (not that it really mattered); that during trips he had to be a welder, a tinsmith and a motor mechanic all in one; that at the station they called him and his car Ishimbay.
When Victor returned from expeditions, he talked about friends, simple living conditions of polar explorers; he recounted how they had pulled vehicles out of pits and walked through storms month after month.
Antarctica was in his dreams, it called to him, he pined for it. Victor would leap up in alarm at night after dreaming of the dulnik (literally ‘something that blows’) – that was what explorers called a squall of more than 20 m per second. If you were light in body, you did not cross the station’s threshold – the wind would storm you away. A small patch of land named after Victor, the Sbityakov village, was left behind in Antarctica. They uphold a tradition at Komsomolskaya: if you pass the station on foot on your birthday, you have the right to your own piece of land.
Victor was good at personal communication, and it was easy for him to make friends. He missed the austere everyday life where a company of men would leisurely brew tea while playing guitar, shape dumplings, organise small celebrations for each other and long for home together. Victor missed the place where there was only one form of entertainment – an old cinema projector at the station or a guitar/harmonica during a trip; where you were sick of your neighbour’s face after three months of journeying on foot. What would you not give to just stop seeing him? But you share everything with him: that snowstorm, that route and that Antarctica.
Victor Sbityakov was sent to a polar station of another state, as he was one of the most outgoing and technically competent specialists.
The station’s employees were astonished by a lot of things. They asked him:
‘Are you a driver?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who’s your engineer?’
‘I act as the engineer.’
‘So, who’s the mechanic?’
‘I am.’
They could not comprehend that. When a foreigners’ vehicle broke down, the driver contacted the mechanic on the radio, called him over and listened to the recorder while the car was being repaired.
Sbityakov would return from one expedition and leave for another, promising himself that it was going to be the last one. There were 6 of them overall, each one took 18 months on average. He gave 9 years of his life to Antarctica. It took the rest itself.
During their last assignment, having finished the work, they were flying back from the ship to the station on a helicopter. There are a few theories as to why it fell. No one knows what happened in reality.
There is a pillar at the Mirny station that has the distance from Antarctica to Ishimbay on it. There are 13700,741 km between the sixth continent and the Vityaz factory. Victor Nikolaevich Sbityakov was the first to cover that distance.
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