Tiksi (Yakut. Tiksii) is an urban-type settlement, the center of the Bulunsky ulus of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). Large northern settlement of Yakutia.
The urban-type settlement is located beyond the Arctic Circle, to the east of the Lena estuary on the shore of the bay of the same name in the Laptev Sea. Refers to the regions of the Far North.
In 1959, the Polar Geocosmophysical Observatory (PGO) "Tiksi",
organized on the basis of the station of the Arctic and Antarctic
Institute, became part of IKFIA. The beginning of its birth and its
name were associated with the International Geophysical Year - IGY.
The first head of the station was Evgeny Alexandrovich Ponomarev,
now a doctor of physical and mathematical sciences, professor. Here
are his memories of that time.
The history of PGO "Tiksi"
began in 1957 in Kyiv, when Professor S.K. Vsekhsvyatsky decided
that his concept of the connection between solar phenomena and
terrestrial phenomena should be supported by geophysical
observations. Since at that time the Kiev Department of Astronomy
was preparing a large graduate of specialists who had nowhere to
attach in Ukraine, it was decided that some of them would go to
Tiksi for the winter. They were Yu.A. Nadubovich, P.Ya.
Sukhoivanenko, V.I. Dzyubenko, N .I. Dzyubenko, N.N. Bliznyuk and
me.
A landing force was being prepared for Tiksi, but before
going to work, all these people had to undergo an internship at an
already operating geophysical station under the guidance of
Professor A.I. Lebedinsky. Yu.A. Nadubovich specialized in optical
observations, P.Ya. In addition, it was assumed that I, almost a
Ph.D., would head the scientific work at the station. In addition to
the people of Kiev, the research staff was provided by the AARI -
these were T.I. Shchuk and E.P. Zubarev. Thus, the main scientific
backbone was formed.
They hoped to get engineering and
laboratory staff at the expense of local resources and at the
expense of the Lena Arctic School. So VF Smirnov, Yu.P. Nikitin
appeared in Tiksi. The bulk of the people arrived by plane, and
Zubareva and Dzyubenko arrived along with the cargo on the
Kooperatsia ship from Murmansk sometime in September. They were sent
from there by Sukhoivanenko. Everything was unloaded and brought to
the courtyard of the Tiksa laboratory, since the premises were not
yet ready. The place for the station was not chosen very well - it
was located south of Tiksi, the northern horizon was covered by
mountains and illuminated by Tiksi, which caused displeasure of our
opticians. But it was already impossible to change anything: there
were already two log cabins and even a working small diesel power
plant. Houses were being built throughout the winter. The main
building, where there was then a dining room, was ready for the New
Year, 1958. Mikhail Kozlov lived there, who commanded diesels and
the entire economy.
By that time, observations had begun in
the village of Tiksi itself. S-180 cameras were installed, E.
Zubareva deployed equipment for registering the PDA, and even before
our arrival, ionospheric observations were being made. On February
19, 1958, I defended my thesis and on March 6 I was already in
Tiksi. In Leningrad, they managed to get a microphoto that
Sukhoivanenko needed. Everything was packed and, together with the
already accumulated cargo, was delivered to a special flight.
Together with me, N.I. Fedyakina and Yu.N. Korneev. We flew safely
on the LI-2 plane in 4 days - for that time it was considered good.
They immediately brought the car, unloaded the plane and took it to
the MGY. It was a clear frosty day. When unloading the car, they
first dropped the rubber mat, which shattered to smithereens: it was
-37 °.
By that time, all optical equipment, with the
exception of spectrographs, had been brought to the station,
installed and already in operation, a locator was installed, and on
the day of arrival the first shooting session was carried out. But
there was no normal connection with the world. And there was no
transport. To make a trip somewhere, first it was necessary to run
on foot to Tiksi, “knock out” the transport, and then bring coal or
food. There were a lot of rushes. But it was more fun than hard. Any
physical work was fun. The station was called MGY Object or simply
MGY. By my arrival, the building for the installation of the
ionospheric station was ready. Under the leadership of V. Dzyubenko,
they began to mount fittings for heating themselves. Subsequently,
this system was connected to a common system. There were two rooms
in the house - one for the ionosphere, the other for the monitor.
But they made a mistake during installation, and the monitor was set
up in such a way that when it was necessary to change the counters,
it was necessary to disassemble everything, because. there was no
free space to take out counters. This was a great inconvenience. The
equipment for measuring earth currents was located in the same
house. The ionospheric station produced great interference during
operation, but this was a layout defect that could no longer be
corrected. The building for the aurora borealis was also completed
on its own. This house was the best of all: it had an electric
boiler heating system, the building was warm and comfortable. All
services were deployed there: radar, S-180 camera consoles, and a
photo lab. There were some economic inconveniences: there was
nowhere to store diesel fuel. Then they themselves made a stand and
installed a fuel tank. This greatly improved the supply of
electricity.
From the middle of 1959 scientific seminars
began to be held in our country. By this time, the station had 35
employees. Of these, researchers - E. Ponomarev, V. Dzyubenko, P.
Sukhoivanenko, N. Bliznyuk, Yu. Nadubovich, E. Zubareva, T. Shchuka.
In the second half of 1959, they were already working according to
the full program: all kinds of observations were going on, there was
a canteen and free food. In those. For years there was a very strict
approach to obtaining data, a certain percentage was given for
losses. If the losses were more than acceptable, then punishment in
the form of deprivation, for example, a bonus, followed. The films
from the S-180 camera were sent to Moscow at the Moscow State
Center. There Olga Khorosheva organized film development. Radar data
was sent to Murmansk. Earth current data - to the Institute of the
Earth's Crust V.A. Trinity. Ionospheric data were sent to the AARI
A.S. Bezprozvannaya, which was very strict about the quality of the
material received. Photometer data remained with Yu.A. Nadubovich.
The MGY station was a subdivision of the Tiksa observatory and
there was no provision for the position of the head. But when I
arrived at the observatory, its head V.F. Merezhko immediately typed
out the order and handed me a copy with the words: “You will be the
head of the station. Go ahead and command." And there was a car
humming downstairs. So I became the first official head of the MGY,
while Yu.A. Nadubovich. When I was away, V.I. always remained the
deputy. Dzyubenko, at that time the most active host at the IGY.
I will briefly dwell on the scientific tasks set before us. As
already noted, the organizer was Professor S.K. Vsekhsvyatsky, who
came to the IGY and lived there for some time. He was interested in
the problem of estimating the density of particles in the solar
wind. He had a "comet method" that gave large values for the density
and flux of solar wind particles of the order of 1000 particles/cm3.
He "forced" me to calculate a model of the solar corona, according
to which a flux density of up to 100 particles/cm3 was obtained at a
stretch. In general, I got values up to 10 particles/cm3 in the
Earth's orbit. He insisted on 1000 and wanted to find confirmation
of this in the observations of the auroras.
In those years,
Sterner's theory was popular, according to which the auroral zones
were very well explained and they tried to establish the energies of
particles invading the earth's atmosphere from them. Although the
concept of a substorm was formulated by Akasofu much later, Yu.A.
Nadubovich already drew attention to the fact that activity has an
explosive character. We called them flashes - this term reflected
the explosive nature of the substorm. We were all struck by the very
rapid course of phenomena, when literally 5-10 minutes after a quiet
time, when the sky was dark, a background glow suddenly flared up,
then arcs of auroras. This was also observed by other researchers,
which prompted everyone to reconsider their ideas, and by the end of
the IGY it was clear that Stormer was wrong. And already M. Bobrov
divided the entire territory of the Earth into the polar cap and the
auroral zone.
By the end of the IGY period, an idea of the
concept of a substorm was formed, although it was not called that at
that time. It became clear that Sterner's ideas were not suitable
for explaining this phenomenon, and the idea of an aurora oval was
formed. The decisive role here was played by O.B. Khorosheva, and
then Ya.I. Feldstein, who generalized the idea of an oval, of its
closedness, except, perhaps, the day side. We have learned something
about the spectrum of the particles that cause the auroras. It
became clear that these particles did not have an energy of MeV or
even hundreds of keV, but they were particles with energies, as was
assumed, of the solar wind, about which very little was known at
that time. All this forced us to reconsider our plans for the
future. The possibilities of satellite methods have already
appeared, the possibilities of radiophysical methods have been
revised, and riometers have become working tools.
Very high
hopes were placed on radars. It was believed that they will allow
you to see the arcs of the auroras during the day and in cloudy
weather. But it turned out that this was not the case. However, a
new class of phenomena was discovered - radio aurora, the existence
of which no one assumed. It turned out that radio auroras are
somehow connected with optical auroras, but in a very complex,
indirect way. A new direction has opened up—spectroscopic
observations. A shift to the violet region was found in the hydrogen
emission, which indicates that protons are flying at us, the
particle energies were estimated from this shift and it turned out
that these are particles of keV energies. Gradually, with the help
of ionospheric observations, the fluxes and energies of invading
electrons were estimated, and it was concluded that electrons of
fairly moderate energies are responsible for nighttime ionization at
high latitudes.
After the IGY, photographic methods and
methods of vertical sounding of the ionosphere came to the fore,
while spectrometric and radar methods faded into the shadows. Of
course, colossal hopes were pinned on satellites and rockets. But
the main conclusions about the magnetic field and the substorm were
made on the basis of ground-based observations. This suggests that
the data obtained should be treated more biased, because. during the
IGY period, we received no less data than the Americans, we had the
world's best network of S-180 cameras. Nevertheless, Akasofu
discovered the substorm.
Printing house.
Museums:
Fine arts and culture of the Arctic,
Natural reserve "Ust-Lensky".
Wooden Church of the Savior Not
Made by Hands in Tiksi-3 (built in 2006)
The
city is located beyond the Arctic Circle. The climate is harsh,
arctic. Frosts are slightly softened by the sea; the average
temperature in January is -37.3 degrees, July and August (the
warmest months) are only +7.6 and +7.7 degrees, respectively.
Climatic winter comes in the first half of September, and it ends
only in mid-June. Frosts and frosts are possible all year round.
Thaws are excluded from November to February. Every summer there are
short but hot periods with temperatures over 25 degrees.
February 2013 in Tiksi was the coldest month of the year ever
observed in terms of average temperature, with an average
temperature of -39.2 degrees. The lowest temperature in Tiksi in
February 2013 (-49.5 degrees) was one degree higher than the
absolute minimum temperature in Tiksi (-50.5 degrees). The
difference between the average monthly temperature of the coldest
and warmest month is 42.8 degrees. The largest possible depth of
snow cover is 99 cm. The coldest month in terms of both average and
minimum temperatures is February, and the maximum is January. April
in Tiksi has the lowest average monthly temperature in Russia, its
average temperature in 2006 was a record low for Russia - -27.6
degrees. The polar night in the village lasts 67 days, from November
19 to January 24, the polar day - 86 days, from May 10 to August 3.
Shipping
Tiksi is one of the Arctic ports of
Russia. Navigation takes less than three months. From June to
September the river passenger motor ship “Mechanic Kulibin” runs (7
trips per navigation).
Aviation
There is an airport of
federal significance, jointly based. Aircraft of state and civil
aviation are located on the territory of the airport.
The
airfield was re-commissioned on April 10, 2013. It is capable of
receiving aircraft An-24 (An-26), An-72 (An-74), An-12, An-140,
DHC-8 Q-300, -400, Il-18, Il-76, as well as small aircraft and all
types of helicopters.