Perseus (Soviet ship)
Perseus was the first Soviet research ship.
Perseus was constructed as a sealer by industrialist E. V. Mogučim at Onega, Russia on the White Sea in 1916. In 1919 it was towed to Archangel where on January 10 of 1922 the Council of Labor and Defense transferred it to PINRO, the Nikolai M. Knipovich Polar Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography, which equipped it as a research vessel under supervision of the ship's master V. F. Gostev and the first director of the Institute, Ivan Illarionovich Mesjacev. The work was done by shipbuilders and future famous scientists Lev Zenkevich, Vasily Shuleikin, Maria Klenova, and Nikolay Zubov, all of whom later participated in voyages on Perseus.
On November 7, 1922, the national flag of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic was raised at the stern of Perseus, and on February 1, 1923 the vessel's unique flag – a blue pennant with the seven stars of the Perseus constellation – was first flown from the mast. On 19 August 1923, Perseus began its first scientific voyage.
Over the years of its voyages, Perseus undertook many expeditions in the northern seas – the Barents Sea, Greenland, the Kara Sea, and the coasts of Novaya Zemlya, Franz Josef Land, Jan Mayen, and Svalbard. It took part in the international search for the airship Italia of Umberto Nobile's ill-fated second North Pole expedition. The ship conducted hydrological, scientific, and commercial research, including programs of the second International Polar Year. Through its study of the arms of the Arctic Ocean, Perseus led the way for later Soviet expeditions to all the world's oceans.
On July 10, 1941, the Luftwaffe sank Perseus in Motovsky Gulf, in shallow water just south of the Rybachy Peninsula, while she carried supplies to the garrisons there.
Soviet scientist Sergei Obruchev wrote a hymn "Perseus" which contains this quatrain:
A memorial stele was erected to Perseus in the town of Onega in 1979.
Later vessels were named in Perseuss honor. Perseus 2 was a converted minesweeper received as German war reparations. After 176 voyages, that introduced many new technologies and greatly advanced Soviet fishery science, it was retired in 1967. In 1969 a much larger purpose-built research ship, Perseus III, began service with PINRO. Perseus III was transferred from PINRO to Vega in 1991 and decommissioned in 2007.
