Deep-sea manned vehicles MIR (9 photos). Deep-sea research vehicles "Mir-1" and "Mir-2". Help Underwater in the world

There are many more places on earth about which we know less than about the vast expanses of space. We are talking primarily about unconquerable water depths. According to scientists, science has not yet actually begun to study the mysterious life at the bottom of the oceans; all research is at the beginning of the journey.

From year to year there are more and more daredevils who are ready to perform a new record-breaking deep-sea dive. In the presented material I would like to talk about swims without equipment, with scuba gear and with the help of bathyscaphes, which have gone down in history.

Deepest human dive

For a long time, the French athlete Loïc Leferme held the record for freediving. In 2002, he managed to make a deep-sea dive to 162 meters. Many divers tried to improve this indicator, but died in the depths of the sea. In 2004, Leferm himself became a victim of his own vanity. During a training swim in the oceanic trench of Villefranche-sur-Mer, he dived to 171 meters. However, the athlete failed to rise to the surface.

The latest record-breaking deep-sea dive was made by Austrian freediver Herbert Nitzsch. He managed to descend to 214 meters without an oxygen tank. Thus, the achievement of Loïc Leferme is a thing of the past.

Record deep-sea dive for women

French athlete Audrey Mestre set several records among women. On May 29, 1997, she dived as much as 80 meters on a single breath-hold, without an air tank. A year later, Audrey broke her own record, descending 115 meters into the depths of the sea. In 2001, the athlete dived as much as 130 meters. This record, which has world status among women, is assigned to Audrey to this day.

On October 12, 2002, Mestre made her last attempt in life, diving without equipment to 171 meters off the coast of the Dominican Republic. The athlete used only a special load, without oxygen cylinders. The lift was to be carried out using an air dome. However, the latter turned out to be unfilled. 8 minutes after the deep-sea dive started, Audrey's body was brought to the surface by scuba divers. The official cause of death of the athlete was noted as problems with the equipment for lifting to the surface.

Record scuba dive

Now let's talk about deep-sea scuba diving. The most significant of them was carried out by the French diver Pascal Bernabe. In the summer of 2005, he managed to descend 330 meters into the depths of the sea. Although it was initially planned to conquer a depth of 320 meters. Such a significant record was achieved as a result of a small incident. During the descent, Pascal's rope stretched, which allowed him to swim an extra 10 meters in depth.

The diver managed to successfully rise to the surface. The ascent lasted a long 9 hours. The reason for such a slow rise was the high risk of development, which could lead to respiratory arrest and damage to blood vessels. It is worth noting that to set the record, Pascal Bernabe had to spend 3 whole years in constant training.

Record dive in a submersible

On January 23, 1960, scientists Donald Walsh and Jacques Piccard set a record for diving to the bottom of the ocean in a manned vehicle. While aboard the small submarine Trieste, the researchers reached the bottom at a depth of 10,898 meters.

The deepest dive in a manned submersible was achieved thanks to the construction of the Deepsea Challenger, which took the designers 8 long years. This mini-submarine is a streamlined capsule weighing more than 10 tons and with a wall thickness of 6.4 cm. It is noteworthy that before being put into operation, the bathyscaphe was tested several times with a pressure of 1160 atmospheres, which is higher than the pressure that was supposed to affect the walls of the device on the ocean floor .

In 2012, the famous American film director James Cameron, piloting the mini-submarine Deepsea Challenger, conquered the previous record set by the Trieste device, and even improved it by plunging 11 km into the Mariinsky Trench.

By order of the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Russia, the design of a bathyscaphe began, capable of diving to a depth of eleven thousand meters, which has not yet been conquered by mankind.

Not a single deep-sea vehicle existing today is capable of swimming so deep - the maximum depth for them (the Russian “Mir” too) is considered to be 6.5 thousand meters.

This project should be implemented during 2009-2016 within the framework of the target program “Development of maritime civil engineering”. According to the customer’s calculations, the cost of the project, including the design and development of a habitable bathyscaphe, is 63 million rubles. The location of this deep-sea vehicle will be a research vessel, the creation of which is also currently being developed.

The crew of the bathyscaphe will be 2-3 scientists, the maximum diving depth is planned to be 11 thousand meters, the maximum displacement is 33 tons. The device will be able to remain under water for three days.

Simultaneously with the order for the deepest-sea vehicle, the Ministry of Trade and Industry of the Russian Federation placed an order for the design of a research vessel that will carry a manned deep-sea vehicle. The crew of the research vessel is 80 people; in the hold of the vessel there will be a supply of fuel and food for one hundred daily autonomous trips.

In the order, representatives of the Russian Ministry of Industry noted that the creation of such a complex should “establish Russia’s authority as a great maritime power and at the same time a leader in deep-sea shipbuilding.”

The ministry is convinced that this device can be built at shipyards owned by the United Shipbuilding Corporation. But USC itself does not comment on this statement, explaining that it is not aware of what is happening. The project specifications require that the bathyscaphe be equipped with the latest navigation and radio equipment, a reliable and modern security system. Among other things, this complex will provide the opportunity to significantly increase the number of domestic scientific research programs, allowing the most complex operations to be carried out at extremely great depths.

— Manned deep-sea vehicles have a very wide range of applications - from collecting information and conducting various scientific measurements, to work related to eliminating the consequences of accidents under water and laying underwater communication or technological systems. The creation of a bathyscaphe that can dive six kilometers today costs an average of $50 million, and in this case we are talking about 11 kilometers, said Anatoly Sagalevich, head of the laboratory of deep-sea vehicles at the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He believes that before starting to create new deep-sea vehicles, it is necessary to fully use those that are available.

“Our Mirs are recognized as the best devices all over the world, and yet there is not a long queue for their use,” says the scientist. — The maintenance of the Akademik Keldysh vessel, which is the base for two Mir spacecraft, costs 40 thousand dollars a day, which is 15 million dollars a year. Perhaps, on a national scale, this is not so much, but if we take into account the fact that our laboratory has been looking for work on its own for twenty years, then the numbers do not look so small.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry notes that, in addition to scientific use, the World Ocean is now actively used for laying oil and gas pipelines, cable routes and various platforms, so the new deepest-sea vehicle will definitely not be left without work.

Today, only a few states have deep-sea vehicles:

Russia has Mir-1 and Mir-2 (diving depth up to 6.5 thousand meters), France has Nautile (6 thousand meters), Japan has Shinkai-6500 (with a record depth of 6527 meters), China - a copy of the "Mir", which has already been tested at a depth of 5 thousand meters.

There is already a device that can dive to 6.5 thousand meters, which will allow exploring 98% of the bottom of the World Ocean. Therefore, creating devices that can descend to 11 thousand meters is an impractical idea,” Sagalevich complains. - People have already been to such depths - for example, the French sank to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in 1960, and they did not find anything worthy of attention except sedimentary rocks there.

Neither Soviet nor Russian industry has ever produced such devices. Even the "Worlds" were built in Finland - by the Rauma-Repola Oceanics company.

“Russian shipbuilding is not able to build such a device today,” says Alexey Bezborodov, general director of the InfraNews agency. - This body is not just a blank with a porthole made of titanium - it is a body that can withstand enormous pressure, and building such a device is not a very big problem. The main problem lies in the vessel that must support the operation of this apparatus. But our industry has never built such ships. Even during the Soviet era, almost the entire domestic deep-sea fleet was foreign: from the Yuri Gagarin to the Mstislav Keldysh.

Project of the deep-sea vehicle "Mir".

1. Number of project devices: 2

2. Project image:

GOA "Mir-2" as of 2008

3. Project composition:

4. Project history:

The idea of ​​deep-sea manned vehicles (DMV) and the initial design were developed at the USSR Academy of Sciences and the Lazurit Design Bureau. GOA and were built in Finland by the Rauma Repola concern in 1987. The devices were created under the scientific and technical guidance of scientists and engineers from the P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The creation of the devices began in May 1985 and was completed in November 1987. In December 1987, deep-sea tests of the devices were carried out in the Atlantic at a depth of 6170 meters () and 6120 meters (). The devices were installed on the support vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh, built in 1981 in Finland and converted in 1987 to carry out work with GOA.

The habitable durable hull and ballast spheres of the GOA are made of special-purpose nickel steel (Martensitic, highly alloyed steel, with 18% nickel. The alloy has a yield strength of 150 kg/sq.mm (for titanium - about 79 kg/sq.mm). Manufacturer : Finnish company Lokomo, part of the Rauma Repola concern). The spheres are assembled from hemispheres created by continuous casting into a mold and then machined. The habitable sphere has an internal diameter of 2.1 m. The central pilot window has a diameter of 200 mm, and the two side windows have a diameter of 120 mm. Ballast spheres can hold about a ton of water. A stainless steel frame links four spherical bodies into a single structure. The upper reinforced part of the frame ends with a lifting device, which is connected to the gripper of the hoisting device (HUD) cable. At the bottom, the frame rests on skis made of syntactic and fiberglass. The lightweight body, shaped like an elongated drop, covers the frame and the entire internal contents of the device. The body halves are glued together from syntactic and Kevlar. The tail unit is installed in the stern; its wing rotates in a horizontal plane, providing directional stabilization. Under the light hull there are main ballast tanks, blown with compressed air.

The propulsion system consists of three hydraulic motors with propellers protected by attachments. Excellent maneuverability of the devices is ensured by the possibility of rotating the main propulsion nozzle in the range of ±60° and rotating the side propulsors in the range of +110° + -60°. The speed and rotation of all propulsors are controlled from the cab using the motion control joystick. Due to the stern propulsion device, the device develops a speed of up to 5 knots. Side thrusters provide a speed of about 1 knot. The energy complex consists of 3 oil-filled battery boxes. Two batteries are assembled from iron-nickel batteries with a capacity of 700 A/h: with a voltage of 120 V and an energy reserve of 84 kW/h, which powers the electric motors of the 1st and 2nd hydraulic systems, external lamps and flash; and with a voltage of 24 V and an energy reserve of 17 kW/h, designed to power communication equipment, navigation, cameras, and measuring sensors. The emergency nickel-cadmium battery is installed in a durable habitable sphere and powers the electric motor of the 3rd hydraulic system, which is used for emergency release of side and stern thrusters, manipulator hands, lower battery box weighing 1200 kg and recoil of an emergency buoy with a Kevlar cable guide. Solid ballast - nickel shot - is held by electromagnets in fiberglass bins. All movable outboard devices operate from a hydraulic drive.

The life support system of the GOA does not differ from the standard systems of other devices and includes: fans driving air through cassettes with lithium or sodium hydroxide, oxygen cylinders with flow regulators and cabin atmosphere control devices. GOAs are equipped with surface and underwater communication systems, navigation systems that ensure precise alignment of vehicles relative to bottom beacons, measuring systems, which include up to 9 hydrophysical sensors, echo sounders, profilers, magnetometers, all-round and sector-view locators, television and photo systems, searchlights and lamps . Reserve inputs allow you to install additional complexes and equipment on the devices. The total weight of the devices is 18.5 tons.

In January-September 2004, the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, together with the FSUE Fakel, carried out a major overhaul of both GOAs with their complete disassembly, testing the strength of the hulls, partial replacement of elements, components and equipment, subsequent assembly and testing of the newly assembled devices. As a result, we received a class certificate from the international register "German Lloyd" until 2014.

The Russian Academy of Sciences has developed a number of original devices that can significantly expand the capabilities of the Mir type GOA:
- deep-sea small-sized remote-controlled module “Sergeich” (depth 6000 m), equipped with a high-resolution television camera and lamps, which is installed on the GOA, can move away from it at a distance of 100 m and is controlled via cable from inside the vehicle’s cabin;
- an inertial navigation system synthesized on the basis of a Doppler log, a gyrocompass and a depth gauge. The system makes it possible to calculate the location of the GOA underwater with high accuracy;
- a number of new designs of samplers for taking samples of hot fluids from hydrotherms, sediments, etc.;
- a hydroacoustic system that ensures the GOA exits into the polynya during dives in ice conditions. The system is designed specifically for deep-sea operations in the Arctic.

Recently, a large set of techniques has also been developed for conducting scientific research using deep-sea manned vehicles. In addition, two methods based on the latest technological developments have been developed and introduced into deep-sea practice:
- a technique for direct television broadcasting of a package of video signals from a depth of 3800 m via a fiber optic cable to the surface of the ocean and then via satellite to the ground. This operation was carried out three times. During the last operation on July 25, 2005, the transmission from the Titanic was watched by the whole world for 2.5 hours on the Discovery Channel;
- methodology for conducting underwater technical operations and deep-sea video filming using 4 manned vehicles simultaneously. In September 2003, two Mir-class spacecraft and two American Deep Rover vehicles met underwater at the Lost City hydrothermal field and conducted an interesting set of scientific research and video filming.

On August 2, 2007, as part of the "Arctic 2007" expedition, the world's first descent of the deep-sea manned vehicles "Mir" was made at the point of the geographic North Pole to a depth of 4300 meters. During this unprecedented dive, a titanium Russian flag was planted at the bottom. The achievements of this expedition are included in the Guinness Book of Records.

Currently, the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences is working on several projects, within the framework of which it is planned to conduct scientific research and underwater technical work using GOA. One of the projects is comprehensive research of the ocean during the round-the-world voyage of the ship "Akademik Mstislav Keldysh". During this expedition, it is planned to study hydrothermal fields at the bottom in various areas of the World Ocean and conduct dives on several sunken objects.

5. Project diagram:

One of the most ancient devices for lowering a person under water is a diving bell. They say that Alexander the Great went underwater in such a device. At first, the bell looked very much like a large wooden barrel, suspended upside down on a rope and lowered in this position into the water. The air in the barrel made it possible for the diver sitting in it to breathe. Over time, the diving bell was improved and equipped with various devices that made it easier for a person to work under water. It is still used today to deliver divers to their place of work.

The disadvantage of the bell is obvious - it greatly limits the ability to move underwater. But the diving suit created at the end of the 19th century allowed a person to work freely under water. Currently, two types of spacesuits are used - soft and hard. The first ones consist of a rubber suit and a metal helmet with a viewing window - a porthole. Breathing air is supplied from the surface through a rubber hose attached to the helmet, and exhaust air is released through a special valve into the water. In such a spacesuit, a person can work at a depth of up to 100 meters. The hard suit consists of a steel cylinder for the torso and a system of smaller cylinders for the arms and legs, mounted on hinges. It allows you to dive to twice the depth.

In the early 1940s, famous French scientists J.I. Cousteau and E. Gagnan invented scuba gear. It was he who allowed a wide range of people to become familiar with the depths of the sea: submariners, archaeologists, researchers of marine flora and fauna, geologists and oceanographers. However, you cannot dive to great depths while wearing scuba gear.

The bathysphere (from the Greek words “bathiz” - “deep” and “sphere” “ball”), a durable steel chamber of a spherical shape with a sealed entrance hatch and several portholes made of durable glass, helped to begin the exploration of great depths. It is lowered from a surface vessel on a strong steel cable. The air supply is stored in cylinders, and carbon dioxide and water vapor are absorbed by special chemicals. On one of these devices called “Century of Progress” in 1934, Americans W. Beebe and O. Barton descended to a record depth for that time - 923 meters.

But the greatest success in exploring the depths of the sea was achieved by the Swiss scientist Auguste Piccard. Back in 1937, he began constructing his first bathyscaphe. However, work was interrupted by the war. Therefore, he built the first apparatus only in 1948. It was made in the form of a metal float filled with gasoline, because gasoline is lighter than water, practically incompressible, and the shell of the float does not deform under the influence of enormous pressures. A spherical gondola made of the strongest steel and ballast are suspended from below the float.

In 1953, Auguste and his son Jacques descended in the Trieste bathyscaphe to a depth of 3160 meters. And in January 1960, J. Piccard and the American D. Walsh, in the same, only improved, bathyscaphe reached the deepest mark of the World Ocean - the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean at a depth of 10912 meters.

However, there are few such super-deep depressions. The main riches are hidden at medium depths - from several tens of meters to 2-3 kilometers. And here, instead of sedentary bathyspheres and bathyscaphes, we need maneuverable vehicles equipped with modern complexes of instruments and mechanisms. The Soviet “Mir” became such an apparatus.

The deep-sea manned underwater vehicle "Mir" is designed for research at depths of up to 6000 meters. It can stay underwater for as long as 80 hours. The length of the device is 6.8 meters, width - 3.6 meters, and height - 3 meters. The diameter of the Mir's spherical body is 2.1 meters. The entrance is located at the top. Three people can work simultaneously on board the Mir. The crew maintains constant communication with the ship via a hydroacoustic channel.

When the Mir dives, the ballast tanks are filled with water, and when it rises to the surface, the pumps are turned on and pump out the water. The running electric motor, which is powered by batteries, allows you to move at speeds of up to 9 kilometers per hour. Two side engines allow complex maneuvers.

“Mir” is equipped with a television video camera, a photo installation and powerful lamps. Two manipulators take samples of soil, animals and vegetation. Water samples are taken by bathometers. The device is equipped with a small drilling rig, which allows you to take samples of rocky soil. There are portholes for observation. The diameter of the central one is 210 millimeters, and the side ones are 120 millimeters each.

Two Mir devices are based on board the research vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh. With their help, the Komsomolets submarine, resting at the bottom of the Norwegian Sea, was examined. Mir also took part in the survey of the Kursk submarine that sank in 2000.

Despite the fact that “Mir” contributed to many scientific discoveries, his real fame came from his participation in the filming of James Cameron’s famous film “Titanic.” The legendary steamship Titanic sank at a depth of 4000 meters.

The choice of Russian Mir devices for filming by IMAX has become global recognition of our deep-sea technologies and ability to conduct underwater operations at great depths. The choice of the Mir devices was influenced by two circumstances. There were two devices available at once. This provided ample opportunities for underwater filming both in terms of lighting individual objects and in terms of interaction on the object, filming one device with another against the background of the object. In addition, the Mir devices have a large central porthole with a diameter of 210 millimeters, which is very important for the wide-angle lens of the IMAX film camera.

Summer of 1991. After solving the main technical problems, the research vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh set off to explore the Titanic, which sank in 1912 at a depth of four thousand meters. On board the Keldysh was a group of geologists and biologists from the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as a group of scientists from the Bedford Oceanographic Institute from Canada.

But the main goal of the expedition was to conduct deep-sea filming on the Titanic from the Mir devices in accordance with the script written by the outstanding director Stephen Lowe. Over the course of three weeks, seventeen Mir dives took place on the Titanic. Filming was carried out on the bow and stern of the sunken ship, as well as in a huge area around it. There were many different objects that fell out of the Titanic during the sinking. Lowe himself took part in five Mir-2 dives as a director and cameraman and did most of the deep-sea filming.

“The operation to film the left propeller of the Titanic was unusual,” writes Anatoly Sagalevich in the magazine “Knowledge is Power.” - Two Mir spacecraft crawled under the stern canopy of the sunken ship and took completely unique photographs. On the screen we see a huge Titanic propeller, and on the right - the Mir-1 apparatus. Excellent footage taken by Stephen Lowe from Mira-2. On the screen, the entire scene lasts thirty to forty seconds, and the filming operation took several hours: you need to approach, position the devices relative to each other accordingly, select the lighting, etc. And on board the ship at that time it was restless - communication with both devices was lost , which were screened on top by the Titanic's hull. The commanders got carried away and forgot about the communication sessions. Communication resumed when the devices “crawled” out from under surveillance and went “free.” Of course, we don’t see all this on the screen, there is only a propeller and one of the devices nearby, but such a scene, as they say, is worth a lot...

An hour and a half of this unusually exciting spectacle flies by in an instant. This film is not only about the tragedy of the Titanic. This is a film about the expedition of the Institute of Oceanology on the research vessel "Akademik Mstislav Keldysh", about people who do unusual work associated with great risk, about the relationships between people living on different continents, but working on the expedition as one family."

(GOA) for oceanographic research and rescue operations.

The fleet of the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences named after Pyotr Shirshov includes two deep-sea manned underwater vehicles of the "Mir" type: GOA "Mir 1" and "Mir 2". They were built in Finland by Rauma Repola in 1987. The devices were created under the scientific and technical guidance of scientists and engineers from the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The creation of the devices began in May 1985 and was completed in November 1987. In December 1987, deep-sea tests of the devices were carried out in the Atlantic at a depth of 6170 meters ("Mir 1") and 6120 meters ("Mir 2"). The devices were installed on the support vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh, built in 1981 in Finland and converted in 1987 to carry out work with deep-sea test devices.

GOA "Mir 1" and "Mir 2" are identical in design and are designed for a working diving depth of 6000 m. The total battery capacity of one device is 100 kW/h, which allows underwater operations to be carried out for 17-20 hours of continuous underwater cycle. In addition, this allows the installation of a large complex of scientific and navigation equipment on both devices.

The single-water speed of the Mir spacecraft is 5 knots. It uses water ballast for ballasting. Before the apparatus leaves the surface, sea water fills plastic main ballast tanks with a capacity of 1.5 cubic meters. m, which are blown with compressed air when the device reaches the surface after a dive. The buoyancy of the apparatus is regulated using a variable ballast system by receiving water into three durable spheres and pumping it out of the spheres with a high-pressure pump.

The body of the devices is made of martensitic, highly alloyed steel, with 18% nickel. The alloy has a yield strength of 150 kg per square meter. mm (for titanium - about 79 kg/sq.mm).

The length of the Mir apparatus is 7.8 m, width (with side engines) 3.8 m, height 3 m. The view from the habitable sphere of the Mir apparatus is provided by three windows: a central one with an internal diameter of 200 mm, and two side windows with a diameter of 120 mm. The position of the windows provides a wide viewing angle for the pilot and observers. The buoyancy reserve of the Mir apparatus at the bottom is 290 kg. Dry weight 18.6 tons. Life support capacity 246 people/hour. GOA "Mir" is equipped with navigation and scientific equipment, photo and video systems, manipulators, sampling devices, etc. The crew of the device consists of three people - a pilot, an engineer and a scientific observer.

The emergency rescue system of the device consists of a syntactic buoy released by the crew, with a Kevlar cable attached to it, which is made of high-strength carbon fiber - Kevlar, 7000 m long, along which half of the coupling is lowered (the same as a railway automatic coupler). It reaches the device, then automatic coupling occurs, and the device is lifted on a long power cable, 6500 m long, with a breaking force of about 10 tons.

In 1987-2005, 35 expeditions were carried out in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans using the Mir 1 and Mir 2 GOAs, of which nine expeditions were carried out to eliminate the consequences of the accidents of the nuclear submarines Komsomolets and Kursk. . The developed range of the latest deep-sea technologies and techniques made it possible to carry out long-term radiation monitoring on the Komsomolets nuclear submarine, which is located at the bottom of the Norwegian Sea at a depth of 1,700 meters, and to partially seal the bow of the boat. Together with various Russian scientific institutions, a methodology was developed that made it possible to conduct a detailed examination of the Kursk nuclear submarine, determine the cause of its accident and develop measures to eliminate the consequences of this accident.

In 1991 and 1995, with the help of Mir devices, studies were carried out on the hull of the Titanic, lying at a depth of 3800 meters. During the dives, unique filming was carried out, which was used to create feature and popular science films, including Titanica, Titanic, Bismarck, Aliens of the Deep, Ghost of the Abyss.

Film director James Cameron participated in the dives in 1995, who descended to the Titanic on the Mir apparatus 12 times.

In January September 2004, the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, together with the Fakel Federal State Unitary Enterprise, carried out a major overhaul of the Mir devices, including their complete disassembly, testing the strength of the hulls, partial replacement of elements, components and equipment, subsequent assembly and testing of the newly assembled devices. As a result, "Mir?1" and "Mir?2" received a class certificate from the international register "German Lloyd" until 2014.

On August 2, 2007, as part of the expedition "Arctic? 2007", the world's first descent of the deep-sea manned vehicles "Mir" was made at the point of the geographic North Pole to a depth of 4300 meters. During this unprecedented dive, a titanium Russian flag was planted at the bottom, and samples of soil and living organisms were taken from a depth of 4261 m. The achievements of this expedition were included in the Guinness Book of Records.

In 2008-2010, the scientific research expedition “Worlds on Baikal” took place: scientists on two deep-sea manned vehicles “World 1” and “World 2” studied the state of the reservoir’s ecosystem, animal and plant life, and tectonic processes at the bottom of the lake. Researchers have made a number of scientific discoveries, and also come closer to solving one of the historical mysteries. At the end of a series of dives in 2009, in the area of ​​the Circum-Baikal Railway, scientists discovered fragments of a railway carriage, as well as boxes with ammunition from the Civil War (1918-1921). Researchers suggested that this could be the train on which the “white” Admiral Kolchak exported the gold of the empire. In 2010, during the final dives in the same area, scientists found objects that looked like gold bars, but they were unable to bring the find to the surface.

During the "Worlds" expeditions, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, polar explorer, State Duma deputy Artur Chilingarov, Governor of the Irkutsk region Dmitry Mezentsev, President of Buryatia Vyacheslav Nagovitsyn, President of Mongolia Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, rock musician and band leader visited the bottom of Lake Baikal " Time Machine" Andrei Makarevich, writer Valentin Rasputin, film director, author of "Titanic" and "Avatar" James Cameron.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin dived to the bottom of the lake on August 1, 2009. In total, the “excursion” on the Mir 1 apparatus along the bottom of Lake Baikal took about 4 hours. During the dive, Putin contacted journalists. At that moment, "World 1" was at the deepest point of the southern part of the lake, 1395 meters. Putin admitted to reporters that he was somewhat surprised by the opacity of the water, calling it “plankton soup.”

James Cameron dived to the bottom of Lake Baikal on August 16, 2010, his birthday, and spent four and a half hours underwater. The maximum depth at which he found himself was 1380 meters.

In the summer of 2011, Russian deep-sea manned vehicles Mir 1 and Mir 2 will study Lake Geneva. The first dives are planned to begin in mid-June and end in mid-August.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources