An episode not mentioned – as far as I can tell – in James D. White’s biography (Red Hamlet: The Life and Ideas of Alexander Bogdanov) but of interest to those who might care. This is by no means new information (see, for example, this essay about Bogdanov’s time in Vologda) but since I was able to track down Rusanov’s letter, I thought it would be of interest.

While in Vologda Bogdanov – in July of 1902 – accompanied a future researcher of the Arctic Vladimir Aleksandrovich Rusanov (who was in administrative exile in Vologda as well) on his first expedition north. This would have made great sense as Bogdanov was a medical doctor and would certainly be useful on a dangerous trip such as this.

Rusanov writes to his mother – from a small village called Pomozdino (around 1000 km north-east from Vologda) – in July of 1902 that he is about to undertake an expedition to the northern regions of what is today Komi Republic. The expedition would take the river Vychegda [Вычегда] – up to where it eventually runs into a few villages and then Pechora River up north that was, according Rusanov, almost completely unexplored. Some sections would have to be done by dragging boats between rivers (and the idea was to find various waterways that might help with future exploration).

It’s not clear from the letter how long (and how successful – see below) this expedition turned out to be (more to research), but according to this 1945 book (Русанов В.А. Статьи, лекции, письма : Лит. наследство выдающегося русского полярного исследователя начала XX века, 1945) Rusanov was accompanied by a ‘topographer B.’ and four workers.

Letter and the note identifying ‘topographer B’ as Bogdanov (according to Rusanov’s son testimony) are found on pages 372 and – note – 388:

Here is the map of the areas with some geographical points for orientation. So, it would have been quite an arduous and long expedition.

Then up to Pechora river but the letter does not specify locations (except that it’s north from Ukhta):

The book of Rusanov’s essays, lectures and letters mentioned above has a map of his July 1902 trip (with Bogdanov) – so it appears that the expedition did not make its way all the way up north as Rusanov managed to do in 1903 by a different route: