Nikolai Zubov was born on May 23, 1885 in the city of Lipkany, Bessarabian province, in an officer family. His father was a poor cavalryman who distinguished himself during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. In 1901, the elder Zubov Sr. was promoted to lieutenant colonel and received the title of nobleman.

The beginning of the battle path

The childhood of Nikolai Zubov took place in Tiraspol. When the boy was ten years old, he was sent to one of the cadet corps, which issued junkers for the army, but the nobility of his father opened new prospects for him. In 1901, he entered a privileged educational institution - the St. Petersburg Naval Cadet Corps.

In January 1904, at the age of 18, Nikolai Zubov was prematurely promoted to midshipman, released from the cadet corps and sent to the 14th Baltic Naval Crew to take short courses in artillery and mine work.

“Of strong character and strong will. Easily subordinates his comrades to his influence. Extremely truthful and reasonably frank. Kind and helpful, but with dignity. Comrade in the best sense of the word. With excellent abilities and hardworking enough ”, - said in the graduation characteristics of Zubov.

In the future, the young midshipman received two consecutive appointments: for the battleship Eagle and for the destroyer Brilliant. As part of the team of the latter, Zubov made the transition to the Far East to participate in the Russo-Japanese War.

May 27, 1905 "Brilliant" entered the battle of Tsushima. Soon the ship got a hole and lost speed, but despite this, his team tried to save the sailors from the dead battleship Oslyabya. The rupture of an enemy shell killed the commander of the "Brilliant" Alexander Shamov and severely wounded the watch commander - midshipman Nikolai Zubov. As a result, the battleship that received serious damage was flooded, and his team (including Zubov) aboard the Bodry destroyer arrived in China, where she was interned by local authorities.

Six months later, the cured Zubov returned to Russia, where he was awarded the orders of St. Stanislav of the 3rd degree and St. Anna of the 4th degree. In 1907 he received the rank of lieutenant, and a year later he entered the Nikolaev Maritime Academy, which he graduated from in the hydrographic department.

  • Nikolai Zubov
  • © Wikimedia commons

Impeccably acting young officer in 1912 was promoted to senior lieutenant and sent to the ship "Bakan", guarding the Russian sea industries in the North. During the campaign, Zubov took part in the shooting of the northern suburbs of Russia, which, according to historians, largely predetermined his subsequent interests.

The battle wounds negatively affected Zubov’s health - he suffered from headaches and quickly got tired, which forced him to retire from military service in 1913.

War and science

After his resignation, Zubov got a job in the department of commercial ports of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, where he set about creating a port hydrometeorological service. In 1914, he completed an internship at the Institute of Geophysics in Bergen (Norway). Upon his return to Russia, he lectured on hydrology and tactical navigation.

But Zubov’s civil service did not last long. After the outbreak of World War I, he returned to the Navy and in the autumn of 1914 was appointed commander of the destroyer "Obedient".

In 1915, Zubov was transferred to the position of flagship navigational officer at the headquarters of the head of the Baltic submarine division, and then at the headquarters of the fleet commander. He was quickly promoted to the rank of captain of the 2nd rank, and for participating in the capture of the enemy steamer he was awarded the Order of St. Anne of the 3rd degree. In 1916, he became the commander of the destroyer "Powerful."

During the Civil War, Zubov was mobilized into the Kolchak troops and commanded an armored railway division. However, in the ranks of the White movement did not take part, was captured by the Red Army and went over to its side.

In 1920, Zubov became the head of the training department of the headquarters of the Office of the Naval Forces of the Red Army. For some time he also worked in the People's Commissariat of Education and the State Planning Committee of the USSR, and taught tactics at the Naval Academy. Later, Zubov became an employee of the Floating Marine Scientific Institute (Plavmornina). In 1923, he joined the expedition on the Perseus research vessel, leading the hydrological work. But in 1924 he was reminded of the White Guard past, dismissed from service and sent for four years to a settlement in the city of Cherdyn.

In 1930, Zubov became a professor and was hired by the Moscow Hydrometeorological Institute, in which he created and headed the first department of oceanology in the USSR. A year later, he became the scientific secretary of the Soviet National Committee for the Second International Polar Year.

  • The first Soviet expeditionary vessel, two-masted wooden schooner Perseus
  • RIA News

In 1932, Nikolai Zubov in the small wooden motor boat Nikolai Knipovich for the first time in history circled the Franz Josef Land archipelago from the north. And in 1935 he became the scientific leader of the expedition on the icebreaker "Sadko", which reached a record northern latitude in free swimming. According to the results of the expedition, the vast shallow water of Sadko and the island of Ushakova were mapped, and warm waters of Atlantic origin were found in the intermediate layers.

Zubov combined practical and theoretical research. In the 1930s, he made a significant contribution to the study of sea ice, which posed a serious threat to ships on the Northern Sea Route. Several dozen of his published works were of both scientific interest and significant practical value. Therefore, in 1937, without defending a dissertation, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Geographical Sciences. A year later, the scientist published his first major monograph, “Sea waters and ice,” which has become for many years a textbook for oceanologists.

Science against Nazism

After the start of World War II, the Moscow Hydrometeorological Institute was evacuated to Central Asia. However, the past three wars Zubov refused to leave the rear. Despite the fact that the 56-year-old professor was not subject to mobilization by age, he was on duty on Moscow roofs and extinguished incendiary bombs.

Because of his age, Zubov was refused a call to join the Navy until he transferred his request through the Hero of the Soviet Union Konstantin Badigin personally to the Navy Narcissus Nikolai Kuznetsov. He knew about the merits of Zubov and ordered to appoint him to the post of chief of staff of the icebreaking detachment of the White Sea military flotilla. Later he became an officer for special assignments at the Military Council of the Northern Fleet.

“Huge work was done by Zubov in compiling ice forecasts, calculating the strength of ice, creating railway and horse-drawn ferry crossings on ice, and providing convoy escort. It was Nikolai Zubov who was responsible for laying the rail track on the ice of the Northern Dvina when the first union convoy with tanks and planes for the Red Army arrived in Arkhangelsk, ”said Stanislav Davydov, head of the Victory Museum scientific and methodological department, in an interview with RT.

In 1943, Zubov was promoted to the rank of captain of the 1st rank and was appointed assistant to the head of the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route (GUSMP) for the scientific part. A year later, he became director of the recently created State Oceanographic Institute (GOIN) and wrote a new monograph, “Ice of the Arctic,” which, according to experts, remains scientific even today.

  • Nikolai Zubov
  • © Wikimedia commons / Russian Post

According to the chairman of the Moscow Fleet History Club, Konstantin Strelbitsky, the scientific knowledge of Nikolai Zubov played a serious role in the successes of the Soviet troops during the fighting in the North. For his services in the fight against Nazism, the scientist was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree and the medal "For the Defense of the Soviet Arctic."

In May 1945, Nikolai Zubov was awarded the title of Rear Admiral Engineer. At the end of the war, he combined official and scientific activities, continued to work on new books and ice forecasts for the Glavsevmorput, and even found time for personal participation in expeditions using aircraft.

In 1948, Nikolai Zubov resigned, fully devoting himself to scientific and pedagogical activity. On his initiative, at the geographical faculty of Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov was organized by the Department of Oceanology, where he became a teacher. 

In the post-war period, Professor Zubov published several monographs: “Fundamentals of the doctrine of the tides of the oceans”, “Russian navigators - researchers of the seas and oceans”, as well as “Oceanological tables”. He laid the foundations of the doctrine of the vertical circulation of water and the origin of the cold intermediate layer in the sea, developed a method for calculating the compaction of water when mixing them, and formulated the law of ice drift over isobars. In 1960, Zubov was awarded the title of Honored Worker of Science and Technology of the RSFSR.

Nikolay Zubov died on November 11, 1960 in Moscow. His name was given to the State Oceanographic Institute, which he headed, a cape on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, the Gulf in the Mawson Sea, and a number of Soviet and Russian ships. In honor of the outstanding oceanographer, in 2019, a new patrol icebreaker, Nikolai Zubov, was laid down at the St. Petersburg shipyard Admiralty Shipyards.

  • Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at the ceremony of laying the ice class patrol ship Nikolai Zubov
  • RIA News
  • © Mikhail Klimentyev

According to Stanislav Davydov, Zubov’s research contributed to the development of the Northern Sea Route, so their geopolitical significance to this day can hardly be overestimated.

“Teeth made an invaluable contribution to science. People like him are the honor and pride of our Fatherland. He prepared entire generations of scientists and military personnel, and his memory served as a beacon, ”summed up Davydov.