The Two Captains: From Pskov to the Arctic

Sanya grows up in Ensk, which is Pskov, the author's home town. In spring 1914 a flood carries a drowned postman and his bag of letters into Sanya's yard. Aunt Dasha reads the letters to the children in place of books, and the polar expedition letters stay with the boy, who cannot speak yet but hears and understands everything. Today a 1995 monument to the two heroes stands by house 7 on Oktyabrsky Avenue, and the regional children's library has housed a museum of the novel since 18 April 2002.

Visitor guidance: The monument is at Oktyabrsky Avenue 7; the novel's museum is inside the Pskov regional children's library.

Sanya and his friend Pyetka reach hunger-stricken Moscow in the winter of 1917, lose each other, and Sanya ends up in an orphanage. At school he meets the strict headmaster, Nikolay Antonich Tatarinov, and through him lands in the Tatarinov flat, home of Katya. Sanya is later banished from the house, and then swears to find the vanished expedition and prove he was right.

Location precision: The summaries name no street or building in Moscow; the pin marks the city centre.

Sanya and Katya meet in Leningrad to get married. By 1941 the war has begun: Katya stays in the city and is soon trapped in the blockade. There Romashka finds her and tells her of meeting the wounded Sanya.

Location precision: The novel's Leningrad scenes are tied to the city, not to a named address; the pin marks central Saint Petersburg.

In the captain's last letter he writes that he first discovered Severnaya Zemlya. In reality the archipelago was first discovered in 1913 and charted only in 1930–1932, and its discovery is the subject of the novel. In the war years Sanya finds the expedition's remnants and the captain himself, frozen to death 29 years before. Tatarinov is buried with honours on a shore facing the land he discovered.

Location precision: The captain's resting place is on the northern coast; the pin marks the archipelago he is said to have discovered, which is remote and not visitable.

After their long separation, Sanya and Katya meet again in Polyarny. In 2003 the main square of the town was named Square of Two Captains. It was also the real departure point of the expeditions of Rusanov and Brusilov.

Visitor guidance: The square is the main square of the town of Polyarny.