Dmitry Prokopyevich Butorin

Dmitry Prokopyevich Butorin was born on 26 October (Old Style) 1908 in the village of Dolgoshchelye in Mezen uyezd of Arkhangelsk governorate, now in Mezensky district of Arkhangelsk region, into a peasant family. He finished seven years of school. From 1923 he worked as a ship's boy in the seal-hunting trade off the Kanin peninsula and in the White and Barents Seas, and from 1927 sailed as a seaman on vessels of the Sevtorgflot of Arkhangelsk port, among them the Sibiryakov, the Rusanov and the Georgy Sedov. From 1930 to 1933 he served in the border troops of the OGPU. From 1933 he was a seaman on ships of the Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route, and from 1937 boatswain of the icebreaking steamer Georgy Sedov. He was one of the crew of the Georgy Sedov during her drift through the ice of the Arctic Ocean in 1937–1940, which lasted 812 days. As boatswain he was responsible for keeping the hull, rigging and deck gear in working order and for supplying the scientific work carried out on board. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of 3 February 1940, for carrying out the drift, completing an extensive programme of research in the difficult conditions of the Arctic and the courage and persistence shown, he was made a Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal, no. 234. Under the same decree each member of the crew made a Hero received a cash award of 25,000 roubles. The text of the decree as quoted on ru.wikipedia names him as second engineer and gives his patronymic as Prokofyevich. After the drift he was sent to study at the Industrial Academy in Moscow and completed its first year in 1941, when the war interrupted his studies. From 1941 he served as boatswain on ships of the Far Eastern Shipping Company; from 1943 he was fourth mate of the motor ship Klara Zetkin, carrying Lend-Lease cargo across the Pacific to Vladivostok; from 1944 an inspector of the Chief Directorate of Sea Ports of the People's Commissariat of the Merchant Marine; and from 1945 again a mate on the Klara Zetkin. He also held the badge of Honoured Polar Explorer. He died tragically on 20 May 1951; the circumstances are not given in the sources, and some literature gives the year of his death as 1947. He is buried in the Vvedenskoye Cemetery in Moscow.