Bookvica

[THE USSR IN WHALING INDUSTRY] Vokrug sveta za kitami [i.s. Around the World After Whales]

Zenkovich, B.

Item #2807

Leningrad: Molodaia gvardiia, 1936. 189, [3] pp.: ill., 1 folding table, 2 folding ills. 20х14 cm. In original cardboards with illustration mounted. Very good and clean copy, one small and blank margin fragment of p.179-180 lost.

This book recounts how Boris Zenkovich (at that time, PhD student at the Institute of Fisheries) took part in a round-the-world voyage witnessing the emergence of the Soviet whaling industry. The USSR entered commercial whaling in the early 1930s. After WWII, it significantly expanded both its whaling areas and its fleet, operating a massive and largely illegal whaling industry.

This book project attracted children’s book illustrator Vladimir Tambi (1906–1955) who admired ships and the sea. In 1925, seeking to better understand the life of sailors, Tambi hired on board the ship ‘Roshal’, which sailed from Leningrad to London. In the history of Soviet book illustration, he left his mark as an artist of the industrial book. His best-known series included the publications “The Automobile”, “Ships”, “Warships”, “Air Navigation”, “The Airplane”, “Tanks”, and “The Submarine”. For this edition, he was only required to design the cover – the text is illustrated with numerous unflinching photographs that the author had taken during his voyage.

The book includes photographs of the first Soviet whaling flotilla – the floating base ‘Aleut’ and the three whaling vessels ‘Avangard’, ‘Entuziast’, and ‘Trudfront’, – views of the route, many photos of the process of butchering on board, portraits of the author and ship crews. The Kamchatka Joint-Stock Company converted an American cargo ship into an enormous floating whaling base and factory ‘Aleut’ in 1930. In 1932-1968, she fished in the waters of the North Pacific Ocean. The author describes the structure and equipment of the Aleut, detailing exactly how all the work of processing the killed whales was carried out.
The first voyage followed the route Leningrad – Kiel – Jamaica – Panama – Revillagigedo Archipelago – Hawaii – Japan – Vladivostok. In two months the ships left Vladivostok directing to the Kuril Islands and the Bering Sea.

Folding inserts feature a table of Soviet whaling statistics in the early 1930s, a map with the first (round-the-world) route and a route of the second voyage marked in the map of Russian Far East.

Worldcat shows the only copy at University of North Carolina.

Price: $350.00