Where the crayfish winter. History of the BBS, the Belomorsk Biological Station

BBS, the White Sea Biological Station of Moscow State University, is a small village on the Belarusian Sea, in the Gulf of Kandalaksha, where scientists study microorganisms living in sea water. The director of the station, Alexander Ketlin, says, for example, that mollusks live in one of the neighboring islands, who are considered the most long -lived multicellular living creatures - perhaps in the North Sea they live for more than 500 years.

The station in an inaccessible forest, which is easier to get through the water, was built from the middle of the last century by the efforts of scientists and volunteers and became the place of pilgrimage for many Moscow students who have come here since Soviet times in construction detachments. Everyone who arrived should put their work in the station, and therefore is considered it something like the winning utopia, an almost ideal semi-communist world, similar to the ideas of Soviet scientists of the 60s.

Students-biologists come to the station in order to meet face to face with nature before sitting in laboratories, a local diving detachment consists of scientists who can distinguish marine inhabitants and deliver them to colleagues "to order", even a local cook studied at the university for a chemist and discusses a delicious receptor in terms of perception of receptors.

In the nineties of the station, it was difficult, it even lost its energy supply (the wires were stolen for metal), but survived-thanks to the support of former staden volunteers, which eventually became influential people.

A few days on the BBS - in the film Renato Serrano and Julia Vishnevetskaya "Where the Crayfish Winter".

Alexander Zetlin, director

Bioster is a place where biologists become biologists. The biostation is very necessary so that students can meet with nature, the study of which they intend to make their profession-as if one on one, so that they themselves can ask her questions, get some answers. It is very important that biologists who will never leave the Moscow laboratory still have experience in contact with nature, this remains with them for life.

This is my job, they pay me money for this, I love it, and I am interested. Could not offer [to be the director], someone else was engaged in everyone, and I would describe more worms more, to make these worms more famous-they probably also want to be famous. For people, this is important: so that they know more about the sea, they understand more about the sea.

Nikolai Andreevich Pertsev ( the director of the station in the 50-60s.-Ed. ) There was a man of crazy energy and irresistible charm. He could captivate any person who found himself in the sphere of his influence and interests. When I got here a first -year student, we had public works every day. Each student who came to the station, every teacher and each researcher had to do something for three hours a day-to beat the firewood, repair some path, transfer the boards from place to place.

Nikolai Andreevich went to the pier, stumbled and said: everyone walks, but the board was not fixed. Then he asked someone to bring the board, someone carried nails, he personally replaced the board, which was actually a theatrical performance. But, being nearby, you felt absolutely happy, as if you were in a big business.

He was a completely unusual person. The front -line soldier, party, with a brilliant diploma. The obvious career is graduate school, then an assistant professor, then a professor. And suddenly he agrees to the proposal of the head of the department and leaves the director of the biostation, which consisted of one guard at that moment and some trash who survived the war. We have houses that are built from logs of disassembled camp huts.

Ksenia Kosobokova, planktonologist, daughter of Permit

Grandfather asked my mother what she was studying (she also studied plankton, Rachkov in the White Sea of various), when she explained to him, he said: I understood, Natasha, you study where the crayfish are wintering.

Maria Letarova, virologist

Pleasure is endopamine, serotonin and oxytocin. I get endopamine when I have some result, for example, I sowed something-and it has grown. Oxytocin, obviously, turns out when, for example, I begin to think about some of my objects. Serotonin, probably, when I get some scientific ideas. In fact, a difficult question, in reality I can not say.

Alexander Kotsky, cook

I studied at the chemical faculty, studied two and a half course and left. There are simply things in which you are talented, but there are things in which you are not talented. I have always been more or less good with taste, with smell, just started cooking, I started to work out. In my opinion, tasty is what activates amino acid receptors, on sodium glutamate.

I have the 13th season [on BBS], it turns out. Maybe this will sound quite funny from a person who is barely over 30, but it always seemed to me that BBS is such a small fragment of socialism of some, there may be even communism. There is no magic of latitude, the magic of the polar circle. There are absolutely wonderful people who work here, make the atmosphere, do not allow this to die.

Alexander Semenov, Head of the Diving Service

This sports ground was built entirely by themselves. They dragged the beam, everything was put together, bought equipment, threw themselves away. I have two constructed designs here - a turtleneck and this. A bunch of people are engaged here when students come, sometimes it does not happen. There was a very successful investment of forces and just a bars lying.

The correct attitude to work when you have horizontal relationships. A vertical is a hierarchical system, when you have a high boss, you must do everything, what he will say, implicitly, even if he is wrong. With a horizontal structure, the director communicates with a specialist who is a professional in his field, and listens to his opinion. A lot of issues are resolved on the spot, and this allows people to understand that they are responsible in their place for all decisions. We are still wrong, we are going to this, I hope that all over the world it goes to this.