Olga T. Zhukova - crashtester of first Soviet scuba

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АлександрД

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Zhukova Olga Trofimovna
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"Since childhood, I loved water, adored nature, always spent time outside the city. There was a small rivulet, and for hours I lay on my stomach and peered into the clear water to see the newts. Previously, you could see those underwater animals, which now can only be found in the red book. For the first time, when I put on a mask and saw all this beauty, I was chained to water for a century. This is how it slowly started off. A whole group was organized: Suetin Victor, Kapitsa Sergey, Pantekorvo Bruno Maximovich. We saw Cousteau’s first films, read wonderful books about the underwater world, and prepared for the summer seasons. With the help of workshops, they made the first apparatuses, scuba gears of the Cousteau type, and their own compressor. By that time I had already received the rights of a submariner and a diver of the 3rd class and I was invited to the test group. It was 1958 or 1957, I don’t remember exactly. I was in Gurzuf - two divers and I am the third. I was allowed to swim for scuba diving. First, at a 5-meter depth, then at a 10-meter depth, then at a 15-meter, at a 20-meter. And it was not so simple, because, for example, at a depth of 20 meters it took about 10 minutes without any wetsuit to be under water, and it was quite cold there ..."
(2006)

By the decision of the jury of the Russian National Prize “Underwater World”, OJSC “Respirator Production and Design Enterprise was awarded the title of laureate in the nomination“ The Best Manufacturer of Domestic Equipment ”
An interesting fact - immediately after the award, a very cheerful and smiling woman approached the CEO of Respirator with sincere gratitude for the scuba gear AVM -1 created on the Respirator. Olga Trofimovna Zhukova is the first tester of this breathing apparatus. She remembered her visit to the plant in 1957, about meetings with designers Kitaev and Soldatenkov. A doctor by profession, a candidate of medical sciences, a test submariner, at the age of 80 she continues to dive.

- This winter in the Indian Ocean, I dived to a depth of 28 meters with a respiratory scuba gear! He never let me down, ”said Olga Trofimovna. - By the way, foreign divers also prefer AVM. Congratulations on the award! She is rightly deserved!

O.T. Zhukova, of course, was right when she noted that the underwater world can get sick just like pilots get sick in the sky
(2008)


Olga Trofimovna Zhukova. This legendary woman in 1957 on the Black Sea participated in the tests of the first domestic scuba gear AVM1, developed in OrekhovoZuev. Now NPP Respirator OJSC was handed over to the famous submariner as a valuable gift for scuba gear of the latest model of domestic production AVM15. According to her, he turned out to be very helpful: soon Olga Trofimovna will go diving into the sea.
(Предельная Глубина, №5, стр. 24, 2009 год)
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The name of Olga Trofimovna Zhukova is known today to the entire underwater brethren. Her underwater experience is almost 60 years! From 1957 to 1971, she headed (first!) The first spearfishing section at the Central Marine Club of DOSAAF, and then the Commission for Sports underwater shooting at DOSAAF of the USSR. Author of the first book in the country about spearfishing (“Spearfishing”, 1959). One of the first underwater photographers in the country: her works were published in domestic and foreign mass media. She took part in the tests of the first Soviet scuba diving AVM-1. Currently - a member of the Russian Federation of Underwater Fisheries, membership card No. A-77011.

The underwater history of this unique woman is, without exaggeration, the history of Russian spearfishing. Everything happened at the same time. To a large extent, thanks to her personal influence, some Moscow factories took up the production of the first domestic models of underwater equipment and weapons. Many Soviet citizens in the middle of the last century first saw photographs of the underwater world made by Olga Trofimovna on the pages of newspapers and magazines. Technique for underwater shooting had to be invented, invented and tinkered with. So, its first underwater unit consisted of a FED-2 camera and a rubber heating pad. The second - from the camera "Practice" and a car camera. In approximately the same way, all other underwater equipment was invented and developed.

However, admiring such a boisterous activity in the underwater field, one should not think that everything else feminine and human was forgotten, forgotten. Zhukova studies, becomes a surgeon. He defends his thesis, actively practices, occupying the post of head of the department in a prestigious metropolitan clinic. Both the family and the daughter, and then the grandchildren, are all like people. It was possible to envy her circle of communication and its intensity in those early years, for the capital's intelligentsia constituted a huge percentage of the first domestic underwater hunters. In particular, her friends (and sectional subordinates) were famous scientists B. Pantekorvo, A. Nekdal, A. Tamm, S. Kapitsa.
(2014)

thanks to the efforts of enthusiasts, in 1957 a spearfishing section was created at the Central Marine Club of DOSAAF, which later grew into a Sports Underwater Shooting Section in the Federation of Underwater Sports at the DOSAAF USSR. The first head of these organizations was a wonderful athlete, candidate of medical sciences Zhukova Olga Trofimovna. Through the efforts of Zhukova and her associates, they managed to defend spearfishing and even agree with the directors of several Moscow factories on the release of the first domestic underwater equipment.

In 1959, the first book about our passion was published in the USSR. It was called: "Spearfishing." Its author Olga Zhukova was an excellent athlete and for the first 12 years she headed the country's main underwater hunting organization - the Sports Underwater Shooting Section at the USSR DOSAAF. So, somehow at the beginning of last winter Olga Trofimovna calls me and invites me to hunt. After an hour, we were already riding her Niva to the nearest unfrozen pond, and after two we pulled on wetsuits: I was “dry” and she was “wet”. Snow was falling, a piercing wind was blowing, on the water near the shore - ice. And this woman, now far in her 70s, dressed in equipment, pulled on flippers and climbed into the water! And this is not recklessness, not senile, excuse me, insanity: the doctor herself, a candidate of medical sciences, she knows what she is doing. This is what the call of the soul means and the beneficial effects of spearfishing.
(2013)

Diver´s Forum | Новости | Патриархи дайвинга, Ольга Жукова ныряет в Хургаде с "Садко"
Признание профессионалов – лучший гонорар
В женских руках
http://web.archive.org/web/20150210...ota/nastolnaja-kniga-podvodnogo-ohotnika.html
 
Diver-doctor from Svinyenki village
In 88 years old, a resident of a village near Moscow dives into the depths and hunts fish with a gun

The name of Olga Trofimovna Zhukova is known today to the entire underwater brethren. However, the general medical community, too. But more about this later. Zhukova's underwater experience exceeded 60 years!

Olga Zhukova took part in the tests of the first Soviet scuba gear! In general, wherever you throw, when mentioning her name you have to use the word "first." The author of the first Soviet book on spearfishing, one of the first underwater photographers in the country ...

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“All children are like children, and mine is a diver”

We are sitting on the terrace of a rather modest house in the village of Svinenki, in the Serpukhov district. Olga Trofimovna gladly indulges in memories. And it's not easy to believe that she had just returned from the forest, where she was picking mushrooms. (“Everyone here considers me to be the main white hunter. Nobody brings so much,” she states rather.) The other would have fallen without strength after long walks, in the end not eighteen behind her. With the permission of the interlocutor, I reveal a secret: on October 3 she turned 88. Mushrooms are a trifle. The norm for her to this day is diving to depth and spearfishing.

- Olga Trofimovna, how did you ... come to such a life?

- Once in the 55th, my mother and I were resting in the Crimea. They came to the beach, and there a man comes out of the water in a mask and with an underwater gun. I froze at first. Then she rushed to beg: give a try. The diver turned out to be a foreigner, Yugoslav, but he understood me. I didn’t refuse. I put on a mask - and into the water. Since then, my land life has ended. Do you know what my mother said? All children are like children, and mine is a diver. By the way, I received the certificate “Diver of the 3rd class” in 1957, immediately after the tests of the first domestic scuba gear.

Somewhere at the same time, Zhukova set a record: diving to a depth of 40 meters. Her legendary submariner Nil Vasilievich Zykov insured.

- It was on the Black Sea. It seems that the weather was good and the water was warm. But there, in the depths, I was terribly cold. I even thought badly. This scuba gear is now well prepared for divers, and in the fifties they did not even dream of such equipment. Moreover, diving, and even to such a depth, was strictly forbidden to report.

I was not interested in such subtleties. Most importantly, without the underwater world, which was completely different from the earthly one, I could no longer live. We are such a whole group organized: Suetin Victor, Kapitsa Sergey, Pontecorvo Bruno. We saw Cousteau’s first films, read wonderful books about the underwater world, and prepared for the summer seasons. They made the first scuba gear in domestic workshops, similar to those that Cousteau had, their own compressor.

You know, I even wrote a book for children about spearfishing. What did we know about her in the fifties? Never mind! And there, under water, a completely different life. The feeling of weightlessness, indescribable beauty. And everywhere is different - in the Indian Ocean, the Barents, Japanese, Mediterranean, White Seas ... Especially at night, when the inhabitants of the sea calm down and they can be examined in detail. And take pictures.

... About photos - not an accidental turn in the conversation. Zhukova in this case is also an absolute pioneer. I started to take pictures with a self-made device based on a FED-2 camera. And it was like that. In the sixties, the magazine "Spark" was preparing to publish an article about the value of algae of the White Sea under the heading "Upland Virgin Soil". It was then that illustrations were needed. Equipment for underwater filming then in the country did not exist at all! But Zhukova took up the task. Now with a smile talks about the then know-how. The camera was placed in a rubber heating pad, in which a window was cut, covered with a plexiglass from an underwater mask. Plus a piece of a bicycle chamber and two fingers cut off from a medical glove. Everything, the device is quite functional.

When the publication was released, it almost immediately became a bestseller. And then the fee for the book arrived, which the author did not expect at all. Olga Trofimovna laughs, recalling how she was surprised at the money received, says that they were enough for a banquet on the occasion of the successful defense of the candidate dissertation. By this time, she was already working as a doctor.

In medicine - with your head!

Studied Olya Zhukova in Lviv Medical, where she fell ill with the research of Dr. Sergei Sergeyevich Yudin, whom he admires to this day. The novice practitioner was amazed how he almost single-handedly developed the methods of gastric surgery, how he took on craniotomy, conducted heart surgery ...

- I decided that I should definitely get to Yudin and work with him. I did not immediately understand where to look for Sergey Sergeyevich. There was not enough information about him. Indeed, in 1948, Yudin was arrested by the NKVD on false charges, as "an enemy of the Soviet state, which supplied the British intelligence with spy information about our country." He survived both the prison in Lubyanka and alone in Lefortovo. His book was born in the dungeons, which was later read to many generations of novice physicians, including, “The Thoughts of the Surgeon.” From 1952 until his release in September 1953, Yudin was in exile - he worked as a surgeon in Berdsk, in the Novosibirsk Region.

It was in Berdsk that Olga Trofimovna planned to move after studies. But fate made an unexpected turn. After the death of Stalin, in 1953, Yudin was returned to all ranks, allowed to return to Sklif. To get to Yudin, she had to go ... to the minister!

- It so happened that Sergey Sergeyevich was just starting to work there after exile, he needed residents. And I'm proud to be the first to get this job.

... Tom can be written about the achievements of Zhukova in the medical field. But...

“What is interesting is that it is not yet open, not studied,” says Olga Trofimovna. - As soon as the secret ceases to exist, everything, it's time to move on.

To be the first again?

... Already today, after the anniversary celebrations at the enterprise near Moscow, producing equipment and equipment for underwater operations, the first tester of the domestic breathing apparatus AVM-1 Olga Zhukova left the factory with a valuable gift - scuba diving of the newest model of domestic production AVM15. It turned out to be very handy: Zhukova again was going to conquer the deep sea.

... Today, its underwater habitat is the Lopasnya river, which flows near the Pig, a village that Olga Trofimovna chose for her heart and soul. The river itself is not deep. But Zhukova calmly states that there are plenty of brooks on this tributary of the Oka. There is where to hunt for pike, chub, crucian carp.

- Somehow I’ll invite you in your ear, will you come?

... I didn’t notice how Olga Trofimovna started agitating me to go diving. She called my excuses about the inability to swim funny, gave a bunch of examples that, as a rule, people who were afraid of water became diving ... But so far I have not persuaded. Till…

From 1957 to 1971, Olga Zhukova headed (first!) The first section of spearfishing at the Central Marine Club of DOSAAF, and then the commission for sports underwater shooting. So far, Olga Trofimovna is a member of the Russian Federation of Underwater Fisheries.

October 3 (2018) she turns 91!

Дайверша-докторша из Свиненок

some more her photos:
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Жукова Ольга Трофимовна

(and thanx to Google, as to translator :) )
 
Thanks for sharing. :)
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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