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Geography is one of the oldest earth sciences. The French geographer, traveler Jacques Elise Reclus noted that “history is geography in time, and geography is history in space.” And one cannot but agree with his words. The history of Our Country is the history of great geographical discoveries, settlement and development of adjacent vast territories. At present, the role of geography as a scientific tool for the economic, social and spiritual development of the country is growing, and the profession of a geographer is becoming one of the most sought after.
When is Geographer’s Day
Geographer’s Day in Our Country is officially celebrated annually 18 August, 2022 will be no exception. On the initiative of the Geographical Society, on May 15, 2019, the President of the Federation approved a list of events aimed at popularizing geographical knowledge in society and established a professional holiday.
But there are other holidays of geographers. For example, since 1938, the Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University has developed a good tradition to celebrate the holiday of geographers of Moscow University on July 23. The professional holiday of surveyors and cartographers falls on every second Sunday in March. Meliorator’s Day is celebrated on the first Sunday of June. March 23 is the day of the hydrometeorological service of Our Country.
At the international level, the UN General Assembly has established holidays dedicated to the conservation and rational use of the Earth’s natural resources: March 22 – World Water Day, December 11 – International Mountain Day, June 5 – World Environment Day, November 1 – hydrological “New Year”, April 22 is International Earth Day.
history of the holiday
For the first time, Geographer’s Day in Our Country was celebrated on August 18, 2020. Its celebration fell on a memorable date – the 175th anniversary of the Geographical Society. It was on this day in 1845 that this organization was founded in Our Country by the highest order of Emperor Nicholas I. The initiator of its creation was Admiral Fedor Petrovich Litke. From 1850 to 1917, the society was called Imperial, and during the years of Soviet power it was renamed several times into the State Geographical Society (1926-1938), the All-Union Geographical Society (1938-1992). Since 1956, the Geographical Society has been a member of the International Geographical Union along with such oldest societies as Prague, Berlin and London.
Today, with the assistance of the Geographical Society, research expeditions are organized to various little-studied regions of our country, which are of interest not only to geographers, but also to historians, archaeologists, ethnographers, and art historians.
Holiday traditions
The holiday is so young that traditions are just beginning to take shape, and time will tell what they will be. So, for the first time on August 18, 2020, at the headquarters of the Geographical Society in Moscow, in the regional branches of the Society, in the centers of the Geographical Society abroad (Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Transnistria, Macedonia, France, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, India) an action called “Geography Night”. Anyone could register their site on a virtual card and take part in the action. The program of events included lectures, intellectual quizzes, film screenings of documentaries and exhibitions.
In Krasnodar, three new trams of the Geographical Society were launched that day, two of which depicted famous travelers E. Hoffman and G. Grzhimailo. And another tram was dedicated to the 45th parallel, equidistant from the equator and the North Pole, it is on it that the city of Krasnodar is located. On this tram, residents were taken to the site of the opening of the monument – a three-meter sculpture in the shape of a globe, located at the place where the “golden parallel” passes. This sculpture has become the hallmark of the city.
It is also a tradition to reward the activities of outstanding scientists, researchers, those who have made an invaluable personal contribution to the development of geographical science. They are awarded the honorary title “Honored Geographer of the Federation”, gold and silver medals are awarded (Konstantinov medal, Big gold medal of the Geographical Society, personalized medals: P.P. Semenov Gold Medal, Count F.P. Litke Medal, gold medal named after N.M. Przhevalsky and others).
How the globe was invented
The word globus in Latin means “ball”. The first globe model was created by the ancient Greek philosopher Crates of Malos in the XNUMXnd century BC. He made the earth in the shape of a sphere. However, his invention has not reached our days, even in the form of an image.
The inventor of the first globe is the German geographer, mathematician and traveler Martin Beheim. In 1493-1494. he made a spherical model of the Earth with a diameter of 54 cm for the Nuremberg city council and called it “Earth Apple”.
The oldest globes in the world after Behaim’s “Earth Apple” are:
- Jagiellonian globe, 1510, kept in the museum of the Jagiellonian University of Krakow;
- America’s oldest globe Ostrich egg, 1504;
- Blaeu’s globe, early 1690s;
- Big Gottorp (academic) globe-planetarium, 1664, an exhibit of the St. Petersburg Kunstkamera);
- the largest rotating globe is the Globe of the World (1982-1987, located in Alecho, Italy). The diameter of this globe is 10 m;
- modern models of globes are the spherical interactive globe Multitouch (Interactive Multi touch) in Germany and the digital globe in America.
Geography in fiction
The theme of travel and attraction to the mysterious corners of the globe has always worried writers. Many domestic and foreign works are devoted to this topic:
- “Land of Sannikov” by Vladimir Obruchev,
- “Two Captains” by Veniamin Kaverin,
- “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe,
- Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift.
The outstanding French writer Jules Verne is one of the founders of the science fiction genre in literature. Having conceived a series of works about extraordinary travels, Verne himself promised his future readers: “Everything that Dumas did for history, I will do for geography.” And he kept his word. Everyone knows his adventure novels about travelers: “Journey to the Center of the Earth”, “Children of Captain Grant”, “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea”, “Around the World in 80 Days”, “Mysterious Island”. Who has not read these fascinating books! And the image of the famous geographer Jacques Paganel still continues to evoke sympathy among readers with his spontaneity, curiosity, boundless devotion to science, geography and ethnography.
Geography and painting
Since 2016, with the support of the Geographical Society, the all- Geograffiti project has been implemented in various cities of the country. The first such art object was opened in Moscow at the corner of the Arbat and Serebryany Lane. The wall of one of the houses was decorated with a snowy owl from Wrangel Island. In Yoshkar-Ola, on the facade of a transformer substation in the Park of Culture, you can see a snow leopard. To restore the snow leopard population in the Sayano-Shushensky Reserve, with the support of the Geographical Society, the project “Expedition” Snow Leopard – a living symbol of the Western Sayan “is being implemented since 2019.”
In Chita and Ulan-Ude, graffiti was dedicated to the famous traveler G. Tsybikov, in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky – to the explorer of Siberia and Kamchatka S. Krasheninnikov, in Tver – to Afanasy Nikitin, in Tomsk – to Grigory Potanin. In Moscow in 2020, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the discovery of Antarctica and the 250th anniversary of the birth of Admiral Ivan Kruzenshtern, graffiti was placed on one of the houses on Znamenka Street.