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www.niger-meteorite-recon.de
Kainsaz meteorite expedition
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strewnfield map
The Strewnfield
Sept. 15th, 1937, Muslyomovo
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The speechless author after a four mile walk while beeing told that accidentally instead of water Vodka had been packed for the day's supply
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Selivanov reached Muslyomovo only two days after the fall on
September 15th. He was a scientist in his best ages and
represented the typus of a modern cosmopolitan and enlightened
academic. Unfortunately for his undertaking not much enlightenment
had reached the remoteness of the Muslyumovo district at the time
of his arrival. The name of the Tartar people derives from the Greek
word ‘tartaros’ which means ‘hell’. It were the murdering and
plundering stormtroops of Dschingis Khan the medieval Europe refered
to as ‘Those who come from hell’.
The Tartars had undergone supression under every soviet leader
since the conquering of Tartarstan under Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible
in 1552. The reign of Katharina II being the only exception.
Education was scarce and occultism and alcoholism were quite abundant
in the late thirties of the 20th century. A scientist from Moscow
inquiring for odd rocks was met with little respect.
Among the major problems Selivanov encountered was
the fear of the locals that the stones were harmful
in the one or the other way. Most claimed that the rocks
were explosives others were convinced the black stones
were evil and evil as well could affect those who touch
them. Rocks had been thrown away or were buried when found
on the surface. Some locals refused to hand out their
meteorites to Selivanov or tell him the locations
of the buried ones. Another problem Selivanov
encountered were drunken witnesses.
These people
were not only drunk when the meteorite fell but
also when Selivanov questioned them about their
observations making it very hard for him to separate
facts from fiction. More then once he had to trade
Vodka for meteorites and he soon learned that
it was better to conduct the interview before
the deal was processed.
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A 3.5 kg individual that was found with the naked eye,
63 years after it hit the ground 4 km southeast of Krasny Yar.
The finder almost stepped on it. Photo courtesy of Ivan Kutyrew
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We got up early and after a brief breakfast we
packed supplies for a day as we would not return
to the camp before sundown. It was an icy morning
and the quicksilver showed that we had frost during
the night. On our way to the search quadrangle chosen
for the day we followed the axis of the distrubution
ellipse through swamps and steep hillsides balancing
on fallen trees over soggy creeks and
pushing forward our way through thick underwood.
Maneuvering the bulky 10 kg Vallon magnetometer
through such obstacles I felt like carrying an
orchestra harp through an endless chain of barbed
wire fences. Our target was a dense beech grove where
Pyotr’s team had found several meteorites in the pound
range during their campaigns in the previous years.
“None of them was buried deep” Pyotr explained.
“They were all within centimeters from the surface”.
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The same meteorite as pictured above seen from a different
angle and in full beauty below. Photo courtesy of Ivan Kutyrew
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Pyotr told us the story when a Russian field team
rediscovered the strewnfield in 2000. They had
tracked Selivanovs old reports and searched the
central axis of the distribution ellipse all the
40 kilometers from Kastilyova to Kainsaz. The first
week they did not make a single find. But finally
they scored. When the first meteorite was found the
spell was broken. The Russian team prooved that meteorites
could still be found 63 years after the fall. On this
occasion the team found out that the angle of the strewnfield’s
axis was 39° and not 47° as stated in Selivanovs report.
Pyotr joined the successful finders during their
campaigns in 2002 and 2003. Alltogether the teams
including his own found about 32 individuals and
fragments from 50gm to 2 kg weight. Although fields
and grassland were searched also, all meteorites
found were actually recovered from forest land. It
is most remarkable that not one of the finds was
buried deeper than 20 cm with most of them situated
right under the foliage. The most fascinating find
was a 3.5 kg individual right on the surface,
not even covered by the leaves of last years fall.
With the sun sinking behind the treetops glazing
them in a brilliant red we returned to our camp.
No finds yet, but that was just our first day on
the spot. Before we prepared a simple dinner of
soup and canned meat (for some reason the cans showed
a horse on their label) on the cerosine stove we
searched our cloths and equipment for ticks. This
would become our evening ritual. Ticks were
everywhere and in all sizes and variations.
Often we would spot three or four at a time
climbing on ones trousers or field jacket. They
were mostly adult ticks of the Ixodes persulcatus
or the the Ixodes ricinus species.
An entomologist would have found his life task here.
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After a long and cold winter ravenous
and bloodthirsty Ixodes ricinus ruled the strewnfield
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When Andrew complained about the parasites Pyotr
told him the story when a Siberian tiger had chased
him up to a treetop while prospecting on the Sikhote
Alin strewnfield. He had preferred to spend the night
up there and after this incident he never left the
camp again without a large supply of signal flares.
Heaving heard this Andrew was quite happy having only
to deal with the tick issue. After diligent decontamination
of my cloths I was greeted with the customary tumbler and
a toast. “Vodka, again?”
This mission really started to become exhausting.
Sept. 20th, 1937, between Kastilyova and Kainsaz
Selivanow slowly but steadily pushed forward his investigation.
He travelled day and night between the villages within
the huge distribution ellipse that stretched from Kastilyova
in the Southeast to Kainsaz and the Northwest. The indefatigable
scientist tracked eyewitnesses, collected and purchased rocks
and visited impact sites. When the winter closed in he had to
cease his efforts. At September 29th he had recorded about a
hundred eyewitness accounts and acquired 15 meteorites. Among
them the enormous 102 kg main mass that had fallen close to the
collective farm of Kainsaz at 55°26' N, 53°15' E. The total
weight of Selivanovs harvest was approx. 200kg.
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A 220gm individual pulled from the red fertile Kainsaz soil. Image courtesy of Ivan Kutyrew
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The next morning I woke up by the sound of rain
drumming on the nylon ceeling above me. The whole
camp was drowned. A soggy swamp at 5 degrees celsius.
No chance to work with the detectors today, the risk
to damage the sensible electronics was to high. Without
our artifical eyes we would be lost and blind in the
filthy underwood. I returned to the warm comfort of my plastic fortress
and did not get up before noon. In the mess tent, which covered about
one two square meters, a Vodka party was going on. Glad to have
a mission the others joined me cutting pine branches to refurbish
the floor of our camp that had morphed into a fathomless lake
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The fearsome Tunguska stove
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scenery. After that job was accomplished we decided to make
the best out of the day and to study Selivanovs
reports again. Since none of his original papers had ever
been translated into
English I took the chance to work with Pyotr on an
English summary of the relevant facts.
In the afternoon of the third day it came to a
critical accident. Pyotr had refuled and lit our
powerful kerosine stove in order to reheat yesterdays
soup that was still in the pot. While tuning the
volume of the flame the tricky device tilted from its
improvised plinth and severely burned his left forearm
and back of his hand. Straight faced he calmly sat down
at the table to apply some miracle cure onto the huge
blister that grew out of the skin. He refused my
recommendation to cool his second degree burns with
the icy water down at the source to reduce the consequences
of cell desintegration and rather trusted the bottle of
‘Balsam’ which came to application both internally and
externally. From that day we respectfully
referred to our stove but as the ‘Tunguska Stove’.
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Andrew (left), Pyotr and the author having a Vodka party at midnight.
No ice was needed for the tumblers as temperatures were around freezing point
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The following two days our party continued
prospecting from dawn til dusk mostly in the
central part of the ellipse. Our spirits were
high and the wild and beautiful landscape as well
as the customary meteorite talk at the all evening
fireplace made up for the lack of finds. One night
I remember Pyotr impressively performing the melancholic
ballad of Stenka Razin and his journey on the river Volga.
I countered with the anthem of the German province of
Brandenburg praising the moorland and pinewoods of my homeland.
When I think back of these days in Tartarstan Pyotr’s
voice dolefully echoing in the valleys of the
deep forests of Kainsaz is among my most vivid memories.
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strewnfield map
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