Shmidt, Otto Yul'yevich (1891–1956)

Soviet expedition leader, scientist, and administrator. He made his first Arctic expedition to Franz Josef Land in 1929. The following year he became director of the Arctic Institute, Leningrad (now St Petersburg) and head of the newly formed Soviet government department to develop the Arctic, the Glavsevmorput. He held this position for six years, leading many expeditions, notably those in the Sibiryakov (1932), Chelyushkin (1933–34), and that which established Ivan Papanin's drifting station (later called SP-1) at the North Pole in 1931.

He continued his scientific work after his dismissal (at the time of Stalin's Great Purge) in 1939, becoming a professor of mathematics at Moscow University. The strong position held by the USSR in all fields of polar research at this time was in many ways due to his work and influence.