Nina Demme

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Nina Petrovna Demme (1902–1977) was a Soviet polar explorer, biologist, and ornithologist. She was one of the first women to explore the Arctic and to lead a polar expedition. Born in Kostroma, she grew up in a large, blended family. Because of tricky paperwork about her parentage, she used a Demme surname to attend school and become a teacher.

She moved to Leningrad in 1921 to study geography and biology at the Geographical Institute, later known as the geography department of Leningrad University. She spent eight years studying there, took part in field trips to the Caucasus and Crimea, and graduated in 1929. She then joined the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute.

Demme sailed to Franz Josef Land on the icebreaker George Sedov for a two-year wintering; she was the only woman in the group. In 1932 she led a three-man team to Severnaya Zemlya (then called Kamenev Islands), where they mapped the western part of the archipelago and studied its plants and animals. The expedition spent a second winter in the Arctic and returned to Leningrad in 1934.

Back in the city, she studied the northern farming potential of animals and worked on breeding programs for black foxes and eiders. She earned a Candidate’s Degree in biology in 1946 and became a professor, though she preferred fieldwork to classroom teaching. From the 1940s to the 1950s she continued Arctic research, sometimes chartering boats to reach remote huts for her studies, especially on eiders.

Demme retired in 1959 and spent time painting and gardening, and she wrote an autobiography. She died in 1977 in Leningrad and was buried in Kostroma. Her grave was rediscovered in 2017. Nina Demme is remembered as a pioneer among women explorers of the Arctic, and her work on eiderdown production has drawn renewed interest.