The first explorers of Siberia, the Far East and the North Pacific. Abstract: The development of Siberia and the Far East Which of the travelers explored Siberia

A lot of bright pages in the history of Siberia were written by pioneers who from the first half of the 17th century set off to explore unknown lands, risking their lives in the process. Such pioneers, to whom we owe success in the development of Siberia, were Vasily Poyarkov and Yerofey Khabarov. Their life and the discoveries made during their travels deserve a separate story. Unfortunately, due to the lack of archival information, the year and place of birth of Vasily Danilovich Poyarkov are not known to us. We only know that he was originally from the northern regions of the European part of Russia and ended up in Siberia in the second half of the 30s of the 17th century. He was a smart and educated man, so he soon became an official for special assignments under the Yakut governor Pyotr Golovin. It was by his decree that in July 1643, Poyarkov, at the head of a party consisting of 132 Cossacks, “eager people” and industrialists (fur-bearing animals), went to the southeast of Siberia to explore the mysterious region at that time, called Dauria. In fact, it was a reconnaissance expedition in order to collect information and prepare for the annexation of these lands to Russia.

The first stage of the Poyarkov expedition's journey took place on plows along the Lena and Aldan rivers and further, to the limits of the Stanovoy Range. Here the party was divided into two parts. The first, numbering 90 people, went to the Zeya River, where the Daurian lands began. In anticipation of the arrival of the rest, Poyarkov carried out reconnaissance of the area, being especially interested in ores and furs. After wintering and waiting for the approach of the second party, in the spring of 1644 the expedition went further along the Zeya. Having reached the Amur in the summer of the same year, Poyarkov decided to go to its mouth. The voyage, as a result of which new information was obtained about the lands along the Amur up to the Pacific Ocean, was not easy. Several dozen people died during clashes with local residents and as a result of accidents. Having reached the mouth in late autumn, Poyarkov and the remaining members of the expedition stayed for the winter, and in the spring of 1645, on a built ship, went to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and headed north. Having reached the Ulya River in autumn and wintered at its mouth, in the spring of the next year the expedition headed west, to the Aldan. Having gone to the river, Poyarkov reached the Lena in a few weeks and returned to Yakutsk on June 12, 1646. Together with him, only 20 people remained alive by that time. But as a result of this expedition, for the first time, information was obtained about the vast space lying between Baikal and the Pacific Ocean.

Poyarkov's case was continued by Yerofei Pavlovich Khabarov. He was born around 1603 in the Arkhangelsk region, in the family of a Cossack. He made his first known trip to Siberia back in 1625, when he went to the Siberian city of Mangazeya on a Pomeranian koche. Then new travels to Tobolsk followed. Settling then in the Siberian lands, Khabarov was engaged in agriculture, salt mining and trade for several years, not differing in any way from other Russian industrialists who lived in those days in these parts.

However, in 1648 he submitted a petition to the Yakut governor Dmitry Frantsbekov to organize an expedition to Dauria. This request was granted, and in the summer of 1649, Khabarov, at the head of a detachment of 80 people, set out from Yakutsk to the south. The first expedition was quite successful. Having scouted the territory in detail up to the Amur and returning back the following year, Khabarov recovered on the second campaign already at the head of a detachment of 180 people. With such forces, he managed to gain a foothold on the Amur and take local residents into Russian citizenship. Having waited for the approach of a new detachment of 130 people, in 1651 Khabarov went downstream, compiling detailed maps of the area and taking the lands along the Amur into Russia.

The campaign lasted almost two years, with stops for wintering. During this time, there was a rebellion of part of the detachment, which refused to go further. He was suppressed, but this slowed down progress. The strength of the party that remained with Khabarov was not enough to keep such a vast territory under control. Therefore, a detachment was sent to help him, sent by special order of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. In August 1653, he met with the expedition of Khabarov. However, as a result of intrigues, the latter was soon removed from leadership and accused of abuse of power. Being taken to Moscow, he was under investigation for more than a year. Finally, all charges against him were dropped, and Erofei Khabarov himself was appointed to manage the newly formed Ust-Kutsk volost. Here he went in 1655 and stayed until his death in 1671.

It is known that in 1667 Khabarov filed a new petition to organize an expedition along the Amur to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, but the fate of this petition is unknown.

XVI century. A new stage of geographical discoveries begins on the land expanses of Russia. The legendary Ermak reached the Irtysh and laid the foundation for the development of Siberia - "a harsh and gloomy country." It seems to open the gates to the east, into which detachments of Cossacks, industrialists and people simply looking for adventure rush. XVII century. It was in this century that the map of the eastern lands of Russia began to take on a certain shape - one discovery follows another. The mouth of the Yenisei has been reached, the routes of Russian Europeans are stretched along the harsh uplands of Taimyr, the routes of Russian Europeans are stretched along the harsh uplands of Taimyr, Russian sailors go around the Taimyr Peninsula. For the first time, our compatriots see the great mountains of Eastern Siberia, the rivers: Lena, Olenyok, Yana. No longer nameless heroes are creating the history of Russian geography - their names are becoming widely known.

Ataman Ivan Moskvitin stops his horse on the Pacific coast. The serviceman Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnev sets off on a long journey. He had to experience a lot: "... I laid down my head, took great wounds and shed my blood, and endured the great cold and died of starvation." So he will say about himself - isn't this the usual fate of all Russian pioneers?! Having descended on the Indigirka, Dezhnev reaches the shores of the Arctic Ocean. Another time, together with Fedot Alekseevich Popov, he goes out into the ocean along the Kolyma, goes around the Chukotka Peninsula and opens the Anadyr River. An exceptionally difficult path - and no less important in terms of the results achieved; however, Dezhnev is not destined to know that he made a great geographical discovery - he discovered the strait separating Asia and America. This will become clear only 80 years later thanks to the expedition of Vitus Bering and Alexei Chirikov. At the very end of the 17th century, Vladimir Atlasov began exploring Kamchatka and founded the first Russian settlement there - Verkhnekomchatsk. For the first time he sees the northern extremities of the Kuril chain. A little time will pass and the Russians, the first "drawing" of the Kuril archipelago in the 17th century, expeditions in Russia begin to receive thoughtful state support.

Rice. 1. Map of the advancement of Russian explorers to the east

Ermak Timofeevich

Ermak Timofeevich (between 1537-1540, the village of Borok on the Northern Dvina - August 5, 1585, the bank of the Irtysh near the mouth of the Vagai), Russian explorer, Cossack ataman, conqueror of Western Siberia (1582-1585), hero of folk songs. The surname of Yermak has not been established, however, in the 16th century, many Russian people did not have surnames. He was called either Ermak Timofeev (after his father's name), or Ermolai Timofeevich. Ermak's nickname is known - Tokmak.

As early as 1558, the Stroganovs received the first charter for "Kama abundant places", and in 1574 - for lands beyond the Urals along the Tura and Tobol rivers and permission to build fortresses on the Ob and Irtysh. Around 1577, the Stroganovs asked to send Cossacks to protect their possessions from the attacks of the Siberian Khan Kuchum. At the behest of Ivan the Terrible, Yermak's squad arrived at Cherdyn (near the mouth of the Kolva) and Sol-Kamskaya (on the Kama) to strengthen the eastern border of the Stroganov merchants. Probably, in the summer of 1582, they concluded an agreement with the ataman on a campaign against the “Siberian Sultan” Kuchum, supplying them with supplies and weapons.

Having led a detachment of 600 people, in September Yermak began a campaign deep into Siberia, climbed the Chusovaya River and its tributary, the Mezhevaya Duck, and crossed to Aktai (the Tobol basin). Yermak was in a hurry: only a surprise attack guaranteed success. The Yermakovites descended to the area of ​​the current city of Turinsk, where they scattered the advance detachment of the khan. The decisive battle took place on October 23-25, 1582 on the banks of the Irtysh, on Cape Podchuvash: Yermak defeated the main forces of the Tatars Mametkul, Kuchum's nephew, and on October 26 entered Kashlyk, the capital of the Siberian Khanate (17 km from Tobolsk), found a lot of valuable goods and furs there . The remnants of the defeated Tatar horde migrated to the south, to the steppe. Four days later, the Khanty came to Ermak with food and furs, followed by local Tatars with gifts. Yermak greeted everyone with “kindness and greetings” and, having imposed a tribute (yasak), promised protection from enemies. In early December, Mametkul's soldiers killed a group of Cossacks who were fishing on Lake Abalak, near Kashlyk. Ermak overtook the Tatars and destroyed almost all of them, but Mametkul himself escaped.

To collect yasak on the lower Irtysh in March 1583, Yermak dispatched a party of mounted Cossacks. When collecting tribute, they had to overcome the resistance of the local population. After the ice drift on plows, the Cossacks went down the Irtysh. In the riverside villages, under the guise of yasak, they took away valuable things. Along the Ob, the Cossacks reached the hilly Belogorye, where the river, bending around the Siberian Ridges, turns north. Here they found only abandoned dwellings, and on May 29 the detachment turned back. Fearing an uprising by the local population, Yermak sent 25 Cossacks to Moscow for help, who arrived in the capital at the end of the summer. The tsar rewarded all participants in the Siberian campaign, forgave the state criminals who had joined Yermak earlier, and promised to send 300 archers to help. The death of Ivan the Terrible disrupted many plans, and the archers reached Yermak only at the height of the uprising raised by Karachi (Kuchum's adviser).

Small groups of Cossacks, scattered across the vast territory of Western Siberia, were killed, and Yermak's main forces, together with reinforcements from Moscow, were blocked in Kashlyk on March 12, 1585. The supply of food stopped, famine began in Qashlyk; many of its defenders perished. At the end of June, in a night sortie, the Cossacks killed almost all the Tatars and captured the convoy with food; the siege was lifted, but Yermak had only about 300 fighters left. A few weeks later, he received false news about a trade caravan going to Qashlyk. In July, Yermak, with 108 Cossacks, set out from Kashlyk towards the caravan to the mouth of the Vagai and Ishim, and defeated the Tatar detachments there. On a rainy night on August 6, Kuchum unexpectedly attacked the camp of the Cossacks and killed about 20 people, Yermak also died. According to legend, the wounded Yermak tried to swim across the Vagay River, a tributary of the Irtysh, but drowned due to heavy chain mail. 90 Cossacks escaped in plows. The remnants of the Cossack squad under the command of M. Meshcheryak retreated from Kashlyk on August 15 and returned to Russia. Part of Yermak's detachment stayed for the winter in the town of Ob. (Annex 3)

Ivan Yurievich Moskvitin

Moskvitin Ivan Yurievich, Russian explorer, discoverer of the Far East, the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, Sakhalin Island.

Cossack service. A native of the Moscow region, Moskvitin began his service no later than 1626 as an ordinary Cossack of the Tomsk prison. Probably participated in the campaigns of Ataman Dmitry Kopylov to the south of Siberia. In the winter of 1636, Kopylov, at the head of a detachment of Cossacks, including Moskvitin, went to the Lena region for prey. They reached Yakutsk in 1637, and in the spring of 1638 they went down the Lena to Aldan and climbed it for five weeks on poles and whips. 265 km. Above the mouth of the Mai River, on July 28, the Cossacks set up Butalsky prison.

to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. From the Evenks, Kopylov learned about the silver mountain on the lower Amur. The lack of silver in the state forced him in May 1639 to send Moskvitin (now foreman) with 30 Cossacks in search of a deposit. Six weeks later, having subjugated the entire local population along the way, the explorers reached the Yudoma River (a tributary of the Mai), where, having thrown a plank, they built two kayaks and climbed to its sources. They overcame an easy pass through the Dzhugdzhur ridge discovered by them in a day and ended up on the Ulya River, flowing to the "sea-okiya". Eight days later, waterfalls blocked their path - they had to leave the kayaks. Having built a boat that could hold up to 30 people, they were the first Russians to reach the shores of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. The explorers spent a little more than two months on the whole journey through an unknown area, eating "wood, grass and roots."

On the river Ulya Moskvitin cut down a winter hut - the first Russian settlement on the Pacific coast. From local residents, he learned about a densely populated river in the north and, postponing until spring, went there on October 1 on a river "vessel" at the head of a group of 20 Cossacks. Three days later they reached this river, which was called the Hunt. Moskvitin returned to Ulya two weeks later, taking amanats. Sailing to Okhota in a fragile boat proved the need to build a more reliable sea vessel. In the winter of 1639-40. the Cossacks built two 17-meter kochas - the history of the Pacific Fleet began with them. To the shores of Sakhalin. In November 1639 and April 1640, explorers repulsed the attack of two large groups of Evens (600 and 900 people). From the captive, Moskvitin learned about the southern river "Mamur" (Amur), at the mouth of which and on the islands "sedentary Gilyaks" (settled Nivkhs) live. In the summer, the Cossacks sailed south, taking a prisoner as a "leader". They proceeded along the entire western coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk to the Uda Bay and entered the mouth of the Uda. Here, from local residents, Moskvin received new data about the Amur, as well as the first information about the Nivkhs, Nanais and "bearded people" (Ainy). The Muscovites headed east, bypassed the Shantar Islands from the south and, passing into the Sakhalin Bay, visited the northwestern coast of Sakhalin Island.

Moskvitin apparently managed to visit the Amur estuary and the mouth of the Amur. But the products were already running out, and the Cossacks turned back. Autumn stormy weather did not allow them to get to Ulya, and they stopped for the winter at the mouth of the Aldoma River, 300 km away. South of Ulya. And in the spring of 1641, having again crossed Dzhugdzhur, Moskvitin reached Maya and arrived in Yakutsk with "sable" prey. The results of the campaign were significant: the coast of the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bOkhotsk was discovered over 1300 km., Uda Bay, Sakhalin Bay, Amur Estuary, the mouth of the Amur and Sakhalin Island.

Vasily Danilovich Poyarkov

The exact years of his life are unknown. Pathfinder and navigator, explorer of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, discoverer of the Lower Amur, the Amur Estuary and the southwestern part of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, “written head”. In June 1643, at the head of a military detachment of 133 people, he set off from Yakutsk on a campaign to the Amur to collect yasak and annex the lands lying to the east up to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. The detachment went down the Lena to Aldan, then climbed it up to the rapids (opening the Uchur and Golan rivers along the way). He left ships here for the winter with part of the people, crossed the watershed lightly on skis with a detachment of 90 people, opened the Zeya River and stopped for the winter in its upper reaches at the mouth of the Umlekan River. In the spring of 1644, ships were dragged there, on which the detachment went down the Zeya and Amur to its mouth, where it wintered again. From the Amur Nivkhs, they received valuable information about Sakhalin and the ice regime in the strait that separates the island from the mainland. In the spring of 1645, having attached additional sides to the river boards, the detachment entered the Amur Lebanon and, moving north along the coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, reached the Ulya River. He spent his third winter there. In the early spring of 1646 he went up the river on sleds, crossed the watershed and returned to Yakutsk along the rivers of the Lena basin. Subsequently, he served in Yakutsk, Tobolsk and Kurgan settlement in the Urals. A mountain on Sakhalin Island and a village in the Amur Region are named after Poyarkov.

Erofei Pavlovich Khabarov

Khabarov Erofey Pavlovich (between 1605 and 1607, the village of Dmitrievo, Vologda province - early February 1671, the village of Khabarovka, Irkutsk province), Russian explorer, explorer of Eastern Siberia. In 1649-1653 he made a number of campaigns in the Amur region, compiled a "Drawing of the Amur River" 1. The first years of activity. A native of Pomor peasants, Khabarov in the winter of 1628 went to work in Mangazeya, reached Kheta, and until the spring of 1630 served as a toll collector in the Kheta winter hut. In 1632 he arrived at the Lena and until 1639 he walked along its tributaries Kuta, Kiringa, Vitim, Olekma and Aldan, hunting for sable.

Having put together an artel, he exchanged the mined “soft junk” in Siberian cities for goods for the local population. During his wanderings, he collected information about the Lena and its tributaries, about the peoples living here, about the minerals of the region. Khabarov became the discoverer of salt springs at the mouth of the Kuta and discovered there “good lands” for arable land. By the spring of 1641, the first plowman in this region raised about 28 hectares of virgin land, built the first salt pan in Eastern Siberia, set up the sale of salt and brought horses to transport state goods to Yakutsk. In the same year, the governor illegally took the buildings, grain reserves and income of Khabarov into the treasury. Then he moved to the mouth of the Kirenga, plowed 65 hectares and got a good crop of cereals. The governor soon appropriated this farm, and for refusing to lend money, he requisitioned 48 tons of bread from Khabarov, tortured him and imprisoned him, where he spent almost 2.5 years.

After being released, Khabarov continued to engage in agriculture. Built a mill. Amur epic. When Khabarov heard rumors about the riches of the Amur lands, he turned off his profitable business, gathered a gang of "eager people", arrived in Ilimsk, and in March 1649 received permission from the new governor to go to the Amur. He borrowed military equipment, weapons, agricultural implements, and led a group of 60 people in the spring of 1649 left Ilimsk. The laden plows slowly rose along the fast and rapid Olekma. The detachment overwintered at the mouth of the Tungir, but as early as January 1650, having made sledges and loading boats on them, they dragged along the snow through the high Stanovoy Range. From there, the detachment headed down the tributaries to the Amur. Dauria began here with its uluses and even small towns. A local woman who met along the way told about the luxury of the country beyond the Amur, the ruler of which has an army with “fire fighting” and cannons. Khabarov, leaving about 50 people in a half-empty town on Urka, returned to Yakutsk on May 26, 1650 and began to spread exaggerated rumors about the wealth of the new "land". Appointed as the "order man" of Dauria, he set out from Yakutsk in the summer with 150 volunteers and arrived in the fall on the Amur. In the captured town, the Russians overwintered, and in the spring, having built several boards and plows, they began to raft along the Amur past the villages burned by the inhabitants themselves.

At the end of September 1651, Khabarov stopped near Lake Bolon for another winter. In March 1652, he defeated a detachment of two thousand Manchus and moved further up the Amur, stopping only to collect yasak. But people got tired of constant movement, and in early August, 132 rebels fled in three ships. They reached the lower reaches of the Amur, where they cut down a prison. In September, Khabarov approached the prison, took it after the siege, and flogged the "disobedient" with batogs and a whip, from which many died. There he spent his fourth winter, and in the spring of 1653 he returned to the mouth of the Zeya. During the summer, his men sailed up and down the Amur collecting yasak. Meanwhile, the news of the exploits of the explorers reached Moscow, and the government sent an official of the Siberian order, D.I. Zinoviev, with a detachment of 150 people, to the Amur. The royal envoy arrived in August 1653 with awards to all participants in the campaign. Taking advantage of the complaints of people dissatisfied with Khabarov, he removed Khabarov from leadership, accused him of crimes, arrested him and took him to Moscow. However, Khabarov was found not guilty. A year later, Khabarov was granted the status of “children of the boyars”, a number of villages in Siberia were given to “feed”, but they were forbidden to return to the Amur. Between 1655 and 1658, he carried out trade transactions in Ustyug the Great and returned to the Lena no later than the summer of 1658. In the autumn of 1667, in Tobolsk, Khabarov informed the compilers of the "Drawing of All Siberia" information about the upper reaches of the Lena and the Amur. In January 1668, in Moscow, he again asked the tsar to let him go to the Amur, but when he was refused, he returned to the Lena and three years later died in his settlement at the mouth of the Kirenga. He had a daughter and a son.

Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnev

Dezhnev Semyon Ivanovich (c. 1605-73), Russian explorer. In 1648, together with F. A. Popov (Fedot Alekseev), he sailed from the mouth of the Kolyma to the Pacific Ocean, rounded the Chukchi Peninsula, opening the strait between Asia and America. 1. Cossack service. Dezhnev, a native of Pomor peasants, began his Siberian service as an ordinary Cossack in Tobolsk. In the early 1640s with a detachment of Cossacks he moved to Yeniseisk, then to Yakutsk. He served in the detachment of Dmitry Zyryan (Yarila) in the Yana basin. In 1641, having been assigned to the detachment of Mikhail Stadukhin, Dezhnev with the Cossacks reached the prison on the Oymyakon River. Here they were attacked by almost 500 Evens, from whom they fought back along with the yasaks, Tungus and Yakuts.

In search of "new lands," Dezhnev, with a detachment of Stadukhin, in the summer of 1643 went down on a koch to the mouth of the Indigirka, crossed by sea to the lower reaches of the Alazeya, where he met the koch Zyryan. Dezhnev managed to unite both detachments of explorers, and they sailed east on two ships. In search of new lands. In the Kolyma delta, the Cossacks were attacked by the Yukagirs, but broke through up the river and set up a prison in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bmodern Srednekolymsk. Dezhnev served in the Kolyma until the summer of 1647, and then was included as a yasak collector in the fishing expedition of Fedot Popov. In the summer of 1648, Popov and Dezhnev put to sea on seven kochs.

According to a widespread version, only three ships reached the Bering Strait, the rest were caught in a storm. In autumn, another storm in the Bering Sea separated the two remaining kochas. Dezhnev with 25 satellites was thrown back to the Olyutorsky Peninsula, and only 10 weeks later, having lost half of the explorers, they reached the lower reaches of the Anadyr. According to Dezhnev himself, six ships out of seven passed the Bering Strait, and five ships, including Popov's ship, died in the Bering Sea or in the Gulf of Anadyr during "bad weather". Dezhnev and his detachment, having overcome the Koryak Highlands, "cold and hungry, naked and barefoot" reached the coast of Anadyr. Of those who went in search of camps, only three returned; the Cossacks barely survived the harsh winter of 1648-49, building river boats before the ice drifted. In the summer, having climbed up to 600 km, Dezhnev founded a yasak winter hut, where in the spring the detachments of Semyon Motora and Stadukhin came. Led by Dezhnev, they tried to reach the Penzhina River, but, without a guide, they wandered in the mountains for three weeks. Difficult everyday life of explorers. In late autumn, Dezhnev sent people to the mouth of the Anadyr for food. But Stadukhin robbed and beat the procurers, and he himself went to Penzhina. The Dezhnevites lasted until spring, and in the summer and autumn they took up the food problem and reconnaissance of "sable places".

In the summer of 1652 they discovered a huge walrus rookery on the shallows of the Gulf of Anadyr, dotted with walrus tusks ("zamoral tooth"). Last years of life. In 1660, Dezhnev, with a load of "bone treasury", crossed by land to Kolyma, and from there by sea to the lower Lena. After wintering in Zhigansk, he reached Moscow through Yakutsk in the fall of 1664. Here a full payment was made with him: for service and fishing 289 pounds (slightly more than 4.6 tons) of walrus tusks in the amount of 17,340 rubles, Dezhnev received 126 rubles and the rank of Cossack chieftain. Appointed as a clerk, he continued to collect yasak on the Olenyok, Yana and Vilyuy rivers. During his second visit to Moscow in 1671, he delivered a sable treasury, but fell ill and died at the beginning. 1673. For 40 years in Siberia, Dezhnev participated in numerous battles and skirmishes, received at least 13 wounds. He was distinguished by reliability and honesty, endurance and peacefulness. Dezhnev was married twice, and both times to Yakuts, from whom he had three sons (one adopted). His name is given to: a cape, which is the extreme northeastern tip of Asia (named by Dezhnev Big Stone Nose), as well as an island, a bay, a peninsula, a village. In the center of Veliky Ustyug in 1972 a monument was erected to him.

Table "Russian travelers and discoverers" (pioneers)

Who: Semyon Dezhnev, Cossack chieftain, merchant, fur trader.

When: 1648

What opened: The first to pass was the Bering Strait, which separates Eurasia from North America. Thus, I found out that Eurasia and North America are two different continents, and that they do not merge.

Who: Thaddeus Bellingshausen, Russian admiral, navigator.

When: 1820.

What opened: Antarctica together with Mikhail Lazarev on the frigates Vostok and Mirny. Commanded the East. Before the expedition of Lazarev and Bellingshausen, nothing was known about the existence of this continent.

Also, the expedition of Bellingshausen and Lazarev finally dispelled the myth about the existence of the mythical "Southern Continent", which was erroneously marked on all medieval maps of Europe. Navigators, including the famous Captain James Cook, searched the Indian Ocean for more than three hundred and fifty years for this "Southern Continent" without any success, and, of course, found nothing.

Who: Kamchaty Ivan, Cossack and sable hunter.

When: 1650s.

What opened: peninsulas of Kamchatka, named after him.

Who: Semyon Chelyuskin, polar explorer, Russian Navy officer

When: 1742

What opened: the northernmost cape of Eurasia, named in his honor Cape Chelyuskin.

Who: Ermak Timofeevich, Cossack ataman in the service of the Russian Tsar. Ermak's last name is unknown. Possibly Tokmok.

When: 1581-1585

What opened: conquered and explored Siberia for the Russian state. To do this, he entered into a successful armed struggle with the Tatar khans in Siberia.

Ivan Kruzenshtern, officer of the Russian fleet, admiral

When: 1803-1806.

What opened: He was the first Russian navigator to travel around the world together with Yuri Lisyansky on the sloops Nadezhda and Neva. Commanded "Hope"

Who: Yuri Lisyansky, Russian Navy officer, captain

When: 1803-1806.

What opened: He was the first Russian navigator to circumnavigate the world together with Ivan Kruzenshtern on the sloops Nadezhda and Neva. Commanded the Neva.

Who: Petr Semenov-Tyan-Shansky

When: 1856-57

What opened: The first of the Europeans explored the Tien Shan mountains. He also later studied a number of areas in Central Asia. For the study of the mountain system and services to science, he received from the authorities of the Russian Empire the honorary name Tien-Shansky, which he had the right to pass on by inheritance.

Who: Vitus Bering

When: 1727-29

What opened: The second (after Semyon Dezhnev) and the first of the scientific researchers reached North America, passing through the Bering Strait, thereby confirming its existence. Confirmed that North America and Eurasia are two different continents.

Who: Khabarov Erofey, Cossack, fur trader

When: 1649-53

What opened: mastered part of Siberia and the Far East for the Russians, studied the lands near the Amur River.

Who: Mikhail Lazarev, Russian Navy officer.

When: 1820

What opened: Antarctica together with Thaddeus Bellingshausen on the frigates Vostok and Mirny. Commanded "Peace".

Development of Siberia and the Far East - 224 books

Before the expedition of Lazarev and Bellingshausen, nothing was known about the existence of this continent. Also, the Russian expedition finally dispelled the myth about the existence of the mythical "Southern Continent", which was marked on medieval European maps, and which navigators unsuccessfully searched for for four hundred years in a row.

Ivan Moskvitin was the first to reach the Sea of ​​Okhotsk

From Yakutsk in the 30s of the XVII century. the Russians moved in search of "new lands" not only south and north - up and down the Lena, but also directly east, partly under the influence of vague rumors that the Warm Sea stretches there, in the east. The shortest way through the mountains from Yakutsk to the Pacific Ocean came a group of Cossacks from the detachment of the Tomsk ataman Dmitry Epifanovich Kopylov. In 1637 he proceeded from Tomsk through Yakutsk to the east.

In the spring of 1638, his detachment descended along the Lena to the Aldan by the river route, already explored by explorers, and for five weeks on poles and tow line climbed this river - a hundred miles above the mouth of the Maya, the right tributary of the Aldan. Having stopped at Aldan, on July 28 Kopylov set up the Butal winter hut. From a shaman from the upper Aldan, through an interpreter Semyon Petrov, nicknamed Chistoy, taken from Yakutsk, he learned about the Chirkol or Shilkor river, which flows south, not far behind the ridge; there are many “sedentary”, that is, settled people living on this river, who are engaged in arable farming and animal husbandry. It was, of course, about R. Cupid. And in the late autumn of 1638, Kopylov sent a party of Cossacks to the upper reaches of the Aldan with the task of finding the Chirkol, but hunger forced them to return.

In May 1639, to reconnoiter the path to the "sea-ocean", Kopylov equipped, but with Even guides, another party - 30 people, led by the Tomsk Cossack Ivan Yuryevich Moskvitin. Among them was the Yakut Cossack Nehoroshko Ivanovich Kolobov, who, like Moskvitin, presented in January 1646 a "tale" about his service in the Moskvitin detachment - the most important documents on the discovery of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk; The interpreter S. Petrov Chistoy also went on a campaign.

For eight days Moskvitin descended the Aldan to the mouth of the Maya. After about 200 km of ascent along it, the Cossacks walked on a plank, mostly towed, sometimes on oars or poles - they passed the mouth of the river.

Are you sure you're human?

YudomafootnotefootnoteMoskvitin's recently found new unsubscribe "Painting of the rivers ..." lists all the major tributaries of the Mai, including the Yudoma; the last one mentions "... the river under the river Nyudma [Nyudymi] ... and from toe the rivers pass to the lama waters ...". In this way, in 1970, a party led by V. Turaev entered the Sea of ​​​​Okhotsk. and continued to move along May to the upper reaches.

After six weeks of travel, the guides pointed out the mouth of the small and shallow Nudymy River, which flows into the Maya on the left (near 138 ° 20 ′ E). Here, having abandoned the plank, probably because of its large draft, the Cossacks built two plows and in six days rose to the sources. A short and easy pass through the Dzhugdzhur ridge discovered by them, separating the rivers of the Lena system from the rivers flowing to the "Okiyan Sea", Moskvitin and his companions overcame in a day lightly, without plows. In the upper reaches of the river, which makes a big loop to the north, before “falling” into the Ulya (the basin of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk), they built a new plow and, in eight days, descended on it to the waterfalls, which the guides undoubtedly warned about. Here again the ship had to be abandoned; the Cossacks bypassed the dangerous area on the left bank and built a canoe, a transport boat that could accommodate 20-30 people.

Five days later, in August 1639, Moskvitin entered the Lamskoye Sea for the first time. All the way from the mouth of the Mai to the "sea-okiyana" through a completely still unknown region, the detachment traveled a little more than two months with stops. So the Russians in the extreme east of Asia reached the northwestern part of the Pacific Ocean - the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bOkhotsk.

On the Ulya, where the Lamuts (Evens), related to the Evenks, lived, Moskvitin set up a winter hut. From local residents, he learned about a relatively densely populated river in the north and, without delaying until spring, sent a group of Cossacks (20 people) on the river "vessel" on October 1; three days later they reached this river, which was called the Okhota - this is how the Russians changed the Evenk word "akat", i.e. river. From there, the Cossacks went by sea further to the east, discovered the mouths of several small rivers, having examined more than 500 km of the northern coast of the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bOkhotsk, and opened the Taui Bay. A trip on a fragile boat showed the need to build a sea koch. And in the winter of 1639-1640. at the mouth of the Ulya, Moskvitin built two ships - they began the history of the Russian Pacific Fleet.

From one prisoner - in the spring of 1640, the Russians had to repel an attack by a large group of Evens - Moskvitin learned about the existence of the "Mamur River" (Amur) in the south, at the mouth of which and on the islands live "sedentary revelers", i.e. Nivkhs. In late April - early May, Moskvitin went by sea to the south, taking with him a prisoner as a guide. They went along the entire western mountainous coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk to the Uda Bay, visited the mouth of the Uda and, bypassing the Shantar Islands from the south, penetrated into the Sakhalin Bay.

Thus, the Cossacks of Moskvitin discovered and got acquainted, of course, in the most general terms, with most of the mainland coast of the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bOkhotsk, approximately from 53 ° N. latitude, 141° E up to 60 ° s. latitude, 150° east for 1700 km. The Muscovites have passed through the mouths of many rivers, and of these the Okhota is not the largest and not the most full-flowing. Nevertheless, the open and partially surveyed sea, which the first Russians called Lamsky, later received the name of Okhotsk, may be along the river. Hunting, but more likely along the Okhotsk prison, set near its mouth, since its port became in the 18th century. base for the most important sea expeditions.

At the mouth of the Uda, Moskvitin received additional information from local residents about the Amur River and its tributaries the Chie (Zeya) and Omuti (Amguni), about grassroots and island peoples - “seated Gilyaks” and “bearded Daur people”, who “live in courtyards, and they have bread, and horses, and cattle, and pigs, and chickens, and they smoke wine, and weave, and spin from all the customs from the Russian. In the same “tale”, Kolobov reports that not long before the Russians, bearded Daurs in plows came to the mouth of the Uda and killed about five hundred Gilyaks: “... and they beat them with deceit; they had women in plows in single-tree rowers in rowers, and they themselves, a hundred and eighty men, lay between those women and how they rowed to those gilyaks and left the courts, and those gilyaks were beaten ... "The Ud Evenks said that" from them the sea is not far from those bearded people. The Cossacks were at the site of the battle, they saw the ships abandoned there - “one-tree plows” - and burned them.

Somewhere on the western coast of the Sakhalin Bay, the guide disappeared, but the Cossacks went further "near the coast" to the islands of "sedentary Gilyaks" - it can be argued that Moskvitin saw small islands at the northern entrance to the Amur Estuary (Chkalova and Baidukov). as well as part of the northwestern coast of about. Sakhalin: “And the Gilyak land appeared, and the smoke turned out, and they [Russians] didn’t dare to go into it without reins ...”, not without reason believing that a handful of newcomers could not cope with the large population of this region. Moskvitin apparently managed to penetrate into the area of ​​the mouth of the Amur. Kolobov quite unequivocally reported that the Cossacks "... the Amur mouth ... saw through the cat [the spit on the seashore] ...". The Cossacks were running out of food, and hunger forced them to return. Autumn stormy weather prevented them from reaching the Hive.

In November, they began to winter in a small bay, at the mouth of the river. Aldomy (at 56° 45′ N). And in the spring of 1641, having crossed the Mt. Dzhugdzhur, Moskvitin went to one of the left tributaries of the Mai and in mid-July was already in Yakutsk with rich sable prey.

On the coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, the people of Moskvitin lived "with a passage for two years." Kolobov reports that the rivers in the newly discovered region “are sable, there are many animals, and fish, and the fish are big, there is no such thing in Siberia ... there are so many of them, - just run a net and you can’t drag it out with fish ... ". The authorities in Yakutsk highly appreciated the merits of the participants in the campaign: Moskvitin was promoted to Pentecostalism, his companions received from two to five rubles of reward, and some of them received a piece of cloth. For the development of the Far Eastern Territory discovered by him, Moskvitin recommended sending at least 1,000 well-armed and equipped archers with ten guns. The geographic data collected by Moskvitin was used by K. Ivanov when compiling the first map of the Far East (March 1642).

Russian explorers: Ermak Timofeevich, Semyon Dezhnev, Erofey Khabarov and others

The ataman had about a dozen names and nicknames: Yermak, Ermil, German, Vasily, Timofey, Yeremey, and others. He is sometimes called Alenin Vasily Timofeevich. The name Ermak is considered an abbreviated form on behalf of Yermolai, and some recall that among the Cossacks, “Yermak” was called a cauldron in which they cooked porridge for everyone. There is no exact data on the place and date of Yermak's birth. It is known that for about twenty years he served on the southern border of Russia, led the detachments sent to the Wild Field to repel Tatar raids. He also participated in the Livonian War.

Ermak Timofeevich

The campaign and adventures of Yermak can be viewed in a broad historical context as part of the era of great geographical discoveries. In the XV-XVIII centuries. there was a development of the globe by such maritime powers as Spain, Portugal, Holland, England (which became Great Britain), France. The Muscovite state did not have not only any decent fleet, but also any reliable access to the sea. Russian people went to the East along the rivers, through mountains and forests. The Russian experience of developing vast, practically uninhabited expanses in many respects anticipated the colonization of North America by Europeans. Fearless Cossacks and service people came to the future oil and gas region twenty years before the first colonists set foot on the soil of Virginia in the territory of the modern United States.

In 1581, the Cossack chieftain Yermak went on a campaign with 1650 people, 300 squeakers and 3 cannons. The guns fired at 200-300 meters, squeaked at 100 meters. The rate of fire was low, it took 2-3 minutes to reload. Ermak's eager people had shotguns, Spanish arquebuses, bows and arrows, sabers, spears, axes, daggers. Yermak was equipped by merchants Stroganovs. Plows served as a means of transportation, accommodating up to 20 soldiers with stocks of weapons and food. Yermak's squad moved along the rivers Kama, Chusovaya, Serebryanka, beyond the Urals - along Tagil and Tura. Here the lands of the Siberian Khanate began and the first clashes with the Siberian Tatars took place. The Cossacks continued to move along the Tobol River. They occupied small towns, which they turned into rear bases.

Yermak was a skilled warrior and commander. The Tatars never succeeded in unexpectedly attacking a caravan. If the Tatars attacked, then at first the Cossacks beat down the onslaught with fire from the squeakers and inflicted significant damage on the enemy.

Then they immediately went on the offensive, into hand-to-hand combat, which the Tatars were afraid of. In September 1582, a detachment of Yermak at the Chuvash Cape defeated the ten thousandth army of Prince Mametkul. The Tatar cavalry crashed against the all-round defense of the Cossacks, and Mametkul himself was wounded. The Khan's army began to scatter. Voguls and Ostyaks left. In October 1582, Khan Kuchum left his capital - the city of Isker (or Kashlyk, 17 kilometers from modern Tobolsk), as well as other settlements and territories along the Ob and Irtysh.

The Cossacks did not have overwhelming military-technical superiority over the Tatars, as, for example, the white Americans over the Indians. But the group was well organized. Five regiments with Yesauls were divided into hundreds, fifty and tens with their commanders. Yermak's closest associates, Ivan Koltso and Ivan Groza, were recognized governors, and the Cossacks were disciplined, skillful, seasoned fighters. The poorly organized natives were opposed by military professionals, one might say, part of the special forces (special forces). So in 1583, the Cossack Ermak Timofeevich obtained Western Siberia for the Russian Tsar. He consistently subordinated the local tsars to Moscow, trying not to offend them, as Kuchum allowed himself. The Siberian Khanate ceased to exist. Yermak himself died in battle two years later, in 1585. 13 years after the death of Yermak, the tsarist governors finally defeated Kuchum.

Both Yermak's campaigns cost the Stroganovs about 20,000 rubles. Warriors on the campaign were content with breadcrumbs, oatmeal with a small amount of salt, as well as what they could get in the surrounding forests and rivers. The annexation of Siberia cost nothing to the Russian government. Ivan IV graciously accepted the embassy of Yermak, who laid at his feet hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of the richest lands. The tsar ordered reinforcements to be sent to Yermak, but after his death, the Siberian expedition was forgotten. The Cossacks held their own for a long time. Behind them moved the peasants, trappers, service people. The first Romanov to visit Siberia was Tsarevich Alexander Nikolaevich, the future Emperor Alexander II. But the Russian tsars had a place for hard labor and exile - "where Makar did not drive calves."

Information about the parents, place of birth (possibly Veliky Ustyug), childhood and youth of Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnev is speculative. He arrived at Lena in 1638. Dezhnev was in the public service, collecting yasak from the local native population. In 1641 he was sent to the Oymyakon River, a tributary of the Indigirka. By 1643, the Cossacks reached the Kolyma, laid the Lower Kolyma winter hut.

The campaign from the mouth of the Kolyma River along the Great "sea-ocean" began on June 20, 1648. In early September, Dezhnev's ships reached Bolshoy Kamenny Nose, the easternmost cape of the Asian continent. Turning south, they ended up in the Bering Sea. The storm scattered the ships. Dezhnev, with two dozen brave men, built a winter hut at the mouth of the Anadyr River. Dezhnev returned from Anadyr to Yakutsk only in 1662. For the walrus ivory that he brought, the treasury was not immediately able to pay him off. In 1664, in Moscow, he received a salary for many years, the rank of Cossack chieftain, and a large sum for delivered walrus tusks. Subsequently, Semyon Dezhnev continued his service, carried out responsible assignments and died in Moscow in 1673 at the age of about 70 years.

In 1638, Vasily Danilovich Poyarkov was sent from Moscow to Siberia to build a prison on the Lena River (the exact date of birth is unknown, he died no earlier than 1668). In 1643-1644. he led an expedition that left Yakutsk for the Amur region. Poyarkov with his detachment climbed up the Lena and through the watershed entered the Amur River basin. The explorers descended along the Amur to the mouth. Then the expedition reached the mouth of the Ulya River by the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and returned to Yakutsk. Poyarkov made the first complete description of the Amur region, which added to the Russian possessions in the Far East.

Erofey Pavlovich Khabarov, nicknamed Svyatitsky (c. 1610 - after 1667), was a native of Solvychegodsk. First he settled on the Lena River. With a detachment of only 70 people in the autumn of 1649.

"Development of Siberia and the Far East"

walked along the Olekma, Tugiru and dragged out to the Amur. Khabarov made a "Drawing of the Amur River". He made several more trips to the Daurian land, converting local Gilyaks into Russian citizenship and collecting “soft junk” - local furs. Khabarov's successes were noticed, he was made into the children of the boyars. He did not return from another trip. The place and time of his death are not exactly known.

In honor of the explorer, the city of Khabarovsk is named at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri, as well as the taiga station Erofei Pavlovich.

The conqueror of Kamchatka Vladimir Vasilievich Atlasov (c. 1661/64-1711) began his life as a Ustyug peasant. In search of a better life, fleeing poverty, he moved to Siberia, where he became a Yakut Cossack. Atlasov rose to the rank of Pentecostal and was appointed (1695) clerk of the Anadyr prison.

After reconnaissance conducted by the Cossack Luka Morozko, in the spring of 1667, Atlasov, with a hundred people, made a trip to the Kamchatka Peninsula. He took four Koryak prisons, put a cross on the Kanuch River, and laid a prison on the Kamchatka River. In 1706 he returned to Yakutsk, after which he visited Moscow. Then he was sent as a clerk to Kamchatka with servicemen and two guns. He was given significant powers, up to the ability to execute foreigners for non-payment of yasak and disobedience, as well as the right to punish his subordinates "not only with batogs, but also with a whip." It is worth mentioning here that the punishment with a whip was often a disguised death penalty, since people died either during the execution or after it from wounds, loss of blood, etc.

The received power to the former peasant turned his head, he imagined himself a local king. Arbitrariness, severe punishments, the pioneer turned against himself both the local population and his subordinates. He barely managed to escape to Nizhne-Kamchatsk. Here he was either stabbed to death or died suddenly. “There is nothing to build from yourself as a conquistador,” local residents could say to Atlasov.

The development of Siberia and the Far East by the Anglo-Saxons

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Atlasov (Otlasov) Vladimir Vasilievich(c. 1663-1711) - comes from Ustyug peasants who settled in Siberia. Since 1682 - in the sovereign service (Cossack). Until 1689 he was a tax collector in the basins of the rivers Aldan, Uda, Tugir, Amgun, until 1694 - along the rivers Indigirka, Kolyma, Anadyr. In 1694, from a campaign along the eastern coast of Chukotka, he brought the first information about the northeast of Russia and Alaska. In 1695-1697 he served in Anadyr. In 1697 he undertook an expedition to Kamchatka, during which he collected valuable information about the local population, flora and fauna. The expedition marked the beginning of the accession of Kamchatka to Russia.

Dezhnev Semyon Ivanovich(c. 1605-1673) - explorer, Cossack chieftain. He began his service in Tobolsk as an ordinary Cossack. In 1638, he was sent as part of the detachment of P.I. Beketov to the Yakut prison. He was a member of the first campaigns in the extreme Asian North. Later he served on the Kolyma River. In July 1647, he made an attempt to go to the Anadyr River by sea, but met with large ice and returned. In 1648, he undertook a voyage along the coast of Chukotka, opening a strait between Asia and America. He made a drawing of the Anadyr River and part of the Anyui River. The author of interesting descriptions of travels in the extreme northeast.

Popov Fedot Alekseevich- Russian explorer, originally from Kholmogor. Together with S. Dezhnev in 1648 he sailed by sea from the mouth of the Kolyma River to the mouth of the Anadyr River, opening the strait between Asia and America.

Poyarkov Vasily Danilovich- Russian explorer. Written head (lowest service rank). In 1643-1646. led the expedition, which for the first time penetrated the Amur River basin and reached its mouth. The first of the Russian explorers made a voyage in the Pacific Ocean.

Stadukhin Mikhail Vasilievich- Russian explorer. Yenisei Cossack, later Yakut Cossack chieftain. The organizer of a trip to the Oymyakon rivers in 1641-1642, Anadyr and others. In 1649, during an overland expedition in the Russian north-east, by the most difficult route through the Stanovoy Range, he reached the Anadyr prison, where he met S. Dezhnev. Then he went to the rivers Penzhina and Gizhiga and went to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk.

Khabarov Erofey Pavlovich (Svyatitsky)(c. 1610 - after 1667) - an outstanding Russian explorer.

Travelers who studied Siberia and the Far East.

In 1649-1653. undertook a number of expeditions in the Amur region. Compiled the first "Drawing of the Amur River".

Special scientific expeditions began to be sent to Siberia only from the 18th century. But even before that, inquisitive Russian explorers collected in Siberia a lot of different information that was of great importance for science.

Thanks to the early Russian northern campaigns "for the stone" (Urals), already in the 16th century. in Western Europe, the first geographical maps based on Russian sources appeared with the image of the lower Ob. Despite the fact that Russian explorers, especially Novgorodians, began to visit these areas as early as the 11th century, nevertheless, for a long period, mainly semi-fantastic information about Siberia was disseminated in Russia itself. So, in the legend of the beginning of the XVI century. “About the unknown people in the eastern country and the tongues of the tongues” it was argued that extraordinary people live beyond the Urals: some are “without heads”, and “they have their mouths between their shoulders”, others (“linna samoyed”) - “spends all summer in the water ", others -" walk through the dungeon "1, etc. Only thanks to the subtle analysis of D. N. Anuchin, it was possible to more or less correctly determine what kind of real data underlay this semi-fantastic "Tale". 2

The rapid accumulation of quite reliable information about Siberia began from the time of the historic campaign of Yermak, and especially after the appointment of the first Siberian governors. The government obliged the "initial people" of Siberia to carefully collect information about the routes of communication, fur wealth, mineral deposits, the possibility of organizing arable farming, the number and occupations of the local population, and its relationship with neighboring peoples. The leaders of the detachments who built fortified points on the newly occupied terrain were also required to draw up drawings of the area and built prisons.

The collection of information about new lands usually began with a survey of local residents. Therefore, the campaigns, as a rule, were attended by "interpreters" - experts in local languages. Participants of the campaigns in their "arrivals", replies and petitions supplemented and clarified this information with personal observations. The governors and other local "primary people" often questioned the participants in the campaigns and wrote down their answers. This is how the “speech speeches” and “tales” of the explorers arose. The governors sent the most important documents to Moscow with their replies, in which they concisely summarized the information collected. Thus, geographical, ethnographic, economic, historical and other material was accumulated.

Rapidly advancing into the depths of Siberia, explorers were primarily interested in river routes and convenient portages between rivers. So, for example, the Cossacks who built the Yenisei prison in 1619, in the same year reported to Moscow about the unnamed “great river” (Lena), to which from Yeniseisk “it takes 2 weeks to go to the portage, and then go 2 days to the portage” . 3 By the middle of the XVII century. explorers knew literally all the major rivers of Siberia and their main tributaries, had a general idea of ​​their water regime, were well acquainted with difficult sections of the path, especially with the rapids.

Off the coast of Siberia, the Russians began to explore the sea routes early. At the end of the XVI century. they went on ships along the dangerous Gulf of Ob to the mouth of the river. Taz, and in the 30s of the XVII century. began to sail for the first time in the easternmost part of the Arctic Ocean - from the mouth of the Lena. In 1648, Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnev and his companions, rounding Chukotka, were the first Europeans to cross the strait separating Asia from America.

Quite quickly, Russian explorers got an idea about the seas of the Far East. October 1 (NS - 11), 1639 I. Yu. Moskvitin and his comrades on a short voyage from the mouth of the river. Hives to the river. Hunting marked the beginning of Russian Pacific navigation, and in the navigation of 1640, having built two eight-yard kochs, the Muscovites sailed to the area of ​​the mouth of the Amur and the "Islands of the Gilyatskaya Horde" - the islands of the Sakhalin Bay, inhabited by settled Nivkhs. 4 One of the discoverers of the Kolyma, M. V. Stadukhin, significantly expanded the understanding of the Russians about the Pacific Ocean. In 1651, having passed overland from Anadyr to Penzhina, he sailed during two navigations along the northern part of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk to the Tauyskaya Bay, and then in 1657 to the river. Hunting. He was one of the first to learn from local residents about the existence of a "nose" between Anadyr and Penzhina, that is, the Kamchatka Peninsula, 5 however, the true size of this peninsula did not become known immediately. However, already in the middle of the XVII century. in Moscow they knew that from the east the “new Siberian land” was also washed everywhere by the “Akian sea”.

During voyages in the Arctic and Pacific oceans, sailors conducted various observations. According to the outlines of the shores, they remembered the passed sea routes, followed the direction of the winds, the drift of ice, and sea currents. Even then they knew how to use a compass (“womb”) and determine the general contours of not only small, but also large peninsulas. In S. I. Dezhnev’s reply in 1655, a fairly accurate description of the location of the “Big Stone Nose” (Chukotka Peninsula) from Anadyr turned out to be quite accurate: “and that Nose lies between the siver on a midnight”, 6 i.e. in the sector between two directions - on north and northeast. "The nose will turn sharply towards the Onandyra river towards summer." 7 This phrase means that Dezhnev attributed the beginning of the Chukotka Peninsula from the south side to the Gulf of the Cross (the region of Mount Matachingai), which corresponds to the ideas

1 A. Titov. Siberia in the 17th century. Collection of old Russian articles about Siberia and adjacent lands. M., 1890, pp. 3-6.

2 D. N. Anuchin. On the history of acquaintance with Siberia before Yermak. Antiquities, vol. XIV, M., 1890, p. 229.

3 RIB, vol. II, St. Petersburg, 1875, doc. No. 121, p. 374.

4 Materials of the Department of Historical and Geographical Knowledge of the Geographical Society of the USSR, no. 1, L., 1962, pp. 64-67.

5 Russian sailors in the Arctic and Pacific Oceans. Collection of documents about the great Russian geographical discoveries in the northeast of Asia in the 17th century. Comp. M. I. Belov. L.-M., 1952, p. 263.

6 DAI, vol. IV, St. Petersburg, 1851, No. 7? page 26.

7 See photocopy of document: Vestn. ASU, 1962, No. 6, ser. geologist, and geogr., vol. 1, p.

modern geographers. 8 Thus, for the first time, reliable information was obtained about the extreme northeastern part of Asia, which is closest to North America.

In the 17th century Anadyr Cossacks were the first to find out about the existence of Alaska. For them, it was the "Island of the Toothed" (Eskimos), or the "Great Land", then they did not yet know that Alaska was part of America.

Valuable information was collected in the 17th century. about the countries located south of Siberia. The earliest reports about routes from Siberia to Central and Central Asia were received from Central Asian intermediary merchants, the so-called "Bukharians", some of whom settled in Western Siberia. They also helped the Russians find their way to China, get early information about the Tibetans and even about distant India.

Quite frequent Russian embassies, in which Siberian service people took an active part, played an important role in expanding the ideas about the southern countries. So, the Tomsk Cossack Ivan Petlin, who was the first to travel to China in 1618, presented to Moscow an article list in which he described in detail the route of his journey, as well as "a drawing and painting about the Chinese region." nine

A lot of information about the peoples living south of Siberia, the Russians received from local residents. Important news about Mongolia and about new routes to China was received from the Selenga Tungus and Buryats. Russians learned from the natives of the Amur in 1643-1644. about the Manchus, and in 1652-1653. - about the Japanese (“chizhems”), whose nearest settlements at that time were in the southern part of the island of Hokkaido (“Iesso”). 10 The Cossack campaigns of 1654-1656 were of great importance for expanding the understanding of Russians about the southern peoples. on the right tributaries of the Amur - Argun, Komaru, Sungari ("Shingal") and Ussuri ("Ushur"). Through the Argun, a new shorter route to China was opened, along which the embassies of Ignatius Milovanov (1672) and Nikolai Spafariy (1675-1677) later went to Beijing.

The most detailed and rich material was accumulated in the 17th century. about the interior regions of Siberia - about the local population, fauna, flora, minerals.

When collecting yasak, servicemen were interested in the number, ethnic and tribal composition of the local population, and the location of the settlements. In addition, their messages contain rich information about social relations among local peoples, lifestyle - about taiga and river crafts, about hunting tools and vehicles, about domestic animals, about the arrangement of dwellings. All these data are still of great value to researchers, especially ethnographers.

Of the natural resources that attracted in the XVI-XVII centuries. to Siberia of Russian people, in the first place was furs (“soft junk”). In the Russian and world markets in the XVI-XVII centuries. the furs of sables, beavers, silver foxes were especially valued. Among the Russian people in Siberia there were many experienced animal experts. They knew the areas of fur-trading lands well, studied the habits of sable and other animals, mastered various methods of hunting them, knew how to process furs and were considered knowledgeable connoisseurs of its various varieties.

They also successfully hunted the sea animal - seals, seals, and later whales. But the Russians were especially interested in the walrus tusk (“fish

8 B. P. Polevoy. On the exact text of two replies by Semyon Dezhnev in 1655. Izv. USSR Academy of Sciences, ser. Geogr., 1965, No. 2, pp. 102-110.

9 N. F. Demidova, V. S. Myasnikov. The first Russian diplomats in China. M., 1966, p. 41.

10 B. P. Polevoy. Sakhalin pioneers. Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, 1959, p.31.

tooth"), which was valued in the XVII century. very high and was sold to some countries of the East. Therefore, when in the middle of the XVII century. rich walrus rookeries were discovered in the north-east of Siberia, Moscow immediately became interested in them.

The explorers were also connoisseurs of the Siberian fish wealth. In their messages they list a wide variety of fish. So, in November 1645, V. D. Poyarkov’s companions told in Yakutsk that in the mouth of the Amur there is not only red fish, but “both sturgeon and a big and small stick, and carp and sterlet, and catfish and stellate sturgeon.” 11 The fish riches of the rivers of the Okhotsk coast made a great impression on the Russians. “In the“ tale ”of the Cossack N.I. Kolobov, a participant in the campaign of I.Yu. Moskvitin, it was said: “... just launch a net and don’t drag it out with fish. And the river is fast, and that fish in that river quickly kills and sweeps ashore, and along its bank there is a lot that firewood, and that lying fish is eaten by a beast. 12

Among the explorers were the so-called "herbalists", who were engaged in the search and collection of plants "for medicinal compounds and vodkas." St. John's wort, "wolf root", rhubarb were in special demand.

Wherever the Siberian explorers penetrated, everywhere they were interested in minerals. 13 First of all, they began to collect information about salt springs. Detailed descriptions (XVII century) of the state-owned salt industry on the lake have come down to us. Yamysh (20s) and salt pans of E.P. Khabarov on the river. Kuta (30s). In the late 30s, salt springs were found in the Yenisei district on the tributaries of the river. Angara, Taseev and Manze. In the late 60s, salt was found near Irkutsk (Usolye). fourteen

Already from the beginning of the XVII century. ores were searched in Siberia, especially iron, copper and silver. From the 1920s, a successful search for iron ore was carried out by the Tomsk ore explorer blacksmith Fedor Yeremeev. As the Tomsk governor reported to Moscow, from the ore found by Eremeev, “was born. . . iron is good. 15 In the middle of the XVII century. "the kindest and softest" iron was smelted from ore found near Krasnoyarsk, as well as in the Yeniseisk region. The Russians found copper ore on the Yenisei and in Western Siberia.

Silver ore was most persistently searched for. The first searches were unsuccessful, but in the second half of the XVII century. rather rich deposits were found in Transbaikalia. The famous Nerchinsk factories were built here. Even then, the Russians knew that lead, and sometimes tin, was often found in the areas of silver ore deposits. The replies of the explorers also report on the search for "combustible" sulfur, saltpeter

11 TsGADA, f. Yakut order hut, op. 1, column. 43, l. 362.

12 Ibid., op. 2, column. 66, l. 1. For the full text of this "tale", see: N. N. Stepanov. The first Russian expedition on the coast of Okhotsk in the 17th century. Izv. VGO. v. 90, 1958, No. 5, pp. 446-448.

13 Review of published messages of the 17th century. about the minerals of Siberia is given in the book by A. V. Khabakov “Essays on the history of geological exploration knowledge in Russia” (part 1, M., 1950), and archival documents of the Siberian order - in the article by N. Ya. Novombergsky, L. A. Goldenberg and V.V. Tikhomirov "Materials on the history of exploration and prospecting for minerals in the Russian state of the 17th century." (in the book: Essays on the history of geological knowledge, issue 8, M., 1959. pp. 3-63).

14 F. G. S afronov. Erofey Pavlovich Khabarov. Khabarovsk, 1956, p. 13; A. N. Kopylov. Russians on the Yenisei in the 17th century. Agriculture, industry and trade relations of the Yenisei district. Novosibirsk, 1965, pp. 186-189; V. A. Alexandrov. Russian population of Siberia in the 17th-early 18th centuries. (Yenisei Territory). M., 1964, p. 248; TsGADA, joint venture, st. 113, ll. 210, 211; stlb. 344, ll. 333-336: stlb. 908, ll 117-136,371-376.

15 For more details on the activities of F. Eremeev, see: A. R. Pugachev. 1) Fedor Eremeev - the discoverer of the iron ores of Siberia. Questions of the geography of Siberia, Sat. 1, Tomsk, 1949, pp. 105-121; 2) Blacksmith Fedor Yeremeev. Tomsk, 1961.

and even oil. 16 Significant progress was made in the search for window mica. In the middle of the XVII century. mica was mined in the lower Angara region (in the upper reaches of the Taseeva and Kiyanka rivers). In the 1980s, the richest deposits of mica were discovered on the shores of Lake Baikal. At the same time, rock crystal was mined in different parts of Eastern Siberia and various “patterned stones” were collected.

Russian explorers sought to reflect their discoveries on geographical drawings. Throughout the 17th century hundreds of such drawings were created. Unfortunately, almost all of them died. But according to the few accidentally preserved drawings, and especially the “paintings” for them, it can be seen that they sometimes had a rather significant load: in addition to rivers, mountains and settlements, they often depicted “arable places”, “fishing grounds”, “black forests”, portages and even "argishnitsa" - the paths along which the "deer people" crossed with argish.

Some of the local drawings of the XVII century. were of particular value. So, in 1655, at the direction of Dezhnev, the first “Anandyr drawing was drawn up: from the Anyui river and beyond the Kamen to the top of Anandyr, and which rivers flowed large and small, and to the sea and to the corgi where the beast is kicking.” 17 In 1657, Stadukhin's companions made the first drawing of the northern part of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. eighteen

Among the drafters of the drawings of the XVII century. were masters of their craft. Such, for example, was Kurbat Ivanov, the discoverer of Lake Baikal and Dezhnev's successor in the Anadyr prison, who compiled the first drawings of the upper Lena, Lake Baikal, the coast of Okhotsk and some other regions of Eastern Siberia. 19 Unfortunately, many exceptionally rich information about Siberia and neighboring peoples, collected in the 17th century, turned out to be buried in the archives and were not used by contemporaries when working on the creation of summary drawings and descriptions of Siberia. Drawing up generalizing Siberian drawings in Russia began to be engaged quite early. It is known that at the end of the XVI century. some kind of "drawing of the Siberian from Cherdyn" was created. 20 In 1598-1599 in Siberia, drawings were made that formed the basis of the Siberian part of the famous "old" drawing of the Muscovite state.

In 1626, a letter was sent from Moscow to Siberia: “Draw a drawing for the city of Tobolsk and all Siberian cities and prisons in Tobolsk.” Having received this order, the Tobolsk governor A. Khovansky immediately sent appropriate orders to all Siberian cities and prisons to the governors: “. . . ordered them to draw drawings and write on the paintings near those cities and forts, rivers and tracts. 21 How this work was carried out is not yet known. Some researchers believe that the “Painting of Siberian Cities and Ostrog”, compiled in 1633, may have been an appendix to such a general drawing of the entire then known part of Siberia. 22

Siberia to the shores of the Pacific Ocean was first depicted in a drawing of 1667. In the absence of local drawings of many regions of Siberia, the Tobolsk governor P. I. Godunov organized a survey of “all kinds of ranks” of experienced people. After summarizing this information, a “drawing of all Siberia” was created and a drawing list was drawn up for it. An analysis of the mural suggests that the "drawing of all Siberia" was made in the form of a kind of atlas, in which all the details were already reflected in the special route drawings of rivers and routes. On 23 November 26, 1667, the "drawing of all Siberia" was sent to Moscow. 24 And in February 1668, based on this drawing, the painter Stanislav Loputsky made another drawing of Siberia in Moscow. 25 In the summer of 1673, under the governor I. B. Repnin, new cartographic work was carried out in Tobolsk: a new drawing of Siberia and a Tobolsk version of the drawing of the entire Muscovite state were drawn up. 26

In the further refinement of the general drawings of Siberia, an important role was played by the head of the Russian embassy in China, N. G. Spafariy, who was instructed by the government "from Tobolsk on the road to the frontier Chinese city to depict all the lands, cities and the path in the drawing" and draw up a detailed description of Siberia. 27 In 1677, Spafariy handed over to the Posolsky Prikaz “The book, and in it is written the journey of the kingdom of Siberia from the city of Tobolsk and to the very border of China”. 28 In this detailed work, the main rivers of Siberia - the Irtysh and the Ob, the Yenisei and the Lena - are described in particular detail. In addition, a separate description of the Amur was added to the description of China compiled by Spafarius (one of its variants is widely known as the “Legend of the great Amur River”). 29 At the same time, a new drawing of Siberia was submitted to the Posolsky Prikaz.,

Censuses of the population and lands, the so-called "watches", played an important role in the development of Siberian cartography. During the widest "watch" of the early 80s of the XVII century. many local drawings were created, on the basis of which, after 3-4 years, new revised drawings of the whole of Siberia were compiled.

By the mid-80s of the XVII century. also applies to the appearance of a new detailed geographical essay on Siberia - “Descriptions of the new land of the Siberian state, at which time and by what chance it fell for the Muscovite state and what is the position of that land.” 30 In Stockholm, in the papers of I. Sparvenfeld, the Swedish ambassador to Russia in 1684-1687, a copy of this "Description" and an unfinished copy of the Great Drawing of Asia, which clearly reflected the content of the "Description", were recently found. 31 Therefore, there is reason to believe that the noted "Description" was created in the form of a literary supplement to some new drawing of Siberia instead of the traditional "painting".

16 See: DAI, vol. 10, p. 327.

17 Russian Arctic expeditions of the 17th-20th centuries. Questions of the history of the study and development of the Arctic, L., 1964, p. 139X

18 DAI, vol. 4, 1851, doc. No. 47, p. 120, 121.

19 B P Field. Kurbat Ivanov - the first cartographer of Lena, Baikal and the Okhotsk coast (1640-1645). Izv. VGO, vol. 92. 1960, No. 1, pp. 46-52.

20 CHOIDR, 1894, book. 3, mixture, page 16.

21 RIB, vol. VIII, 1884, column. 410-412.

22 Yu A Limonov. "Painting" of the first general drawing of Siberia (dating experience). Problems of source study, VIII, M., 1959, pp. 343-360. The text of the "painting" see: A. Titov. Siberia in the 17th century, pp. 9-22.

23 See for more details: B.P. Polevoy. Hypothesis about the "Godunovsky" atlas of Siberia in 1667. Izv. USSR Academy of Sciences, ser. Geogr., 1966, No. 4, pp. 123-132.

24 TsGADA, joint venture, st. 811, l. 97.

25 This was first reported by G. A. Boguslavsky in a report to the Geographical Society of the USSR on December 14, 1959.

26 See: Book of the Big Drawing. Preparation for publication and editing by K. N. Serbina. M.-L., 1950, pp. 184-188.

27 Journey through Siberia from Tobolsk to Nerchinsk and the borders of China by the Russian envoy Nikolai Spafari in 1675. Travel diary of Spafari with an introduction and notes by Yu. V. Arseniev. Zap. Russian Geographical Society on dep. these., 1882, vol. X, no. 1, App., p. 152.

28 Ibid., pp. 1-214. For the most detailed analysis of the geographical works of N. G. Spafaria, see: D. M. Lebedev. Geography in Russia in the 17th century (pre-Petrine era). Essays on the history of geographical knowledge. M.-L., 1949, pp. 127-164.

29 A. Titov. Siberia in the 17th century, pp. 107-113.

30 Ibid., pp. 55-100. A more accurate text was reproduced in 1907 in the collection Siberian Chronicles.

31 For a description of the Swedish copy, see: S. D a h 1. Codex ad 10 der Västeräser Gymnasial Bibliothek. Uppsala, 1949, pp. 62-69. The unfinished drawing is reproduced in the article: L. S. Bagrow. Sparwenfeltdt "s maps of Siberia-Imago Mundi, vol. IV, Stockholm, 1954.

The discovery abroad of several drawings of Siberia shows what great interest foreigners showed to it. In the 17th century in Western Europe, a number of works with information about Siberia appeared. Their most complete review is given by Academician MP Alekseev. 32 In the reports of foreigners, most often, reliable interspersed with conjectures. The most truthful writings belonged to the pen of those who themselves visited Siberia. The "History of Siberia" by Yuri Krizhanich (1680), 33 who lived for 15 years in exile in Tobolsk, is especially informative. There, Krizhanich met with many Siberian explorers, which allowed him to collect reliable information about Siberia, Krizhanich, in particular, notes, based on data on Russian campaigns in the mid-17th century, that the Arctic and Pacific oceans are “not separated from each other by anything”, but through navigation through them is impossible due to the accumulation of ice. 34

Of all the works on Siberia that appeared abroad in the 17th century, the most valuable was the book “On Northern and Eastern Tataria” by the Dutch geographer N.K. Witsen (1692). 35 In 1665 its author was in Moscow as a member of the Dutch embassy. Since then, Witsen began to collect various news about the eastern outskirts of Russia. He was especially interested in Siberia. Witsen, through his Russian correspondents, managed to collect a rich collection of various writings about Siberia. Among the materials he used were a drawing of Siberia in 1667 and its painting, a painting of a drawing of Siberia in 1673, an essay on Siberia by Krizhanich, “Description of the new land of the Siberian state”, “The Legend of the Amur River”, etc. In addition, Witsen had such Russian sources, the originals of which are not yet known.

Witsen was also the compiler of several drawings of "Tataria" (Siberia with neighboring countries). Of these, his large map "1687" is the most famous. (actually it was published in 1689-1691). 36 Witsen's map contains many blunders, but nevertheless, for its time, its publication was a great event. In essence, this was the first map in Western Europe that reflected reliable Russian news about all of Siberia.

In 1692, a new Russian ambassador traveled through Siberia to China, the Dane Izbrand Idee. He carried Witsen's map with him. Along the way, Idee made the necessary corrections and later made his own drawing of Siberia, which, however, also turned out to be very inaccurate. 37 It became obvious that the very system of compiling geographical drawings of Siberia should be changed.

Since the most detailed drawings of the voivodships could only be drawn up on the ground, on January 10, 1696, in the Siberian order, it was decided “to send letters from the great sovereigns to all Siberian cities, to order Siberian cities and counties. . . write drawings on canvas. . . And in Tobolsk, order the good and skillful master to make drawings

32 M. P. Alekseev. Siberia in the news of Western European travelers and writers, vols. 1, 2. Irkutsk, 1932-1936. (Second edition: Irkutsk, 1940).

34 Ibid., p. 215.

35 N. K. Witsen. Noord en oost Tartarye. Amsterdam, 1692. (The second revised edition appeared in 1705, the third in 1785).

36 In the USSR, a copy of this map is kept in the Cartography Department of the State Public Library. G. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin (Leningrad). A life size copy of the map was reproduced in Remarkable maps of the XVth, XVIth und XVIIth centuries, reproduced in the original size (vol. 4, Amsterdam, 1897). A reduced copy of the map is available in the Atlas of Geographical Discoveries in Siberia and North-West America of the 17th-18th centuries (M., 1964, No. 33).

37 Ides' map was printed in his Dreijaarige Reise naar China te Lande gedaen door den moscovitischen Abgesant E. Isbrants Ides (Amsterdam, 1704).

throughout Siberia and sign below, from which city to which how many versts or days go, and determine the counties for each city and describe in which place which peoples roam and live, also from which side to border places what people approached. 38 The "verdict" set the size for the "city" (county) drawings 3X2 arshin and for the drawing of all Siberia 4X3 arshin.

Work on the drawing up of drawings was started everywhere in the same 1696. In Yeniseisk, they were carried out in 1696-1697; a letter “on drawing up a drawing for the Irkutsk district” was received in Irkutsk on November 2, 1696, and the finished drawing was sent to Moscow on May 28, 1697. 39 “The Irkutsk drawing to Kudinskaya Sloboda. . . by government decree. . . wrote ”Yenisei icon painter Maxim Grigoriev Ikonnik. 40 In Tobolsk, drawing work was entrusted to S. U. Remezov, who, long before 1696, “wrote many drawings according to the letters of the breed of Tobolsk, settlements and Siberian cities in different years.” 41

In order to draw up his own drawing of Siberia, S. U. Remezov personally traveled in 1696-1697. many regions of Western Siberia. By the autumn of 1697, Remezov compiled a wall “drawing of a part of Siberia” and an additional “chorographic drawing book” - a unique atlas of Siberian rivers. 42 The “drawing of a part of Siberia” drawn up in this form was highly appreciated in Moscow.

In the autumn of 1698, during his stay in Moscow, Remezov created two general drawings of all of Siberia, one on white Chinese paper, the other on polished calico, 6X4 arshin in size. Remezov performed this work with his son Semyon. They made copies of eighteen drawings sent to the Siberian Prikaz from various Siberian cities. Then they made a “reversed” drawing on a white Chinese paper measuring 4X2 arshin and another 6X4 arshin on glossy paper for the king. Copies from city drawings and a copy from the "reversed" general drawing of Siberia Remezov took with him to Tobolsk when he left there in December 1698. 43 This time Remezov was ordered to compile in Tobolsk a book of drawings of all Siberian cities ("Drawing book") ), having previously made a number of new drawings. Remezov carried out this work with his sons Semyon, Leonty and Ivan and finished it in the autumn of 1701. The drawing book of Siberia in 1701, made on 24 sheets of Alexandrian paper, had a preface (“Scripture to the affectionate reader”) and 23 geographical drawings, most of which were "urban" blueprints. 44

38 PSZ, vol. III, no. 1532, p. 217.

39 A. I. Andreev. Essays on the source study of Siberia, no. 1. XVII century. M-L., 1960, p. 99.

40 TsGADA, joint venture, st. 1352, l. 73a.

41 A. N. Kopylov. To the biography of S. U. Remezov. Historical archive, 1961, No. 6, p. 237. Recently, the names of a number of drawings made by S. U. Remezov back in the 80s of the 17th century have been established. (see: L. A. Goldenberg. Semyon Ulyanovich Remezov. M., 1965, pp. 29-33).

42 S. U. Remesov. Atlas of Siberia, facsim. ed., with an introduction by L. Bagrow (Imago Mundi. Suppl. I). s "Gravenhage, 1958. The Tobolsk draft of this atlas, supplemented later by several more drawings, was first published only in 1958. L. S. Bagrov believed that S. U. Remezov by "chorography" meant chorography (description of land), and that is why he called this atlas the “Chorographic Book.” Most researchers have adopted this name.

43 A. I. Andreev. Essays on the source study of Siberia, no. 1, p. 111.

44 The drawing book of Siberia, compiled by the Tobolsk boyar son Semyon Remezov in 1701. SPb., 1882. On the drawing book, see: L. A. Goldenberg. Semyon Ulyanovich Remezov, pp. 96-99, and also: B.P. Polevoy. On the original "Drawing Book of Siberia" by S. U. Remezov, 1701. Refutation of the version of the "Rumyantsev copy". Report Inst. geographer. Siberia and the Far East, 1964, no. 7. pp. 65-71.

The Remezovs left behind another valuable monument of cartography of the 17th-early 18th centuries. - "Service drawing book". This collection of drawings and manuscripts includes copies of "city" drawings of 1696-1699, early drawings of Kamchatka in 1700-1713. and other drawings of the end of the XVII-beginning of the XVIII century. 45

Numerous drawings of the Remezovs have always amazed researchers with the abundance of the most diverse information about Siberia. Until now, not only historians, but also geographers, ethnographers, archaeologists and linguists, especially toponymists, are keenly interested in these drawings. And yet, at the beginning of the XVIII century. Remezozy's cartography was already "yesterday in the development of science." 46 Their drawings had no mathematical basis and often reflected inaccurate or misunderstood information from the 17th century. At the beginning of the XVIII century. state interests demanded the compilation of accurate geographical maps, made not by "iconists" or "isographers", but by specially trained surveyors. In the second decade of the XVIII century. in Western Siberia, successful shooting was carried out by Petr Chichagov and Ivan Zakharov, 47 in Eastern Siberia - Fedor Molchanov. In the Far East and the Pacific Ocean, surveyors Ivan Evreinov and Fedor Luzhin took up the compilation of the first maps on a mathematical basis. 48

Russian explorers began to penetrate Kamchatka from the middle of the 17th century, but only as a result of the historical campaign of V.V. Atlasov in 1697-1699. they got a real idea of ​​the commercial wealth of this peninsula and established how far it extends into the ocean.

Atlasov brought from Kamchatka the Japanese Denbey, brought there by a storm, from whom new information about Japan was received in Russia.

An important role in obtaining the first detailed information about the Kuril Islands was played by IP Kozyrevsky, who led the first two Russian voyages to these islands (1711 and 1713). The need to compensate for the depleting commercial reserves of Siberia prompted the government of Peter I to organize more and more search expeditions in the Far East.

In 1716-1719. here under the leadership of the Yakut governor. A. Yelchin was preparing a large sea expedition, the so-called Great Kamchatka detachment. The road from Yakutsk to Okhotsk was improved, sea routes were explored, information about Kamchatka and the Kuriles was systematized. The expedition of the Great Kamchatka outfit did not take place, but the maps of Kamchatka and the information collected by Yelchin were submitted to the Senate and used in the preparation and implementation of the expeditions of Evreinov and Luzhin, as well as the famous Kamchatka expeditions of the second quarter of the 18th century. 49

Sending geodesists I. M. Evreinov and F. F. Luzhin from St. Petersburg to the Far East, Peter I himself “tested” their knowledge and instructed them to describe Kamchatka with the waters and lands adjacent to it and “correctly put everything on the map.” At the same time, surveyors were specifically instructed to establish whether "America has converged with Asia."

Evreinov and Luzhin arrived in Kamchatka in September 1719, and in 1720-1721. traveled along the western shores of Kamchatka and the Kuril chain. Evreinov's map and report are the main

45 RO GPB, Hermitage Collection, No. 237.

46 L. A. Goldenberg. Semyon Ulyanovich Remezov, p. 198.

47 E. A. K nyazhetska. The first Russian filming of Western Siberia. Izv. VGO, 1966, no. 4, pp. 333-340.

48 O. A. Evteev. The first Russian surveyors in the Pacific Ocean. M., 1950.

49 V. I. Grekov. Essays from the history of Russian geographical research in 1725-1765. M., 1960, pp. 9-12.

outcome of this expedition. The map covers Siberia from Tobolsk to Kamchatka and has a degree grid. For the first time, the characteristic features of the outlines of Kamchatka are quite correctly conveyed on it and the southwestern direction of the Kuril Islands is correctly shown. The report was an explanatory catalog to the map.

Surveyors, of course, did not find America near Kamchatka. But Peter I (not without the influence of Western European cartography) continued to believe that the closest route from Asia to America was from the Kamchatka Peninsula. Western European cartographers depicted the “northern land” (“Terra borealis”) stretching from North America towards Kamchatka. Sometimes she was depicted connected to America, sometimes - separated by the "Strait of Anian". On the map of Kamchatka, published by the Nuremberg cartographer I. B. Roman in 1722, the end of this land was shown near the eastern coast of the peninsula. Peter I believed in the real existence of this mythical land and in 1724 decided to instruct Vitus Bering to explore the sea route from Kamchatka to America along this “land that goes to the north”, and at the same time find out where “that land is. . . aligned with America." 50 This is how the idea of ​​organizing Bering's First Kamchatka Expedition arose. 51

During the years of Peter's reforms, interest in the ethnography of Siberia also increased markedly. S. U. Remezov played a big role in this. He wrote a number of ethnographic works and compiled the first ethnographic map of Siberia. But the most valuable ethnographic work of this period was "A Brief Description of the Ostyak People", written in 1715 by Grigory Novitsky, a student of the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, who was exiled to Tobolsk. 52 The retelling of this work was repeatedly published abroad. 53

Along with geographical surveys in the first quarter of the XVIII century. a scientific expeditionary survey of the interior regions of Siberia begins. In 1719 Dr. Daniil Gottlieb Messerschmidt was sent to Siberia under a contract for 7 years. The range of issues that he was supposed to deal with included: a description of the Siberian peoples and the study of their languages, the study of geography, natural history, medicine, ancient monuments and "other sights" of the region.

Messerschmidt visited many areas of Western and Eastern Siberia in the basins of the Ob, Irtysh, Yenisei, Lena and Lake. Baikal. Especially difficult and productive was his journey, which began in 1723 from Turukhansk to the upper reaches of the Lower Tunguska, then to the Lena, Baikal, then through Nerchinsk, the Argun plant and the Mongolian steppes to the lake. Dalaynor.

The scientist collected huge natural-historical and ethnographic collections, cartographic materials, made numerous philological records (in particular, in the Mongolian and Tangut languages), carried out a large number of geodetic calculations. The collections brought by Messerschmidt to St. Petersburg in 1727 received a very high appraisal from the selection committee. 54 The works of Messerschmidt himself (a description of the collections and diaries) were not published at that time, but were used by many scientists of the 18th century - G. Steller, I. Gmelin, G. Miller, P. Pallas and others. (Recognizing their great scientific value, the Academy of Sciences of the GDR and the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1962 began joint publication of Messerschmidt's Siberian diaries). 55

The Swede F. I. Tabbert (Stralenberg) actively contributed to the dissemination of new reliable information about Siberia in Western Europe. 56 Being in Siberia for 11 years (1711-1722) as a captive officer, he studied the ethnography of the region, was engaged in cartography, and also took an active part in Messerschmidt's expedition to Western Siberia in 1721-1722. as his closest assistant and artist. Stralenberg later published in Stockholm (1730) in German the book Northern and Eastern Parts of Europe and Asia, 57 as well as a map of Siberia. In his book, he provided a lot of information on the ethnography and history of Siberia, and his map, among the maps of Siberia published abroad, was the first on which the location of some cities was given on the basis of astronomical observations.

Thus, in the first quarter of the XVIII century. a significant shift took place in the study of Siberia: a transition began from the accumulation of empirical knowledge to truly scientific research.

50 For more details, see: From Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. M., 1967, pp. 111-120.

51 The history of Bering's Kamchatka expeditions is set out on pp. 343-347.

53 I. V. Miller. Leben und Gewohnheiten der Ostiaken, eines Volskes, das bis unter dem Polo Arctico wohnet ... Berlin, 1720. For a French translation, see Recueil de voyages au Nord, t. VIII, Amsterdam, 1727, pp. 373-429.

54 V. I. Grekov. Essays from the history of Russian geographical research..., p. 16; M. G. Novlyanskaya. The first scientific study of the Lower Tunguska River. Mater, dep. History of the Geographer, Knowledge, vol. 1, L., 1962, pp. 42-63.

One of the most important trips in the region was the expedition of R. Maak. She was discussed above. With the formation in 1851 of the Siberian Department of the IRGS, it began to serve as the organizing and methodological center for most expeditions to study the productive forces of this territory. Later, a network of departments appeared; the West Siberian department was formed in 1877, the Amur department in 1894 and the Yakut department in 1913. The regions of the Baikal region, Transbaikalia, the Ussuri Territory, and less often the northern regions attracted particular attention of researchers.

In 1849-1852. in the southeastern part of Siberia, a topographic expedition under the command of N.Kh. Akhte. Its result was new maps of Baikal (1850) and Transbaikalia (1852). A member of the expedition, mining engineer N.G. Meglitsky discovered deposits of lead and silver.

In 1855-1859. in Transbaikalia, a detachment of L.E. Schwartz, who participated in the Akhte expedition as an astronomer. Based on the materials of the expedition, Schwartz compiled a detailed and accurate map of the southern part of Eastern Siberia. On it, in particular, a new ridge with alpine landforms appeared. It was named after one of the topographers, Lieutenant I.S. Kryzhina. Naturalist G.I. Radde on a boat made a circular detour of Lake Baikal and discovered a number of organisms unknown until that time. The name of Radde is associated with the study of Gusinoye Lake, the ascent to the highest point of the Sayan - Mount Munku-Sardyk (3492 m), the establishment of the asymmetry of its slopes in terms of steepness and the peculiarities of the distribution of vegetation. He discovered the first glacier in the Eastern Sayan.

In 1862, a young graduate of the page corps arrived in Eastern Siberia, a prince who neglected his court career. Pyotr Alekseevich Kropotkin(1842-1921). He joined the study of a little-studied region. The first journey was made by Kropotkin in 1863 along the Shilka and the Amur up to its lower reaches. In the spring of the following year, Kropotkin crossed the Greater Khingan and traveled almost incognito through Manchuria, discovering and describing for the first time two cones of extinct volcanoes. In summer and autumn, he explored the banks of the Amur, Ussuri and Sungari to the city of Girin.

In 1865, P. A. Kropotkin worked in the southern Baikal region and in the Eastern Sayan. In the Tunka basin, he discovered two volcanic cones and a lava cover erupted by them in the Quaternary period. He described the lava plateau in the upper reaches of the Oka River (a tributary of the Irkut), revealed hot mineral springs, witnesses of troubled bowels. On the Oka plateau, Kropotkin noted traces of ancient glaciation.

In 1866 Kropotkin, together with the biologist I.S. Polyakov, laid out a route from the Olekminsky-Vitimsky gold mines to Chita in order to find a convenient cattle route. The Patom Highlands and one of its ranges, later named by V.A. The hoop name of Kropotkin, a system of steep-walled ridges (grooms said that they climb to “submit a petition to God”), named by Kropotkin Delyun-Uransky, North-Muysky and South-Muysky, Vitim Plateau. Traveling impressions and data from other researchers allowed Kropotkin to create a new, more perfect idea of ​​the orography of Asia. New evidence was obtained about the past glaciation of Transbaikalia. Kropotkin also expressed original ideas about the origin of the Baikal Basin.

In 1865, mining engineer I.A. Lopatin, who discovered traces of recent volcanism and forms associated with the widespread development of permafrost. In 1867-1868. Lopatin conducted a complex of geological studies on Sakhalin. In 1871, Lopatin continued the study of the trap covers of the Central Siberian Plateau, begun by Chekanovsky, going up the Podkamennaya Tunguska River for 600 km.

Since 1869, mining-geological and geographical research in Eastern Siberia was carried out Alexander Lavrentievich Chekanovsky(1833-1876), exiled to Siberia in connection with the Polish uprising of 1863. At the request of Academician F.B. Schmidt Chekanovsky was placed at the disposal of the Siberian Department of the Geographical Society. Since 1869, on the instructions of the department, he has completed a number of routes along the Irkutsk basin, the Baikal region, and the Eastern Sayan. But he obtained the most significant results in studying the basins of the Nizhnyaya Tunguska and Olenek rivers. Within three years (1872-1875), he was the first to describe in detail the lava covers of the Central Siberian Plateau with table-like relief forms separated by terraced ledges of river valleys, which, in turn, are associated with outcrops of igneous rock layers; mineral. According to F.B. Schmidt, Chekanovsky's expedition was "the richest in geological results that have ever been active in Siberia" up to that time. In the lower reaches of the Olenek, Chekanovsky discovered and preserved for posterity the grave of the Pronchishchevs, who gave their young lives to the study of the north. In the area of ​​the mouth of the Lena River, Chekanovsky singled out two asymmetric ridges; now these ridges bear the names of Pronchishchev and Chekanovsky. The life of Alexander Lavrentievich ended tragically. Released under an amnesty in 1875, he left for St. Petersburg, began to process the collected huge material, but during an attack of mental illness in the autumn of the following year he committed suicide.

Junior comrade Chekanovsky Ivan Dementievich (Jan Domenik) Tersky(1845 -1892), who also ended up in Siberia against his will, received the basics of field research from G.N. Potanin, Chekanovsky and other travelers. Since 1873, he conducted a complex of studies in Baikal and the Baikal region, established observations on changes in the level of the lake in its individual sections, which made it possible to judge diverse tectonic movements, compiled a geological map of the lake shoreline and published a detailed report on the studies performed. Chersky used the research data in compiling two volumes of supplements to K. Ritter's Geoscience of Asia.

In 1885, Chersky, on behalf of the Academy of Sciences, carried out geological observations along the Siberian tract, identified two altitudinal levels of the area: to the east of the Yenisei valley and to the west of it.

For five years, Ivan Dementievich lived with his family in St. Petersburg, processed materials from his collections, paleontological collections of other researchers. In 1891, on his own initiative, Chersky led the Kolyma expedition of the Academy. In addition to him, the expedition included his wife, a faithful companion in a number of his travels, Mavra Pavlovna, and 12-year-old son Alexander. Difficult way through the whole country, Yakutsk, Oymyakon... In September 1891 we reached Verkhne-Kolymsk. The transferred influenza and severe wintering undermined the health of the expedition leader. Nevertheless, with the beginning of navigation, Chersky went down the Kolyma in a boat, describing the geological outcrops along its shores. When the strength began to leave the researcher, Mavra Pavlovna took over the main work. One cannot but marvel at the courage and devotion to duty of these people. Feeling that the disease had become irreversible, Chersky prepared a will. Here is its content: “In the event of my death, wherever she finds me, the expedition led by my wife Mavra Pavlovna Cherskaya must nevertheless now sail to Nizhne-Kolymsk in the summer, engaged mainly in zoological and botanical collections and permits. solving those of the geological questions that are available to my wife. Otherwise, if the expedition of 1892 did not take place in the event of my death, the Academy would have to suffer large monetary losses and damage in scientific results; and on me, or rather on my name, still unsullied by anything, falls the whole burden of failure. Only after the expedition returns back to Sredne-Kolymsk should it be considered completed. And only then should the surrender of the remainder of the expeditionary amount and expeditionary property ”(Quoted by: Shumilov, 1998. P. 158) - July 7, 1892, Ivan Dementievich died. Mavra Pavlovna completed the rest of the expedition's program, delivered to Irkutsk its materials and collected collections, handed over them and unspent money to the person responsible for geological work in Siberia, E.V. Toll... How I would like the meaning of this deed of the Cherskys to reach the consciousness of those who settle in science, and do not live for science!

M.P. Cherskaya returned to St. Petersburg, then moved to relatives in Vitebsk. The last years, 1936-1940, she lived in Rostov-on-Don. Her son Alexander Chersky became, like his father, a traveler-zoologist, worked in the Far East, died on the Commander Islands.

Between the rivers Indigirka and Kolyma, Chersky on the route map outlined the beginning of three unknown mountain ranges. Described in 1927 by S.V. Obruchev, they made up the now well-known ridge (more precisely, the highlands) of Chersky.

Among the Polish exiles, Benedikt Dybowski and Viktor Godlevsky left a good memory in the study of Siberia. They carefully studied the organic life of Baikal, established its species richness and endemicity. They determined the main ecological parameters of the lake, including the depth of the lake, the temperature and density of water at all horizons. Dybovsky and Godlevsky conducted zoological studies of the Amur and Ussuri. And when the news of the long-awaited amnesty arrived, Dybovsky obtained permission for further research in Siberia and went to Kamchatka. Dybovsky returned to his homeland, more precisely to Lvov, only in 1884 and lived to a ripe old age.

In 1889-1898. a geologist worked in a number of regions of southern Siberia Vladimir Afanasyevich Obruchev(1863-1956). Together with mining engineers A.P. Gerasimov and A.E. Gedroits, he significantly refined the orographic appearance of Transbaikalia. The ridges of Yablonovy, Borshchovochny, Chersky and a number of others, previously unknown, were surveyed and put on the map. Obruchev revealed traces of Quaternary glaciation, expressed his own view on the problem of the origin of the Baikal Basin in the form of a graben. This hypothesis was supported by one of the largest scientists of that time, Eduard Suess, and up to the last quarter of the 20th century. was the main one until data on riftogenic processes in the Baikal zone appeared.

In 1898, on the Vitim plateau, Gerasimov discovered two volcanic cones, witnesses of Quaternary eruptions. They received the names of Obruchev and Mushketov.

In 1853 L.I. was sent by the Academy to the Far East. Schrenk. He traveled to Kamchatka on the Aurora frigate, then on another ship to De-Kastri Bay. In 1854 he arrived in Nikolaevsk-on-Amur. He met Sakhalin explorers Boshnyak and Rudanovsky. I visited Sakhalin myself. Then he explored the basin of the river Girin and returned to the Gulf of De-Kastri. The following summer, Schrenk and the botanist Maksimovich climbed up the Amur to the mouth of the Ussuri. In the winter of 1856, Schrenk again headed for Sakhalin, went to the Tym River, described the route and the life of the Orochs, and on March 12, with rich collections, returned to the Amur, to Nikolaevsk. In the same year, Schrenk returned to St. Petersburg, prepared a description of the journey, published in German in 1858-1895. He wrote the first book on the hydrology of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and the Sea of ​​Japan. His Outline of the Physical Geography of the North Sea of ​​Japan was awarded the Gold Medal of the Geographical Society.

The first Russian traveler who climbed up the Ussuri River in 1855 was K.I. Maksimovich. In 1855 and 1859. in the Amur Region” and the Ussuri Territory, R.K. Maak, explored the nature of the Aehtsir ridge. Detailed studies of Primorye in 1857-1859. conducted by M.I. Venyukov. He not only passed along the Ussuri, but also crossed the Sikhote-Alin ridge from its sources, went to the seashore and returned the same way.

But the most remarkable result was a trip to the Ussuri region Nikolai Mikhailovich Przhevalsky(1839-1888). The name and work of Przhevalsky occupies a special place in the history of travel and geographical discoveries. Early in childhood, Przhevalsky, who was left without a father, was taken care of by his uncle, his mother's brother, a passionate hunter. Together with him, the boy repeatedly wandered around the neighborhood of the family estate in the Smolensk region, became addicted to hunting, and this, obviously, played an important role in choosing the life path of the great traveler. When he studied at the Academy of the General Staff, he completed the term paper "Military Statistical Review of the Primorsky Territory." He taught history and geography at the Warsaw Junker School. There he prepared a textbook on geography. And he dreamed of traveling to Central Asia. With this thought and a detailed development of the plan in 1866, he appeared in the Geographical Society for support. Here is how it is written in the report of P.P. Semenov about half a century of activity of the society: “It was enough to talk with this man to make sure that he had no shortage of enterprise, energy and courage. A passionate hunter, he was obviously a good ornithologist, and in general showed a great inclination towards the natural history sciences ... but he did not have any scientific merit in the field of geographical sciences then ... P.P. Semyonov advised the young future traveler, first of all, to try his hand at exploring ... a little-known region ... namely the Ussuri. At the same time, P.P. Semenov promised N.M. Przhevalsky that if he fulfills his task quite satisfactorily and shows his talents as a traveler and naturalist, then the Department of Physical Geography will already take care of his equipment for an expedition to Central Asia ”(Semenov, 1896, p. 214).

P.P. Semenov provided Przhevalsky with a flattering description of the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia M.S. Korsakov, and the expedition took place. Przhevalsky spent two and a half years in the Far East. With the student Yagunov, he went down the Amur, explored the Khekhtsir ridge, climbed the Ussuri to Lake Khanka, whose shores he visited twice, walked along the coastal steeps from the Posyet Bay to the Olga Bay, crossed the Sikhote-Alin and returned to the Ussuri. Hundreds of specimens of plants, stuffed birds were collected, a route survey was compiled, a meaningful diary was prepared with detailed characteristics of nature, in particular, with the results of observations of animals and birds, with descriptions of the life and life of the Golds, Orochs, Korean and Chinese colonists. Przhevalsky learned a lot of information from communication with the natives.

Returning to St. Petersburg, in 1870, at his own expense, Przhevalsky published his work “Journey in the Ussuri Territory”, testifying to the originality of the naturalist and traveler, to the undoubted gift of a literary record of what he saw. Przhevalsky was struck by the diversity of manifestations of nature (“... the Khekhtsirsky Range represents such a wealth of forest vegetation, which is rarely found in other even more southern parts of the Ussuri Territory” (p. 51). Przhevalsky not only captures the richness of nature, but also evaluates it from the point of view of the colonization of the region: "In general, the Khanka steppes are the best place in the entire Ussuri region for our future settlements. Not to mention the fertile, chernozem and loamy soil, which does not require special labor for the initial development, about the vast , beautiful pastures, - the most important benefit is that the steppes are not subject to floods, which are everywhere in the Ussuri

this is such a huge hindrance to agriculture” (p. 73). How the scientist Przhevalsky sees the relationship of natural components: “Such a special character of the climate also determines the special nature of the Ussuri Territory, which represents an original mixture of northern and southern forms in the flora and fauna” (p. 218). Przhevalsky treated the indigenous population with respect: “... The naturally good-natured disposition of this people leads to the closest family connection: parents passionately love their children, who, for their part, pay them the same love” (p. 87). And how unfavorable against the background of the aborigines the Russian pioneers looked. Przhevalsky noted with bewilderment that Ussuri is full of fish and meat, but most of the Russians are “satisfied with shult and wineskins, that is, such dishes that a fresh person cannot look at without disgust. The results of such horrendous poverty are, on the one hand, various diseases, and, on the other hand, the extreme demoralization of the population, the most vile debauchery and apathy for any honest work ... ”(S. 45). In the person of Przhevalsky, geography found one of the smartest and most honest researchers.

Concluding the history of the study of the Far East, it is impossible not to mention two more travelers, whose research activities developed especially fruitfully in the 20th century.

Vladimir Leontievich Komarov(1869 - 1945) in 1895 was involved in surveys in the area of ​​the proposed construction of the Amur railway. By that time, the young scientist had already received training in field research in the Karakum desert, in the foothills and mountains of Gissar-Alay. Komarov got to the Far East in a roundabout way: from Odessa by steamboat through the Suez Canal, with visits to Singapore and Nagasaki, until he arrived in Vladivostok. And from there, to the Amur region. He conducted research on the Zeya-Bureinsky plain, on the Bureinsky ridge, in the basins of the Tunguska and Bira rivers. Based on the materials of these travels, the article "Conditions for the further colonization of the Amur" was written, published in Izvestia of the Geographical Society. Assessing the features of nature, Komarov noted the desirability of resettling people here from places with similar conditions, from the European North, accustomed to cool, rainy summer weather and waterlogged soils. They were given recommendations for more productive use of local land resources. He wrote about the strong swampiness of the territory. Along Bira, “a completely flat area stretches with rare woods of oak in dry areas and larch in wetlands, meadows and meadow swamps ...” To the south of Bira, “a significant part ... of the surface is covered with deciduous, in places even with oaks and grapes, forests "... In the upper part of the Khingan valley, "the soil layer is quite trustworthy, and this area, combining lands, comfortable arable land, with wonderful meadows and an abundance of forests, seems to suggest itself for a settlement" (Gvozdetsky, 1949. pp. 27-28). In 1896 studies were carried out in the south of the Ussuri region with a completely different type of landscape. “The tall trees of the Manchurian walnut were showered with flower earrings, venus slippers bloomed among the grasses of the oak forest ... the meadow and the forest seem to mutually permeate each other ... The virgin forests of this region are known among the local population under the name of cedar forests, according to the dominant species, But their composition is very diverse, some maples ... there are six of them ... ". In the same year, they worked on the territory of Manchuria. The way back to St. Petersburg also passed by sea through Odessa. In 1897, Komarov conducted research in North Korea and Manchuria. The capital three-volume work of Komarov was awarded the Przhevalsky Geographical Society Prize and the Baer Prize of the Academy of Sciences.

In the summer of 1902, Komarov directed research within the Eastern Sayan and Northern Mongolia. The route was laid around Lake Ubsugul and along the Tunkinsky graben. A number of forms of glacial relief have been identified. The materials of the expedition were included in the book "Introduction to the floras of China and Mongolia", published in 1908-1909. and defended as a doctoral dissertation.

In 1908, Komarov was in Kamchatka, explored the Paratunka valley, went by boat from the headwaters to the mouth of the Bolshaya River and in the opposite direction on a horse ... The following summer, he explored the Kamchatka River valley to the village of Shchapino, made the transition to Kronotsky lake, made observations in the craters of the Uzon and Krasheninnikov volcanoes. In 1912, Komarov's book "Journey through Kamchatka in 1908-1909" was published. The fundamental result of the trip was the three-volume book "Flora of Kamchatka", the publication of which was delayed until 1927-1930. Komarov identified six physical and geographical regions in Kamchatka: the plain of the western coast; western or stanovoy ridge; longitudinal dislocation valley; eastern ridge (Valaginskiye mountains); volcanic area; coast of the Bering Sea. This structure of the territorial division of the peninsula is also used in modern geographical descriptions.

In 1913, on the instructions of the Resettlement Administration, Komarov again visited the Ussuri Territory. He formulated a number of interesting conclusions about the history of the formation of vegetation in the Far East.

V.L. Komarov worked a lot and fruitfully in the Geographical Society, being its secretary for many years. He was also president of the Academy of Sciences.

Since 1902, a very enthusiastic person and a famous local historian have been studying Primorye, taiga forests and the mountains of Sikhote-Alin Vladimir Klavdievich Arseniev(1872 -1930). At first it was an acquaintance with the Southern Primorye. In 1906, he went to Sikhote-Alin, met Dersu Uzala, a wise Gold, who became Arseniev's guide and comrade in his wanderings through the Far Eastern taiga. In six months, Arseniev crossed the mountain range nine times, collected numerous collections of minerals, plants and animals, archaeological finds, and compiled a detailed map of the routes traveled. In 1907, Arseniev explored the central part of Primorye, the Bikin River basin, in 1908, the North of Sikhote-Alin. I had to endure cold and hunger, to escape from a forest fire.

In subsequent years, Arseniev processed the collected materials, organized a local history museum in Khabarovsk, and wrote books. “Across the Ussuri taiga”, “Dersu Uzala”, “In the wilds of the Ussuri region” enjoyed wide popularity. After the Civil War, Arseniev visited Kamchatka and Komandory, popularized local history excursions and tourism.

The development of Russia urgently required the study of all the Asian outskirts, especially Siberia. A quick acquaintance with the natural resources and population of Siberia could only be carried out with the help of large geological and geographical expeditions. Siberian merchants and industrialists, interested in studying the natural resources of the region, financially supported such expeditions. The Siberian department of the Russian Geographical Society, organized in 1851 in Irkutsk, using the funds of commercial and industrial companies, equipped expeditions to the basin of the river. Amur, on about. Sakhalin and the gold-bearing regions of Siberia. They were attended for the most part by enthusiasts from various strata of the intelligentsia: mining engineers and geologists, gymnasium teachers and university professors, army and navy officers, doctors and political exiles. Scientific leadership was carried out by the Russian Geographical Society.

In 1849-1852. The Trans-Baikal Territory was explored by an expedition consisting of astronomer L.E. Schwartz, mining engineers N.G. Meglitsky and M.I. Kovanko. Even then, Meglitsky and Kovanko pointed to the existence of gold and coal deposits in the basin of the river. Aldana.

The real geographical discovery was the results of the expedition to the basin of the river. Vilyui, organized by the Russian Geographical Society in 1853-1854. The expedition was headed by the natural science teacher of the Irkutsk gymnasium R. Maak. The expedition also included topographer A.K. Zondhagen and ornithologist A.P. Pavlovsky. In the difficult conditions of the taiga, with complete impassability, the expedition of Maak examined the vast territory of the Vilyui basin and part of the basin of the river. Olenek. As a result of the research, a three-volume work by R. Maak "Vilyuisky District of the Yakutsk Region" (parts 1-3. St. Petersburg, 1883-1887) appeared, in which the nature, population and economy of a large and interesting area of ​​the Yakutsk Region are described with exceptional completeness.

After the completion of this expedition, the Russian Geographical Society organized the Siberian Expedition (1855-1858) as part of two parties. The mathematical party led by Schwartz was to determine astronomical points and form the basis of the geographical map of Eastern Siberia. This task has been successfully completed. The botanist K.I. Maksimovich, zoologists L.I. Shrenk and G.I. Radde. The reports of Radde, who studied the fauna of the vicinity of Baikal, the steppe Dauria and the Chokondo mountain group, were published in German in two volumes in 1862 and 1863.

Another complex expedition - the Amur one - was headed by Maak, who published two works: "Journey to the Amur, made by order of the Siberian Department of the Russian Geographical Society in 1855." (St. Petersburg, 1859) and "Journey through the valley of the Ussuri River", vol. 1-2 (St. Petersburg, 1861). Maak's work contained much valuable information about the basins of these Far Eastern rivers.

The most striking pages in the study of the geography of Siberia were written by the remarkable Russian traveler and geographer P.A. Kropotkin. The journey of Kropotkin and the natural science teacher I.S. Polyakov to the Leno-Vitim gold-bearing region (1866). Their main task was to find ways to drive cattle from the city of Chita to the mines located along the Vitim and Olekma rivers. The journey started on the banks of the river. Lena, ended in Chita. The expedition overcame the ridges of the Olekmo-Charsky highlands: the North-Chuysky, South-Chuysky, Okrainny and a number of hills of the Vitim plateau, including the Yablonovy ridge. The scientific report on this expedition, published in 1873 in the Notes of the Russian Geographical Society (vol. 3), was a new word in the geography of Siberia. Vivid descriptions of nature were accompanied in it by theoretical generalizations. In this regard, Kropotkin's "General Sketch of the Orography of Eastern Siberia" (1875) is interesting, summing up the results of the study of Eastern Siberia at that time. The orography scheme of East Asia he compiled differed significantly from that of Humboldt. The Schwartz map served as the topographic basis for it. Kropotkin was the first geographer to pay serious attention to the traces of the ancient glaciation of Siberia. The famous geologist and geographer V.A. Obruchev considered Kropotkin one of the founders of geomorphology in Russia. Kropotkin's companion, the zoologist Polyakov, compiled an ecological and zoogeographic description of the path traveled.

Member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Schrenk in 1854-1856. led the expedition of the Academy of Sciences to the Amur and Sakhalin. The range of scientific problems covered by Schrenk was very wide. The results of his research were published in the four-volume work "Travel and Research in the Amur Territory" (1859-1877).

In 1867-1869. studied the Ussuri region Przhevalsky. He was the first to note an interesting and unique combination of northern and southern forms of fauna and flora in the Ussuri taiga, showed the originality of the nature of the region with its harsh winters and wet summers.

The largest geographer and botanist (in 1936-1945, President of the Academy of Sciences) VL Komarov began researching the nature of the Far East in 1895 and retained interest in this region until the end of his life. In his three-volume work "Flora Manschuriae" (St.-P., 1901-1907), Komarov substantiated the allocation of a special "Manchurian" floristic region. He also owns the classic works "Flora of the Kamchatka Peninsula", vol. 1-3 (1927-1930) and "Introduction to the floras of China and Mongolia" vol. 1, 2 (St. Petersburg, 1908).

Living pictures of the nature and population of the Far East were described in his books by the famous traveler V.K. Arseniev. From 1902 to 1910, he studied the hydrographic network of the Sikhote-Alin ridge, gave a detailed description of the relief of Primorye and the Ussuri Territory, and brilliantly described their population. Arseniev's books "On the Ussuri Taiga", "Dersu Uzala" and others are read with unflagging interest.

A.L. Chekanovsky, I.D. Chersky and B.I. Dybovsky, exiled to Siberia after the Polish uprising of 1863, made a significant contribution to the study of Siberia. Chekanovsky studied the geology of the Irkutsk province. His report on these studies was awarded a small gold medal of the Russian Geographical Society. But the main merit of Chekanovsky lies in the study of previously unknown territories between the rivers Lower Tunguska and Lena. He discovered a trap plateau there, described the river. Olenek and compiled a map of the northwestern part of the Yakutsk region. The geologist and geographer Chersky owns the first summary of theoretical views on the origin of the lake depression. Baikal (he expressed his own hypothesis about its origin). Chersky came to the conclusion that the oldest part of Siberia is located here, which has not been flooded by the sea since the beginning of the Paleozoic. This conclusion was used by E. Suess for the hypothesis of the "ancient crown of Asia". Deep thoughts were expressed by Chersky about the erosive transformation of the relief, about leveling it, smoothing out sharp forms. In 1891, already being terminally ill, Chersky began his last great journey to the basin of the river. Kolyma. On the way from Yakutsk to Verkhnekolymsk, he discovered a huge mountain range, consisting of a series of chains, with heights up to 1 thousand meters (later this range was named after him). In the summer of 1892, during a trip, Chersky died, leaving the completed “Preliminary Report on Research in the Field of the Kolyma, Indigirka and Yana Rivers”. B.I.Dybovsky with his friend V.Godlevsky investigated and described the peculiar fauna of Baikal. They also measured the depth of this unique reservoir.