Geographical discoveries of Russian travelers
XVIII-XIX centuries
Eighteenth century. The Russian Empire unfolds its shoulders broadly and freely and turns its gaze to the east, to where everything is wild and free for thousands of kilometers, where wild tribes and entire peoples live in the midst of nature and where great forces are hidden underground. Who will awaken these powers? For whom are untold riches prepared? For whom are these expanses, this earth, this sky and these waters, to which there is no end and edge? Why, where did Shelikhov, Rezanov, Kuskov, Baranov and, together with them, thousands of unknown pioneers go? How did these people live, what was their feat for? What drives a person from his familiar place? What does he imagine beyond the horizon, where watery clouds envelop black rocks and where the freezing ocean is so majestically deserted?
1757
Sailor Bashmakov visited the Rat Islands.
1758 - 1759
The project (unrealized) of the Irkutsk merchant Bechevin sailing from Okhotsk to Kamchatka and around the Chukotsky Nose to the river. Lena.
1759
M. V. Lomonosov delivered a speech “Discourse on the great accuracy of the sea route”.
1759 - 1762
Yarensky townsman Stepan Glotov visited the islands of Umnak and Unalashka and put them on the map.
1760
Lieutenant Colonel F. Kh. Plenisner was appointed chief commander of the Anadyr Territory.
1760 - 1764
The Selenginsky merchant Andrian Tolstykh explored the islands, which later received his name.
1761
The ship of the merchant Bechevin reached the Alaska Peninsula and wintered in the Isanak Strait.
1762 - 1763
Stepan Glotov visited Fr. Kodiak.
1762
The first (unsuccessful) voyage of I. Sindt to the shores of North America.
1763
M. V. Lomonosov presented Catherine II with a “Brief description of various travels in the northern seas and an indication of a possible passage by the Siberian Ocean to East India”, presented “Thoughts about the origin of ice mountains in the northern seas” to the Swedish Academy of Sciences. The first campaign of Sergeant Andreev from Nizhnekolymsk to the Bear Islands.
1764 - 1767
Expedition of I. Sindt from Okhotsk to the Bering Strait. In the navigation of 1766 on the galliot “St. Ekaterina, she managed to get close to the American coast in the Bering Strait area. Open. Matthew (1766).
1764 - 1765
Journey of N. Daurkin in the Chukotka Peninsula. I visited about. St. Lawrence and visited the Kolyuchinskaya Bay.
Early 60s of the XVIII century.
Olonchan Savva Loshkin circumnavigated Novaya Zemlya for the first time in two navigations.
1765 - 1766
Sailing of the first high-latitude expedition to find the Northeast Sea Passage from Svalbard to the Bering Strait under the command of V. Ya. Chichagov.
1764 - 1771
Secret Russian expedition for the inventory and position on maps of the American territories of Russia and the ridge of the Aleutian Islands under the command of Levashov and Krenitsyn.
1766
The Veliky Ustyug merchant Vasily Shilov presented Catherine II with a map of the Aleutian Islands compiled by him up to about. Amki (Andrianovsky Islands). Yakov Chirakin passed through the Matochkin Shar strait from west to east up to the Kara Sea and drew up a plan of the strait.
1768
Tallow fishing and herring trading were confiscated from Shuvalov's company and transferred to the ownership of the Arkhangelsk merchant class.
1773 - 1779
The navigator Potap Zaikov sailed to the Aleutian Islands and gave their first map close to reality.
1778 - 1779
The expedition of the East India Company, headed by D. Cook, visited the coast of Russian America (Alaska), passed through the Bering Strait to the north and visited Kamchatka.
1803 - 1853
The ships of the Russian sailing fleet completed sixty round-the-world voyages.
1804
On about. Sitkha founded Novoarkhangelsk - the residence of the main ruler of Russian possessions in North America.
1821
The expedition of the Russian-American company on the brig "Golovin" under the command of Khromchenko described the northwestern coast of Alaska. The Russian government has banned the navigation of foreign ships in the Pacific Ocean north of 51 "N.
1838
The expedition of the Russian-American company on the brig "Polifem" under the command of Kashevarov made an inventory of the northern coast of Alaska from Cape Lisburn to Cape Barrow.
1840
Etolin on the brig of the Russian-American company "Chichagov" undertook a voyage from Novoarkhangelsk to the Bering Strait and the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
1842 - 1844
Lieutenant L. A. Zagoskin examined the basins of the river in Alaska. Kvihpak (Yukon) and Kuskokwim and compiled a "pedestrian inventory" of a significant part of Russian America.
1867
The tsarist government sold to the United States the possessions of the Russian-American Company - Alaska and the Aleutian Islands.
What important geographical discoveries were made in the 18th and 19th centuries
The expedition of F. F. Bellingshausen and M. P. Lazarev discovered Antarctica in 1820. In the 19th century The disappearance of vast “white spots” from the world geographical map within the interior regions of Asia (P. P. Semyonov Tyan Shansky, N. M. Przhevalsky, G. N. Potanin, etc.), Africa (D. Livingston, G. Stanley and others), North America (M. Lewis, D. Thompson, J. Fremont, L. A. Zagoskin and many others). South America (A. Humboldt, R. Schomburgk and others) and Australia (C. Sturt and others). In the Euro-Asian Arctic, as a result of the voyages of industrialists and scientific expeditions (P.K. Pakhtusov, A.E. archipelagos. A number of territorial discoveries in the 19th century. in the American Arctic is associated with the search for the Northwest Passage (J. Ross, W. Parry, J. Franklin, R. McClure, and others). Discoveries in Antarctica concerned mainly separate parts of the coast of Antarctica.
1. Using the card "The most important geographical discoveries and explorations", answer the questions.
What islands did the Normans reach in the 10th and 11th centuries?
Iceland, Greenland, British Isles, North American Islands.
Through what three seas did A. Nikitin's route pass?
Caspian, Arabic, Black.
In what direction did he cross North America?
6. Scientific expeditions and geographical discoveries of Russian travelers in the 18th century
Mackenzie?
From the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific.
What cities in Asia did M. Polo's route pass through?
Cilicia, Mosul, Tabriz, Kerman, Ormuz.
Indicate the name of the southernmost geographical feature reached by J. Cook.
Australia.
In what city did the first Russian circumnavigation of the world begin and end?
Kronstadt.
Who first reached the North Pole?
Robert Perry.
Which travelers are associated with the discovery of the South Pole?
Roald Amundsen, Robert Scott.
What geographical objects are named after travelers?
Tasman Sea, Barents Sea, Bering Strait, Laptev Sea, Bellingshausen Bay.
2. Mark on the contour map the route of F. Magellan's round-the-world travel. Answer the questions and complete the text.
What strait was discovered as a result of this round-the-world trip?
Magellan.
Label it on the outline map.
What islands does this strait separate from the mainland of South America?
Fire Earth.
What ocean F. Magellan gave the name? Why did he call it that?
Pacific Ocean. During the journey, the weather remained good and the ocean seemed calm to the traveler.
As a result of the expedition of F. Magellan, the presence of an ocean between Asia and America and the unity of the World Ocean were established; confirmed the sphericity of the earth.
3. Using the map of the atlas, fill in the table.
MOST IMPORTANT GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERIES
| Traveler | years | Geographic discovery |
| Christopher Columbus | 1492-1504 | Discovery of America |
| Vasco da Gama | 1487-1488 | Opening of the sea route to India |
| Ferdinand Magellan | 1519-1521 | First trip around the world |
| Francis Drake | 1577-1580 | Drake Passage, description of the shores of North and South America |
| Abel Tasman | 1642 | Discovery of Australia |
| Ivan Kruzenshtern and Yuri Lisyansky | 1803-1806 | The first Russian round-the-world trip |
| F.F. Bellingshausen and M.P. Lazarev | 1819-1821 | Expedition to Antarctica |
| Robert Peri | 1909 | Discovery of the Northern Belt |
| Roald Amundsen | 1911 | Discovery of the South Pole |
4. Find on the map in the atlas and put on the contour map:
1) travel routes of a scientist who explored Central and South America for many years and who was nicknamed “the second Columbus” for this;
2) D. Livingston's travel routes in Africa. Sign the geographical feature named after him.
Russian travelers. Russia was becoming a great maritime power, and this put forward new tasks for domestic geographers. AT 1803-1806 has been undertaken the first Russian round-the-world expedition from Kronstadt to Alaska on the ships Nadezhda and Neva. It was headed by Admiral Ivan Fedorovich Kruzenshtern (1770 - 1846). He commanded the ship "Hope". The ship "Neva" was commanded by Captain Yuri Fedorovich Lisyansky (1773 - 1837). During the expedition, the islands of the Pacific Ocean, China, Japan, Sakhalin and Kamchatka were studied. Detailed maps of the studied places were drawn up. Lisyansky, having traveled independently from the Hawaiian Islands to Alaska, collected rich material on the peoples of Oceania and North America.
Map. The first Russian round-the-world expedition
The attention of researchers around the world has long attracted the mysterious area around the South Pole. It was assumed that there is a vast southern mainland (the name "Antarctica" was not in use then). English navigator J. Cook in the 70s of the XVIII century. crossed the Antarctic Circle, encountered impenetrable ice and declared that navigation further south was impossible. They believed him, and for 45 years no one undertook south polar expeditions.
In 1819, Russia equipped an expedition to the southern polar seas on two sloops under the leadership of Faddey Faddeevich Bellingshausen (1778 - 1852). He commanded the sloop Vostok. The commander of the "Peace" was Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev (1788 - 1851). Bellingshausen participated in the voyage of Krusenstern. Lazarev subsequently became famous as a military admiral, who brought up a whole galaxy of Russian naval commanders (Kornilov, Nakhimov, Istomin).
"Vostok" and "Mirny" were not adapted to polar conditions and differed greatly in seaworthiness. Mirny was stronger, and Vostok was faster. Only thanks to the great skill of the captains, the sloops never lost each other in stormy weather and poor visibility. Several times the ships were on the verge of destruction.
But still Russian expedition managed to break through to the South much further than Cook. January 16, 1820 "Vostok" and "Mirny" came very close to the Antarctic coast (in the area of the modern Bellingshausen ice shelf). In front of them, as far as they could see, stretched a gently rolling icy desert. Perhaps they guessed that this was the southern continent, and not solid ice. But there was no other way to obtain evidence than by landing on the shore and making a journey far into the depths of the desert. The sailors did not have such an opportunity. Therefore, Bellingshausen, a very conscientious and accurate person, reported in a report that a "mainland of ice" was visible. Subsequently, geographers wrote that Bellingshausen "saw the mainland, but did not recognize it as such." And yet this date is considered the day of the discovery of Antarctica. After that, the island of Peter I and the coast of Alexander I were discovered. In 1821, the expedition returned to their homeland, having made a full voyage around the open continent.
Kostin V. "Vostok and Mirny off the coast of Antarctica", 1820
In 1811, Russian sailors led by Captain Vasily Mikhailovich Golovkin (1776-1831) explored the Kuril Islands and were taken into Japanese captivity. Golovnin's notes about his three-year stay in Japan introduced Russian society to the life of this mysterious country. Golovnin's student Fyodor Petrovich Litke (1797 - 1882) explored the Arctic Ocean, the shores of Kamchatka, South America. He founded the Russian Geographical Society, which played a big role in the development of geographical science.
Major geographical discoveries in the Russian Far East are associated with the name of Gennady Ivanovich Nevelsky (1814-1876). Rejecting the court career that opened before him, he achieved the appointment of the commander of the Baikal military transport. He is on it in 1848-1849. sailed from Kronstadt around Cape Horn to Kamchatka, and then led the Amur expedition. He opened the mouth of the Amur, a strait between Sakhalin and the mainland, proving that Sakhalin is an island, not a peninsula.
Amur expedition of Nevelsky
Expeditions of Russian travelers, in addition to purely scientific results, were of great importance in the mutual knowledge of peoples. In distant countries, local residents often learned about Russia for the first time from Russian travelers. In turn, Russian people collected information about other countries and peoples.
Russian America
Russian America. Alaska was discovered in 1741 by the expedition of V. Bering and A. Chirikov. The first Russian settlements in the Aleutian Islands and Alaska appeared in the 18th century. In 1799, Siberian merchants engaged in crafts in Alaska united in the Russian-American Company, which was assigned a monopoly right to use the natural resources of this region. The company's board was first in Irkutsk, and then moved to St. Petersburg. The main source of income for the company was the fur trade. For many years (until 1818) the main ruler of Russian America was A. A. Baranov, a native of the merchants of the city of Kargopol, Olonets province.
Russian ships off the coast of Alaska
The Russian population of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands was small (in different years from 500 to 830 people). In total, about 10 thousand people lived in Russian America, mostly Aleuts, inhabitants of the islands and the coast of Alaska. They willingly approached the Russians, were baptized into the Orthodox faith, adopted various crafts and clothing. The men wore jackets and frock coats, the women in cotton dresses. The girls tied their hair with a ribbon and dreamed of marrying a Russian.
Another thing is the Indians who lived in the hinterland of Alaska. They were hostile to the Russians, believing that it was they who brought into their country previously unknown diseases - smallpox and measles. In 1802, Indians from the Tlingit tribe (“Kolosh”, as the Russians called them) attacked the Russian-Aleutian settlement on about. The Sitha burned everything and killed many of the inhabitants. Only in 1804
Geographical discoveries of the 18th and 19th centuries. What are their meaning and consequences?
the island was reclaimed. Baranov founded the Novo-Arkhangelsk fortress on it, which became the capital of Russian America. A church, a shipping yard, and workshops were built in Novo-Arkhangelsk. The library has collected more than 1200 books.
After the resignation of Baranov, the post of chief ruler began to be occupied by naval officers, inexperienced in commercial affairs. Gradually depleted fur wealth. The financial affairs of the company were shaken, she began to receive government benefits. But geographic research expanded. Especially - in the deep regions, which were indicated on the maps with a white spot.
Of particular importance was the expedition of L. A. Zagoskin in 1842-1844. Lavrenty Zagoskin, a native of Penza, was the nephew of the famous writer M. Zagoskin. He outlined his impressions of the difficult and lengthy expedition in the book A Pedestrian Inventory of Part of the Russian Possessions in America. Zagoskin described the basins of the main rivers of Alaska (Yukon and Kuskokwim), collected information about the climate of these areas, their natural world, the life of the local population, with whom he managed to establish friendly relations. Written lively and talentedly, the "Pedestrian inventory" combined scientific value and artistic merit.
I. E. Veniaminov spent about a quarter of a century in Russian America. Arriving in Novo-Arkhangelsk as a young missionary, he immediately took up the study of the Aleut language, and later wrote a textbook on its grammar. On about. Unalaska, where he lived for a long time, a church was built by his labors and care, a school and a hospital were opened. He regularly conducted meteorological and other natural observations. When Veniaminov became a monk, he was named Innocent. Soon he became the bishop of Kamchatka, the Kurils and the Aleuts.
In the 50s of the XIX century. The Russian government began to pay special attention to the study of the Amur region and the Ussuri region. Interest in Russian America has noticeably declined. During the Crimean War, she miraculously survived the capture by the British. In fact, the distant colony was and remained undefended. For the state treasury, devastated as a result of the war, the annual considerable payments of the Russian-American Company became a burden. I had to make a choice between the development of the Far East (Amur and Primorye) and Russian America. The issue was discussed for a long time, and in the end an agreement was concluded with the US government on the sale of Alaska for 7.2 million dollars. On October 6, 1867, the Russian flag was lowered in Novo-Arkhangelsk and the American flag was raised. Russia peacefully withdrew from Alaska, leaving the future generations of its inhabitants with the results of their work on its study and development.
Document: From the diary of F. F. Bellingshausen
January 10 (1821). ... At noon, the wind moved to the east and became fresher. Unable to go south of the solid ice we encountered, we had to continue our journey in anticipation of a favorable wind. Meanwhile, the sea swallows gave us reason to conclude that there was a coast in the vicinity of this place.
At 3 o'clock in the afternoon they saw a blackening spot. I knew at a glance through the pipe that I was seeing the shore. The rays of the sun, emerging from the clouds, illuminated this place, and, to the general pleasure, everyone was convinced that they saw a coast covered with snow: only scree and rocks, on which the snow could not hold, turned black.
It is impossible to express in words the joy that appeared on the faces of everyone at the exclamation: “Shore! Shore!" This delight was not surprising after a long-term uniform navigation in continuous fatal dangers, between ice, in snow, rain, slush and fog ... The shore we found gave us hope that there must certainly be other shores, because the existence of only one in such a vast expanse of water seemed to us impossible.
11 January. From midnight the sky was covered with thick clouds, the air was filled with darkness, the wind was fresh. We continued on the same course to the north, in order to turn and lie closer to the shore. In the course of the morning, after clearing the cloudiness that hovered over the coast, when the sun's rays illuminated it, we saw a high island, stretching from N0 61 ° to S, covered with snow. At 5 o'clock in the afternoon, having approached a distance of 14 miles from the coast, we met solid ice, which prevented us from approaching still, to better survey the coast and take something of curiosity and preservation worthy to the museum of the Admiralty Department. Having reached the very ice with the Vostok sloop, I led to the other tack to drift in order to wait for the Mirny sloop, which was behind us. As the Mirny approached, we raised our flags: Lieutenant Lazarev congratulated me via telegraph on finding the island; on both sloops they put people on the shrouds and shouted three times a mutual “hurray”. At this time it is ordered to give the sailors a glass of punch. I called Lieutenant Lazarev to me, he informed me that he saw all the ends of the coast clearly and well determined the position of them. The island was quite clearly visible, especially the lower parts, which are made up of steep stone cliffs.
I called this island the high name of the culprit of the existence of the military fleet in Russia - the island of Peter I.
§Golden Age of Russian Culture I
§Golden Age of Russian Culture II
§Russian Orthodox Church of the 19th century
§Metropolitan Philaret
§Persecution of the Old Believers
Collector-traveler, the famous father of the famous son, semi-mythical Pomor, romantic midshipman and other travelers who made discoveries, but forgotten by history.
Vasily Pronchishchev. Great Northern Expedition. 1735–1736
The 18th century was marked in Russian geographical history primarily by the Great Northern Expedition. Started in December 1724 on the personal decree of Peter I (the First Kamchatka expedition of Vitus Bering), it continued in 1733-1743, already under Anna Ioannovna. The expedition consisted of seven independent missions moving along the Arctic coast of Siberia to the shores of North America and Japan. The result of this large-scale project was the publication of the first complete geographical map of the Russian Empire. Vasily Pronchishchev - one of the participants of the Great Northern Expedition. A legendary personality among Russian polar explorers. Legendary and romantic. Midshipman. He studied at the Naval Academy together with Semyon Chelyuskin and Khariton Laptev, who also participated in this expedition under him. And earlier, in 1722, he took part in the Persian campaign of Peter. And outwardly, by the way, he was very similar to the emperor. During the Great Northern Expedition, Pronchishchev’s detachment, consisting of 50 people, leaving Yakutsk in June 1735 on the Yakutsk sailing and rowing boat, made an accurate map of the channel and mouth of the Lena River, a map of the coast of the Laptev Sea and discovered many islands lying north of the Taimyr Peninsula. In addition, the Pronchishchev group moved north much further than other detachments: up to 77 ° 29 ′ N. sh. But Pronchishchev entered the history of the development of the Arctic also thanks to a romantic story. Together with him, his wife Tatyana took part in the expedition. For that time, it was so incredible that her presence on the ship was unofficial. In August 1736, during one of his sorties to the polar islands, Pronchishchev broke his leg and soon died from a complication caused by an open fracture. His wife survived him by only a few days. It is said that she died of grief. They were buried in one grave on Cape Tumul near the mouth of the Olenyok River (today the village of Ust-Olenyok is located here). Navigator Semyon Chelyuskin became the new head of the detachment, and after he went with a sledge train to Yakutsk with expedition reports, he was replaced by Khariton Laptev. Surprisingly, the names of Chelyuskin and Laptev were much more clearly reflected in the public consciousness than the name of their commander Pronchishchev. True, in the spring of 2018, the film "The First" will be released, which tells about the fate of the Pronchishchev spouses. The role of Vasily will be played by Evgeny Tkachuk (Grigory Melekhov in The Quiet Don and Mishka Yaponchik in the series of the same name). Perhaps the name of Pronchishchev will still take its rightful place among other great explorers of the Arctic.Fedor Soymonov. Map of the Caspian Sea. 1731
This man's life is begging for a movie screen. He, like Pronchishchev, participated in the Persian campaign of Peter I. He was also a midshipman. But his fate connected him not with the Arctic, but with the Caspian. Fedor Soymonov entered the history of Russia as the first Russian hydrographer. Strange as it may seem, but along and across the Caspian Sea familiar to us today in the 18th century was still a continuous terra incognita. Yes, since ancient times, dashing Volga people - ushkuiniki - went to Persia for princesses to throw them overboard into the oncoming wave, and of other other goods. It was called "going for zipuns." But it was all self-indulgence. Fyodor Soymonov was the first to map the Caspian Sea with all its bays, shoals and peninsulas on the map of the Russian Empire. Also, under his leadership, the first detailed atlas of the Baltic Sea was published and the atlas of the White Sea was prepared for publication, but here the strange begins. Of course, this was due to undercover political games. In 1740, Soimonov was stripped of all ranks, flogged with a whip (!) and exiled to hard labor. Two years later, Elizabeth I returned him to the service, but left him in Siberia. In Nerchinsk and Irkutsk, Soymonov organized the first navigational schools in Siberia, in which he personally taught. Then for six years he was the governor of Siberia. At the age of 70, he was finally allowed to return to Moscow. He died at the age of 88 on his estate near Serpukhov. Interesting fact. Soymonovsky proezd in Moscow, not far from the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, is named after Soimonov's son, Mikhail, a remarkable person in his way, one of the organizers of mining in Russia.Savva Loshkin. New Earth. Mid 18th century
If our previous two heroes were sovereign people and made their travels on duty, then the Pomor Savva Loshkin, a native of the village of Olonets, acted only at his own peril and risk. He was the first person in the history of the development of the Russian North, who bypassed Novaya Zemlya from the north. Loshkin is an almost mythological person, but any self-respecting northern sailor knows his name, despite the fact that the only official source telling about his three-year journey is the story of Fedot Rakhmanin, recorded in 1788 by Vasily Krestinin, corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Even the years of Savva Loshkin's travel are not exactly known to us. Some researchers believe that this is the beginning of the 1760s, others - that the 1740sNikolay Chelobitchikov. Malacca, Canton. 1760–1768
While some mastered the North, others moved south. Merchant Nikolai Chelobitchikov from the city of Trubchevsk, Oryol province in 1760-1768 made a completely unique journey through Southeast Asia, which, alas, remained unappreciated by his contemporaries. Most likely, he was the first Russian who visited the Malay Peninsula and reached by sea, and not by land, the Chinese Canton (now Guangzhou). The merchant Chelobitchikov (although it would be more correct to call him a collector) made his journey for a completely practical purpose and, it seems, did not attach any historical significance to it. He contracted for 300 rubles. to go to Calcutta and collect a debt of four thousand from a Greek merchant stuck there, who owed this amount to his fellow countrymen. Passing through Constantinople, Baghdad and the Indian Ocean, he reached Calcutta. But it turned out that the debtor had already died, and Chelobitchikov had to return to his homeland in an incredibly roundabout way: through Malacca, which at that time was owned by the Dutch, the Chinese Canton and the English island of St. Helena (!) To London, and then to Lisbon and Paris. And, finally, to St. Petersburg, where I visited for the first time in my life. This amazing journey of the Trubchev merchant became known relatively recently, when a petition was found in the Central State Archive, which he sent in 1770 to Catherine II, with a request to transfer him to the St. Petersburg merchant class. In it, he described his route in sufficient detail. Surprisingly, his report is absolutely devoid of any pathos. He describes his nine-year journey rather sparingly, as some kind of country walk. And he offers himself as a consultant on trade with Eastern countries.Philip Efremov. Bukhara - Tibet - Kashmir - India. 1774–1782
The further fate of Chelobitchikov remains unclear (most likely, his message never reached the Empress), but the serviceman, non-commissioned officer Philip Efremov, who made a similar journey a decade later, was introduced to Catherine II and even elevated to her noble dignity. The adventures of Philip Efremov began in July 1774, when he was taken prisoner by the Pugachevites. He fled, but was captured by the Kirghiz, who sold him into slavery to the Emir of Bukhara. Efremov was forced to convert to Islam and subjected to the most severe tortures, but he did not betray the Christian faith, and then the emir, admiring his courage, made him his centurion (yuz-bashi). For participation in several battles, he received a large allotment of land, but still dreamed of returning to his homeland. Having bought a fake passport, he fled again. All roads to the north were blocked, so he went south. Through Tibet and Kashmir, closed to Europeans, he ended up in India, and from there to London, where he met with the Russian consul, who introduced him directly to Catherine's eyes. Later, Efremov served as a translator in the Asian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in 1786 the first edition of his travel diary was published: “Russian non-commissioned officer Efremov, now a collegiate assessor, nine years of wandering and adventures in Bukhara, Khiva, Persia and India and returning from there through England to Russia, written by himself. At the end of the 18th century, the book became a bestseller and went through three editions, but by the middle of the 19th century it was almost forgotten, like its author. Now the notebook, which has passed half the world with Efremov, is kept in the manuscript department of the Pushkin House. P.S. Soon many other travelers followed in the footsteps of Chelobitchikov and Efremov. The most famous of them are Gerasim Lebedev, the first Russian Indologist who founded the first European-style drama theater in India in the 1790s in Calcutta, the Armenian merchants Grigory and Danil Atanasov, and the Georgian nobleman Rafail Danibegashvili.In 1725, the 1st Kamchatka Expedition set off from St. Petersburg. The Russian emperor Peter I appointed Vitus Bering (1681-1741) as its head, instructing him to build ships, go north on these ships and look for where Asia met America. Bering was a native of Denmark, who had been in the Russian naval service for 20 years. As a result of his research, the first accurate maps of the sea and were created.
In 1741, during the second expedition on the ships "St. Peter" and "St. Paul" under the command of captain-commanders Vitus Bering and Alexei Chirikov (1703-1748), the coasts of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands were explored, their nature and population were described.
This voyage marked the beginning of Russian research in. The great merit of A. Chirikov is that he summarized the material collected during the expeditions and compiled exceptionally valuable maps. For the first time in the history of cartography, the northwestern coast of North America and the Aleutian Islands are plotted on them. On the world map you will also find Chirikov Island.
It consisted of five separate detachments that surveyed the northern coast of Asia from 1733 to 1743. Among the participants of one of them were the outstanding Russian pioneers Semyon Chelyuskin (1700-1764), Khariton (1700-1763) and Dmitry (1701-1767) Laptev, Vasily Prdnchishchev (1702-1736). As a result, the rivers flowing into (Ob, Yenisei, Lena, Yana, Indigirka) were explored, and the northernmost point of the mainland, Cape Chelyuskin, was discovered.
The members of the expedition collected and presented material, invaluable for geography, about the tides of the sea, about the nature of the northern region, about the life and way of life of the local population.
Since that time, new geographical names have appeared on the map: the sea, the Dmitry Laptev Strait, Cape Laptev, the coast of Khariton Laptev, Cape Chelyuskin. The eastern coast of the Taimyr Peninsula is named after Vasily Pronchishchev. On the same coast there is a bay that bears the name of Maria Pronchishcheva, the first Russian polar explorer, the wife of a brave explorer.
The first Russian round-the-world trip lasted three years (1803-1806). The expedition circled the globe on the ships "Nadezhda" and "Neva" under the command of Ivan Kruzenshtern and Yuri Lisyansky.
Discovery of Antarctica
The round-the-world Antarctic voyage of Thaddeus Bellingshausen (1778-1852) and Mikhail Lazarev (1788-1851) on the ships Vostok and Mirny in 1819-1821 is a great feat, and their discovery on January 28, 1820 of a new continent - Antarctica - is the most important event.
Since ancient times, the area around the South Pole has been designated by cartographers as dry land. Sailors who were attracted by "Terra australis incognita" (unknown southern land), making sea trips in search of it, and the chain of islands, but remained a "blank spot".
The famous English navigator (1728-1779) in 1772-1775 several times crossed the boundary of the Antarctic Circle, discovered islands in the Antarctic waters, but never found the southern polar continent.
“I went around the ocean of the Southern Hemisphere,” Cook wrote in his report, at high latitudes and did it in such a way that he undeniably rejected the possibility of the existence of the mainland ... “However, it was he who said that, judging by the great cold, the huge number of ice islands and floating ice , land in the south should be.
The members of the expedition of Bellingshausen and Lazarev conducted meteorological observations of winds, precipitation, and thunderstorms. Based on these data, Bellingshausen drew a conclusion about the features of the Antarctic climate. The cartographic material of the researchers was distinguished by its accuracy. This was later confirmed by many travelers.
New geographical names appeared on the world map: the Bellingshausen Sea, Peter I Island, Lazarev Island, the Mirny polar station and others.
