Among the Great geographical discoveries of the 15th-17th centuries, a stage of great importance for the "Russian civilization" stands out, namely: the discovery and development of the vast expanses of Northeast Asia and the involvement of these lands in the sphere of the Russian state. The honor of this discovery belongs to the Russian explorers. Thanks, among other things, to these people, we have the territory of Russia within our modern borders.

It is customary to call explorers in the Russian state of the 16-17th centuries the organizers and participants of campaigns in Siberia and the Far East. These campaigns led to major geographical discoveries in Siberia, the Far East and in the waters of the Arctic and Pacific Oceans washing them.

Most of these were service people (Cossacks), merchants and "industrial people" (engaged in crafts, mainly fur).

At first, the development and study of the north was chaotic and had a purely pragmatic character - hunting for fur and sea animals, bird rookeries, and the search for new sites. From time immemorial, the Pomors, who inhabited the coast of the White Sea, went on long voyages on small sailing ships-kochs (single-masted single-deck sailing-rowing ships with a shallow draft, capable of holding several tons of cargo and light on the move), discovered the shores of the Arctic, the islands of the Arctic Ocean. Skillful shipbuilders and sailors, they skillfully navigated their ships through ice and bad weather. Long before the Dutch and the British, Russian people traveled the Arctic seas, reaching the mouths of the Ob and the Yenisei.

They were the first explorers. Information about the life path of most explorers is fragmentary. In rare cases, years and places of birth have been established, some have no middle names. For the most part, explorers came from Pomorye, a vast region in northern Russia, including the basins of the Onega, Northern Dvina, and Mezen rivers. A small part came from Moscow and the Volga region. Among the explorers there were "newly baptized" (mainly Tatars) and foreign prisoners of war ("Lithuania"); only a handful could read and write. They were pushed to Siberia by an increase in demand for “soft junk” (furs) and the depletion of the fur resources of the Perm and Pechora lands. Many wanted to get rid of the tax burden, a beggarly life.

Exploration of the interior regions of Siberia and the Far East

In 1582-1585, Yermak Timofeevich, the Cossack ataman and leader of the Moscow army, crossed the Ural Mountains and defeated the detachments of the Tatar Khan Kuchum, conquering the Siberian Khanate and thereby starting a large-scale development of Siberia. In 1587 the city of Tobolsk was founded, which for a long time remained the capital of Russian Siberia. In the north of Western Siberia, on the Taz River, in 1601, on the site of the settlements of Pomeranian industrialists, the city of Mangazeya was founded - the center of the fur trade and a stronghold for further advance to the east. There were legends about the wealth and gold of the city. It was the center of attraction for Russian and European merchants and trade people.

In the northeast, in pursuit of furs, explorers discovered the Siberian Uvaly, the Pur and Taz rivers. In the southeast, they passed the middle and upper reaches of the Irtysh and Ob, discovered the Baraba lowland and reached the Salair ridge, the Kuznetsk Alatau, and the Abakan ridge. As a result of the activities of the explorers, supported and partially directed by the Russian government and the local Siberian administration, a significant part of Western Siberia up to the Yenisei was explored and annexed to the Russian state by the beginning of the 17th century.

The first explorer to visit Central Asia was Ataman Vasily Tyumenets. In 1616, having received a diplomatic mission, he proceeded from Tomsk to the Ob through the Kuznetsk Alatau and the Minusinsk Basin and was the first to cross the Western Sayan to the upper reaches of the Yenisei. In the Hollow of the Great Lakes, Tyumenets negotiated with the Mongol khan and returned to Tomsk with his ambassador and news about northwestern Mongolia and the Tabynskaya zemlyanitsa (Tuva). In 1632, Fyodor Pushchin entered its upper reaches of the Ob. In the late 1630s - early 1640s. Peter Sobansky explored the Altai Mountains, traced the entire course of the Biya, discovered Lake Teletskoye.

The explorers moved rapidly eastward from the Yenisei deep into Eastern Siberia. The pioneer of the Central Siberian Plateau was the Nenets Ignatius Khaneptek Pustozerets. In 1608-1621 he collected yasak (annual tax) from the Tungus (Evenks) in the Lower Turguska basin (M. Kashmylov surveyed its lower reaches). Their work was continued by Pantelei Demidovich Pyanda: in 1620-1623, at the head of a small detachment, he traveled about 8 thousand km along river routes, discovered the upper reaches of the Lower Tunguska and Angara, the upper and middle Lena.

In 1626, unknown explorers crossed the entire North Siberian lowland, discovered the Kheta River and climbed along the Kotui to the Central Siberian Plateau to Lake Essei. Late 1620s or early 1630s. they penetrated into the deep regions of the Taimyr Peninsula, discovered the Upper and Lower Taimyr rivers, the lake of the same name - the planet's northernmost body of water, the Byrranga mountains, and were the first to reach the shores of the Kara Sea. In 1633-1634, explorers led by I. Rebrov went along the Lena River to the Arctic Ocean. In 1630-1635, Vasily Ermolaevich Bugor, Ivan Alekseevich Galkin, Martyn Vasiliev, Pyotr Ivanovich Beketov identified a significant part of the Lena basin, traced all (4400 km) of its course, as well as a number of tributaries. In 1637-1638 Posnik Ivanov was the first to cross the Verkhoyansky and Chersky ridges, discovering Indigirka.

In 1633-1635, Ilya Perfilyev, having passed the entire Yana River discovered by him with the collection of yasak, discovered the western part of the Yano-Indigirskaya lowland and founded the city of Verkhoyansk. The wanderings of Ivan Rodionovich Erastov (Velkov) in the new "zemlitsa" to collect yasak in 1637-1642 led to the discovery of the Yansky and Alazeya plateaus, the Alazeya River and the Kolyma lowland. Vasily Sychev collected yasak in the Anabar river basin in 1643-1648. He got there from Turukhansk by an already explored route to Kheta and Khatanga, and then even further to the east - to the middle Anabar. In the summer of 1648 he was the first to go down the Anabar to the shores of the Khatanga Bay. Not later than 1640 explorers encountered permafrost soils. In 1640-1643, the Lena governors informed the tsar about this discovery.

Russians got acquainted with Baikal and the Baikal region in 1643-1648. The main role in the survey of the region was played by Kurbat Afanasyevich Ivanov, Semyon Skorokhod, Ivan Pokhabov. In search of the Amur, Anton Malomolka in 1641 laid the foundation for the study of the Stanovoy Range, the Aldan Highlands and traced the Aldan (the right tributary of the Lena) from its sources to its mouth.

In the winter of 1641, the cavalry detachment of Mikhail Vasilyevich Stadukhin (a native of Pinega, who lived in Siberia from an early age, came to the upper reaches of the Indigirka). He was the first to cross the Oymyakon Plateau, collecting yasak. Together with the Cossacks of Dmitry Mikhailovich Zyryan, at the beginning of the summer of 1643, Stadukhin went down the Indigirka to the sea and headed east. In July 1643 they opened the mouth of the Kolyma and went up the river to the middle reaches, revealing the Kolyma lowland. In 1644, in the lower reaches of the Kolyma, the Cossacks built a winter hut, which became the base for moving south and east.

In the autumn of 1648, the Cossack Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnev (a native of Veliky Ustyug) was thrown ashore by a storm in the region of the Olyutorsky Bay of the Bering Sea. In the most difficult conditions, at the head of a group of Cossacks, he crossed the Koryak Highlands he had discovered and went to the Anadyr River. Along its tributaries in 1652-1654, Dezhnev unsuccessfully searched for "sable places", discovering the Anadyr lowland. A detachment of fishers, headed by Semyon Ivanovich Motora, in 1649-1650, the first of the Russians, having passed from Kolyma to the east, crossed the Anadyr plateau and met with Dezhnev's people in the upper reaches of the Anadyr. After the first historically proven hiking trip of about 200 km in length across the ice of the East Siberian Sea (1649), Timofey Buldakov overcame the eastern part of the Yano-Indigirskaya lowland and the Alazeya plateau (1649-1651).

In 1643, the expedition of Vasily Danilovich Poyarkov moved to the Amur region. A native of Kashin, a written head, Poyarkov was a rather educated person, but at the same time quite tough. In three years, he traveled about 8 thousand km from the Lena to the Amur, discovering the Zeya River, the Amur-Zeya Plateau, the Ussuri River. From the mouth of the Zeya, Poyarkov descended the Amur to the mouth, undertook a voyage along the southwestern coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and visited one of the Shantar Islands. The case of Poyarkov was continued in 1650-1656 by Erofei Pavlovich Khabarov, a former peasant from Veliky Ustyug, and Pyotr Ivanovich Beketov. Khabarov was not the discoverer of the Amur, but, thanks to his successful activities, the Amur region became part of the Russian state. Beketov made the first voyage along the entire course of the Amur.

At the end of the winter of 1651, Mikhail Vasilievich Stadukhin from the Anadyr basin on skis and sledges was the first to reach the mouth of the Penzhina, which flows into the eponymous bay of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. There he built kochi from wood delivered by the Cossacks from the western coast of Kamchatka. "For the search for new lands" Ivan Abramovich Baranov in the spring of 1651 traced the entire Omolon (the right tributary of the Kolyma) and was the first to cross the Kolyma Highlands. On the Gizhiga River, he collected yasak and returned to Kolyma the same way.

The pioneers of the inner regions of Kamatka were Fyodor Alekseevich Chukichev and Ivan Ivanovich Kamchatoy (1658-1661). Around the same time, K. Ivanov, who had previously put Baikal on the map, completed the first survey of the Anadyr basin. The first information about the volcanoes and climate of Kamchatka, about the seas washing it, and about its population was reported by Vladimir Vladimirovich Atlasov, another Ustyuzhan who visited the peninsula in 1697-1699. He discovered the Sredinny Ridge and Klyuchevskaya Sopka. It was after his campaign that the annexation of Kamchatka to Russia began. He also brought to Moscow the first information about Japan (as well as the first Japanese who became an "interpreter" at the sovereign's court), as well as about an unknown land east of Chukotka.

Sailing in the northern seas

Discoveries in the polar waters were initiated by unknown seafarers-Pomors, who discovered the Ob and Taz bays of the Kara Sea at the end of the 16th century. Later, Fyodor Dyakov visited these bays deeply protruding into the land. In 1598, he went down the Ob to the mouth on the Koch and visited a number of places in the Ob Bay, and reached the Taz Bay by land in 1599. The Arctic navigator and industrialist Lev (Leonty) Ivanovich Shubin arrived there, but by the Kara Sea and along the rivers of the Yamal Peninsula in 1602 who left a description of his voyage.

The merchant Luka Moskvitin first entered the Yenisei Bay by sea in 1605. In the same year, he moved east, where he discovered the Pyasinsky Bay and the mouth of the river of the same name. His achievement in 1610 was repeated by the "trading man" Kondraty Kurochkin, who gave the first description of the Yenisei and the surrounding areas. In the 17th century, Arctic navigators failed to overcome the most difficult navigational section of the route along the "Cold" Sea, bypassing the northern tip of Asia.

Ilya Perfilyev and Ivan Ivanovich Rebrov in 1633-1634 were the first to sail in the Laptev Sea, discovered the Buor-Khaya Bay, Oleneksky and Yansky bays with the mouths of the rivers of the same name. In 1638, Rebrov and Elisey Yuryevich Buza traveled eastward through the Strait (Dmitry Laptev), becoming the discoverers of the East Siberian Sea and the coast of North Asia between the mouths of the Yana and the Indigirka. Erastov, Zyryan and Stadukhin penetrated further east in 1643: they have the honor of discovering the shores of Asia to the mouth of the Kolyma and the Kolyma Bay. Isai Ignatiev managed to advance even further to the east: in 1646 he reached the Chaun Bay.

West of the Lena Delta in the 1640s. an expedition with a cargo of furs sailed on two kochs. She discovered the western part of the Laptev Sea and the eastern coast of the Taimyr Peninsula. Most of the participants died nameless, including one woman - the first polar navigator. Only two names have survived, carved on the handles of knives - Akaki and Ivan Muromets.

On the shores of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk explorers appeared in 1639 - it was the detachment of Ivan Moskvitin. In 1640, on the built kochs, he proceeded along the western and southern coasts of the sea, laying the foundation for Russian navigation in the Pacific Ocean. Having discovered the Shantar Islands, the Sakhalin Bay, the Amur Estuary and the mouth of the Amur, Moskvitin became the discoverer of the Russian Far East. He also delivered the first news about Sakhalin. I. Moskvitin's companion, Nehoroshko Ivanovich Kolobov, compiled a "tale" that supplemented and clarified the information of the head of the campaign.

In 1648, a detachment of Alexei Filippov entered the Sea of ​​Okhotsk along the Moskvitin route. The Cossacks traced 500 km of the northern coast from the mouth of the Okhota to the Tauyskaya Bay. Near the Lisyansky Peninsula, they stumbled upon a walrus rookery. Filippov compiled the first pilotage of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk.

Filippov's discoveries were continued by Stadukhin: in the fall of 1651, on the bogs along the seashore of the Penzhina Bay, he went to the top of the Gizhiginskaya Bay, where he spent the winter. In the summer of 1652, again by sea, he traced the coast and the coastal strip of the Shelikhov Bay to the mouth of the Taui. There he traded until 1657, and then returned to Yakutsk through Okhotsk. The campaign of Ivan Antonovich Nagiba along the Amur in search of Khabarov and his people in 1652 led to a forced voyage along the southern coastline of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and the discovery of Ulbansky and Tugursky bays.

An outstanding achievement of Russian sailors was the voyage of Fedot Popov from Kholmogory and Semyon Dezhnev from Ustyug. In 1648 they passed through the Long Strait, were the first to sail around the extreme northeastern point of Asia and proved the existence of a passage (the Bering Strait) from the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. They discovered the Chukchi Peninsula and became the discoverers of the Chukchi and Bering Seas. Ivan Merkuryevich Rubets (Baksheev) sailed this way again in 1662. Foma Semyonov Permyak, nicknamed the Bear or the Old Man, participated in the Popov-Dezhnev expedition, together with Dezhnev survived the Koryak-Anadyr epic, served under his command until 1659, and in 1668 accompanied Rubets on a voyage to Kamchatka.

K. Ivanov, who after Dezhnev became the clerk of the Anadyr prison, in 1660 sailed along the southern coast of Chukotka, discovered the Gulf of the Cross and the Bay of Providence. Between 1662 and 1665 he traced part of the western coast of the Bering Sea, actually revealing the Gulf of Anadyr. Based on the results of two campaigns, Ivanov compiled a map.

In the second half of the 17th century, nameless Arctic sailors discovered the Novosibirsk archipelago, or at least part of it. This was evidenced by the numerous crosses discovered in 1690 by Maxim Mukhoplev (Mukhopleev) on Stolbovoy Island. The second discovery of the entire group of islands was made by fishermen in 1712-1773. So, Mercury Vagin in 1712 discovered the Lyakhovsky Islands.

In the first quarter of the 18th century, Daniil Yakovlevich Antsiferov and Ivan Petrovich Kozyrevsky continued the discovery of Kamchatka, having reached the southern tip of the peninsula in 1711. They landed on Shumshu, the northernmost of the Kuril Islands. In the summer of 1713, Kozyrevsky visited Paramushir, and, upon inquiries, compiled a description of the entire Kuril ridge and its drawing.

The results of the activities of explorers

The explorers became the discoverers of the north of the West Siberian Plain, the North Siberian, Yano-Indigirskaya, Kolyma and smaller lowlands. They had practically no problems with the characteristics of the relief of these orographic units: "low, flat meadow or swampy places." If the Ob, Yenisei and Amur were known to a greater or lesser extent, as was Lake Baikal, then the Lena, Indigirka, Kolyma and a number of shorter rivers in northern Siberia and Northeast Asia remained unknown until the advent of explorers who traced them from their sources to their mouths. .

In less than 60 years, explorers crossed the unknown expanses of Asia from the Urals to the Pacific coast, and by the beginning of the 18th century they had collected relatively accurate data on the river network of almost all of Siberia and the Far East (about 13 million square kilometers) and rather vague data on its relief . This gigantic work, absolutely necessary for the development of a vast territory, was completed in just one century.

Arctic sailors have identified the coastline of North Asia for a considerable length. The data collected by explorers and sailors laid the foundation for knowledge about North Asia. For European geographic science, their materials served for more than a century as the only source of information about this part of the mainland. In addition, explorers played a fundamental role in the formation and development of arable farming and beekeeping, the development of minerals, as well as wood and metalworking industries.

The explorers operated in difficult climatic conditions in the vast taiga and tundra expanses, as well as in the mountainous regions of North Asia. Blood-sucking insects and hunger, cold and lack of ammunition, necessary equipment and clothing, storms and ice of the Arctic seas were their constant "companions". The explorers had to participate in skirmishes with "non-peaceful aliens." Sometimes groups of Cossacks, envoys of competing cities in collecting yasak, entered into armed clashes with each other. The discovery of "new lands" and the subjugation of "obscure non-residents" were accompanied by significant human losses. On the Popov-Dezhnev expedition, almost nine-tenths of the crew died, at Stadukhin - three-quarters, at Poyarkov - two-thirds.

In the vast majority of cases, the fate of the survivors is not clear. Few of the ordinary Cossacks made it to the atamans, more often they did not rise above the tenants or Pentecostals. During or shortly after the campaigns, L. Moskvitin (circa 1608), Zyryan (early 1646), Popov (autumn 1648 or winter 1649/1650), Motor (1652), Chukichev and Kamchatoi (1661), K. Ivanov, Rebrov, Stadukhin (1666).

The memory of the explorers remained in geographical names: Atlasov Island, Dezhnev Bay and Cape, the settlements of Atlasovo, Beketovo, Dezhnevo, Erofei Pavlovich, Nagibovo, Poyarkovo, Stadukhino, Khabarovsk. The name of Kamchaty bears the peninsula and the names of the river, bay, cape and strait derived from it. The Ozhogina River and Ozhogino Lake are named - in honor of I. Ozhogina; the river Badyarikha - from the distorted surname of N. Padera.

From the materials about voyages and campaigns came the inquiring "speech" of explorers and Arctic sailors, as well as amanats (hostages). These "tales" contained data on the circumstances and results of a campaign or voyage, news about the features of the new "lands", their wealth and population. Another source is petitions addressed to the tsar with messages about services in different places, about merits, deprivations, expenses, death of companions, with requests to be appointed to any position, promoted, paid salaries. Books of the yasash collection make it possible in a number of cases to determine in general terms the routes of the yasash collectors to the new "non-yasash peoples".

Reporting governors and clerks to the king ("replies"), compiled on the basis of the testimony of explorers, supplement the data of "tales" and petitions. In them one can find references to fish and fur (especially sable) places, walrus rookeries, the presence of forests, and accumulations of “slaughter bone” (“fish tooth”, that is, walrus tusks). They also cited considerations about the possibility of developing new areas and emerging problems with the number of garrisons and providing them with everything necessary.

The so-called "drawings" clearly illustrated the perfect discoveries. These are drawings that give an idea of ​​the flow of rivers, the configuration of the banks and, in rare cases, the approximate direction of the ridges, shown as a chain of "hills". Almost all the "drawings" of the explorers have been lost. The fate of the drawings is not known: the hydrographic network of Transbaikalia Beketov, Lake Baikal by K. Ivanov, the rivers and mountains of Yakutia and Chukotka Stadukhin, the Amur Poyarkov River, Khabarov's Daurskaya Land, Dezhnev's Anadyr Land.

At the same time, the discoveries of explorers often became known not immediately: for example, Dezhneva's petition about his discovery of the strait between Asia and America lay forgotten for several decades in the archives of the Yakut province.

At the end of the 18th century, Vasily Ivanov continued the work of explorers. At the head of a fishing artel, he made a trip through the hinterland of Alaska (1792-1793). Other late Russian travelers were also respectfully called explorers: Nikifor Begichev was considered the last, and Nikolai Urvantsev was the only scientist.

End of the 16th century. The victories of Yermak's squad over the troops of the ruler of Siberia, Khan Kuchum. The story “Description of the new lands, that is, the Siberian kingdom” said: “... and by the grace of God and the sovereign happiness and providence and zeal, the ataman Yermak and the comrades of the Siberian Gentiles of many hordes and the tongue of the military people were beaten in that battle and taken live bait ... Tsar Kuchum, seeing the strength of his people, many beaten, from a city with small people, he fled to his wife, the queen, and to his children, to his beloved village on Obalak, from Tobolsk ... "

Some leaders of the Siberian tribes went over to the side of the Russians, while others continued for some time to resist the onslaught of the Cossacks and service people of the Moscow Tsar.

In the 17th century, European politicians wondered how, in just fifty-five years, "Muscovites were able to rapidly advance from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific coast." They were also surprised that as a result of this advance, new Russian villages, cities, Orthodox churches were just as quickly erected on the vast territory of Siberia, industrial enterprises were organized, peasant farms arose and, no less important, cooperation between Russians and Siberian tribes and peoples was established.

On the way to the unknown ocean

“Summer 7146, on the 6th day of August (August 6, 1638), the Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Mikhailo Fedorovich and All Russia, ordered the stewards and governors Pyotr Petrovich Golovin, and Matvey Bogdanovich Glebov, and the deacon Efim Filatov to go to Siberia, to Tobolsk, and from Tobolsk to the Yenisei prison, and from the Yenisei prison to the great Lena River ... ".

This royal decree on the establishment of the Yakut voivodeship appeared six years after the founding of the prison Yakutsk on the Lena, “... that great river Lena is pleasing and spacious, and there are a lot of people along it, nomadic and sedentary pink lands, and sables and all kinds of other animals; and how the sovereign will point out to that great river Lena to send more than enough Siberian people and orders to build a city or prisons, where it is more convenient, and orders along that great river Lena and along other rivers of new lands of people to bring people under their sovereign royal high hand ... ".

Founded in 1632, Yakutsk became a kind of base for exploring Eastern Siberia, the Pacific Ocean and the coast of North America.

“... And along the great river Lena, rowing down to the midnight okiyan for two months or more, and sailing weather will run for a week.

And on both sides of the great rivers of Lena and up to the mouth of the midnight Okiya, Yakuts, Tunguses, Mayads, Panagirs, Koyaty, Karigils and many other nomadic and sedentary people. Yes, in the same de great river Lena below the Vilyui mouth, many great rivers slept on both sides, and on those rivers live axes, Tungus, Shamagiri, Bayakhts and many other people, and there are a lot of sables and every animal and fish along those along all rivers ... ".

Departing from Yakutsk, Russian pioneers reached the rivers Indigirka, Alazeya, Kolyma. In the forties of the 17th century, the Cossack and navigator Mikhail Stadukhin built three fortified winter huts in Kolyma. These small villages allowed the Russians to get comfortable, securely settle in this area and carry out trips to the shores of the Arctic and Pacific Oceans.

Few names of glorious explorers and sailors of those times have been preserved - participants in travels from Lena to uncharted lands. Among them: Elisey Yuryev, Yeleska Buza, Ivan Rebrov, Ilya Perfilyev. With their comrades, they made geographical discoveries, paved the way to the ocean and to the mainland, not yet knowing that the ocean was called the Pacific, and the mainland - America.

Ninety brave

According to historical documents, Russian travelers reached the shores of the Pacific Ocean in the 30s of the 17th century. But it may have happened before.

The great expanse of water with its indomitable temper began to gradually reveal its secrets to the pioneers. One of the conquerors and explorers of the Pacific coast was Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnev. He served in Yeniseisk, Tobolsk, Yakutsk. For some time he was in the detachment of Mikhail Stadukhin on the Oymyakon River.

In 1647, the clerk of the Ustyug merchant Fedot Alekseev (known by the surname Popov) assembled a team to sail the Arctic Sea to the East, from the mouth of the Indigirka. He was interested in walrus hunting. The expedition was also entrusted with the study of "uncharted shores" and the search for new "obscure people."

The detachment was headed by Semyon Dezhnev. By that time, the forty-two-year-old Cossack, for his courage, experience and business acumen, was well known and respected among sailors, servicemen and merchants from the banks of the Lena to the Kolyma.

On four kochs, a detachment under the command of Dezhnev entered the East Siberian Sea. But that summer, an unusually powerful accumulation of ice did not allow the planned voyage to be completed.

In June 1648 the campaign was repeated. This time 90 people participated in the expedition. Seven koches left the mouth of the Kolyma and headed to the East.

There are different versions of what happened to these ships. According to one, several ships died during a storm, according to another, they were carried to the shores of America, and the surviving Russian sailors settled forever in Alaska.

Semyon Dezhnev mentioned in his report: “And that Fedot (Fedot Alekseev Popov) with my Family, was blown up at sea without a trace. And it carried me, Semeyka (as Dezhnev called himself in the note), across the sea after the Intercession of the Virgin (after October 1/14) everywhere involuntarily, and threw me ashore at the front end of the Anadyr River. And there were twenty-five of us on the koche. And I, poor Family, and my comrades went exactly ten weeks to Anadyr ... "

There is no unequivocal opinion about the further fate of the expedition members. But it is indisputable: three out of seven kochas, rounding the Chukchi Peninsula from the north, passed the strait between Asia and America. The voyage of Dezhnev and his comrades proved that these two continents are separated by water.

The surviving members of the expedition founded the Anadyr prison, explored and mapped the banks of the Anadyr River. Subsequently, Semyon Ivanovich made many more trips along the northeastern rivers of Siberia. Moscow highly appreciated his merits. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich awarded Dezhnev the rank of Cossack chieftain. In 1667, thanks to the discoveries and research of Semyon Ivanovich, an image of the North-East of Russia was plotted on the geographical map "Drawing of the Siberian Land". However, the report of the glorious pioneer about the existence of a strait between Asia and America remained unclaimed in the archive for a long time.

Only in the 30-40s of the 18th century, during the Great Northern Expedition, Gerard Friedrich Miller, a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, found and published this document.

"Someone Fedot lived there"

The reference literature about Fedot Alekseev Popov says: "The years of birth and death are unknown." It remains a mystery what actually happened to him after the storm separated the expedition ships. There is an assumption that the koch, on which Fedot Alekseev Popov and the Cossack foreman Gerasim Ankudinov and his comrades were, reached Kamchatka.

A lot of fragmentary information about their future fate has been preserved. In his report, Semyon Dezhnev reported: “... I, Semeyka, defeated the Yakut woman Fedot Alekseev from the Koreans. And that woman said that de Fedot and the service man Gerasim died of scurvy, and other comrades were beaten, and small people remained and fled in boats with one soul, nowhere to go.

Almost a century after the expedition of 1648, the scientist and traveler Stepan Petrovich Krasheninnikov wrote: “Who was the first Russian in Kamchatka, they do not have reliable evidence, but according to verbal reports, this is attributed to a certain merchant Fedot Alekseev, after whom the river flowing into Kamchatka It's called Fedotovshchina.

The version about the stay of Fedot Alekseev Popov on the peninsula was also mentioned in his notes by academician Gerard Miller: “The rumor circulating among the inhabitants of Kamchatka, which from everyone who has been there, is confirmed.

... they say that many years before the arrival of Volodymyr Otlasov (Vladimir Atlasov - a Cossack explorer) to Kamchatka, a certain Fedotov son lived there on the Kamchatka River at the mouth of the river, which is now called Fedotovka after him, and lived with children from Kamchatka, who then at the Penzhina Bay, where they crossed the rivers from Kamchatka, they were beaten by the Koryaks. This Fedotov's son, in all appearances, was the son of the aforementioned Fedot Alekseev ... "

But these references to Popov raise doubts among some modern historians. The fate of one of the Russian pioneers of the 17th century remains an unsolved mystery.

Descendants of the missing?

Jakob Johann Lindenau, a member of Vitus Bering's expedition, translator of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, has been researching the tribes and peoples of North-Eastern Siberia for many years. His pen belongs to the well-known work in the 18th century: “Description of the Tunguzes on foot, or the so-called Lamuts.”

Lindenau managed to record the stories of the Chukchi about the northern Pacific islands and the shores of the New World. Of course, the word "America" ​​was not known to this people at that time.

“Near the Chukchi Nose there is one island under the north and four islands to the east, and Chukchi live on those islands.

And not far from the last distance is meant by their title Big Land (meaning Alaska), which is so called because that land is more than their Chukchi land and they Chukchi from their dwellings go to that land by canoes and bring wooden dishes from that land , like Russian dishes. And according to the ranting of those Chukchis, there is news through the Russian people for sure, that supposedly the merchant people twelve years ago for seventy or more Kolyma middle winter quarters, where the fair used to be for the bargaining of those who went and from strong sea weather, having dispersed from each other, some sailed through Kamchatka, and others landed on that island, which they called the Greater Land, and the peoples living there, mating with them, married and bred.

The learned naturalist, member of the Second Kamchatka Expedition, Georg Wilhelm Steller, who collected a rich collection of American flora in 1741, wrote: “Among the Americans, allegedly, there lives a people who are completely identical to the Russians in figure, customs and customs; Anadyr Cossacks of the opinion that these are the descendants of persons who left the Lena on horseback and disappeared without a trace.

It is highly plausible that their flat ships were thrown on land by a storm, and the local population forced them to stay here.

The stories of Russian sailors of the second half of the 18th century have been preserved that the natives of Alaska were pagans, but at the same time they knew some biblical traditions. These legends they heard from their ancestors.

Who and when first told the people of Alaska Bible stories? There is no reliable answer yet.

In the early 90s of the 18th century, the “Historical Report Card of Russian Voyages and Discoveries in the Northeast Sea” was published in St. Petersburg.

In this work, an unknown author wrote: “The opinion of many foreign writers [it] is very unfounded, that the Russians, before converting their foreign customs into a state of hostility against the scientists of the European peoples, did not have such a spirit and ability to turn their attention to the most useful discoveries beyond the limits of the conquered in 1697 Kamchatka land. The spirit of the always indefatigable Russians not only carefully tried to find out the places, lands and peoples beyond Kamchatka lying, but also went into very difficult and almost impossible trials in the Arctic Sea even before the conquest of Kamchatka.

... the enterprise was in 1646 a ship's passage between the eternal ... [ices] and the Chukotskaya nose lying between north and east, not far from the American materago coast and stretching to the unknown limits of North America, has long been bypassed by the sea and therefore that small the strait that separates Asia from America, which other nations have not known before."

Unknown notes by Ivan Rubets

In the late 70s of the last century, the author of this book met in Boston with Russians of the White émigré wave. Two of them, Alexander Nikolaev and Ivan Pozykov, were fond of the history of Russian America. After retiring, both of them visited the Pacific coast - from the former Fort Ross to Alaska.

Nikolaev and Pozykov were convinced that the leader of the Cossack detachment, Mikhail Stadukhin, and not Semyon Dezhnev, was the first to prove by his journey the existence of a strait between Asia and America. At the same time, amateur historians relied on the notes of the navigator and explorer Ivan Rubets. They had seen this document in the possession of some Californian antiquarian before World War II.

Their words were astonishing. After all, little is known about this Anadyr Cossack, who lived in the middle of the 17th century. His notes were not mentioned in Russia either in scientific or even in fiction. Only a few lines of ancient documents testify to the deeds of Ivan Rubets.

In 1661, a record was made in Yakutsk: “... On June 6, the great sovereign was sent to serve overseas on the Anadyr River foreman Cossack Ivan Rubets, and with him 6 service people. And those service people were given a koch ... "

As follows from the documents of the 17th century, in the summer of 1662 Ivan Rubets and his comrades managed to cross the strait separating Asia and America. However, there is no mention that the Cossack foreman reported this in writing to his superiors.

In the 17th century, many statesmen, navigators, merchants and scientists of Europe closely followed the discoveries of Russians in the Arctic and Pacific Oceans and possible visits to the northwestern shores of America.

In 1664, the Dutch geographer Nikolaas Witsen arrived in Moscow. He collected information about the expeditions of Russian sailors and explorers in Eastern Siberia. The Dutchman was especially interested in whether they managed to find a strait between Asia and America.

Subsequently, after returning to his homeland, Witsen wrote that the northwestern coast of America was visited by Russians, and he managed to collect a lot of supporting documents. “When I made my first map, I wrote at the bottom: “It is not known if one peninsula is connected to America.” But since then I have received more detailed information and now I know for sure that all this is separate, so I myself have now amended my map, ”said Nikolaas Witsen.

In 1692, a book by the Jesuit d'Avril was published in Paris. Referring to his conversations with the Russian governor Musin-Pushkin, he wrote that winds and currents sometimes carry Asian walrus hunters on ice floes to unknown lands: “... I have no doubt that many of the hunters, captured in the same way, swim on ice floes to the northern cape of America, very close to this part of Asia, ending in Tatar (probably d "Avril meant the Chukchi Peninsula). I am convinced in my opinion that the Americans, who live on the part of America that stands out further than others in the sea on this side, are of the same species with the islanders ... "

One of the first

There are many facts when European scientists, diplomats and travelers in the 17th century, referring to Russian sources, announced the possibility of penetrating the Pacific Ocean through the Arctic Ocean, the possibility of reaching the shores of America and advancing to India and China.

In those days, foreigners, visiting Muscovy, not only wrote down stories about the wanderings of Russian navigators and explorers from the words of knowledgeable people, but also bought and even stole documents and maps of the expedition. According to Nikolaev and Pozykov, in this way the recordings of Ivan Rubets could end up abroad, and then fall into the hands of a Californian collector.

Many European countries still keep rarities and documents related to Russian travels to the shores of America.

Do the recordings of Ivan Rubets really exist? If so, who specifically keeps them? Couldn't find out. Maybe future researchers will be lucky.

One of the researchers of the history of Russian America called the 17th century for Russia "a century of long-standing journeys, significant discoveries" ... And also - "the time of Russia's touch with America."

Perhaps the Cossack foreman Ivan Rubets became one of the first Russians to make this “touch”.

SIGNS ON THE MAP

Terra incognita - these words excite the imagination. Ancient people were drawn to unknown lands by the voices of sirens; the echo of these voices resounds in our hearts even now, when on modern maps we see spaces designated as unexplored ... Geographers were attracted by the opportunity to map the outlines of the Oikoumene and show how various phenomena characteristic of it are distributed inside it, and also put before them the most complex the task of combining individual elements of existence to create a coherent representation of the whole.

(Jen K. Wright. President of the Association of American Geographers. XX century)

The first experiments of Russian cartography

It was possible to discover an unknown land in ancient times without geographical maps. There are many examples in history when, at the behest of storms, torn off ice floes with people or ships washed up on unfamiliar shores. It happened that navigators were looking for some geographical objects, and discovered completely different ones.

The development of Siberia, the determination of the borders of the state, the settlement of relations with neighboring countries, the search for a sea route from the Arctic Ocean to India and China, and hence the resolution of the question of whether Asia and America were separated, required the development of cartography in Russia. Back in the 15th century, when Muscovy began to unite into a powerful state, attempts were made to create geographical maps of the country.

In the first half of the 16th century, by order of the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily III, a census of settlements was carried out, boundary, boundary, road drawings were drawn up. These documents became the basis for the creation of geographical maps of Russia.

During the reign of Ivan the Terrible, European scientists, researchers, diplomats Anton Vid, Sigismund Herberstein and others used the work of Russian cartographers in their writings.

The most famous geographical map of Russia in the 16th century, drawn up at the end of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, was called the "Big Drawing".

Heir to the throne - cartographer

Under Tsar Boris Godunov, two of his relatives were associated with the development of Russian cartography.

The young son of the monarch, Fyodor Borisovich, received a decent education for his time. At the age of 13-14, he became interested in drawing maps. There is an assumption that the king found some ancient geographical documents in the archives. They were in a deplorable state and required restoration. Boris Godunov nevertheless managed to discern unknown lands and seas on them. The tsar decided: the shabby maps should be kept secret for the time being, even from his close associates.

But who is to entrust the secret restoration of important documents?

Boris Godunov chose his son. Fifteen-year-old Fedor not only coped with the difficult task of his father, but also took part in compiling the best map of Russia for that time.

After the death of Tsar Boris, he ascended the throne, but soon, at the age of 16, he was meanly killed by traitors to the motherland, supporters of False Dmitry I.

The Polish invaders, with the help of Russian henchmen, captured Moscow in June 1605. The conquerors exported from Russia not only material values. They were interested in books, archival documents and geographical maps. They confiscated all the works of Fedor that fell into their hands.

The secret carried away by the head of the political detective

The second cousin of Tsar Boris, Semyon Nikitich Godunov, headed the political investigation under him. At the end of 1604, Semyon Nikitich returned to Moscow from Astrakhan. There he negotiated with the Nogai prince Ishtereke and managed to convince him to go over to the side of Russia. The king's brother brought with him from the Nogai possessions a geographical map, made by no one knows who and when, although the names and explanations on it were in Russian. However, Semyon Nikitich was most surprised by the outlines of the northeastern outskirts of Siberia and the “unknown land” separated by a strait. According to historical documents, by the beginning of the 17th century, Russian explorers had not yet been east of the banks of the Ob.

After the capture of Moscow by False Dmitry I, Semyon Godunov was exiled to Pereyaslavl. But he did not live there long. At first, some foreigner visited him from the capital. He tried to find out where the geographical map brought from the Nogai possessions was hidden.

How the interrogation ended is unknown. Soon Semyon Godunov was killed. Was there really a map made before the 17th century showing northeastern Siberia and the strait separating Asia and America? Searches in the archives of Russia and the United States have not yet given an answer to this.

Monument of Russian historical and geographical thought

Compiled in 1570 in the Moscow Discharge Order, the map "Big Drawing" was highly appreciated by scientists and specialists in Europe. But time passed, new lands, rivers, lakes, sea coasts opened up, the borders of the Russian state expanded. The "big drawing" needed improvements and additions. Such work was done in 1627. In addition to the geographical map, the "Book of the Big Drawing" appeared. It was a description of the Muscovite state.

In the introduction of this remarkable monument of Russian historical and geographical thought, it was noted: “According to the sovereign tsar and Grand Duke Mikhail Fedorovich of All Russia, by decree, a drawing of the entire Moscow State for all the surrounding states was found in the Rozryad of the old, and in that drawing and the measure is miles, and miles, and horse driving, how much to drive during the day by a stanitsa ride for a day is written, and the measure is set for versts.

And that old drawing is dilapidated, henceforth it’s not good to look at the tracts, it was beaten all over and fell apart ...

And in the Razryad, the clerks, Duma Fyodor Likhachev and Mikhailo Danilov, ordered, trying on that old drawing, to the same extent to create a new drawing for the entire Muscovite state, for all neighboring states ... from the mouth of the Tenuya River, by the sea coast to the east to the mouth of Kola; and from the mouth of the Kola by the sea coast to the Solovetsky inversion to the mouth of the Ntsva River to the east by the sea coast to the Sumy Ostrog and to the mouth of the Onega River; and from Onega to the mouth of the Dvina River; and from the Dvina to the mouth of the Pechora River, to Pusto Lake, and from Pustoozero to the mouth of the Knyazkovoi River and the Narymsky bank to the river to the Ob, rivers and all sorts of tracts; and across the river beyond the Ob by the seashore to the Taza River and the Pura River to Mangazeya; and along the Yenisei river ... ".

Although the “Book of the Big Drawing” reflected the expansion of the expanses of the Moscow state, it did not yet contain either the Chukotka Peninsula, or the Pacific Ocean, or the coast and islands of America. All these geographical features appeared on maps only in the 18th century.

Only copies of the “Book of the Great Drawing” have survived to our time, and the map itself has not been preserved.

"And Siberia takes shape"

In 1667, the Tobolsk voivode Pyotr Ivanovich Godunov compiled a new map of Siberia. By that time, Russian pioneers in northeast Asia had made expeditions to the Lena, Indigirka and Kolyma, founded settlements on the Lena and in other East Siberian lands. And the Cossacks, merchants, fur hunters have already heard a lot from the northern peoples about the mysterious “great land”, which can be reached by moving “towards the sun”.

At the very end of the 18th century, Tsar Peter I, studying the map of governor Godunov, on which there was no Taimyr, Chukotka, or Kamchatka, said: "And Siberia is taking shape." To this the sovereign himself put a lot of effort.

In 1698, the historian, geographer and cartographer Semyon Ulyanovich Remezov compiled a "Drawing of all Siberia". His work was approved by Peter I. Inspired by the success and royal praise, Remezov continued his studies in cartography. To help, he attracted his sons - Ivan, Leonty and Semyon.

By 1701 they had completed the Drawing Book of Siberia. In addition, they compiled the so-called "Remizov Chronicle". It reflected in detail the events of the conquest and development of the Trans-Ural lands by the Russians from 1576 to 1598.

As the famous historian Professor S. V. Bakhrushin noted at the beginning of the last century: "Remezov, the author of a remarkable geographical atlas of Siberia ... His description of the conquered lands provided rich material on the ethnography of the region." Bakhrushin also emphasized that the works of Semyon Ulyanovich and his sons "... revealed to Western Europe a hitherto unknown corner of Asia: according to the Russian map copied by the Swedes, immediately after its publication, the outdated map of Herberstein was corrected ...".

In the 18th century, the further spread of Russian possessions beyond the Urals went in two directions: in the northeast to the Chukotka Peninsula and the islands of the Arctic and Pacific Oceans, to the shores of America, and to the south - to the upper reaches of the Ob, Irtysh, Ishim and Yenisei. This advancement was reflected in the works of Semyon Remezov and his sons.

The "Drawing Book", compiled by them, apparently, is the first Russian Geographical Atlas, that is, a systematic collection of maps, designed in the form of an album and united by a common idea. This atlas had 23 geographical maps of both the whole of Siberia and its individual sections. America, the shores and islands of the Pacific Ocean were not yet designated in it.

Thanks to the work of Pyotr Godunov, Semyon Remezov and his sons, as well as the studies of many Russian pioneers and sailors of the 17th-18th centuries, Siberia really “gained contours” on the geographical map.

"The Land Revisited"

Many researchers believe that the outlines of Alaska and some of the North Pacific islands of America appeared on the Russian map in 1700. Its creator was the Yakut governor Dorofey Traurniht. On the so-called "Mourning drawing" to the east of Chukotka there was a large island with the name "Land again explored." So Dorotheus Traurnicht called Alaska in his work. The word "Alaska" will come into use in Russia only decades later.

In 1697, the Yakut governor received an order from Moscow to organize an expedition to find a way from the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific. Traurnicht himself did not participate in the campaigns, but collected geographical information from Russian pioneers. One of these discoverers of lands in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean was the Cossack Vladimir Vasilyevich Atlasov. Back in 1672, he was recruited to "searching for new lands." He was rightly called the "Kamchatka Ermak", and in the reference literature they wrote that Atlasov was an outstanding explorer, "who completed the great Russian geographical discoveries of the 17th century in Siberia with the study of Kamchatka."

Records of the Cossack Pentecostal Vladimir Atlasov about his campaign have been preserved. They mention unknown islands: “And between the Kolyma and Anandyr rivers, the necessary nose, which fell into the sea (which cannot be bypassed), and on the left side of that nose there are ice on the sea in summer, and in winter that sea is frozen: and on the other side of that there are ice on the nose in the spring ... And he Volodimer (Atlasov) did not visit that necessary nose.

And the local foreigners of the Chukchi, who live near that nose and at the mouth of the Anadyr river, said that there is an island opposite that necessary nose; and from that island in the winter, when the sea freezes, foreigners come, speak their own language and bring thin sables, like a ferret beast; and those sables… he saw Volodimer. And the tails of those sables are a quarter of an arshin long, with transverse black and red stripes.

Most likely, Atlasov saw the skins of raccoons with striped tails, which were found only in North America. In his reports, he reported on nature, the customs and habits of the peoples of Kamchatka, Chukotka, and Alaska.

New confirmations

In 1713, the explorer and traveler Grigory Novitsky completed his work entitled “A Brief Description of the Ostyak People, Who Are Acquired Within the Midnight Kingdom of Siberia”. In this book, he mentioned an unknown land - probably Alaska, and the strait, through which you can get from the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific.

Long before the expedition of Vitus Bering, the Russian pioneers of northeastern Siberia not only heard about the tribes of America, but also met with their representatives.

In a book published in 1758, "Description of sea voyages in the Arctic and Eastern Sea", Academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Gerard Miller made an interesting entry. It dates back to about 1715. It reported on a resident of Alaska who, by chance, came across the Russians: “... There lived a foreign man in Kamchatka, who ... announced himself that he was born in a land where tall cedar trees grow, and on them nuts are much larger than Kamchatka; and this de land lies from Kamchatka to the east ...

It de has large rivers that flowed into the Kamchatka Sea (as the Bering Sea was called at that time). The inhabitants of de name tontala; in habits they are similar to the Kamchadals and use the same leather boats or canoes as the Kamchadals for the water course. Many years ago, he came with his countrymen to Karaginsky Island, where his comrades from the local inhabitants were killed, and he, left alone, went to Kamchatka ... "

One of the Cossacks, according to a resident of Alaska, tried to sketch a map of the "great land" "beyond the sea to the east." She was sent to Yakutsk. Whether this geographical document has been lost or is still kept in an archive or in someone's collection is unknown.

At all times behind each sign on the geographical map stood the fate of people, dangerous adventures, searches, discoveries, successful or unsuccessful travels. The signs on the map are both a call to a long journey, and the result of this journey. They are milestones in the movement towards the knowledge of the planet.

IN THE INTERESTS OF RUSSIA, BY THE WILL OF PETER

... a few days before his death, he remembered his old thought about finding a road to China and India by the Arctic Ocean. Already suffering from near-death attacks, he was in a hurry to write instructions for Bering's Kamchatka expedition, which was supposed to investigate whether Asia in the northeast was connected to America ...

(Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky about Peter I. 1901)

The order of the Evreinov expedition

“I foresee that the Russians someday, and perhaps during our lifetime, will shame the most enlightened peoples with their success in the sciences, tirelessness in labor and the majesty of firm and loud glory,” wrote Peter I.

The desire to find out whether there is a strait between the Arctic Ocean and the Pacific, arose from him during his trip to Europe at the end of the 17th century. Probably, meetings and conversations with foreign scientists contributed to this. However, at that time Russia did not yet have its own navy, and the country's external and internal affairs did not allow the young sovereign to equip expeditions to the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

But the victory over the Swedish army in 1709, the victory of the young Russian fleet at Gangut in 1714, the development of Siberia, the development of navigation, industry and science in the country allowed Peter I to return to his old plans.

At the beginning of 1719, he instructed the surveyors Ivan Evreinov and Fyodor Luzhin to go to the Pacific Ocean and explore if there was a strait between Asia and America. Why was it necessary to find out what was discovered by Russian pioneers in the 17th century? But - documents are lost, and many finds of the past are subject to oblivion.

True, there is a version that Peter still knew about the campaigns of Popov, Stadukhin, Dezhnev and other glorious travelers. And finding out the existence of the strait between Asia and America was only a cover for the true intentions of the sovereign.

As noted by domestic and foreign researchers, at the beginning of the 18th century, Russia needed new lands rich in fur-bearing animals. By that time, the extraction of valuable furs in Siberia had declined. Thus, in order not to displease competitors - European colonial countries (England, Spain, Holland, France), Peter I classified the study of the Pacific coast of North America.

In the tsar's instructions to Ivan Evreinov and Fyodor Luzhin, it was emphasized: “You must go to Tobolsk and from Tobolsk take an escort to go to Kamchatka and further where you are indicated. And describe the places where America has converged ... "

Evreinov and Luzhin completed the expedition and arrived in 1722 to Peter I for a report. However, the route of their journey did not come into contact with America. The northern part (up to the island of Simushir) of the Kuriles was surveyed and mapped, the coordinates of 33 points of Kamchatka and Siberia were determined.

The sovereign approved the results of the expedition of Ivan Evreinov and Fyodor Luzhin. Biographer of Peter I Ivan Golikov wrote about this meeting that the emperor “... with great curiosity spent some time with him (with Evreinov. - Auth.) in conversation and with pleasure examined the map of Kamchatka and the aforementioned islands, composed by him and his comrade, Luzhin, and a description of their entire voyage.

The documents of that time do not indicate whether Peter I mentioned "the land on the other side of the Pacific Ocean" during this meeting. After all, the travelers did not follow the instructions: "... describe the local places where America has converged."

Such reticence aroused suspicion among some researchers: maybe Evreinov and Luzhin nevertheless visited the coast of the New World? .. But, probably, the sovereign decided for the time being to keep their voyage to America in the strictest confidence.

The discovery of the New World from the Pacific Ocean still holds many mysteries.

Emperor's Last Instruction

At the end of 1723, Peter I again ordered Evreinov to be summoned to him. Ivan Mikhailovich at that time worked as a topographer in Vyatka. The sovereign wanted to instruct him to go on an expedition a second time to explore the American coast "near Asia."

The royal order was not carried out. Evreinov died in February 1724. Whom to appoint instead of an experienced traveler and surveyor? Peter chose Vitus Bering.

On January 6, 1725, a few days before his death, the emperor wrote instructions for a new expedition:

"one. It is necessary in Kamchatka or in another place to make one or two boats with decks.

2. On these boats [to sail] near the land that goes to the north and aspirations (I don’t know the end of it) it seems that that land is part of America.

3. And in order to look for where she converged with America, but also to get to which city of European possessions or, if they see a European ship, visit from it, as this bush (shore) is called, and take it on a letter and visit it yourself shore and take a genuine statement and put it on the map, come here ... "

It was one of the last documents signed by Peter I. Nineteen days later, on January 28, 1725, he died.

First Kamchatka expedition

In the first quarter of the 18th century, Russian pioneers strove for the shores of America not only on orders from the capital. In 1720-1725, the sea expedition of the industrialist and navigator Prokopy Nagibin took place. As a result of this trip, it was possible to collect some information about the Pacific coast of the New World.

In those same years, other Russian people were able to visit Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. But their records have probably been lost.

A native of Denmark, Vitus Bering entered the service in the Russian fleet in 1704. He was then 23 years old. By the time he was appointed head of the First Kamchatka Expedition, he had gained rich experience as a navigator.

Bering's assistants were naval officers Alexei Chirikov and Martin Shpanberg. The expedition was provided with 158 people: surveyors, blacksmiths, sailors, soldiers, carpenters, etc. At the end of January 1725, the advance detachment of the First Kamchatka Expedition, led by Alexei Chirikov and midshipman Peter Chaplin, left Petersburg with a convoy to the east. The commander himself joined them a few weeks later.

Only after 3 years, Bering's detachment, having overcome about 10 thousand kilometers, reached the Nizhne-Kamchatsky prison. A few months later, an expedition ship-boat “St. Gabriel".

The voyage began in July 1728. "St. Gabriel" entered the Pacific Ocean, headed north along the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula, and then headed for Chukotka.

The first Kamchatka expedition discovered the land, which was named the island of St. Lawrence, and reached a latitude of 67 degrees and 18 minutes. Bering, despite the objections of Chirikov, decided not to continue moving north, because he considered that the issue of the existence of a strait between Asia and America had been resolved.

On the way back, an island was discovered, which received the name of St. Deomid. Subsequently, it turned out that in fact these are two islands. Nowadays, one of them, Ratmanov Island, belongs to Russia, the other, Krusenstern Island, belongs to the USA.

The expedition returned to Kamchatka and, having wintered there, set sail again in the summer of 1729. This time, Vitus Bering intended to reach the shores of America. However, weather conditions did not allow this plan to be carried out.

The Admiralty Board considered the results of the First Kamchatka Expedition unsatisfactory. But Vitus Bering did not receive any penalties. Taking into account the experience and knowledge of the navigator, he was again appointed head of the expedition, which was called the "Second Kamchatka".

As noted by Russian and foreign researchers, the Second Kamchatka, or Great Northern, expedition in terms of its tasks, the number of participants, the coverage of water and land territories and scientific results surpassed all known in history. It consisted of several detachments of travelers who explored the vast expanse of water and the shores of the Arctic and Pacific Oceans.

Journey of Gvozdev and Fedotov

Shortly before the start of the Second Kamchatka Expedition, in the summer of 1732, navigator Ivan Fedotov and surveyor Mikhail Gvozdev sailed and reached Alaska. On the ship "St. Gabriel”, preserved from the expedition of Bering, the travelers reached the eastern tip of Asia. Then they crossed the strait that separates Asia and America, and ended up off the coast of Alaska.

Mikhail Gvozdev wrote about this event: “August 21 days after midnight at 3 o’clock the wind began to rise, they raised the anchor, spread the sails and went to the mainland, anchored and there were no dwellings against that, and the navigator Ivan Fedotov ordered to raise the anchor . And they went near the Earth to the southern end ...

From the southern end to the western side they saw yurts - dwellings of a verst and a half, and it was impossible to get close to these de yurts behind the wind, and they went near the ground to the south side, and it became de be a shallow place, they threw lots, depths of 7 and 6 sazhens, and from that place they returned back and began to laver near the mainland (Alaska. - Auth.), to blow to the earth, and the wind began to be great from the land opposite ...

And from this Big Land it was blown away by such a great wind, and the wind de was north-nor-west. And from the fourth de island, he rowed the Chukchi to the board in a small yalych, according to them called Kukhta ... Gvozdev, through the interpreter, asked about the Great Land: what kind of land, and what kind of people live on it, and is there a forest, also rivers, and what animal. And he de, the Chukchi, told the interpreter and called the Great Land, and de their own Chukchi live on it, and the de owner’s forest, as well as rivers, and about animals he said that he had wild deer, martens and foxes, and decided beavers.

Russian travelers, due to weather conditions, failed to land on American soil. As the researchers suggest, the ship "St. Gabriel approached Alaska near Cape Prince of Wales, and a day later visited King Island, or Ukivok. It was there that the Russians met with the locals.

In September 1732, the expedition of Mikhail Gvozdev and Ivan Fedorov returned to Kamchatka. Thanks to this journey, for the first time, sections of the Asian and American coasts, separated by the Dezhnev Strait, were correctly depicted on a geographical map.

Soon after the completion of the voyage, Ivan Fedorov died, and Mikhail Gvozdev ended up in prison. For several years, the notes of their journey to the "Great Earth" remained unknown to anyone.

The participants of the Second Kamchatka Expedition still managed to find some of these documents and get acquainted with the released Mikhail Gvozdev. But as the writer and researcher Sergei Markov noted, the map of the 1732 trip to St. Gabriel" disappeared, and it was only approximately restored according to Ivan Fedorov's notes.

ALLOWING LIGHTS

... Columbus Rossky,

despising gloomy rock,

Between the ice the way will be opened to the east

And our power will reach America ...

(Mikhail Lomonosov)

The Sitka tribe has a silent tradition about white people washed ashore many years ago.

... Chief Annahuts dressed in a bearskin and went ashore. He depicted the waddling gait of the beast with such accuracy that the Russians, carried away by hunting, went deep into the forest, where the native warriors killed them all to the last.

(T. L. Andrews)

No name for him

Long, tiring flight from New York to Alaska.

And then I failed...

In whatever seas and lands she overtakes you, she has the same habits.

An unexpected blow to ideas and plans. The dream shatters into many fragments and seems to fall into an invisible abyss. People around become gloomy and do not look into the eyes. The voices of birds sound different. Trees and grasses bow to the wind, exhausted. Sea waves crash. And the heavy rains are starting...

This is how failure comes.

The wind from the ocean was trying to blow through the window of my room. The sound of raindrops waxed and waned. And from these sounds it was clear that the bad weather had come for a long time.

And this means that the helicopter promised to me will not rise over the town of Juneau, proudly called the administrative center of Alaska. And I can no longer visit the island where Russian sailors landed almost two and a half centuries ago and for some reason did not return.

An unsolvable riddle!

Or is someone still lucky, and failure will let him go to find an answer? For the time being, she left me rains and winds, and even cold rational thoughts. What did you want to find on that island? Do you really hope that for two and a half centuries at least some sign of the disappearance of travelers has remained? ..

The world has become different. The land and waters have changed beyond recognition. Other herbs and trees have grown. Even on the stones, prescription has probably erased the traces of human hands ...

And failure is right.

Reconcile? Wait another day or two, and then return to New York without even touching the mystery?

But maybe I can still see in the twilight of bad weather the cherished lights of the “path to the unknown”?

If you believe the stories of local residents, the spirit of passion and excitement loves to play with people. He drops heavenly lights, and on earth they form a "path into the unknown." The playful spirit beckons people to step on this path, intoxicating with a sense of close luck and happy change...

Was it not he who, back in 1741, enchanted Russian sailors and led them into the unknown?

I asked my acquaintances from Juneau, what is the name of this mysterious spirit of passion, excitement, suspense?

And they answered me: there is no name for him.

Packets "St. Peter" and "St. Paul"

The second Kamchatka expedition lasted from 1733 to 1743. More than 600 people took part in it, 13 ships were involved.

In the summer of 1740, the construction of the ships "St. Peter" and "St. Paul". They were intended for navigation in the Pacific Ocean. According to contemporaries, the ships were suitable for any sea trials. From Okhotsk, the packet boats made the transition to the Avacha Bay of Kamchatka. There, preparations for a long voyage continued.

Finally, on June 4, 1741, the St. Peter" and "St. Pavel "left Kamchatka and headed for the shores of America ...

Separation in the fog

“... they left the harbor of the holy apostles Peter and Paul for a raid in the Avacha Bay of the Maya on the 29th, in which, after a contrary wind, they stumbled on June until the 4th, and on the 4th, with calm, they went to the sea and followed a certain course to the land of Ianda Gamma ... ".

So Alexey Chirikov reported about the beginning of the voyage to the Admiralty College in December 1741.

The expedition planned by Peter the Great continued.

Bering's deputy and commander of the St. Pavel, lieutenant commander Alexei Ilyich Chirikov, according to contemporaries, was one of the best officers and the hope of the Russian fleet.

The Admiralty instructions of the expedition noted that when the shores of America were reached, “... then visit them and find out what kind of peoples there are and how that place is called and whether those shores are truly American and doing that ... put everything on the map and then go for that as for reconnaissance near those shores, how much time and opportunity will allow ... ".

The first days the expeditionary ships went together. But on June 20, 1741, heavy fogs began. Neither the experience of Bering and Chirikov, nor the sound signals helped. Packets "St. Peter" and "St. Paul" lost each other.

Fog separated Vitus Bering and Alexei Chirikov forever.

unknown land

After unsuccessful searches for each other, the ships of the Second Kamchatka Expedition continued on their way to the shores of America, but each on its own course. The crew of Chirikov, consisting of 75 people, continued to perform everyday work: astronomical observations, measurements of ocean depths, studying currents and winds, amending the map, preparing for a meeting with the unknown Pacific coast of America.

Finally, on July 15, the travelers saw the land - the island, named on modern maps Baker, which is located off the coast of North America south of Alaska.

With excitement, Russian sailors looked at the unknown land. Snow-capped mountains, small bays, sea birds and animals - all this reminded me of Kamchatka. And yet there was something new and peculiar in what he saw.

Did anyone think during those hours on the St. Pavel", what is the discoverer of America from the Pacific Ocean?

In his report, without any victorious pathos and enthusiasm, somehow in an everyday way, Chirikov noted: time, moving away from the coast, at midnight at 5 o'clock, since the wind was capable of us, we turned north to that rhumb, as the last part of the earth lay, seen from us to the north of the past evening, and at midnight at 10 o'clock at of this land we passed a distance of half a verst, because it was very foggy, and in order to move away from it, we went somewhat parallel to it between the north and the west ... and, if an unfortunate accident, which is below this clear, had not prevented, I hoped a considerable part America to describe ... "

In response - unkind silence

On July 18, Chirikov ordered the yalbot to be sent ashore. The boat accommodated ten sailors, headed by navigator Avram Dementyev.

Chirikov wrote detailed instructions on what to do and how to behave on the American coast.

“... when, with God's help, land on the shore, then see if there are inhabitants on it and, if you see inhabitants, then show them pleasantness and give gifts ...

... and if no one knows the language, then at least signs - what kind of land is it and people under whose authority and call them several people to visit us on the ship;

... to see if there is a convenient place for the arrival of a ship from the sea where it would be safe to stand and measure such a harbor by lot and make a drawing ...

... to see what forests and grasses grow on the shore;

... are there any excellent stones and land in which you can expect to be rich in ore ...

... from the inhabitants, as much as possible, to inquire where this land extends and whether there are rivers flowing into the sea from it and where those rivers flowed into the sea;

... if the inhabitants turn hostile, then defend themselves from them and, as soon as possible, return to the ship, and do not do any bitterness to them ...

... to return to the ship on the same day, or at least the next day ...

... as God brings it to the shore, then to let us know, launch a rocket ... and being on the shore, lay out a big fire, if you see that we can see it ... ".

Alas, there were no signals from Dementyev's detachment either that day or the next.

Hours of suspense dragged on slowly. The sailors took turns climbing the mast of the packet boat to get a better view of the shore through the fog.

Despite the unfavorable weather, Aleksey Chirikov kept the ship under light sails in a perilous proximity to the island.

Only seven days later, the long-awaited fire broke out on the shore.

Bonfire! Alive!

Joyfully excited on board the St. Pavel”: obviously, something happened to Dementiev’s boat and his team cannot return to the ship. Hastily began to collect a new detachment to the island.

The last boat remained on the packet boat. The boatswain Sidor Savelyev and three other sailors set out to rescue their comrades.

Chirikov ordered the ship's cannons to be fired several times so that they would know on the shore that help was near. But there were no responses.

On the island - fog and unkind silence.

On the way back

“... And since then the weather was very calm, then in the meantime they let him go to the shore and themselves followed him to the shore and came very close and saw that the boatswain in the boat approached the shore about noon at 6 o’clock, precisely determined from I didn’t repair the signals and didn’t return to us at a reasonable time, and the weather was the quietest ... ”.

So noted in the report Alexei Chirikov.

There were no boats left on the packet boat, which means that communication with the shore was lost. Travelers could no longer help their comrades on the island, nor get drinking water.

On July 25, two boats were spotted from the ship. They walked from the bay, where the teams of Dementyev and Savelyev landed.

Chirikov ordered the packet boat to be sent towards the boats.

Joyful mood on board the St. Paul" quickly faded away. The travelers soon saw that these were not their boats.

Several rowers on them were most likely from the Tlingit tribe. Swimming closer to the ship, the Indians jumped to their feet and shouted: “Agay! Agay!

Then they waved their hands. The Russian sailors could not understand either their words or gestures.

The Tlingit took up the oars again and turned towards the island. The heavy packet boat could not catch up with the nimble Indian boats. The ship followed them to a dangerous limit. It was impossible to get closer to the shore. To be aground meant the certain death of both the ship and the entire crew.

The travelers now realized that fifteen of their comrades had either died or were held captive by hostile Indians.

It was bitter to realize such a loss and his impotence, the inability to help his comrades.

“... we walked near that place until evening, waiting for our ships, only at night we moved away from the shore for fear, and at night we had a lantern with fire on the stern flask, so that, if more than expected, they would blow out, so that they could come to us at night ... "- recalled Alexei Chirikov.

There was very little fresh water left on the ship. You can't reach Kamchatka. It was impossible to continue the expedition and explore new lands without boats.

For the last time, the packet boat "St. Pavel" walked past the ominous, mysterious shore. Another volley of cannons - and the ship moved back to Kamchatka.

Despite the loss of life, the illness of many sailors, the lack of water, the disappearance of boats, the expeditionary detachment under the command of Alexei Chirikov completed its task - opened the Pacific coast of North America. More than 400 kilometers of its coast were mapped for the first time.

different versions

Hearing from Alexei Chirikov the story of the disappearance of the sailors, Sven Waxel came to the conclusion: “It can be assumed with good reason that when they (the sailors under the command of Dementyev) approached the shore, the Americans (Indians) probably hid, and that the people who arrived on boats, unaware of the danger that threatened them when landing on the shore, dispersed in different directions for water.

Thus, they, presumably, were separated from each other when the Americans, having finally seized a convenient time, suddenly appeared between them and the boat, blocking the way back ... "

The writer, author of the book "Bering" Nikolai Chukovsky did not agree with the conclusions of Sven Waxel. He believed that the coast, where the sailors disappeared from the ship "St. Pavel", was inhabited by peaceful Indians - Tlinglits, who would not attack strangers.

In addition, it is not so easy to defeat a detachment of sailors armed with rifles and pistols, using only spears and bows.

Nikolai Chukovsky was inclined to the version that both boats of the St. Pavel" died in a whirlpool. Whirlpools, dangerous for small boats, often form during high tides off the northwest coast of the United States. In the eighties of the XVIII century, approximately in the places where the sailors from the ship "St. Pavel", died in the whirlpool of the boat of the French traveler Jean-Francois Laperouse.

"Ageoy" - lights from heaven

A little more than thirty years after the Second Kamchatka Expedition, the Spanish court received a message from their American colony that there was a settlement of Russian people in California. How these people got there is unknown. Since the time of the Second Kamchatka Expedition, not a single Russian ship has yet come to the shores of America.

My grandfather Grigory Burlak traveled the Pacific coast of the United States from California to Alaska at the beginning of the 20th century in search of work. He also had a chance to visit the Alexander Archipelago, discovered by the expedition of Alexei Chirikov.

On one of the islands of the archipelago, grandfather heard from the locals a story about how many years ago, bright bearded people who sailed on a big ship from "the land where the sun goes," were bewitched by "Ageoy".

When my grandfather asked what this word means, they explained to him: "Ageoy" - lights that fell from the sky.

What a misfortune happened later with bearded fair people - they said different things. Some claimed that the "path of heavenly lights" took the aliens to the magical land of Gemm. Others said that a spirit without a name told the bearded people to make boats and sail towards the sun to the mainland and start a new life there.

Then this story did not interest my grandfather. Only many years later, when he read about Chirikov's expedition and about fifteen missing sailors, did grandfather remember the legends he had heard on the Alexander archipelago.

The report of the expedition mentioned that the Tlinglit Indians, who sailed from the island, shouted the word "Agay". Maybe they didn’t hear on the packet boat and wrote down “Agai” instead of “Ageoi” incorrectly? ..

Of course, my grandfather later regretted that he did not ask in detail and did not write down the stories of the inhabitants of the archipelago. He didn't get to go there again.

Who knows, maybe the old Indian legends would at least slightly lift the veil over the mystery of the disappearance of fifteen Russian sailors?

"The path to the unknown" from the lights that fell from heaven ...

Everyone sees in these lights what he wants to see when he begins his journey along the "path into the unknown." But at the end of the journey, "everyone gets what they deserve"...

That's what my friends from Juneau said. Thus spoke to them the spirit of passion and excitement, which has no name and which intoxicates people with a sense of near success and happy change.

For those who have set foot on the "path into the unknown", it seems that this is the righteous path. To others, beckoning lights appear as precious stones that lead to earthly wealth. Still others see something mysterious in them, which must be comprehended and experienced ...

I returned to New York without having visited the land that holds the secret of fifteen Russian sailors.

In the porthole of the plane, in the darkness, some islands were barely visible. Could this be the Alexander Archipelago?

I wanted to believe it. As well as the fact that the multi-colored lights below are a mysterious "path to the unknown" of the spirit of passion and excitement, and not just the light of electric bulbs of settlements and sea ships.

From ocean to ocean

In New York, I told the story of the missing Russian sailors to the well-known American journalist Art Shields. Once he worked as a correspondent in Moscow, and before the First World War he lived for many months in Alaska.

It turned out that at one time Art studied the materials of the Second Kamchatka Expedition and even wrote down several legends related to the mysterious, in his opinion, the disappearance of sailors from the St. Paul".

From a Russian emigrant living in New York, Shields got acquainted with a handwritten copy of the notes of the famous businessman and researcher Grigory Ivanovich Shelekhov.

In the second half of the 18th century, Grigory Ivanovich was the organizer of permanent Russian settlements in Alaska and on the islands of the northern regions of the Pacific Ocean.

In 1788, Shelekhov's envoys met in Alaska, in Yakutat Bay, light-eyed, fair-haired, tall white people. They lived in a tribe of Koloshi Indians, spoke their language, but differed in manners and attire.

When Shelekhov was informed about this meeting, he immediately remembered the stories about the missing sailors from the St. Pavel "and decided that the fair-haired Indians were their children or grandchildren.

Around the 1870s, an unusual, silent old man appeared in New York. He knew only a few words in English.

He was met by hunters in the upper reaches of the Delaware River. With signs, gestures, in separate words, the old man managed to explain that many years ago, on the ocean shore, he was captured by some Indians. At first, they gave him and his comrades - Russian sailors - a bowl of hot broth.

Then oblivion came. How long it lasted - the old man either did not know, or was unable to explain. He did not see his comrades from the ship again. He, then still a young, strong man, the Indians decided to make a "white shaman."

From the island where he was captured, he was transported to the mainland. This path was not easy. In the boat, the future "white shaman" was constantly given a drink, from which at first the head was spinning, and then consciousness was lost.

How and what the “supreme teacher of shamans” taught the Russian sailor, the old man could not tell. When, after many months, the "hour of initiation" came, the teacher cut a vein in the sailor's arm and tasted the blood. Then he explained that blood is bad, and a stranger cannot become a shaman. And the Indians will not forgive this and will give the pale-faced man as a sacrifice to the white wolves.

For some reason, the Russian sailor liked the "supreme teacher of shamans", and he advised the unfortunate student to run - all the time towards the sun, until he comes to the shore of another ocean. And there, if he does not meet happiness, then at least he will find peace.

The sailor followed the advice. For more than twenty years he moved from the shores of the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic. Overcame rivers, dense forests, lakes. Several times the sailor was captured by the Indians of different tribes. Sometimes he ran away, but more often the Indians, having learned what path he had traveled and how much he still had to go, set him free as a sign of respect.

It is not known whether the Russian sailor met happiness in New York - "on the shore of another ocean", as the "supreme teacher of shamans" prophesied to him. Did you find peace in an unfamiliar city? Was he really in the crew of St. Paul"?

There is no documentary evidence of all this ... Another undisclosed secret of Russian America.

More than a hundred years have passed since the finds at the military hospital in Irkutsk. During this period, the ideas of scientists about the time of the initial settlement of Siberia and the Far East have changed significantly. Today there are many reasons to make it ten or more times older. The first discoveries in this regard were made in the Far East.

It was golden autumn. The last days of September were leaving, but it was still warm. Cold rains with strong winds, so common for the Far Eastern autumn, were clearly late. September 27, 1961 was a hot, truly summer day. For more than a week, archaeologists have been sailing on a small barge between the cities of Zeya and Svobodny, examining the zone of future flooding and the construction of the Zeya hydroelectric power station in order to identify all archaeological sites and draw up a work plan for their further research. Members of the expedition stood at the bow of the barge and carefully examined the shores that were slowly passing by. Man has long settled in the most convenient, favorable places. On large rivers, ancient settlements are found, as a rule, on high places that are not flooded during floods and floods of the river. Particularly attractive are the places where small channels flow into the river, the most convenient for hunting and fishing.

Archaeologists have already discovered several settlements of the Stone and Iron Ages. The search continued that day. The weather was clear and sunny. Hills overgrown with taiga rose close to the river. The mighty blue pines on the high banks swayed slightly, reflected in the water. From time to time small clearings with white-trunked birches and aspens flashed by, which, despite the warm weather, were covered with crimson and were already throwing off their clothes, preparing for a long and dreary winter.

Severity and primordial beauty emanated from these wild and still sparsely populated places. It seemed incredible that here, among the hills and rocks, an ancient man could live.

The sun passed its zenith when the small village of Filimoshki appeared around the turn of the river. Before him, the landscape also changed: the mountains receded, revealing a wide valley. Houses scattered far along the steep, precipitous bank of the river. The village spread out freely on two terrace-like ledges. The upper terrace rose 20-25 meters above the river level. Behind the village, upstream, a small river flowed into the Zeya. The head of the expedition A. Okladnikov asked to send a barge there. We moored to the very shore. From the barge, steep coastal deposits were visible. The river, apparently during a recent severe flood, had collapsed the bank in this place, and layers of light yellow sands, and sandy loams, and dark clays, clearly loomed in bright sunlight. Coastal sediments, like an open book, can tell scientists about climate and floods for at least many tens or even hundreds of thousands of years. All members of the expedition impatiently jumped ashore: they wanted to walk on solid ground. And the place was convenient for an ancient settlement.

A few minutes later, the first joyful exclamation was heard - a flint flake was found, and next to it was a Neolithic human tool. While everyone was inspecting the upper part of the bank, Okladnikov went down to the water and went down along the still warm, well-rounded pebbles. And then the experienced eye of the scientist attracted one stone. He took it in his hands and began to examine it carefully. At first glance, it was the most ordinary cobblestone of yellowish fine-grained quartzite. But only at first glance. Looking closely, Alexei Pavlovich saw that it had been split by several strong blows and that at one end there was a sharp blade resembling a crude and primitive scraper. Next to the stone lay another one, also with traces of processing. Man or nature? Such chips, so crude and primitive, can also occur naturally in strong river flows.

A lively discussion that took place about the so-called "eoliths" came to mind. Under this name, flints that were found in the Tertiary layers entered the scientific literature, they were attributed to intentional processing. Among them, the most famous are eoliths with traces of fire and split flints from deposits, which are several million years old, described by the French scientist Abbé Bourgeois. Later, special experiments were carried out: flints were thrown into stone-crushing machines, where they beat against each other, as a result of which they got kinks and gouges, very reminiscent of artificial processing made by man.

What if the pebbles are not upholstered by man, but made by nature? After all, quite recently, about fifteen years ago, Okladnikov himself wrote that the appearance in Siberia of sites belonging to the early Paleolithic is unlikely. And apparently, these finds are much earlier than all the monuments known in Siberia and the Far East. But fifteen years is a very long time for science. During this time, both in our country and abroad, new material has accumulated, the comprehension of which quite logically led to the conclusion that the Early Paleolithic could all have been in Siberia. "Was!" - repeatedly said his teacher P. Efimenko. And every field season, Okladnikov did not lose hope of discovering the early Paleolithic.

Man or nature? Alexey Pavlovich looked at his finds again and again. It seems that a person did it, but in order to finally resolve the issue, it is important to find the processed pebbles in the layer and find out the situation associated with them.

Leisurely, holding back excitement, he went to the coastal deposits. Above lay a thick layer of gray silty sands and sandy loams. Below, at eye level, one could see layers of pebbles lying on ancient bedrocks of the Tertiary period. Alexei Pavlovich slowly, meter by meter, began to examine the layer in which the pebbles lay.

This day was truly successful. In less than fifteen minutes, he, now from the layer, pulled out a pebble with traces of chips. Several hours of careful searching brought about a dozen chipped pebbles. There was no doubt: they are tools and made by human hand. Despite their relatively small number and great primitiveness, it is already possible to distinguish the guiding forms: products with grooved recesses and massive pebbles with a point - a “nose”. All finds were carefully packed and sent to the Novosibirsk Academgorodok.

In 1964, the VII International Congress of Anthropologists and Ethnographers took place in Moscow. Many well-known Soviet and foreign scientists took part in the work of the congress. At this congress, Okladnikov made a report "On the initial human settlement of Siberia and new Paleolithic finds on the Zeya River." The report caused a lot of controversy. There were voices against and for. There were no indifferent people.

The conditions for the occurrence of tools and their very appearance testified that at a very early time, 200-250 thousand years ago, ancient people had already lit their fires and settled in areas located north of 54 degrees north latitude. Chronologically, the finds in Filimoshki can be compared with the Acheulian of Western Europe and Sinanthropus in China. Could an ancient man have penetrated so far to the north given the natural and geographical conditions existing at that time in East, Southeast and Central Asia?

The nature of the Far East as a whole during the entire Quaternary period experienced directed rhythmic changes, which were distinguished by local originality. The flora and fauna of this territory preserved many tertiary relics in the Quaternary period. The Far East is an area with weak changes in natural conditions in anthropogenesis compared to the northwest of Eurasia, which has experienced catastrophic changes in nature. The reason for the differences, as most researchers suggest, is the ice sheet in the northwest and its absence in the Far East. From which it follows that in the Pleistocene, the climatic conditions in the basins of the Amur, Zeya and Primorye rivers were very favorable, and a person could well live here in the Lower and Middle Paleolithic.

In the Lower Quaternary and at the beginning of the Middle Quaternary in the south of the Far East, evergreens played a decisive role in the undergrowth. The climate was still warm and humid.

The Middle Quaternary glaciation, which is the maximum for this territory, had a significant impact on the formation of flora and fauna. The spore and pollen spectra of deposits, synchronous with periods of glaciation, indicate that birch forests and light forests were widespread. Large areas were occupied by moss and sphagnum bogs with shrub birch and alder.

Quite characteristic of the vegetation of the Far East was the absence, at least in the coastal part, of a "dry phase" with a large participation of xerophyte associations, which is apparently associated with the maritime monsoon climate. The presence of a large number of relics of tertiary flora in the modern flora of Primorye and the Amur region indicates that they experienced epochs of glaciation in the most favorable habitats, greatly reducing their ranges and widely settling in interglacial periods. The milder climate during the ice age can be explained by the fact that representatives of the ancient subtropical flora still grow in the Amur and Syrian taiga - velvet tree and Manchurian walnut, wild grapes and lemongrass, ginseng and aralia. Favorable climatic conditions, apparently, allowed man in ancient times to populate these remote territories of North Asia.

Findings in Filimoshki of ancient tools are not the only ones today. A new confirmation of the hypothesis about the habitation of an ancient man in the Far East during the Lower Paleolithic is the finds of pebble tools near the village of Kumary, in the basin of the upper Amur. This location was discovered in 1957 by E. Shavkunov. He collected a collection of stone tools, undoubtedly belonging to the Paleolithic.

In 1968, the author continued his work in Kumar. Excavations and a thorough examination of the coastal terrace made it possible to identify several cultural horizons in the area of ​​the village: Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic. Three Paleolithic sites are of particular interest. On the first one, several dozens of tools were found dating back to a very ancient time - the Lower Paleolithic. The finds are located on the coastal strip of pebbles, and some of them are located directly in the water. The length of the pebbles, where the finds were found, is more than 800 meters. Tools of labor are represented by three types - choppers, chopping and tools with points - "spouts". Several shapeless pebbles were also found, from which coarse flakes were chipped.

The location of the finds is interesting. All tools were found in ancient pebbles, which are covered by a 10-15-meter layer of loam and sandy loam. Loose strata, constantly rising, approach the rocky hills, which stretch in a chain 200-300 meters from the modern Amur valley. In some places, the rocks come straight to the water, breaking off in steep ledges. A similar situation is observed on the right bank of the Amur. It is quite possible that in the Lower Paleolithic the width of the Amur valley fluctuated in accordance with dry and wet periods, and the riverbed either advanced or receded. As the Amur valley narrowed, pebbles were exposed, which were an excellent material for making tools. A similar pattern can be traced in Mongolia, where most of the Lower Paleolithic sites were found in the channels of ancient rivers. Loose deposits of the first terrace of the Amur are all Upper Pleistocene and formed much later.

In 1969, a third monument was discovered, where the same archaic stone products were found. The new location is located five kilometers from the former village of Pad Kalashnikov, near the mouth of the Ust-Tu River. Roughly beaten pebbles were found in the pebble layer, which lies on bedrock. The pebble layer is covered by a terrace composed of loose layered deposits of silty sands and sandy loams. A terrace two or three kilometers long, gradually rising, approaches a low mountain range.

In 1969-1970, excavations were carried out here, during which more than 200 pebbles processed by a human hand were discovered. At a distance of four to five kilometers from this locality, two more sites were found where pebble tools of the same type were found.

The discoveries in the Far East were followed by others in Siberia and Altai. In the same 1961, A. Okladnikov found roughly beaten pebbles on the Ulalinka River within the city of Gorno-Altaisk. At the beginning of June 1966, our small detachment of the Soviet-Mongolian expedition led by Okladnikov, on the way to Mongolia, stopped for one day in Gorno-Altaisk, the administrative center of the Gorno-Altai Autonomous Region, to once again examine the Paleolithic site on Ulalinka.

Ulalinka is a typical mountain river. Its left bank is low, and the right one abruptly breaks off with ledges 20-25 meters high. We decided to try our luck and laid several exploratory excavations. The sun beat down mercilessly on our backs. When we left Novosibirsk, it was cold and windy there, but here, in Gorno-Altaisk, it was 30 degrees Celsius. In a layer of reddish sandy loam, we often came across tools. Their age was clear: they are all Upper Paleolithic and not older than 30 thousand years. They worked non-stop for several hours. We had to go down several meters to the bluish color of dense clays lying on quartzite bedrocks. And suddenly a pebble of fine-grained quartz flew out from under the shovel, one end of which was chipped and resembled a rough scraper. The work got more fun. Even our skeptical driver, after a brief but emotional lecture on the significance of this find, took up the shovel. By evening, we had a few more crude tools and flakes, and they all resembled the most ancient tools of labor.

A. Okladnikov carried out excavations at Ulalinka for a number of years. And to date, this parking lot-workshop has collected a huge amount of material, numbering several thousand items. In terms of its stone inventory, the site-workshop on the Ulalinka River is a unique monument of a pronounced pebble culture; not a single plate was found in it, but only quartzite nodules worked by man and primitive tools made of pebbles. This location represents a whole epoch in the history of the Stone Age of North Asia. Geologists, paleontologists, and palynologists took part in the processing of materials and in the excavations of Ulalinka. Based on the paleomagnetic method, the finds at Ulalinka were dated to an unexpectedly early time. The first dates estimated the boundary of the layer at more than 700 thousand years, and the upper dating at more than 300 thousand years. In 1979, work on determining the age continued using the thermoluminescent method, so the age of the lower cultural horizon was determined at 690 thousand years. This puts Ulalinka on a par with the oldest monuments in North and Central Asia.

The tools found in Ulalinka are also among the oldest known in the area. They refer to that distant time, to that era of our history, when man took his first steps towards overcoming dependence on nature, mastering more and more new territories of the globe. But these steps were timid and very uncertain, too much man still depended on the constantly changing natural environment.

Important discoveries over the past twenty years have been made by the archaeologists of the Irkutsk University G. Medvedev, M. Aksenov and others. During security work in the flood zone of the Bratsk reservoir, they drew attention to the rough tools and cores that were found on the beach. A systematic search began for the places where these ancient finds come from. The search led researchers to high, 100-meter heights. It was there that subsequently it was possible to find roughly processed products of an ancient person. Among them were well-formed Levallu-Mousterian cores for removing plates with a certain contour. An important feature of the finds dating back to early times should be noted: their entire pebble surface seems to have been eaten away by small dots-pebbles - the result of long-term exposure to strong winds and other natural factors on the surface of the stone - the so-called corrosion. The shape of the tools, the technique of primary and secondary splitting testify to the great antiquity of the finds in the Angara region.

We must pay tribute to the Irkutsk archaeologists: they did not rush to conclusions. Accumulating material, they made dozens of pits, several meters deep each, in order to obtain good stratigraphic sections, and most importantly, they searched for stone tools directly in the layer, which made it possible to accurately determine the time of the finds. Patience and perseverance were rewarded with brilliant discoveries. Now there is no doubt that 200-300 thousand years ago an ancient man settled in the Angara region.

Quite unexpected, literally sensational were the finds of the Yakut archaeologist Y. Mochanov on the Lena in the area of ​​Dyuring-Yuryakh, 120 kilometers from Yakutsk. In 1983-1985, he and his employees managed to open several thousand square meters of area. Found about two thousand items. They are so crude and primitive that they resemble the famous finds in the Olduvai Gorge in East Africa.

Scientists have a lot to do to appreciate the discovery in Yakutia. The results of flora studies and other data indicate that in those days in these areas it was even somewhat colder than now.

The level of culture of the Olduvai man, his skills in the struggle for his existence, although he was called homo habilis, or a skilled man, were at the lowest level. The man, in essence, was only taking the first steps in his new capacity. Making the first tools of labor, he only declared his right to be called a man. From this time, perhaps, our history should be counted. The origins of our 20th century civilization go back to Olduvai culture. But the ecological conditions of the habitat of the first man in Africa, unlike Yakutia, were favorable: warm, dry, an abundance of animals that could become his prey.

It is very important not to repeat the history associated with one of the first scientists who laid the foundations of a new science - primitive archeology - Boucher de Pert. The finds in Düring-Yuryakh are debatable in terms of their dating. But there is no doubt that they are very ancient and that this discovery is one of the most interesting in Siberia.

The discovery of such ancient complexes in the south of Siberia and the Far East raises several important questions for scientists that need to be answered. Where and when could the first man come to Siberia? Who was he, this pioneer of North Asia? What is his subsequent fate? But before attempting to answer these questions, let us turn to the history of science.

Darwin, along with ardent enemies and ill-wishers, as we have already said, had ardent followers. One of them, the German scientist Ernst Haeckel, expressed the remarkable idea that between the 7 ape-like ancestors and the modern type of people there should have been an intermediate form, which he called Pithecanthropus. Haeckel recommended looking for the bones of the ape-man somewhere in southern Asia.

In the history of science there are examples of selfless service to an idea, when a person, having set a goal, strives to fulfill it, despite all the hardships and difficulties. Such people include an enthusiastic supporter of the teachings of Darwin - an assistant professor of anatomy at the University of Amsterdam, Eugene Dubois (1856-1940). In the late 80s of the XIX century, he announced that he was going to the islands of the Malay Archipelago in search of the ape-man predicted by Haeckel. Few believed in the luck of the young scientist. First, the very idea of ​​searching for an ancient fossil man caused many objections. Secondly, Southeast Asia is a huge territory, several million square kilometers, and looking for a small parking lot where the remains of an ancient person could be was a crazy idea, as it seemed to many. Despite the advice of "well-wishers", Eugene Dubois, having changed the toga of a scientist with a bright future for the dressing gown of a simple doctor of the colonial troops, I arrived on the island of Sumatra at the end of 1888. There was almost no free time, but Dubois excavates with titanic persistence. Months, years pass. Lack of funds, workers, difficult living conditions in the tropics - nothing can shake the scientist's confidence in success. He stubbornly continues to search.

The year 1891 has gone. Eugene Dubois works in the eastern part of the island of Java. He carefully explores the intermountain strip between the active volcanoes Merbabu and Lavu (in the west), the extinct Liman volcano (in the south) and the Kedung mountains (in the east).

At the end of the year, Dubois begins excavations on the banks of the Solo River, near the village of Trinil. Everything around was reminiscent of the merciless and inexorable power of lava flows that destroyed all living things and hardened into a lifeless plain. Meter by meter the workers dug into the ground. Every evening, the morning hope for good luck was replaced by disappointment. It seemed that no one believed in a positive outcome of the excavations, when at a depth of fifteen meters, in a layer containing the bones of a stegodont elephant, an Indian rhinoceros, a primitive bull, a tapir and other animals, Dubois found a tooth resembling a human. The find inspired the scientist. Now time flew by. E. Dubois "conjured" over a tooth, which he initially considered the wisdom tooth of an extinct giant chimpanzee, and the workers continued to excavate. Some time later, a fossilized object was found near the tooth, resembling a tortoise shell in shape. Carefully removing the layers, Dubois suddenly realizes that this is nothing but the skullcap of a "large anthropoid ape ...".

After the rainy season, new equally interesting finds followed the next year: a femur and another tooth, the same as the first. In 1893, E. Dubois notifies the scientific world about the discovery of the missing link in the pedigree of the man predicted by E. Haeckel - Pithecanthropus, adding to it the species designation - "upright". From that time until his death, the whole life of the discoverer is connected with the heated discussions that took place around the Javanese man. It is said that while returning to Europe, the ship on the high seas was caught in a violent storm. Dubois rushed into the hold, where there was a box of finds, and shouted to his wife: “If anything happens, save the children, and I need to think about the box!”

Dubois walked long and hard towards his outstanding discovery. Even more difficult and even tragic is his further fate. Immediately after the first reports of the finds, many vicious articles appeared that ridiculed the discoverer and his offspring. Scientists did not have a single point of view on which point in the evolutionary scheme to place the Javanese find. Some considered Pithecanthropus to be an anthropoid ape with human characteristics, the second - a man with monkey features, and others, like Dubois, - a transitional form between ape and man. Until the very end of his life, Dubois believed that the Javanese was the missing link in our ancestry. He traveled a lot around the world, made presentations, demonstrated his findings. But gradually he was more and more disappointed: Pithecanthropus did not receive, as it seemed to him, a worthy recognition. Offended by the fact that most scientists do not agree with his point of view, he turns into a real hermit and for almost thirty years does not show anyone the bones he found. Only in 1932 did he again invite several prominent anthropologists, and Pithecanthropus again became the object of deep study.

Work in Java was continued between 1937 and 1946 by the Danish anthropologist Gustav Koenigswald. He was even more fortunate: he managed to unearth five fragments of skulls and other bones of an ape-man.

The finds of Pithecanthropus were not only the most important proof of the validity of Charles Darwin's theory of the origin of man from higher apes, but also evidence of a very early appearance of man in Southeast Asia. The Indonesian scientist Sartono believes that for a long time (800-500 thousand years ago) a large group of ancient people lived in Java - Pithecanthropes, whose remains Dubois was lucky to find.

Little is known about the life of Pithecanthropes. They lived during a rainy and relatively cool period, when the average annual temperature in Java was about six degrees below the present. At that time, rhinos, ancient elephants, deer, antelopes, bulls, leopards, tigers lived there.

The first finds of the remains of pithecanthropes do not give an idea of ​​their labor activity, which is considered decisive in determining whether it is an ape or an ancient man (after all, as F. Engels wrote, “labor created man”). On the basis of morphological features, many scientists were still inclined to think that Pithecanthropus has much more human features than monkey ones. And the oldest stone tools found by Koenigswald in 1936 in the valley of the Boxok River near Pajitan finally confirmed this assumption. Most of the tools were choppers, choppings, rough chips and scrapers.

At present, the remains of pithecanthropes have been found not only in Asia, but also in Africa and Europe.

Pithecanthropus is not the only ancient man of Asia now known. New, no less interesting and important for science finds of the remains of primitive man were made 54 kilometers from Beijing, near the Zhoukoudian station. These finds are associated with the name of an outstanding researcher of the ancient cultures of Central and Southeast Asia - Johann Gunnar Anderson.

In 1918, he heard from Professor Gibb, a chemist by profession, that not far from Beijing, in the area of ​​Zhoukoudian, on Mount Jigushan ("Mountain of Chicken Bones"), in a layer of red clay that fills the cave, there are many bones of birds and rodents. Visiting Zwgushan in 1919, Anderson discovered that the clay workers had left intact the loose deposits that filled the caves. The reason for this was the legend that the bones found in the filling belong to chickens eaten by foxes, which then turned into evil spirits. Fearing the revenge of the spirits, the workers were afraid to touch the red clay. When paleontological excavations began here, one of the local residents told the researchers that there was a place nearby where there were a lot of dragon bones. This place turned out to be the "Mountain of Dragon Bones", located 150 meters from Zhoukoudian, where, on the initiative of Anderson, new excavations began. When quartz flakes were found along with animal bones, Anderson came to the conclusion that they did not come here by chance: after knocking on the deposits of an ancient cave, Anderson, with the intuition characteristic of a real researcher, said: “The remains of our ancient ancestor will be found here.” These words were fully justified in the course of further excavations.

The excavations were led by Davidson Black and Pei Wenzhong. First, two teeth of an ancient man were found, and then a third. On August 16, 1927, Black announced that he had discovered a new genus and species of prehistoric man, Sinanthropus pekinesis, or Peking Sinanthropus. After Black's death, the work was continued by Franz Weidenreich. For ten years, from 1927 to 1937, it was possible to discover bones belonging to more than 40 individuals of ancient people. They were men, women, children. Found 5 skulls, 9 of their fragments, 6 fragments of facial bones, 14 lower jaws, 152 teeth - one of the world's best collections of the remains of ancient people.

In 1939, Koenigswald brought his findings of the Javanese Pithecanthropus to Beijing. A historic “meeting” of Peking man and Javanese took place, about which Koenigswald wrote: “We laid out our findings on a large table in the Weidenreich laboratory, equipped with the latest technology - on the one hand, Chinese, on the other, Javanese skulls. The first ones were bright yellow and not nearly as fossilized as our Javanese finds. Undoubtedly, this was largely due to the fact that the cave provided them with better preservation, while the Javanese material was interspersed in sandstones and tuffs. Comparison of authentic skulls was carried out for all characteristics, and in all they showed a high degree of correspondence. Scientists came to the conclusion that Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus are very related species of ancient people in all basic characteristics.

The outbreak of Japanese aggression interrupted the excavations at Zhoukoudian. When the Japanese approached Beijing, disputes began about how to deal with the finds of Sinanthropus. Finally, the Chinese scientists decided to pack them up and ship them to America. The boxes of collections were sent by train, escorted by soldiers from Beijing, to the port, where the steamship President Harrison was waiting for them. The further fate of the collections is unknown. There are many versions on this score, but, unfortunately, only beautiful drawings and plaster casts made by Weidenreich and taken by him earlier to America have survived for science. Javanese man was more fortunate. Despite many misadventures after the occupation of Java by the Japanese, these collections were almost completely preserved.

Searches and studies of the remains of an ancient man in Asia continued, and paleoanthropologists were faced with a new problem in connection with the finds in 1924 by R. Dart in South Africa of a new creature, which he called Australopithecus. Excavations have been carried out in these areas for many years. Several varieties of Australopithecus have been found. Scientists have put forward various hypotheses about the place of Australopithecus in the evolutionary system. L. and M. Leakey managed to resolve the dispute, who in the Olduvai Gorge in 1959 found the remains of a massive australopithecine, and the next year another skull that belonged to an elegant type and had more human features than the skulls of the Australopithecus of South Africa. The age of the Olduvai finds was about 1.7-1.8 million years, and most importantly, primitive pebble tools were found there, that is, this man, called Homo habilis, or a skilled man, had been using them for a long time. Subsequent excavations yielded not only new finds of Homo sapiens, but also Pithecanthropus bones found in the overlying horizons. Thus, it became possible to trace the continuity of the line of development from Homo habilis to Pithecanthropus.

Quite a bit of time passed before new, no less important discoveries followed. The years from 1967 to 1977 are called the golden decade in paleoanthropology. In 1967, excavations began in the Omo Valley in Ethiopia. The American group was headed by K. Howell, the French by K. Arambour, and after his death by Yves Coppans, the Kenyan group by the son of M. and L. Leakey, Richard Leakey. The expedition members discovered the remains of hominids about 3 million years old, Homo habilis - 1.85 million years old and Pithecanthropus - about 1.1 million years old.

This was followed by excavations by R. Leakey in the region of Lake Turana (Rudolf) in Kenya, where they managed to find a well-preserved skull, somewhat older than the finds of Homo habilis in Olduvai. Its volume was equal to 773 cubic centimeters, and it exceeded the volume of the skull of a skilled man by 130 centimeters. The skull of a Pithecanthropus (Homo erectus) 1.5 million years old was also found there.

Even more surprising discoveries awaited scientists in the Afar Triangle, in the Hadar area northeast of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. From 1973 to 1976, a comprehensive international expedition led by D. Johanson conducted research here. More than 350 hominid bones have been found, ranging in age from 3 to 4 million years, including a well-preserved upper skeleton of a female, named Lucy. American anthropologists D. Johanson and T. White singled out Lucy and forms close to her into a special species Australopithecus afarensis and believe that this hominid, the most ancient and primitive of all known, was the ancestor of other species. Tools more than 2.5 million years old have been found in the same area.

Discoveries in recent years in Ethiopia and Kenya have sparked a lively discussion that continues to this day. Scientists face new challenges. So far, one thing is certain - of all the known finds of man and his first tools, the most ancient are African ones. But the final answer to the question of the ancestral home of man is still ahead.

E. White and D. Brown, popularizers of primitive archeology and paleoanthropology, drawing attention to the difficulty of finding the remains of ancient people, write: “The success of these first people, as they and their culture spread to the far reaches of the Old World, is a story , whose pages are found at a distance of many thousands of kilometers from each other. When the fragments of this story are collected together, its amazing content becomes clear. It is as if scientists have found many disparate couplets from the Odyssey, the heroic poem of the ancient Greek singer Homer, arranged them in the correct order and found out who Odysseus was, how he lived and where he went, wandering the seas.

At present, two points of view are most common. According to one of them, the birthplace of man is Africa, which, it would seem, is confirmed by the finds of Australopithecus there. According to another, it seems possible to include the regions of Southeast and South Asia in the area of ​​human development. Gustav Koenigswald, for example, stated: “I firmly believe that the earliest human ancestors came from Asia, where Ramapithecus lived about 10 million years ago. In Java, the remains of an early man (Pithecanthropus) were found next to the remains of one of the Australopithecus (Meganthropus). This is a very curious circumstance, which means that a similar situation existed on both sides of the Indian Ocean - both in Olduvai and in Sangiran. The distance from Java to India is approximately equal to the distance from India to Olduvai, that is, it can be assumed that the formation of man began in India.

The facts that science has today undoubtedly testify to the settlement of the regions of Southeast Asia by our ancient ancestors about a million years ago. In the last 10-15 years, not only in the south, but also in the north, in China, the remains of the culture of an ancient man, whose age is more than 700 thousand years, have been discovered. It was called Lantian, and it is much older than Sinanthropus. In 1983, the author managed to visit Zhoukoudian, to get acquainted with the finds of Chinese archaeologists. A particular impression was made by the tools of labor, about a million years old, found in the Nihevan horizons.

China is undoubtedly one of the areas from where ancient people could come to North Asia. But is it only China?

Back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, scientists put forward an original hypothesis about the Central Asian center of human origin.

Among the first to come to such conclusions in the 70s of the 19th century was the prominent Russian scientist, anthropologist and ethnographer D. Anuchin, who, already in his declining years, in 1922, a year before his death, published a special article in the journal Novy Vostok under characteristic title: "Asia as the ancestral home and teacher of man." His views were supported and developed by Academician P. Sushkin and Professor G. Debets. In their opinion, in this territory, due to a sharp rise in land, forests first of all began to disappear, as a result of which the great apes, our distant ancestors, were forced to descend from the trees to the ground and switch to a terrestrial way of life, which inevitably led to great changes in their body. Since there was less and less plant food with the disappearance of forests, our ancestors gradually switched to meat, which was obtained by hunting with the help of primitive tools.

Among foreign scientists, this idea was developed on the basis of the theory put forward by him about a single "center of dispersion" by the largest American paleontologist and archaeologist G. F. Osborn. From Central Asia, according to his theory, in the early geological epochs, the spread of mammals took place: to the west - to Europe and to the east - to America. Otherwise, it was impossible to understand why many animal species are so close to each other. They couldn't have arisen on their own, Osborn thought. The most suitable place for the "center of dispersion" between the continents was Central Asia. It was here, between the Himalayas and the Baikal Highlands, that, according to Osborne, one should have expected the discovery of the missing first links of evolution, including man himself. From this gigantic natural "cauldron of nature" his most ancient ancestors were to spread across the globe.

To confirm the hypothesis, in the 1920s, an American Central Asian expedition was sent to the depths of Mongolia under the leadership of a prominent biologist R. S. Andrews. The expedition included many prominent researchers from different countries: P. Teilhard de Chardin, E. Lissan, N. K. Nelson, V. Granger, G. P. Berki, F. K. Morris and others.

The expedition at that time was first-class equipped, although the very idea of ​​\u200b\u200bgoing to the Gobi Desert by car in those years was more adventurous than dictated by strict consideration of the situation and working conditions in a sparsely populated and poorly explored region of the globe. Nine vehicles worked on the expedition - one-ton Fultons and Detroit Dodges. A huge caravan of camels set off for the desert a month and a half or two months earlier with gasoline and oil for refueling cars.

Scientists have been working for several years. The participants of this large scientific enterprise managed to discover a significant number of fossil animals, including a giant cemetery of dinosaurs in the heart of Central Asia - the Gobi Desert in the area of ​​​​Baindzak (literally from the Mongolian "Rich Saxaul"), or Shabarak usu (from the name of the well "Clay water" ). At sunset, the rocky ridges here cast a bright cherry color, which is why they received the romantic name "Flaming Rocks". Almost complete skeletons of dinosaurs that inhabited the earth many tens of millions of years ago were found in Shabarak usu.

Despite the most thorough searches, the expedition failed to find not only a complete skeleton of an ancient great ape, which could be a direct ancestor of man, but not even a single bone of such an ape. The only thing that gave any hope for the discovery of such creatures was the tooth of the oldest fossil monkey - pliopithecus. But this is too little to speak seriously about Central Asia as the ancestral home of mankind.

In Baindzak, the expedition members collected tens of thousands of items of ancient man. Near the bonfires of the ancient inhabitants of the Gobi Desert, extinct thousands of years ago, chalcedony flakes and plates lay, according to the archaeologist Nelson, like “freshly fallen snow”, while Nelson dated these finds to the Mesolithic time, that is, not older than 10-12 thousand years.

The earliest finds discovered by scientists in the area of ​​lakes Tsagannur and Oroknur are also dated by Nelson to a relatively late time - the final stage of the Upper Paleolithic. The finds on Orok Nure were so numerous and unusual that they puzzled him, and he decided that this was most likely the work of nature itself, and not traces of human activity. After several years of work of the expedition, therefore, the question of the initial settlement of this territory by humans and its role in the development of human society continued to remain open.

A new stage in the study of the Stone Age of Mongolia began with the research of the outstanding archaeologist Academician A. Okladnikov. Already during his first expedition in 1949, he managed to discover about two dozen Paleolithic sites and settlements, the earliest age of which is about 30 thousand years. Since 1962, he and his collaborators have begun a systematic study of the Mongolian Stone Age. In the most diverse regions, they managed to find hundreds of locations, thanks to which the history of man in this territory deepens by 200-300 thousand years. New discoveries made it possible to answer many questions that worried scientists for many years, but they also gave rise to no less number of new problems and hypotheses... After many years of work, Okladnikov writes: human teacher, as D. N. Anuchin once wrote? Of course, it was not easy to part with such a tempting and familiar idea, which was developed by so many great men of science. But who knows, after all, what else the unexplored land of Mongolia and Tibet keeps in its bowels, what surprises it can bring us in the future in addition to those already received?

A few years ago, Soviet and Mongolian scientists were given the task of writing a generalizing multi-volume work on the Stone Age of Mongolia. To do this, it is necessary to re-examine all regions of Mongolia, paying main attention to the ancient river valleys and lake basins, where people mainly settled. If earlier our routes ran mainly through the most populated areas, now archaeologists will have to explore hard-to-reach areas that have not been explored in previous years for a number of years.

In 1983, field work was carried out on the territory of the Mongolian Altai in the Sagsay Gol, Uiguryn Gol, Tsagan Gol valleys and partly in the Kobdo River basin. It was possible to discover 59 new Paleolithic sites, including many unique ones, which made it possible to present the culture of ancient man in a brighter light. The results of the work barely fit into 26 printed sheets of text and drawings.

In 1984, we were to complete work in the Mongolian Altai and begin research in the Gobi Altai, a field work area in subsequent years. Two expedition vehicles with drivers V. Tikunov and S. Popov tested in many expeditions made it possible to work in two groups. Of course, joint work in hard-to-reach areas is more reliable, it guarantees against various unpleasant surprises, but simultaneous search by two independent groups is much more efficient and gives much better results.

On August 1, 1984, we arrived at Ulegei, the center of Bayai-Ulgiy aimag in the north of the Mongolian Altai. Longing for the cause, we lost no time and set off for the Kobdo River, at the mouth of the Bayan Gol, where last year we managed to open a large Paleolithic workshop. It was still light, and without setting up camps, everyone immediately got to work. The Kobdo Valley met us inhospitably: clouds of midges and mosquitoes fell upon us. There were so many of them that they literally clogged the nose, mouth, eyes. It was difficult to breathe and talk. Already late in the evening, over tart, fragrant expeditionary tea, with faces swollen from bites, but nevertheless, we were happy to discuss the results of the day: five new Paleolithic sites with a variety of inventory were found. During the conversation, someone did not fail to recall the words of one of the employees of our institute about how good it is for archaeologists, who, in addition to vacation, also have the opportunity to relax on the expedition. To be honest, I don't know any of my colleagues who would come back from the expedition rested. After everyday worries, large and small, related to work and life, late in the evening you think about a sleeping bag with a special feeling. In Mongolia, in search of ancient monuments, we had to walk 25-30 kilometers every day, moreover, under the close attention of midges, and in the south - under the merciless Gobi sun. But who can be happier than people who already at night, by the light of a fire, again and again look through the numerous tools of labor found during the day, made by man several tens of thousands of years ago?

The first day filled our hearts with confidence in luck. The next one gave four new sites and a meeting with Mongolian colleagues: the famous scientist D. Navan, a specialist in the Bronze Age, and a young employee of the Institute of History of the Mongolian People's Republic, Kh. Lkhvagvasuren, who flew in from Ulaanbaatar to work on the expedition. Together with them we discussed the plan for the year, and the next morning our expedition departed in two directions.

In this place, the Kobdo flows in a wide, up to 10 kilometers, valley. In ancient times, it was periodically flooded, forming terrace-like ledges dotted with pebbles. It was he who attracted the attention of the person. Roughly formed cores, flakes, and blades lay on an area of ​​several square kilometers. It was not even one gigantic workshop, but several. For a long time, a person came here, took a suitable pebble and first designed it in such a way that in the future it would be possible to chip off flakes and plates of the correct form from it, which were used to make tools. There were also well-designed tools: side-scrapers, cutting and chopping tools. Of particular interest was the place where the processed stones were concentrated in a dense mass. Without a doubt, it was here that the ancient masters worked most intensively. Further laboratory studies will probably make it possible to fully restore the process of making stone tools from the design of the core to the removal of blanks and their transformation into finished products.

Collections from these sites and workshops, and a total of 26 complexes were found along the right bank, allow a much more complete picture of the life and way of life of the ancient man of a vast region. But along with this, 27 kilometers northwest of the Bayan Nur somon, a site was discovered that was significantly different from all previously known complexes. The site was discovered on the left bank of a dry riverbed on the surface of an ancient deluvial plume in a basin, which was reliably protected from cold northern winds by a ridge of hills. A large number of knives, blades, scrapers, perfectly processed on both sides, were found here. This, apparently, is a special Upper Paleolithic culture previously unknown in Central Asia.

A more detailed survey of the left bank of the Kobdo yielded interesting results. Back in 1983, we came to the conclusion that the high mountain lakes were inhabited by humans mainly in the Neolithic. At the beginning of our route, we had to explore the huge Achit Nur basin. The shores of the lake were densely surrounded by granite rocks cut by time, above which towered high chains with snow-white caps, often merging with clouds. It is especially beautiful here in the evening, when the setting sun “kindles” a giant bonfire of granite rocks above the endless blue lake.

We walked dozens of kilometers along the coast, but only a few Neolithic settlements were found. Paleolithic items were very rare. Perhaps, indeed, in the Pleistocene, glaciers slid down from the high mountain ranges to the basin, making human life here almost impossible. But on the other hand, the river valley gave amazing finds. Ancient sites and settlements of the Middle and Upper Paleolithic were concentrated in clusters, a kind of nests, and also met in isolation in the most convenient places. An archaeologist, as a rule, does not search blindly. In order to find the remnants of human activity, especially of ancient times, in addition to experience and intuition, it is necessary to have an idea of ​​​​the ancient relief, to know where the rivers flowed at that time, the nature and time of accumulation of loose sediments, and much more. The modern hydro network is significantly different from the one that was tens, especially hundreds of thousands of years ago. And it is no coincidence that we find some parking lots on the modern bank of the river, while others are separated from it by hundreds of meters, and sometimes even kilometers.
I would like to note one feature of open sites: the mass nature of the finds. At one of the sites, located on the terrace in a surprisingly convenient place, we managed to find about 800 items of ancient man. The river in this place flows in a wide floodplain, enclosed by high cliffs. From the north, a terrace 10-12 meters high adjoins the rocks, reliably covered by them from cold winds. In the parking lot, several residential areas and places where stone processing took place were revealed. When pitting, it was possible to find finds lying in situ, that is, in a layer. The number of collections collected at the sites and workshops on the left bank was equal to the total number of finds of the last field season, although it was considered one of the most successful in all the years of work in Mongolia. And how many in the Kobdo valley we saw beautiful monuments of a later time: the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the early Middle Ages!

At the second stage of our expedition, one troupe was to explore the eastern regions of the south of the Mongolian Altai, the second - the southwestern and partially Gobi Altai. For myself, I chose the second route, and not in vain. The southwestern face of the Mongolian Altai gave us the rarest finds.

Mongolia is called the country of a thousand roads. Indeed, there are many roads. But, unfortunately, not all of them are good. From Manhan somon to Bulgan somon, a distance of 240 kilometers, we traveled for two days. I had to overcome several passes. Two of them are above three thousand meters. The road passes in some places along narrow canyons littered with blocks of stone after heavy rains, and in others along the riverbed. On all the passes in Mongolia there are obo - mounds of stones made in ancient times to appease the spirits. Both are growing from year to year, because every passing driver is sure to leave something: a stone, a broken part from a car, or even just money that no one will ever take. Our UAZ-452, battered in many expeditions, did not climb from one pass to another with difficulty. Exhausted by frequent stops and the thought that the car could crumble from antiquity at any moment, we must honestly admit that we also left something, not particularly believing the spirits, but just in case, It was cold and windy on the passes, Bulgan met us with heat. You could feel the hot breath of the Gobi.

Late in the evening of August 15, we stopped on the banks of the Wench River. Already setting up tents on a flat area - the remnant of the second terrace, we found the first finds. The next day, as always, early in the morning everyone went in different directions in search of ancient monuments. Approaching our small camp at two in the afternoon, I saw the head of the detachment, V. Petrin, who quickly walked towards me. Confusion was visible on his face, and I wondered if something had happened during our absence. With a voice trembling with excitement, he quickly began to talk about the discovery of an unusual settlement near the camp. Soon we were already climbing a steep 50-meter terrace, from which a beautiful view of the river valley opened. Petrin had every reason to be excited: large cores, plates, and tools lay compactly on a large platform. All of them had an unusual appearance. The surface of the products was covered with a deep crust of desert tan, eroded by corrosion - prolonged exposure to winds. Judging by the nature of the materials, this ancient settlement belonged to the Lower Paleolithic. Until late in the evening we collected and documented the finds.

Our route, about 1.5 thousand kilometers, later passed from the Altai soum of the Kobdo aimag to the Altai somon of the Gobi-Altai aimag and further to the Bayan-Under somon of Bayankhongor aimag along the Mongolian-Chinese border. There are hundreds of kilometers from one village to another. All the arats with herds are in the mountains, on summer pastures, and we often had to stray due to the lack of maps, all the time thinking about how not to cross the border. The June and July rains, unprecedented in these places, turned the roads into solid potholes, often they were crossed by completely fresh ravines with sheer walls. Therefore, we drove with great caution, and often only the great experience and professionalism of the driver V. Tikunov rescued us from trouble. But in the work all the hardships were forgotten. Every day brought new and new discoveries. We were lucky enough to find dozens of new camps, settlements and workshops on this route. The finds filled the body of our long-suffering UAZ, and we all thought what we would do with them, and new discoveries followed one after another. The most interesting area was the Baralgin Gola valley. Once upon a time, a full-flowing river flowed here (its valley is at least 10 kilometers wide). Now only the remains of coastal terraces testify to a powerful river flow. Rare semi-desert vegetation and saxaul cover the bottom of the ancient valley without a hint of any water body. At the entrance to the valley, like a guard, there is a large hill, where we decided to spend the night, having once again lost our way. It was getting dark. While we were setting up camp, I decided to take a little look around. Already a few tens of meters from the camp, finds began to be found. But when I climbed one of the flat hills, I could not believe my eyes: there were hundreds of rough-hewn, very ancient guns all around. After a careful examination of the finds by the light of a fire, no one had any doubts about their deep antiquity.

The next day gave us new amazing discoveries. In total, two Lower and one Middle Paleolithic complexes and a giant workshop were discovered in this area. There were so many finds (several thousand items) that they had to be carried in sleeping bag covers. Around huge cores, the weight of some of them reached several hundred kilograms, there were tens and hundreds of flakes and blades.

It is difficult to convey the feelings that we experienced, looking at the unique picture of the work of ancient masters. They left this workshop tens of thousands of years ago, but since that time everything has remained untouched. And it seemed that it was not the hot Gobi sun that warmed these stones, but the hands of our distant predecessors.

No less interesting were the finds at other sites. All work, despite the scorching heat, had to be completed during the day: we had one and a half buckets of water for six. Around for many tens of kilometers there is no housing, not a single source. And we don't know the way. Finished work at dusk. To our great regret, because of the overload, the machines could take with them only a few, the most expressive tools of the ancient man. In addition, it turned out that one fastening at the gearbox cover burst, and more than a thousand kilometers of road through the mountains and the desert lay ahead. In the days following our return to the camp, we were also lucky. Every day, more and more new Paleolithic complexes were discovered, which we only described, photographed, hoping to fully explore in the next field season.

At first glance, one might get the impression that anywhere in Mongolia you can find something of the most ancient. This is far from true. Every day we had to walk tens of kilometers, sometimes to no avail. When we entered the Bulgan Gol valley, amazingly beautiful and, it seemed, very promising places opened before us. For three days, carefully examining one hill after another, we found here only four very poor monuments: modern deluvial plumes completely covered the ancient surface. There were many other disappointments as well. But in general, the finds exceeded our expectations.

In total, during the field season, 104 Stone Age sites belonging to different eras, from the Lower Paleolithic to the Neolithic, were discovered. Thousands of artifacts of ancient man have been collected. The material is unique and rich. Even a brief description of the work within one month testifies to the great possibilities of searching for ancient complexes in Mongolia. Future research, of course, will help open new amazing pages in the history of the population and the development of ancient people in Central Asia.

Finds in Mongolia provide an opportunity to identify two trends in the technique of stone processing. The assemblages of western and southeastern Mongolia are characterized by choppers, choppings, points with a protrusion-thorn at one end, coarse pebble side-scrapers, cores with the simplest undermining of the impact platform and the removal of large flakes along the front. All products are distinguished by their archaic form and the minimal efforts of the ancient master in the design of the working blade. The surface of artifacts is covered with deep patina and corrosion.

The second direction, well represented at the site-workshop near Mount Yarkh in Central Mongolia, is characterized by products such as hand axes. It is important to note that these are not single specimens, but numerous series (oval, almond-shaped and subtriangular). Kernels similar in shape to Levallois and discoid were found here. The discovery of hand axes in Mongolia poses a very interesting problem for researchers.

The pebble technique in the Lower Paleolithic was considered traditional for Central and East Asia according to the hypothesis of the American scientist X. Movius. The discovery in recent years of complexes with axes in Korea (Chongokni), China (in the Fen River valley and other places), and Mongolia forces us to reconsider this point of view. Although the origins of the tradition of bifaces in the Early Paleolithic of Asia are still unclear, the presence in China of bilaterally worked objects in sites of the Kehe type and others dated to the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene, the discovery of Paleolithic sites in the early Pleistocene and Eopleistocene deposits does not exclude the convergent development of the technique of double-sided stone processing in Asia for a very long time. early stages.

The ancient tools found in the south of Siberia, in the Altai and in the Angara region also belong to the Lower Paleolithic, and they were made by an ancient man, the mud of Pithecanthropus or Sinanthropus. Man at that time already knew how to do a lot. M. Leakey also singled out special sites, the so-called "inhabited horizons", where a skilled person stopped for a long time. An even more striking discovery involves a ring about four and a half meters across, deliberately made of stones. It looks like a shelter, and now being built by the Okombambi tribes in Southeast Africa. First, a ring is laid out of stones, and then, at certain intervals, poles or branches are fixed with stones, which make up a light frame, which is covered with skins or tufts of grass. Apparently, about two million years ago, our distant ancestors already knew how to build such shelters from bad weather.

Man early got acquainted with fire and learned to use it. During excavations in Zhoukoudian, researchers discovered multi-meter layers of ash, and back in the thirties, some scientists put forward a bold assumption about the constant use of fire by Sinanthropes. At present, no one doubts this. Excavations of more ancient complexes in Kehe, Lantian, Xihoudu, Yuanlou established the presence of coals and burnt stones in the layers. It is very likely that our ancestors first began to use fire a million years ago, and perhaps even earlier. Fire rightfully belongs to one of the greatest discoveries of a person who got the opportunity to cook food, fight the cold and wild animals.

Serious trials fell on the lot of ancient man: during the anthropogenic period, there were several glaciations on earth, during which glaciers accumulated in the northern latitudes in the mountains, sliding into valleys and gradually covering vast areas. At this time in the tropics it became cooler and more rain fell. Ice ages were replaced by interglacials, when ice melted in the north, a warmer climate than at present was established, and long droughts began in the tropics. The alternation of glacial and interglacial periods could not but affect the pace and direction of human settlement. The process of settling in new areas was very slow, and it cannot be represented as a directed migration of ancient populations.
An analysis of the Lower Paleolithic complexes of East and Central Asia shows that there were both general trends in stone processing and a certain peculiarity in certain groups of localities. Most likely, this indicates that at that time the territories north of 40 degrees north latitude were not completely inhabited by humans, but there was some localization and isolation of ancient populations. However, the localization of ancient centers of settlement in the Lower Paleolithic era does not mean at all that the groups of people were then completely isolated from each other. Moreover, we cannot deny the direct infiltration of other groups of ancient people from adjacent territories. The great originality in the specification of the stone industries of man at the early stages is a reflection of the process of settlement of individual groups.

The spread of ancient people into new areas occurred gradually, as a result of an increase in their population. So, for a long time in the Lower Paleolithic, people settled in more and more new areas, including the northern ones. And somewhere towards the end of the middle - the beginning of the Upper Pleistocene, and maybe even earlier, a person settled the southern part of Siberia and the Far East. Apparently, these could be some small groups of people who left behind pebble complexes. For example, relatively small spaces separate the Amur basin from the area of ​​settlement of ancient archanthropes in Northern China. Taking into account the fact that human life during the entire Paleolithic was determined by hunting for wild animals that migrated over considerable distances, including to the north, the possibility of human appearance in the south of the Far East is also quite probable. The natural and ecological conditions for this in the middle Pleistocene were quite favorable.

We don't have any hard evidence, of course. Much remains to be done to finally solve such a serious problem. Even the pebble products themselves require careful verification in terms of their artificial origin. This requires new searches, the discovery of new sites with clear stratigraphic conditions and the presence of not only a large number of artifacts themselves, but also, which is especially important, the possibility of establishing a broader specificity of the tools themselves. The variety of items from the Lower Paleolithic complexes testifies to a large typological and functional division of labor tools at the indicated time, which has not yet been established in the sites of Altai, the Angara and Amur basins. The question of the dating of the localities themselves also remains open.

Subsequent studies in the south of Siberia allow more complete coverage of these problems. But even now we can state the fact that the initial settlement of this territory by an ancient man apparently occurred very early - in the Lower Paleolithic.

How did the development of the culture of ancient man in Siberia proceed in the future? This question is far from rhetorical. The oldest man, such as Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus, is being replaced by a new creature - a paleoanthropist, or Neanderthal. Until recently, in Siberia there were no known monuments left by Neanderthals related to the Mousterian culture. Over the past 10-15 years, a number of caves related to the Mousterian time have been discovered and explored in Altai. The most important and interesting caves are Strashnaya, Denisovaya, Kaminnaya, Okladnikova and others.

The terrible cave is located northeast of the village of Tigirek, at the confluence of the Tigirek and Ini rivers. Its height above the level of the modern floodplain is about 40 meters. The structure of the cave is simple, horizontal, 20 meters long. The floor is flat earthen with small fragments of limestone scattered sparsely. The average width of the course is 2-3 meters. There is a significant expansion in the far part of the cave. The total floor area is about 80 square meters.

Stratigraphic pits, later turned into small excavations, were dug to a depth of 11 meters. Six geological horizons and three cultural horizons with a thickness of 6.2 meters have been identified, containing numerous stone tools and fauna remains, but in general, starting from a depth of 6 meters and up to the top, there is a surprisingly consistent uniformity both in the forms of stone tools and in technology. their manufacture.

The main feature of the industry is the use of river pebbles, igneous rocks, as well as quartzites and occasionally siliceous shales as feedstock. Among the cores there are pebble cores that retain very archaic features, when massive flakes (rough with a massive impact tubercle) were chipped from pebbles almost without prior preparation. Pebble cores are still a relic element. Most of the cores are carefully designed and form well-defined typological groups. The bulk of the cores have the features of a well-pronounced Devallois technique. One side, the shearing front, is leveled and flattened. The opposite surface is convex. The platforms at the cores are carefully worked out and are always beveled with respect to the long axis. The cores of the Levallois tradition are one- and two-platform. Long plates of the correct form were removed from them. The third type of nuclei is discoid. Flakes were chipped from them from the edge to the center.

Among the finds in the Strashnaya cave, large plates, elongated triangular in plan, stand out. A third of the inserts have retouching along the edges - an additional fine adjustment to sharpen the cutting surface. Some plates were used without additional processing. Among the tools of interest are pointed points, knives, scraper-like tools, side-scrapers. All material has clearly defined Levallois-Mousterian features. The layer completely lacks the prismatic and conical cores characteristic of the developed phase of the Upper Paleolithic of Siberia. Radiocarbon date based on a bone sample taken from the upper horizon of the third layer, more than 45 thousand years.

In recent years, one of the main objects of our research is Denisova Cave. She, according to some scientists, was visited in 1926 by an outstanding Russian scientist, artist N. Roerich. The well-known Indologist L. Shaposhnikova believes that in one of his paintings Roerich used a sketch made near Denisova Cave.

The cave is located in a beautiful place, among the rocks, steeply descending into the narrow valley-canyon of the Anui River. The village of Black Anuy is located 6 kilometers from the cave. During excavations in the cave, 22 cultural horizons were identified. Thirteen of them are Paleolithic. Three major Japanese scientists took part in the excavations of the cave in 1984 - professors K. Kato, S. Kato, T. Serizawa. The cave itself, the stratigraphy, and the finds made a great impression on them. And this is no coincidence, because in North and Central Asia there are no sites like this one yet, which allows us to trace the dynamics of the types of stone tools, the technique of their manufacture over a long period of time. Further excavations of the Denisova Cave will certainly make it possible to create a standard chronological and typological scale for a vast region of the Asian continent.

But even now it can be said with certainty that the lower horizons of the cave belong to the late stage of the Mousterian culture. The finds of the overlying layers can be dated to the final Mousterian and the initial stage of the Upper Paleolithic. It is very important that the closest genetic connection between the Mousterian industry and the Upper Paleolithic is traced here. This situation is observed in North and Central Asia for the first time so vividly and convincingly.

1984 gave further confirmation of this. In May, the author, with the participation of Doctor of Historical Sciences V. Molodin, discovered a new cave near the village of Sibiryachikha, Soloneshensky District, Altai Territory. The cave turned out to be nameless, and it was named after Academician Okladnikov. It opens into a wide valley, where a small river Sibiryachonok is currently flowing timidly. It opens with a small grotto 8 meters wide and 2.5 meters high. The area of ​​the grotto is about 20 square meters. The first small pit, laid in the cave, immediately yielded interesting finds: stone tools, bones of Pleistocene animals, testifying to great antiquity.

After some hesitation, despite the busy summer expedition work schedule, it was decided to start excavating the cave. Two talented young scientists V. Petrin and S. Markin took part in the excavations. The excavations were carried out carefully. After viewing, all the soil went down and washed out so as not to miss a single find, no matter how small it was. The results of the work were stunning. Three cultural horizons were identified in the cave. Two Mousterian and one, upper, - the initial stage of the Upper Paleolithic. The finds from the last horizon had much in common with the underlying ones in terms of basic indicators, which also indicates a genetic connection between the Mousterian and the Upper Paleolithic.

In the full sense, the discovery of the remains of two individuals of Neanderthals turned out to be sensational (the definition of Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences V. Alekseev). In North and Central Asia, they were found for the first time. Now the fact of the settlement of Neanderthals in this area has undoubtedly been proven. And the connection of its industry with the industry of the Upper Paleolithic man, in turn, is a weighty argument in favor of including these areas in the area where the formation of a man of a modern physical type took place.

Continuity in the development of the industry of the Late Mousterian and Upper Paleolithic complexes can be traced not only in caves, but also in the open sites of Altai. Subsequent research will provide a more complete answer to many questions that arise in connection with the hypothesis about the possibility of the formation of Homo sapiens in Siberia. On the way from Mongolia in 1985, I visited the upper Lena near the village of Makarov at the excavations conducted by M. Aksenov, G. Medvedev and other Irkutsk archaeologists. They also managed to trace the continuity in the development of the industry in complexes of 40-50 thousand years. This, of course, does not mean that the formation of the Upper Paleolithic complexes in Siberia is associated only with an older culture. The man of the Upper Paleolithic, apparently, came here from other regions of our country. It is possible that the Maltese culture was left by a man who came here from the West. The task of archaeologists is to fully restore the complex picture of the improvement and development of human culture.

Homo sapiens, of course, had a higher and more developed culture, which allowed him to move uncontrollably after the herds of wild animals. He went further and further into new areas rich in game. Among such areas, the most convenient for the settlement of hunting tribes, were the valleys of the Lena, Aldan, Zeya, Amur rivers.

More recently, new Paleolithic settlements have been discovered by scientists in the southern regions of Siberia - near Tomsk, in Altai, in the Yenisei valley near Krasnoyarsk, on the Angara near Irkutsk and beyond Baikal - in the valley of the Selenga River. Already in the remote past, at least 35-30 thousand years ago, the ancient hunting tribes began to explore the north, descending along the valley of the Lena River farther and deeper to the north, closer to the Arctic Ocean.

The settlement of ancient people along the Angara and in the regions adjacent to it was, of course, slow and lengthy. It took a long time before primitive people reached the Urals in the west and the Yenisei and Angara in the east.

It must have taken even longer for them to penetrate the upper and middle Lena. The areas inhabited by wandering hunters probably remained here for a long time as small isolated islands, lost among the wild and hostile nature of the North.

Nevertheless, the historical merit of the first inhabitants of Siberia is indisputable. It was they, the pioneers of the North, who, in pursuit of mammoths and rhinos, herds of reindeer and bulls, were the first to discover this completely new country for humans, trodden the first paths on its virgin soil and kindled their hearths, laying the foundation for the further development of culture and the conquest of boundless spaces by man. North. A. Okladnikov called them "Eskimos" of the Ice Age in his book "The Discovery of Siberia".

Man at that time not only created the original culture of mammoth and reindeer hunters, but also left behind first-class examples of primitive art. During excavations on the Angara, amazing sculptures and carvings of animals, snakes, birds, as well as sculptures of women and jewelry were discovered that amaze researchers with the skill and liveliness of execution. More than 20 female figurines, that is, almost half of the "world stock" of similar products of Paleolithic sculptors, were given by Malta and Buret. Now it became clear that in Siberia of that time, on the banks of the Angara and Baikal, there was a powerful center of the original artistic culture. This culture was on the same level as the simultaneous centers of Paleolithic art in Western Europe.

Judging by the samples found in Malta and Bureti, the art of Siberia is basically realistic, filled with echoes of real life. The richness with which it is presented in archaeological finds also has its grounds in the conditions of the real life of people of that time. Just like the Eskimos, settled Chukchi and Koryaks of the recent past, the ancient inhabitants of Malta and Bureti, who lived in the conditions of the Arctic nature, obviously had enough food and free time in winter to engage in artistic carving. In winter, when a blizzard raged all around and mountains of snow lay, this work could serve them as entertainment and recreation. In addition, first-class carving material was at their disposal in abundance: mammoth tusks and animal bones, as well as soft stone, which itself asked for the hands of masters. Apparently, this is precisely why plastic art developed so magnificently here, anthropomorphic images of animals and birds are so numerous.

The ancient inhabitants of the taiga expanses of Siberia were not only excellent sculptors, but also graphic painters. Remarkable discoveries of the art of the Stone Age are associated with the study of hand-written rocks near the ancient Russian village of Shishkina on the Lena River.

In the spring of 1929, in the early sunny morning, two young travelers, both romantics, Alyosha Okladnikov and Misha Cheremnykh, pushing a fragile wooden boat sewn with willow roots off the shore, sailed after the ice along a stormy mountain river awakened from hibernation. Born in the mountains, it slowly gained its strength and power from countless mountain streams, which, merging, gave rise to one of the majestic rivers of the Asian continent.

Day after day passed, hope changed to disappointment. Finally, behind the next turn, the village of Shishkin appeared. Behind the old mill, where the river nestled close to the rocks, the travelers decided to land on a low terrace. The first minutes are the first successes. Human bones protruded from the cliff under the rocks. Not knowing fatigue, the guys dismantled layer by layer until they completely opened the ancient burial place of a hunter. Beside him lay carefully crafted arrowheads made of stone, loose blades for a bone dagger made of translucent chalcedony.
The necropolis of the ancients gave other, sometimes unexpected discoveries. The most interesting thing is the burial of two children in one grave. The skeletons lay nearby. Perhaps they were brothers. Bone awls were put into their hands, and bone knives with sharp flint blades inserted into the grooves lay on their ribs. “Over the common grave of the kids, it seemed, the shadows of their loved ones still stood invisibly, in whose eyes the sadness of separation froze ...” Burials could tell a lot to an inquisitive mind about beliefs and rituals that existed several thousand years ago.

One day, one of the locals told them that there were many drawings on the rocks nearby. We decided to look at these rocks, and when we climbed a steep slope overgrown with shrubs, vertical walls of dark red sandstone opened before them. Numerous images of animals, birds, and fish were inscribed on many rocks with a precise, skillful hand. The drawings seemed to have no end.

Ignoring the thorny bushes, the tangles of angry muzzle snakes, Okladnikov, as if spellbound, walked along the rocks and admired the amazing scenes from the life of primitive man. He remembered the yellowed sheets from Miller's famous briefcases, which showed several drawings from the Shishkinsky rocks. The father of Siberian history, as Academician G. Miller was called, was sent to Siberia by the leader of the first Kamchatka expedition. For several years, the participants of the expedition, on the project of which Peter I worked, conducted research in Kamchatka, Yakutia, Eastern and Western Siberia and collected extremely interesting material on the history and ethnography of the peoples of Siberia, the history of the development of this region by Russians. Some of the materials were published by Miller and other members of the expedition, but most of them were kept in the archives of the Academy of Sciences on Vasilyevsky Island in Leningrad.

The painter Lyursenius, on behalf of Miller, who learned about hand-written stones from the indigenous people, made several copies. But the drawings did not make much of an impression on Miller. And they were forgotten for a long time.

In 1941, during his second expedition to the Shishkinsky rocks, once again passing by the rocks, Okladnikov suddenly noticed on one plane cracked and whitened from time to time, a strip of red paint barely visible under the oblique rays of the setting sun. The paint from time, rains and snow has faded so much that it almost merged with the background of the rock, and only an experienced eye could detect it, and even then under certain lighting conditions. Okladnikov, restraining his excitement, went up to the rock, moistened with water the place where the line of the drawing appeared, and clearly saw a horse's tail, widely loose at the bottom and even slightly wavy. There was no doubt - this is a drawing. There was no doubt that it was made, judging by its appearance, much earlier than all other drawings on the Shishkinsky rocks.

It took a long time to conjure this drawing before the conviction came that the entire composition, applied many thousands of years ago, was completely restored. In front of the archaeologists, illuminated by the bright July sun, a unique and, probably, the most ancient of all the drawings on the Shishkinsky rocks, the image of a horse appeared. The artist’s experienced hand boldly and confidently conveyed the real features of a wild horse with one sweeping contour line: its heavy, almost square body, characteristic hook-nosed head, massive drooping belly, short thick legs covered with long thick hair, and a long magnificent tail. Only the famous Przewalski's horse could look like this, miraculously surviving in the depths of Central Asia until the 20th century.

The image in its realistic manner of execution resembled prehistoric drawings of horses from the famous Paleolithic caves of Western Europe. Comparing Shishkin's drawing of a wild horse with other prehistoric drawings, Okladnikov noted a striking resemblance to the images of the horses of Pindal and Costillo (Spain), Font-de-Gaume and Lascaux (France). The realism of the drawing and the manner of execution testified to the antiquity of this image. The ancient artist made an almost life-size depiction of a horse, in a sparing contour line, just as similar drawings were made by the Paleolithic artists of Spain and France during the Ice Age. All other images of horses on the Shishkinsky rocks, relating to a later period, are made in a completely different manner. The deep antiquity of the drawing was also confirmed by the fact that the surface of the rock where the image was made was so weathered and suffered from time that it turned white and swelled with bubbles. The rock itself cracked, and its lower part sagged heavily, from which the lines of the drawing shifted somewhat. The image is made with light red paint, heavily faded from time to time. In the future, this conclusion was confirmed by new discoveries.

Six years have passed, and in the immediate vicinity of the first image, while carefully examining the rock, archaeologists managed to find another drawing of a horse. It is made in the same manner and, in fact, was like a copy of the first image. The paint faded and merged with the background of the rock so much that a lot of effort had to be spent before it was possible to trace the entire composition.

In the same year, the Shishkinsky rocks presented scientists with a third drawing of the same style and the same deep antiquity. On one of the planes, an oblique line of weathered and faded red paint was first found. When carefully washing the rock at the end of this strip, a clearly traced wide brush was suddenly discovered. Then came the torso of the beast, legs and head. From the depths of the rock, as unexpectedly as the first two drawings of horses, another new representative of the disappeared animal world of distant eras emerged. This time, a wild bull appeared before the researchers, depicted in the same stylistic manner and with the same techniques as the first Paleolithic figures of horses. The ancient artist was able to skillfully convey not only the general appearance of the massive figure of the animal, but also its characteristic pose. The drawing is filled with formidable and heavy primordial power. The extended tail, the head lowered down and the steep hump at the transition from the neck to the back reinforce this impression. The animal is full of Irresistible internal energy and striving forward. This drawing also had many similarities with the well-known images of bulls in Spain. The bull from Shishkin is as distant a northern colleague of the remarkable bulls of Altamira in Spain as Shishkin's horses are the counterparts of the horses of the cave paintings of the Franco-Cantabrian region of the ancient Stone Age. It is interesting that, despite the colossal spaces separating the valley of the Lena River and the Pyrenees, not only the most general correspondence between the monuments of Paleolithic art, but also some closer matches can be established.

The discovery of the Ice Age drawings on the Lena has illuminated the history of Siberian art in a completely new way. Firstly, the deep regions of Siberia, it turns out, were inhabited by man at an unexpectedly early time, and secondly, the ancient people who settled in the taiga and forest-tundra had a sense of beauty, artistic taste. Fine artists and sculptors left behind unique masterpieces of primitive art, contributed their share to world art at the dawn of mankind. Finds in Malta, Bureti, drawings in Shishkin once again confirmed the important idea that the same laws of development of thinking and consciousness are characteristic of human society, regardless of where the groups settled: in the steppe and forest-steppe landscapes of Spain or France, the vast expanses of Central Asia or Siberia. A man who broke away from the animal world, slowly, gradually, but surely took his first steps in art, which then embodied in the immortal masterpieces of Hellenic art, the Renaissance and our present day.

Discoveries of ancient art in Siberia were not limited to finds only in Malta, Buret and Shishkin. Mysterious finds were recently made by Doctor of Historical Sciences V. Larichev at the Paleolithic settlement of Malaya Syya in Khakassia. During the excavations, bones of fossil animals were found: reindeer, argali, ibex, bison, mammoth and rhinoceros. The inventory of the Little Son is varied. Here are end scrapers made of plates with a steep and high working edge, and plates with wide recesses on the sides, and spearheads made of bones, incisors, piercings and engraving tools, knives and other tools and weapons.

Much controversy was caused by the art of the Little Son. According to Larichev, this settlement presents samples related to "mobile art" or "art of small forms." He distinguishes the following main characteristic types for them: sculpture, bas-relief, engraving, engraving or a kind of “chasing” with fine or coarse retouching, and picturesque images made on the surface of a stone with mineral paint. For coloring, paints of various shades of red (from yellowish red to bright crimson), as well as yellow, black and even green, were used.

The art of Malaya Siya is characterized not only by the variety of types, but also by the distinctly expressed originality of the technical methods with which the artists designed their products. Sculptural and bas-relief images, made in stone by upholstering, were supplemented with engraving, embossing and, in most cases, painted with paint during their final finishing and decoration of the most significant details.

The attitude of specialists to the art of Malaya Siya is far from unambiguous. A number of scientists believe that many items that are classified as works of art are random. But the point of view that art is completely absent in this settlement is not entirely correct. Individual things convince of the authenticity of the images, subsequent research on this interesting monument will allow us to answer the question more definitely. Malaya Siya is one of the oldest monuments in Western Siberia. Its date on the basis of radiocarbon analysis is about 30 thousand years.
The art of the first Siberians is characterized by one important feature. For the first time in the 60s, the young, then still novice scientist B. Frolov drew attention to this. Studying ornamental motifs on finds from Malta and Mezin on the Desna, he came to the conclusion that there are certain patterns in the rhythm of their construction and application to the object, which are expressed in the repetition of ornamental details the same number of times. To find out how natural the presence of numerical rhythms in the art of the Paleolithic, he began to consider ornamental motifs found on art objects and from other Paleolithic monuments. He developed a special method of analysis, excluding the possibility of subjective or random judgments about the rhythmic "framework" of ornaments. Frolov tested and expressed statistically all the ways of alternating ornamental elements in the collections of Paleolithic graphics collected in the USSR, primarily in such large complexes as Malta and Buret in Siberia, Kostenki, Avdeevo, Mezin on the Russian Plain. The results turned out to be largely unexpected and forced us to assume not only the knowledge of the systematic account of the prehistoric masters - the creators of the ornament, but also its application in the simplest observations of cyclic processes in nature.
Initially, it was found that the general rule for ornamented figurines is the central role of rhythms 7, 5 and 10, which were present on the vast majority of ornamented items in Malta. It is impossible to explain this combination, confirmed by examples from other collections of Paleolithic art, by a coincidence. Moreover, such a combination was observed in monuments that were far apart from each other. The number seven is the duration of each of the four phases of the moon (seven days). In addition, this is the number of visible stars of Ursa Major, as well as "wandering" luminaries moving relative to the stars and visible to the naked eye: the Sun, Moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury; the named luminaries were deified, and one day of the week was dedicated to each of them among many ancient peoples (Babylon, China and others); this number is also associated with the counting of time by seven-day weeks and the huge role of the "sacred" number seven among many peoples of the world.

Further research led Frolov to the idea of ​​the proximity of individual ornaments in their semantic meaning to the traditions of different calendar systems and the ability of the Maltese and Mezins and their contemporaries to take into account the time according to the Sun, the Moon in different ways, and finally, to find certain forms of transition from one method to another.

In the Paleolithic, the beginnings of not only counting can be traced, but also geometric ideas about the abundance of shapes: a circle, a ball, a square, a rectangle, a meander, a spiral, etc., which were used by people of that era. All this leads to the conclusion that even in ancient times, man, mastering nature, came close to the level from which the flowering of mathematics and other sciences begins at a later time in the agricultural civilizations of the ancient world.

Russian pioneers of Siberia in the 17th century

Very little documentary evidence has survived about the very first explorers of the 17th century. But already from the middle of this “golden age” of the Russian colonization of Siberia, “expedition leaders” compiled detailed “skats” (that is, descriptions), a kind of reports on the routes taken, the open lands and the peoples inhabiting them. Thanks to these "tales", the country knows its heroes and the main geographical discoveries that they made.

Chronological list of Russian explorers and their geographical discoveries in Siberia and the Far East

Fedor Kurbsky

In our historical mind, the first "conqueror" of Siberia is, of course, Yermak. It became a symbol of the Russian breakthrough to the eastern expanses. But it turns out that Yermak was not the first at all. 100 (!) years before Yermak, the Moscow governors Fyodor Kurbsky and Ivan Saltykov-Travin entered the same lands with troops. They followed a path that was well known to the Novgorod "guests" and industrialists.

In general, the entire Russian north, the Subpolar Urals and the lower reaches of the Ob were considered the Novgorod patrimony, from where the enterprising Novgorodians “pumped” precious junk for centuries. And the local peoples were formally considered Novgorod vassals. Control over the vast wealth of the Northern Territories was the economic basis for the military seizure of Novgorod by Moscow. After the conquest of Novgorod by Ivan III in 1477, not only the entire North, but also the so-called Yugra land, went to the Moscow principality.

The dots show the northern route that the Russians followed to Yermak

In the spring of 1483, the army of Prince Fyodor Kurbsky climbed the Vishera, crossed the Ural Mountains, went down the Tavda, where he defeated the troops of the Pelym principality - one of the largest Mansi tribal associations in the Tavda river basin. Going further to the Tobol, Kurbsky ended up in the "Siberian Land" - that was the name of a small area in the lower reaches of the Tobol, where the Ugric tribe "Sypyr" had long lived. From here, the Russian army passed along the Irtysh to the middle Ob, where the Ugric princes successfully “fought”. Having collected a large yasak, the Moscow detachment turned back, and on October 1, 1483, Kurbsky's squad returned to their homeland, having covered about 4.5 thousand kilometers during the campaign.

The results of the campaign were the recognition in 1484 by the "princes" of Western Siberia of dependence on the Grand Duchy of Moscow and the annual payment of tribute. Therefore, starting from Ivan III, the titles of the Grand Dukes of Moscow (later transferred to the royal title) included the words " Grand Duke Yugorsky, Prince Udorsky, Obdorsky and Kondinsky.

Vasily Suk and n

He founded the city of Tyumen in 1586. On his initiative, the city of Tobolsk was founded (1587). Ivan Suk and he was not a pioneer. He was a high-ranking Moscow rank, governor, sent with a military detachment to help Yermakov's army to "finish off" Khan Kuchum. He laid the foundation for the capital arrangement of Russians in Siberia.

Cossack Penda

Discoverer of the Lena River. Mangazeya and Turukhansky Cossack, a legendary figure. He came out with a detachment of 40 people from Mangazeya (a fortified prison and the most important trading point of Russians in North-Western Siberia (1600-1619) on the Taz River). This man made a campaign, unprecedented in its determination, thousands of miles across completely wild places. Legends about Penda were passed from mouth to mouth among the Mangazeya and Turukhansk Cossacks and fishermen, and came to historians in almost their original form.

Penda with like-minded people went up the Yenisei from Turukhansk to the Lower Tunguska, then for three years he walked to its upper reaches. I got to the Chechuy portage, where Lena comes very close to the Lower Tunguska. So, crossed the portage, he sailed down the Lena River to the place where the city of Yakutsk was later built: from where he continued his way along the same river to the mouth of the Kulenga, then along the Buryat steppe to the Angara, where, embarking on ships, through the Yeniseisk, the packs arrived in Turukhansk».

Petr Beketov

Sovereign's service man, voivode, explorer of Siberia. Founder of a number of Siberian cities such as Yakutsk, Chita, Nerchinsk. He came to Siberia voluntarily (he asked to be sent to the Yenisei jail, where he was appointed a shooter centurion in 1627). Already in 1628-1629 he participated in the campaigns of the Yenisei service people up the Angara. He walked a lot along the tributaries of the Lena, collected yasak, brought the local population under Moscow's control. He founded several sovereign jails on the Yenisei, Lena and in Transbaikalia.

Ivan Moskvitin

The first of the Europeans went to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. The first to visit Sakhalin. Moskvitin began his service in 1626 as an ordinary Cossack of the Tomsk prison. He probably participated in the campaigns of Ataman Dmitry Kopylov to the south of Siberia. In the spring of 1639 he set off from Yakutsk to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk with a detachment of 39 servicemen. The goal was the usual one - "the mine of new lands" and new obscure (that is, not yet taxed) people. Moskvitin's detachment went down the Aldan to the Mai River and seven weeks went up the May, six days went from May to the portage by a small river, they went one day by portage and reached the Ulya river, eight days went down the Ulya with a plow, then, having made a boat to the sea, sailed for five days.

Results of the campaign: The coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk was discovered and explored for 1300 km, the Uda Bay, Sakhalin Bay, the Amur Estuary, the mouth of the Amur and Sakhalin Island. In addition, they brought with them to Yakutsk a large prey in the form of fur yasak.

Ivan Stadukhin

The discoverer of the Kolyma River. He founded the Nizhnekolymsky prison. He explored the Chukotka Peninsula and was the first to enter the north of Kamchatka. Passed on the cochs along the coast and described one and a half thousand kilometers of the northern part of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. He kept records of his "circular" trip, described and drew up a drawing-map of the places of Yakutia and Chukotka, where he visited.

Semyon Dezhnev

Cossack chieftain, explorer, traveler, navigator, explorer of Northern and Eastern Siberia, as well as a fur trader. Participated in the opening of Kolyma as part of the detachment of Ivan Stadukhin. From Kolyma, on horseback, he traveled across the Arctic Ocean along the northern coast of Chukotka. 80 years before Vitus Bering, the first European in 1648 crossed the (Bering) Strait separating Chukotka and Alaska. (It is noteworthy that V. Bering himself did not manage to go through the entire strait, but had to confine himself to only its southern part!

Vasily Poyarkov

Russian explorer, Cossack, explorer of Siberia and the Far East. The discoverer of the Middle and Lower Amur. In 1643 46 he led a detachment that was the first Russian to penetrate the Amur River basin and discover the Zeya River and the Zeya Plain. Gathered valuable information about the nature and population of the Amur region

1649-1653

Erofey Khabarov

A Russian industrialist and entrepreneur, he traded furs in Mangazeya, then moved to the upper reaches of the Lena, where from 1632 he was engaged in buying up furs. In 1639, he discovered salt springs on the Kut River and built a vat, and then contributed to the development of agriculture there.

In 1649-53, with a detachment of eager people, he made a trip along the Amur from the confluence of the Urka River into it to the very lower reaches. As a result of his expedition, the Amur indigenous population accepted Russian citizenship. He often acted by force, which left a bad reputation among the indigenous population. Khabarov compiled a “Drawing on the Amur River”. The Khabarovka military post founded in 1858 (since 1893 - the city of Khabarovsk) and the railway station Erofey Pavlovich (1909) are named after Khabarov.

Vladimir Atlasov

Cossack Pentecostal, clerk of the Anadyr prison, "an experienced polar explorer", as they would say now. Kamchatka was, one might say, his goal and dream. The Russians already knew about the existence of this peninsula, but none of them had yet penetrated the territory of Kamchatka. Atlasov, using borrowed money, at his own risk organized an expedition to explore Kamchatka in early 1697. Taking an experienced Cossack Luka Morozko, who had already been in the north of the peninsula, into the detachment, he set out from the Anadyr prison to the south. The purpose of the campaign was traditional - furs and the accession of new "unclaimed" lands to the Russian state.

Atlasov was not the discoverer of Kamchatka, but he was the first Russian who traveled almost the entire peninsula from north to south and from west to east. He compiled a detailed "tale" and a map of his journey. His report contained detailed information about the climate, flora and fauna, as well as the amazing sources of the peninsula. He managed to persuade a significant part of the local population to come under the authority of the Moscow Tsar.

For the annexation of Kamchatka to Russia, Vladimir Atlasov, by decision of the government, was appointed there as a clerk. The campaigns of V. Atlasov and L. Morozko (1696-1699) were of great practical importance. These people discovered and annexed Kamchatka to the Russian state, laid the foundation for its development. The government of the country, represented by Tsar Peter Alekseevich, already then understood the strategic importance of Kamchatka for the country and took measures to develop it and consolidate it on these lands.

Russian travelers and pioneers

Again Travelers of the Age of Discovery

Primary school teacher

GBOU secondary school No. 947

Nikolaeva Yulia Alekseevna

ABSTRACT

history lesson

held in 3rd grade

on the topic "Russian pioneers.

Geographic location of Asia.

Topic: Russian pioneers. Geographical position of Asia»

Tasks:

Educational: expand our understanding of the world around us; introduce the conqueror of Siberia - Yermak, the discoverer Nikitin.

Educational: cultivate love for the subject.

Developing: develop the ability to observe, draw conclusions.

Equipment:

Physical map of Russia

Presentation;

Cards;

Country name cards

Literature:

Lesson planning for the textbook N. Ya, Dmitrieva.

Board decoration

Physical

map

Russia

Stages

During the classes

Notes

I Organizational part

Hello guys! Have a seat.

II Statement of the problem

Today we will go on a very interesting journey with you and become real explorers. We will get acquainted with some Russian pioneers, as well as with the geographical position of Asia and the natural conditions on its territory. Guys, tell me, please, what is Asia? Well done. Indeed, Asia is one of the parts of the world on our planet. But before doing the research, let's formulate the questions we want to find answers to. Guys, what would you like to learn at the lesson today? (What was the name of the Russian pioneers? What territories did they discover? Where is Asia located? What does this part of the world look like on the map? What is the climate in Asia?...)

Well, we have formulated questions on the topic, and during the lesson we will try to answer all these questions.

Posting questions on the board

IV Discovery of new knowledge about Asia

Four centuries ago, to the east of the Ural Mountains, lands unknown to explorers lay. They said that behind the stone (as the Ural Mountains were called at that time) lies an immense land - go at least 2 years and you will not reach the end. In this region, there are untold riches: a lot of fur-bearing animals, fish, and in the icy Arctic Ocean - marine animals. Sable and arctic fox skins and walrus tusks were especially highly valued. And so, to the east, to the expanses of Siberia and the Far East, Russian people "capable of any work and military deed" went. These brave brave people who discovered new lands beyond the Ural Range were called pioneers. Even during the years of the Horde yoke, long-distance travels of Russian people did not stop. At that time, these lands were sparsely populated. And now, before you go on a journey with the pioneers, check how you know how to navigate.

Determine which side of the world is in relation to Moscow the White Sea, the Azov and Baltic Seas and the Pacific Ocean. Well done! What is hidden on the map behind the green, yellow and brown colors? (Plain, desert, mountains)

Novgorod played an important role in expanding the geographical knowledge of the Russian people (Slide 2). Over time, the path "from the Varangians to the Greeks" lost its meaning. Tell me, please, from which sea did this path go? (From Baltic to Black) Quite right! What was its purpose? (Trade route between Scandinavia, Northern Europe, Byzantium and Asia) Well done! As I said, this path has lost its meaning over time. Trade relations between Russia and Europe went through Novgorod and further along the Baltic Sea.

Novgorodians also paved the way to the North. First, they discovered the White Sea, on the islands of which the famous Solovetsky Monastery was founded. (Slide 3) It became the base for further travels. (Slide 4) Novgorodians on boats-ushkis went to the Barents Sea, and then along the coast, where on boats, where on dry land, they moved east (Slide 5) to the Kara Sea. Beyond the Urals, the Novgorodians found themselves in a part of the world that was unfamiliar to Russian people at that time - Asia. (Slide 6) In the north, travelers were met by harsh nature: a treeless swampy plain - tundra, a short summer with the sun not setting all day; (Slide 7) a long winter, when the polar night lasts for many months with fierce frosts and severe snowstorms. But the Novgorodians again and again sailed there in their small boats. They were attracted by the abundance of valuable fish, sea animals and fur-bearing animals. They also discovered many islands of the Arctic Ocean.

Listen to how the indigenous peoples - the Nenets - characterize their land: (Slide 8) “When visiting us, do not forget a fur hat, a warm coat and felt boots. We will ride reindeer and feed you deliciously cooked fish.”

(Slide 9) And to the south, to Palestine, where there are many shrines of the Orthodox Church, Russian priests traveled. It was also Asia - hot, dry, mountainous, alien to the Russian people, accustomed to the expanses of the plains.

(Slide 10) To the east, to Mongolia, during the time of the Horde yoke, Russian princes went to bow to the supreme Mongol khan. This is already the center of Asia, where steppes and deserts languish in summer from unbearable heat, and freeze in winter from unbearable cold.

Listen to how the indigenous peoples - the Mongols characterize their land: (Slide 11) “There is nothing better than our vast expanses. If you forgot your umbrella, do not be sad: rains in summer are rare here, but dry winds are a common thing.

And a completely different Asia was seen by the Tver merchant Afanasy Nikitin, who was the first of the Russian people, after a long journey along rivers, through seas, mountains and deserts, to reach India. (Slide 12) There he found himself among the luxurious tropical vegetation of the hot zone of the Earth. You will get to know this part of Asia a little later.

Listen to how the indigenous peoples - Indians characterize their land: (Slide 13) “Leave a heavy suitcase with clothes at home. It is hot over here! Still - it's not far from the equator! If you're lucky, a warm wind will blow from the sea and bring the long-awaited rain. And what amazing plants we have - (Slide 14) breadfruit, for example.

Now, guys, try to explain the reason for such different natural conditions in one part of the world - Asia? (Different natural areas)

Students on the physical map of Russia set flags on given objects

I use a presentation with a number of illustrations in the course of my story

VI Consolidation

Now, guys, we will check how well you have mastered the difference in natural conditions between different parts of the same continent - Asia. (Slide 15) Match the names of parts of Asia and their characteristics using arrows. You have 1 minute to complete the task. (Students complete the task) Well done guys! You did an excellent job. So we answered a few questions that we set ourselves at the beginning of the lesson: namely, the questions: Where is Asia? How does this part of the world look on the map? What is the climate in Asia?

Work on cards

VII Fizminutka

And now I'm going to ask you all to stand up. Listen to the words and repeat the movements after me.

Let's go on a hike.

How many discoveries are waiting for us!

We walk one after the other

Forest and green meadow.

(The teacher draws the attention of the children to beautiful butterflies flying across the clearing. The children run on their toes, waving their arms, imitating the flight of butterflies.)

We quickly went down to the river,

Bent over and washed.

One two three four,

That's how nicely refreshed.

(Hand movements are performed imitating swimming in different styles.)

VIII Introduction to new material

And we still have questions to which we have not yet found answers. Guys, what are these questions? Well done! And the first of them: what were the names of the Russian pioneers who participated in expanding knowledge about Asia and in its development. To find out who it is, solve very simple puzzles. Well done boys! You guessed it right - these discoverers are Afanasy Nikitin and Yermak Timofeevich. At that time, the land beyond the Urals was completely unknown. People had no idea what was there. Now this can be compared with our ideas about Mars. People had neither the appropriate equipment for studying, nor maps of Asia more or less corresponding to actual knowledge. However, people's interest led them to new discoveries. Since the 16th century, the annexation of Asian lands to Russia began. The first campaign was organized by a detachment of military Cossacks led by Ermak Timofeevich to the Urals. (Slide 16) The chronicle preserved the description of Yermak's appearance: medium height, broad-shouldered, flat-faced, black beard, thick, curly hair. And it was also reliably known that he was bold, decisive, smart and cunning. He gathered a detachment of the brave and established firm discipline among them. His squad invaded the territory of the Siberian Khanate and defeated the army of Khan Kuchum.

(Slide 18)Cossacks under the general command of Yermak, set out on a campaign for the Stone Belt () from. The initiative of this campaign belonged to Yermak himself.

It is important to note that at the disposal of the future enemy of the Cossacks, Khan Kuchum, there were forces that were several times superior to Yermak's squad, but armed much worse.

The Cossacks climbedup the Chusovaya and along its tributary, the river, to the Siberian portage separating the basins of the Kama and, and dragged the boats along the portage into the Zheravlya River (). Here the Cossacks were supposed to spend the winter. During the winter, Yermak sent a detachment of associates to explore a more southerly route along the Neiva River. But the Tatar Murza defeated Yermak's reconnaissance detachment.

Only in the spring, along the rivers Zheravl, and, sailed into. They broke twice, on the Tour and at the mouth. sent against the Cossacks, with a large army, but this army was also defeated by Yermak on the shore. Finally, on, near Chuvashev, the Cossacks inflicted a final defeat on the Tatars in. Kuchum left the notch that protected the main city of his khanate, Siberia, and fled south to the Ishim steppes.

Yermak entered Siberia, abandoned by the Tatars.

Yermak used the summer to conquer the Tatar towns and along the Irtysh and Ob rivers, meeting stubborn resistance everywhere.Yermak sent a messenger to Tsar Ivan the Terrible with the news of the conquest of new lands. This was also Asia. But again another Asia, where the taiga reigns. This part of Asia is called Siberia. You will get to know her a little later.

He received him very affectionately, gave rich gifts to the Cossacks and sent them reinforcements. The royals arrived at Yermak in the autumn of 1583, but their detachment could not deliver significant assistance to the Cossack squad, which had greatly diminished in battles. Atamans perished one by one.

Ermak Timofeevich himself also died.On that day, with only 50 Cossacks, he went to look for a caravan with food and provisions. Khan Kuchum managed to establish continuous observation of Yermak's detachment. At night, when the Cossacks fell asleep on the banks of the Irtysh, the Cossacks attacked them. Yermak fought to the last opportunity, then, under the pressure of dozens of enemies, he rushed into the water, trying to swim across the river. But the wound he received and heavy weapons pulled him to the bottom. Yermak is still one of the most revered heroes in the history of the Don Cossacks. They call him the conqueror of Siberia. There is no exact data on his origin, but all chronicles call him a Don Cossack.

And now, based on the map, answer me a few questions. From which city did Yermak's squad start the campaign to the Urals? Whose initiative was this performance? What river did they go up? Which tributary of the Chusovaya River did they move on? How did they get into the Zharovlya River? On what river did Yermak send his followers to explore the southern route? What happened to the squad? How many times did Yermak's squad defeat the detachments of the Siberian Tatars? Whose army defeated Yermak on the banks of the Tobol River? In what battle did Yermak's squad inflict a final defeat on the Tatars? Well done boys. I see that you have been listening to me carefully. And now we can move on to another pioneer.

As I said, a completely different Asia was seen by the Tver merchant Afanasy Nikitin, (Slide 19) who, after a long journey along rivers, through seas, mountains and deserts, reached the shores of India. Show me on a map, please. Well done! In his notebook, Nikitin wrote down everything that surprised him in foreign countries. He wrote about overseas birds, about palaces and temples.

“There are seven gates in the Sultan's palace. And a hundred watchmen are sitting at the gates ... And the palace is wonderful grand, all with carvings and gold. Each stone is carved and painted with gold ...

The Sultan leaves for fun with his mother and his wife. And with him ten thousand people on horseback, and fifty thousand on foot, and two hundred elephants dressed in gilded armor. And in front of him are a hundred trumpeters, and a hundred dancers, and three hundred horses in a golden harness, and a hundred monkeys behind him ... ”Nikitin marveled at everything - and dancers, and monkeys and elephants. “And to the elephants they bind to the snout and to the teeth great swords, two pounds forged, and dress them in damask armor, but all with cannons and arrows ...”

“But the monkeys live in the forest, yes they have a prince of monkeys, yes they walk with their army, but whoever touches them complains to their prince, and he sends his army to him. And they, having come to the city, will destroy the yards and beat people. And their rati, they say, are very many, and they have their own language.

(Slide 20) Nikitin was not destined to return home. He died not far from Smolensk. His diaries were delivered to the Grand Duke of Moscow, Ivan III.

At the presentation, a portrait of Afanasy Nikitin

IX Anchoring

And now, in order to analyze whether you have learned everything in the lesson, I suggest that you fill out a table. Pay attention to the board. Look at the table. Think about how you would fill it out. You can also use the reference words below the table. Let's start with Ermak ...

X Debriefing

So guys, what did we study today? What have you learned about Asia? What were the names of the pioneers that were discussed in today's lesson? What do you remember from their biography?

XI Reflection

Well done boys! Now look at your desks. Those who have 5 or more stars worked perfectly today. Those who have 3-4 stars worked well. And those who have 2 or less, I hope that next time you will be more active in the lesson.

XII Homework

Your homework will be to complete these tables now on your own. And our journey has come to an end. Thank you for your work. Goodbye!

Restore Compliance

North Asia

middle Asia

South Asia

“There is nothing better than our endless expanses. If you forgot your umbrella, do not be sad: rains in summer are rare here, but dry winds are a common thing.

“Leave a heavy suitcase full of clothes at home. It is hot over here! Still - it's not far from the equator! If you're lucky, a warm wind will blow from the sea and bring the long-awaited rain. And what amazing plants we have - breadfruit, for example.

“Going to visit us, do not forget a fur hat, a warm coat and felt boots. We will ride reindeer and feed you deliciously cooked fish.”

Fill the table.

Traveler's last name

Purpose of Travel

Traveler personality

Time travel

People's ideas about the space beyond the Urals in a given period of time

Travel results

Ermak

Nikitin