(c. 1605, Veliky Ustyug - early 1673, Moscow) - an outstanding Russian navigator, explorer, traveler, explorer of Northern and Eastern Siberia, Cossack ataman, as well as a fur trader, the first of the famous European navigators, in 1648, for 80 years earlier than Vitus Bering, he passed the Bering Strait, separating Alaska from Chukotka.
It is noteworthy that Bering did not manage to pass the entire strait, but had to limit himself to sailing only in its southern part, while Dezhnev passed the strait from north to south, along its entire length.

Biography

Information about Dezhnev has reached our time only for the period from 1638 to 1671. Born in Veliky Ustyug (according to other sources, in one of the Pinega villages). It is unknown when Dezhnev left there to “seek his fortune” in Siberia.

In Siberia, he first served in Tobolsk and then in Yeniseisk. Among the great dangers of 1636-1646, he “humbled” the Yakuts. From Yeniseisk in 1638 he moved to the Yakut fort, which had just been founded in the neighborhood of still unconquered foreign tribes. Dezhnev’s entire service in Yakutsk represented a series of tireless labors, often associated with danger to life: during 20 years of service here he was wounded 9 times. Already in 1639-40. Dezhnev brings the native prince Sahey into submission.

In the summer of 1641, he was assigned to M. Stadukhin’s detachment, and with him reached the prison on Oymyakon (the left tributary of the Indigirka).

In the spring of 1642, up to 500 Evens attacked the fort; Cossacks, yasak Tunguses and Yakuts came to the rescue. The enemy retreated with losses. At the beginning of the summer of 1643, Stadukhin’s detachment, including Dezhnev, on a built koch, descended along the Indigirka to the mouth, crossed by sea to the Alazeya River and in its lower reaches met Erila’s koch. Dezhnev managed to persuade him to take joint action, and the combined detachment, led by Stadukhin, moved east on two ships.

In mid-July, the Cossacks reached the Kolyma delta, were attacked by the Yukaghirs, but broke through up the river and in early August they set up a fort on its middle course (now Srednekolymsk). Dezhnev served in Kolyma until the summer of 1647. In the spring, he and three companions delivered a cargo of furs to Yakutsk, repelling an attack by the Evens along the way. Then, at his request, he was included in the fishing expedition of Fedot Popov as a yasak collector. However, severe ice conditions in 1647 forced the sailors to return. Only the following summer did Popov and Dezhnev, with 90 people on seven kochas, move east.

According to the generally accepted version, only three ships reached the Bering Strait - two died in a storm, two went missing; Another shipwrecked in the strait. Already in the Bering Sea in early October, another storm separated the two remaining Kochas. Dezhnev and 25 companions were thrown back to the Olyutorsky Peninsula, and only ten weeks later they were able to reach the lower reaches of Anadyr. This version contradicts the testimony of Dezhnev himself, recorded in 1662: six ships out of seven passed through the Bering Strait, and in the Bering Sea or in the Gulf of Anadyr, five kochs, including Popov’s ship, died in “bad weather at sea.”

One way or another, Dezhnev and his comrades, after crossing the Koryak Highlands, reached Anadyr “cold and hungry, naked and barefoot.” Of the 12 people who went in search of the camps, only three returned; somehow 17 Cossacks survived the winter of 1648/49 in Anadyr and were even able to build river boats before the ice broke up. In the summer, having climbed 600 kilometers against the current, Dezhnev founded a tribute winter hut on Upper Anadyr, where he celebrated the new year, 1650. At the beginning of April, the detachments of Semyon Motors and Stadukhin arrived there. Dezhnev agreed with Motora about the merger and in the fall completed unsuccessful attempt reach the Penzhina River, but, having no guide, wandered in the mountains for three weeks.
In late autumn, Dezhnev sent some people to the lower reaches of Anadyr to purchase food from local residents. In January 1651, Stadukhin robbed this food detachment and beat up the suppliers, and in mid-February he himself went south to Penzhina. The Dezhnevites held out until spring, and in the summer and autumn they were engaged in the food problem and exploration (unsuccessful) of “sable places”. As a result, they became familiar with the Anadyr and most of its tributaries; Dezhnev drew up a drawing of the pool (not yet found). In the summer of 1652, in the south of the Anadyr estuary, he discovered on the shallows a rich rookery of walruses with a huge amount of “meat teeth” - the fangs of dead animals.

Sailing map
and the campaign of S. Dezhnev in 1648–1649.

In 1660, Dezhnev was replaced at his request, and he, with a load of “bone treasury,” moved overland to the Kolyma, and from there by sea to the Lower Lena. After wintering in Zhigansk, he reached Moscow through Yakutsk in September 1664. For the service and fishing of 289 poods (just over 4.6 tons) of walrus tusks in the amount of 17,340 rubles, a full settlement was made with Dezhnev. In January 1650, he received 126 rubles and the rank of Cossack chieftain.

Upon returning to Siberia, he collected yasak on the Olenyok, Yana and Vilyui rivers, at the end of 1671 he delivered the sable treasury to Moscow and fell ill. Died early in 1673.

During his 40 years in Siberia, Dezhnev participated in numerous battles and skirmishes and had at least 13 wounds, including three serious ones. Judging by written evidence, he was distinguished by reliability, honesty and peacefulness, the desire to carry out work without bloodshed.

A cape, an island, a bay, a peninsula and a village are named after Dezhnev. A monument to him was erected in the center of Veliky Ustyug in 1972.

Since we are talking about Dezhnev, it is necessary to mention Fedote Popov- the organizer of this expedition.

Fedot Popov, comes from Pomor peasants. For some time he lived in the lower reaches of the Northern Dvina, where he acquired sailing skills and mastered reading and writing. A few years before 1638, he appeared in Veliky Ustyug, where he was hired by the wealthy Moscow merchant Usov and established himself as an energetic, intelligent and honest worker.

In 1638, already in the position of clerk and trustee Usov's trading company was sent with a partner to Siberia with a large consignment of “all sorts of goods” and 3.5 thousand rubles (a significant amount at that time). In 1642, both reached Yakutsk, where they parted. With the trade expedition, Popov moved further to the Olenyok River, but he was unable to make a deal there. After returning to Yakutsk, he visited Yana, Indigirka and Alazeya, but all was unsuccessful - other merchants were ahead of him. By 1647, Popov arrived in Kolyma and, having learned about the distant Pogych (Anadyr) River, where no one had ever penetrated, he planned to reach it by sea in order to compensate for the losses he had suffered over several years of futile wandering.

In the Srednekolymsky prison, Popov gathered local industrialists and, using the owner’s funds, the merchant Usov, as well as the money of his companions, built and equipped 4 kochas. The Kolyma clerk, realizing the importance of the undertaking, gave Popov official status, appointing him a tselovalnik (a customs official whose duties also included collecting duties on fur transactions). At Popov’s request, 18 Cossacks were assigned to the fishing expedition under the command of Semyon Dezhnev, who wished to participate in the enterprise to open “new lands” as a yasak collector. But the leader of the voyage was Popov, the initiator and organizer of the whole affair. Soon after going to sea in the summer of 1647, due to difficult ice conditions, the Kochi returned back to Kolyma. Popov immediately began preparing for a new campaign. Thanks to the newly invested funds, he equipped 6 camps (and Dezhnev hunted in the upper reaches of the Kolyma in the winter of 1647-1648). In the summer of 1648, Popov and Dezhnev (again as collectors) went down the river to the sea. Here they were joined by the seventh koch, Gerasim Ankudinov, who unsuccessfully applied for Dezhnev’s place. The expedition, consisting of 95 people, for the first time passed at least 1000 km of the north-eastern coast of Asia through the Chukchi Sea and in August reached the Bering Strait, where Ankudinov’s boat crashed. Fortunately for the people, he moved to Popov’s koch, and the rest were located on 5 other ships. On August 20, the sailors landed somewhere between Capes Dezhnev and Chukotka to repair ships, collect waste material (fin) and replenish fresh water supplies. The Russians saw islands in the strait, but it was impossible to determine which ones. In a fierce skirmish with the Chukchi or Eskimos, Popov was wounded. At the beginning of October, a severe storm scattered the flotilla in the Bering Sea or the Gulf of Anadyr. Dezhnev found out Popov’s further fate five years later: in 1654, on the shores of the Gulf of Anadyr, in a skirmish with the Koryaks, he managed to recapture the Yakut wife of Popov, whom he took with him on a campaign. This first Russian Arctic navigator named Kivil informed Dezhnev that Popov's koch was thrown onto land, most of the sailors were killed by the Koryaks, and only a handful of Russians fled on boats, and Popov and Ankudinov died of scurvy.

Popov's name has been undeservedly forgotten. He rightfully shares the glory of opening the passage from the Arctic to the Pacific Ocean with Dezhnev.

(1765, Totma, Vologda province - 1823, Totma Vologda province) - explorer of Alaska and California, creator of Fort Ross in America. Totemsky tradesman. In 1787 he reached Irkutsk, on May 20, 1790 he concluded a contract with the Kargopol merchant A. A. Baranov, who lived in Irkutsk, on a sea voyage to the American shores in the company of Golikov and Shelikhov.

The famous explorer of the North American continent and the founder of the famous Fort Ross, Ivan Kuskov, in his youth, enthusiastically listened to the stories and memories of travelers arriving in their region from distant unexplored places, and even then he became seriously interested in sailing and the development of new lands.

As a result, already at the age of 22, Ivan Kuskov went to Siberia, where he signed a contract for escort to American shores. Great importance Ivan Kuskov had extensive organizational activities on Kodiak Island for the development and settlement of new lands, the construction of settlements and fortifications. For some time, Ivan Kuskov acted as chief manager. Later, he commanded the Konstantinovsky redoubt under construction on Nuchev Island in the Chugatsky Gulf, and went out to explore Sitkha Island on the brig “Ekaterina” at the head of a flotilla of 470 canoes. Under the command of Ivan Kuskov, a large party of Russians and Aleuts fished on the west coast of the American continent and was forced to fight with local Indians to assert their positions. The result of the confrontation was the construction of a new fortification on the island and the construction of a settlement called Novo-Arkhangelsk. It was he who in the future was destined to gain the status of the capital of Russian America.

The merits of Ivan Kuskov were noted by the ruling circles; he became the owner of the medal “For Diligence,” cast in gold, and the title of “Commerce Advisor.”

Having led a sea voyage campaign to develop the lands of California, which was then under Spanish rule, Ivan Kuskov opened a new page in his life and work. On the ship "Kodiak" he visited the island of Trinidad in Bodega Bay, and on the way back he stopped at Douglas Island. Moreover, everywhere the pioneers buried boards with the coat of arms of their country in the ground, which meant the annexation of the territories to Russia. In March 1812, on the Pacific coast, north of San Francisco Bay, Ivan Kuskov founded the first large fortress in Spanish California - Fort Slavensk or otherwise Fort Ross. The creation of a fortress and an agricultural settlement in favorable climatic conditions helped provide food for the northern Russian settlements in America. Fishing areas for sea animals expanded, a shipyard was built, a forge, a metalworker, a carpentry and fulling workshop were opened. For nine years, Ivan Kuskov was the head of the fortress and village of Ross. Ivan Kuskov died in October 1823 and was buried in the fence of the Spaso-Sumorin Monastery, but the grave of the famous researcher has not survived to this day.

Ivan Lyakhov- Yakut merchant-industrialist who discovered Fr. Boiler of the Novosibirsk Islands. From the middle of the 18th century. hunted for Mammoth bone on the mainland, in the tundra, between the mouths of the Anabar and Khatanga rivers. In April 1770, in search of a mammoth bone, he crossed the ice from the Holy Nose through the Dmitry Laptev Strait to the island. Near or Eteriken (now Bolshoi Lyakhovsky), and from its northwestern tip - on the island. Maly Lyakhovsky. After returning to Yakutsk, he received from the government a monopoly right to fish on the islands he visited, which, by decree of Catherine II, were renamed Lyakhovsky. In the summer of 1773, he took a boat with a group of industrialists to the Lyakhovsky Islands, which turned out to be a real “mammoth cemetery.” North of the island. Maly Lyakhovsky saw the “Third” large island and moved to it; for the winter of 1773/74 he returned to the island. Near. One of the industrialists left a copper boiler on the “Third” Island, which is why the newly discovered island began to be called Kotelny (the largest of the New Siberian Islands). I. Lyakhov died in the last quarter of the 18th century. After his death, the monopoly right to trade on the islands passed to the Syrovatsky merchants, who sent Y. Sannikov there for new discoveries.

Yakov Sannikov(1780, Ust-Yansk - no earlier than 1812) Russian industrialist (XVIII-XIX centuries), explorer of the New Siberian Islands (1800-1811). Discovered the islands of Stolbovoy (1800) and Faddeevsky (1805). He expressed the opinion about the existence of a vast land north of the New Siberian Islands, the so-called. Sannikov lands.

In 1808 Minister of Foreign Affairs and Commerce N.P. Rumyantsev organized an expedition to explore the recently discovered New Siberian Islands - the "Main Land". M.M. was appointed head of the expedition. Gedenstrom. Arriving in Yakutsk, Gedenstrom established that “it was discovered by the townspeople Portnyagin and Sannikov, living in the Ust-Yansky village.” February 4, 1809 Gedenstrom arrived in Ust-Yansk, where he met with local industrialists, among whom was Yakov Sannikov. Sannikov served as a forward worker (artel foreman) for the Syrovatsky merchants. He was an amazingly brave and inquisitive man, whose entire life was spent wandering through the vast expanses of the Siberian North. In 1800 Sannikov moved from the mainland to Stolbovoy Island, and five years later he was the first to set foot on unknown land, which later received the name Faddeevsky Island, named after the industrialist who built a winter hut on it. Then Sannikov took part in the trip of the industrialist Syrovatsky, during which the so-called Big Land, called New Siberia by Matvey Gedenstrom, was discovered.

The meeting with Sannikov, one of the discoverers of the New Siberian Islands, was a great success for Matvey Matveevich. In the person of Sannikov, he found a reliable assistant and decided to expand the area of ​​​​work of his expedition. Sannikov, fulfilling Gedenstrom’s instructions, crossed the strait in several places between the islands of Kotelny and Faddeevsky and determined that its width ranged from 7 to 30 versts.

“On all these lands,” Pestel wrote to Rumyantsev, “there is no standing forest; among the animals there are polar bears, gray and white wolves; there are a great many deer and arctic foxes, as well as brown and white mice; among birds in winter there are only white partridges, in summer ", according to the description of the tradesman Sannikov, there are a lot of geese molting there, and there are also plenty of ducks, tupans, waders and other small birds. This land, which Gedenstrom traveled around, was named by him New Siberia, and the shore where the cross was erected, Nikolaevsky."

Gedenstrom decided to send an artel of industrialists under the command of Yakov Sannikov to New Siberia.

Sannikov discovered a river that flowed northeast from the Wooden Mountains. He said that members of his artel walked along its shore “60 miles deep and saw water disputed from the sea.” In Sannikov's testimony, Gedenstrom saw evidence that New Siberia in this place was probably not very wide. It soon became clear that New Siberia was not a mainland, but not a very large island.

March 2, 1810 The expedition, led by Gedenstrom, left Posadnoye winter quarters and headed north. Among the expedition participants was Yakov Sannikov. The ice in the sea turned out to be very disturbed. Instead of six days the journey to New Siberia took about two weeks. The travelers moved on sledges to the mouth of the Indigirka River, and from there to the eastern coast of New Siberia. Another 120 versts before the island, travelers noticed the Wooden Mountains on the southern coast of this island. Having rested, we continued the inventory of New Siberia, which we began last year. Sannikov crossed New Siberia from south to north. Coming out to its northern shore, he saw blue waters far to the northeast. It was not the blue of the sky; During his many years of travel, Sannikov saw her more than once. This is exactly how blue Stolbovoy Island seemed to him ten years ago, and then Faddeevsky Island. It seemed to Yakov that as soon as he drove 10-20 miles, either mountains or the shores of an unknown land would emerge from the blue. Alas, Sannikov could not go: he was with one team of dogs.

After meeting with Sannikov, Gedenstrom set off on several sledges with the best dogs to the mysterious blue. Sannikov believed that this was land. Gedenstrom later wrote: “The imaginary land turned into a ridge of the highest ice masses of 15 or more fathoms in height, spaced 2 and 3 versts from one another. In the distance, as usual, they seemed to us like a continuous coastline”...

In the autumn of 1810 on Kotelny, on the northwestern coast of the island, in places where no industrialist had ever gone, Sannikov found a grave. Next to her was a narrow, high sled. Her device indicated that “people were dragging her with straps.” A small wooden cross was placed on the grave. On one side of it was carved an illegible ordinary church inscription. Near the cross lay spears and two iron arrows. Not far from the grave, Sannikov discovered a quadrangular winter hut. The nature of the building indicated that it was cut down by Russian people. Having carefully examined the winter hut, the industrialist found several things, probably made with an ax made of deer antler.

In "A Note on Things Found by the Tradesman Sannikov on Kotelny Island" we're talking about and about something else, perhaps the most interesting fact: while on Kotelny Island, Sannikov saw “high stone mountains” in the northwest, about 70 miles away. Based on this story from Sannikov, Gedenshtrom marked the shore of an unknown land in the upper right corner of his final map, on which he wrote: “The land seen by Sannikov.” Mountains are painted on its coast. Gedenstrom believed that the coast seen by Sannikov connected with America. This was Sannikov's second Earth - a land that did not actually exist.

In 1811 Sannikov, together with his son Andrei, worked on Faddeevsky Island. He explored the northwestern and northern shores: bays, capes, bays. He advanced on sledges drawn by dogs, spent the night in a tent, ate venison, crackers and stale bread. The nearest housing was 700 miles away. Sannikov was finishing his exploration of Faddeevsky Island when he suddenly saw the outlines of an unknown land in the north. Without wasting a minute, he rushed forward. Finally, from the top of a high hummock, he saw a dark strip. It expanded, and soon he clearly distinguished a wide wormwood stretching across the entire horizon, and beyond it an unknown land with high mountains. Gedenshtrom wrote that Sannikov traveled “no more than 25 versts when he was held back by a hole that stretched in all directions. The land was clearly visible, and he believes that it was then 20 versts away from him.” Sannikov’s message about the “open sea” testified, according to Gedenstrom, that the Arctic Ocean, lying behind the New Siberian Islands, does not freeze and is convenient for navigation, “and that the coast of America really lies in the Arctic Sea and ends with Kotelny Island.”

Sannikov's expedition completely explored the shores of Kotelny Island. In its deepest regions, travelers found “in great abundance” the heads and bones of bulls, horses, buffaloes and sheep. This means that in ancient times the New Siberian Islands had a milder climate. Sannikov discovered “many signs” of the dwellings of the Yukaghirs, who, according to legend, retired to the islands from a smallpox epidemic 150 years ago. At the mouth of the Tsareva River, he found the dilapidated bottom of a ship made of pine and cedar wood. His seams were caulked with tar sponge. On the western shore, travelers encountered whale bones. This, as Gedenstrom wrote, proved that “from Kotelny Island to the north, the vast Arctic Ocean stretches unhindered, not covered with ice, like the Arctic Sea under the hardened land of Siberia, where whales or their bones have never been seen.” All these finds are described in the “Journal of personal stories of the tradesman Sannikov, non-commissioned officer Reshetnikov and the notes they kept during their viewing and flying on Kotelny Island...” Sannikov did not see the stone mountains of the earth either in the spring or in the summer. It was as if she had disappeared into the ocean.

January 15, 1812 Yakov Sannikov and non-commissioned officer Reshetnikov arrived in Irkutsk. This marked the end of the first search for the Northern Continent, undertaken by Russia at the beginning of the 19th century. The lands have acquired their true appearance. Four of them were discovered by Yakov Sannikov: the islands of Stolbovoy, Faddeevsky, New Siberia and Bunge Land. But, as fate would have it, his name became very famous thanks to the lands that he saw from afar in the Arctic Ocean. Receiving nothing for his labors except the right to collect mammoth bones, Sannikov explored all the large New Siberian Islands with dogs. Two of the three lands seen by Sannikov in various places of the Arctic Ocean appeared on the map. One, in the form of part of a huge land with mountainous shores, was located northwest of Kotelny Island; the other was shown in the form of mountainous islands stretching from the meridian of the eastern shore of Fadeeevsky Island to the meridian of Cape Vysokoy in New Siberia, and was named after him. As for the land northeast of New Siberia, a sign was placed at the site of its supposed location, which indicates the approximate size. Subsequently, the islands of Zhokhov and Vilkitsky were discovered here.

Thus, Yakov Sannikov saw unknown lands in three different places of the Arctic Ocean, which then occupied the minds of geographers around the world for decades. Everyone knew that Yakov Sannikov had made major geographical discoveries even earlier, which made his messages more convincing. He himself was convinced of their existence. As appears from the letter from I.B. Pestelya N.P. Rumyantsev, the traveler intended to “continue the discovery of new islands, and above all the land that he saw to the north of Kotelny and the Faddeevsky Islands,” and asked to give him each of these islands for two or three years.
Pestel found Sannikov’s proposal “very beneficial for the government.” Rumyantsev adhered to the same point of view, on whose instructions a report was prepared approving this request. There is no record in the archives of whether Sannikov’s proposal was accepted.

“Sannikov Land” was searched in vain for more than a hundred years, until Soviet sailors and pilots in 1937-1938. have not conclusively proven that such land does not exist. Sannikov probably saw the “ice island”.

Russian and Soviet explorers of Africa.

Among the explorers of Africa, the expeditions of our domestic travelers occupy a prominent place. A mining engineer made a major contribution to the exploration of Northeast and Central Africa Egor Petrovich Kovalevsky. In 1848, he explored the Nubian Desert, the Blue Nile basin, mapped the vast territory of Eastern Sudan and made the first guess about the location of the sources of the Nile. Kovalevsky paid a lot of attention to the study of the peoples of this part of Africa and their way of life. He was indignant at the “theory” of racial inferiority of the African population.

Trips Vasily Vasilievich Juncker in 1875-1886 enriched geographical science with accurate knowledge of the eastern region of Equatorial Africa. Juncker conducted research in the upper Nile region: he compiled the first map of the area.

The traveler visited the Bahr el-Ghazal and Uele rivers, explored the complex and intricate river system of its vast basin and clearly identified the previously disputed Nile-Congo watershed line over a distance of 1,200 km. Junker compiled a number of large-scale maps of this territory and paid much attention to descriptions of the flora and fauna, as well as the life of the local population.

Spent a number of years (1881-1893) in North and North-East Africa Alexander Vasilievich Eliseev, who described in detail the nature and population of Tunisia, the lower reaches of the Nile and the Red Sea coast. In 1896-1898. traveled across the Abyssinian Highlands and the Blue Nile basin Alexander Ksaverevich Bulatovich, Petr Viktorovich Shchusev, Leonid Konstantinovich Artamonov.

IN Soviet time An interesting and important trip to Africa was made by the famous scientist - botanical geographer, academician Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov. In 1926, he arrived from Marseille to Algeria, became acquainted with the nature of the large oasis of Biskra in the Sahara, the mountainous region of Kabylia and other regions of Algeria, and traveled through Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea. Vavilov was interested in ancient centers of cultivated plants. He conducted especially extensive research in Ethiopia, traveling more than 2 thousand km. More than 6 thousand samples of cultivated plants were collected here, including 250 varieties of wheat alone, and interesting materials were obtained about many wild plants.

In 1968-1970 in Central Africa, in the Great Lakes region, geomorphological, geological-tectonic, geophysical research was carried out by an expedition led by corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, professor Vladimir Vladimirovich Belousov, which clarified data on the tectonic structure along the great African fault line. This expedition visited some places for the first time after D. Livingston and V.V. Juncker.

Abyssinian expeditions of Nikolai Gumilyov.

First expedition to Abyssinia.

Although Africa has attracted me since childhood Gumilyov, the decision to go there came suddenly and on September 25 he goes to Odessa, from there to Djibouti, then to Abyssinia. The details of this trip are unknown. It is only known that he visited Addis Ababa for a ceremonial reception at the Negus. The friendly relations of mutual sympathy that arose between the young Gumilyov and the experienced Menelik II can be considered proven. In the article “Is Menelik Dead?” the poet described the unrest that took place under the throne, as well as reveals his personal attitude to what was happening.

Second expedition to Abyssinia.

The second expedition took place in 1913. It was better organized and coordinated with the Academy of Sciences. At first, Gumilyov wanted to cross the Danakil desert, study little-known tribes and try to civilize them, but the Academy rejected this route as expensive, and the poet was forced to propose a new route:

I had to go to the port of Djibouti<…>from there to railway to Harrar, then, forming a caravan, to the south, to the area between the Somali Peninsula and lakes Rudolph, Margaret, Zwai; cover as large a study area as possible.

His nephew Nikolai Sverchkov went to Africa with Gumilyov as a photographer.

First, Gumilyov went to Odessa, then to Istanbul. In Turkey, the poet showed sympathy and sympathy for the Turks, unlike most Russians. There, Gumilyov met the Turkish consul Mozar Bey, who was traveling to Harar; they continued their journey together. From Istanbul they headed to Egypt, and from there to Djibouti. The travelers were supposed to go inland by rail, but after 260 kilometers the train stopped due to the fact that the rains washed out the path. Most of the passengers returned, but Gumilyov, Sverchkov and Mozar Bey begged the workers for a handcar and drove 80 kilometers of damaged track on it. Arriving in Dire Dawa, the poet hired a translator and set off in a caravan to Harar.

Haile Selassie I

In Harrar, Gumilev bought mules, not without complications, and there he met Ras Tafari (then governor of Harar, later Emperor Haile Selassie I; adherents of Rastafarianism consider him the incarnation of God - Jah). The poet gave the future emperor a box of vermouth and photographed him, his wife and sister. In Harare, Gumilyov began collecting his collection.

From Harar the path lay through the little-explored Galla lands to the village of Sheikh Hussein. On the way, we had to cross the fast-water Uabi River, where Nikolai Sverchkov was almost dragged away by a crocodile. Soon problems with provisions began. Gumilyov was forced to hunt for food. When the goal was achieved, the leader and spiritual mentor of Sheikh Hussein Aba Muda sent provisions to the expedition and warmly received it. This is how Gumilyov described the prophet:

A fat black man sat on Persian carpets
In a darkened, untidy room,
Like an idol, in bracelets, earrings and rings,
Only his eyes sparkled wonderfully.

There Gumilyov was shown the tomb of Saint Sheikh Hussein, after whom the city was named. There was a cave there, from which, according to legend, a sinner could not get out:

I should have undressed<…>and crawl between the stones into a very narrow passage. If anyone got stuck, he died in terrible agony: no one dared to extend a hand to him, no one dared to give him a piece of bread or a cup of water...
Gumilyov climbed there and returned safely.

Having written down the life of Sheikh Hussein, the expedition moved to the city of Ginir. Having replenished the collection and collected water in Ginir, the travelers went west, on a difficult journey to the village of Matakua.

The further fate of the expedition is unknown; Gumilyov’s African diary is interrupted at the word “Road...” on July 26. According to some reports, on August 11, the exhausted expedition reached the Dera Valley, where Gumilev stayed in the house of the parents of a certain Kh. Mariam. He treated his mistress for malaria, freed a punished slave, and his parents named their son after him. However, there are chronological inaccuracies in the Abyssinian's story. Be that as it may, Gumilyov safely reached Harar and in mid-August was already in Djibouti, but due to financial difficulties he was stuck there for three weeks. He returned to Russia on September 1.

LISYANSKY Yuri Fedorovich(1773-1837) - Russian navigator and traveler Yu.F. Lisyansky was born on August 2 (13), 1773 in the city of Nizhyn. His father was a priest, archpriest of the Nizhyn Church of St. John the Evangelist. Since childhood, the boy dreamed of the sea and in 1783 he was assigned to the Naval Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg, where he became friends with I.F. Krusenstern.

In 1786, at the age of 13, having graduated early from the corps second on the list, Yuri Lisyansky entered the 32-gun frigate Podrazhislav as a midshipman, which was part of the Baltic squadron of Admiral Greig. On the same frigate, he received his baptism of fire in the Battle of Hogland during the Russian-Swedish War of 1788-1790, in which the 15-year-old midshipman participated in several naval battles, including Öland and Reval. In 1789 he was promoted to midshipman.

Until 1793, Yu.F. Lisyansky served in the Baltic Fleet, and in 1793 he was promoted to lieutenant and sent as a volunteer among the 16 best naval officers in England. There for four years he improved his seafaring skills, participated in the battles of the Royal Navy of England against Republican France (he distinguished himself during the capture of the French frigate Elizabeth, but was shell-shocked), and fought with pirates in the waters of North America. Lieutenant Lisyansky sailed the seas and oceans almost throughout the globe. He traveled around the United States, met with the first US President George Washington in Philadelphia, then was on an American ship in the West Indies, where in early 1795 he almost died from yellow fever, accompanied English caravans off the coast of South Africa and India, examined and described St. Helena Island, studied colonial settlements in South Africa and other geographical features.

March 27, 1797 Yu.F. Lisyansky was promoted to captain-lieutenant, and in 1800 he finally returned to Russia, enriched with extensive experience and knowledge in the field of navigation, meteorology, naval astronomy, and naval tactics; his knowledge in the field has increased significantly natural sciences. In Russia, he immediately received the position of commander of the frigate Avtroil in the Baltic Fleet. In November 1802, for his participation in 16 naval campaigns and two larger battles, Yuri Lisyansky was awarded the Order of St. George, 4th degree. Returning from abroad, Lisyansky brought to Russia not only extensive experience in navigation and conducting naval battles. He also supported his experience theoretically. Thus, in 1803, Clerk’s book “Movement of Fleets” was published in St. Petersburg, which substantiated the tactics and principles of naval combat. It should be noted that the translation of this book from English was carried out personally by Lisyansky.

At this time, the Russian-American Company (a trade association established in July 1799 for the purpose of developing the territory of Russian America, the Kuril and other islands) expressed support for a special expedition to supply and protect Russian settlements in Alaska. This began the preparation of the 1st Russian round-the-world expedition. The project was presented to the Minister of the Navy, Count Kushelev, but did not meet with his support. The count did not believe that such a complex undertaking would be feasible for domestic sailors. He was echoed by Admiral Khanykov, who was involved in the assessment of the project as an expert. He strongly recommended hiring English sailors for the first circumnavigation of the world under the Russian flag. Fortunately, in 1801 Admiral N.S. became Minister of the Navy. Mordvinov. He not only supported Kruzenshtern, but also advised to purchase two ships for the voyage, so that if necessary they could help each other on a long and dangerous voyage. The Naval Ministry appointed Lieutenant-Commander Lisyansky as one of its leaders and in the fall of 1802, together with the ship's master Razumov, sent him to England to purchase two sloops and part of the equipment. The choice fell on the 16-gun sloop "Leander" with a displacement of 450 tons and the 14-gun sloop "Thames" with a displacement of 370 tons. The first sailing ship was renamed "Nadezhda", the second - "Neva".

By the summer of 1803, the sloops Neva and Nadezhda were ready for departure. The leadership of the entire expedition and command of the sloop "Nadezhda" was entrusted to Lieutenant-Commander I.F. Krusenstern. His classmate in the Naval Corps, Lisyansky, commanded the sloop Neva. Almost half a century after the first circumnavigation of the world, the famous Russian hydrographer N.A. Ivashintsov called Kruzenshtern and Lisyansky’s preparation of ships and crews for travel exemplary. This does not mean, however, that the voyage was without serious problems. Already the first severe storm that the ships had to withstand showed that only the courage and skill of the Russian sailors prevented the tragedy. In the port of Falmouth, in the English Channel, the ships had to be re-caulked. But the main thing, as Lisyansky wrote, both he and Kruzenshtern were convinced of how skillful and efficient Russian sailors were during the most brutal alterations. “We had nothing left to wish for,” notes Yuri Fedorovich, “except for the ordinary happiness of sailors to complete their enterprise.”

At 10 a.m. on July 26 (August 7), the expedition left Kronstadt on a long journey, “not previously experienced by the Russians.” On November 14, 1803, in the Atlantic Ocean, "Nadezhda" and "Neva" under the Russian flag crossed the equator for the first time in the history of the Russian fleet. Captains Lisyansky and Kruzenshtern brought their sloops closer together, standing on the bridges in ceremonial costumes with swords. Over the equator, the Russian “hurray!” rang out three times, and the sailor from the sloop “Nadezhda” Pavel Kurganov, portraying the sea god Neptune, greeted the Russian sailors with his trident raised high as they entered the southern hemisphere. A significant detail: the British and French, like representatives of other maritime nations, who visited the equator earlier than our compatriots, passed by an important scientific discovery, made by Russian sailors: Lisyansky and Kruzenshtern discovered equatorial currents that had not been described by anyone before them.

Then, in February 1804, Nadezhda and Neva circumnavigated South America (Cape Horn) and entered the Pacific Ocean. Here the sailors split up. Lisyansky headed to Easter Island, mapped and compiled detailed description its shores, nature, climate, collected rich ethnographic material about its aborigines. At the island of Nukuhiwa (Marquesas Islands), the ships united and proceeded together to the Hawaiian archipelago. From here their routes diverged again. In the fog they lost each other: the sloop "Nadezhda" under the command of Kruzenshtern headed towards Kamchatka, and "Neva" Lisyansky headed towards the shores of Alaska: on July 1, 1804, she arrived at Kodiak Island and was off the coast of North America for more than a year.

Having received alarming news from the ruler of Russian settlements in America A. Baranov, Lisyansky headed to the Alexander Archipelago to provide military support against the Tlingit Indians. The sailors helped the inhabitants of Russian America defend their settlements from the attack of the Tlingits, participated in the construction of the Novo-Arkhangelsk (Sitka) fortress, and carried out scientific observations and hydrographic work. In 1804-1805, Lisyansky and the Neva's navigator D. Kalinin explored Kodiak Island and part of the islands of the Alexander Archipelago. At the same time, the islands of Kruzov and Chichagova were discovered.

In August 1805, Lisyansky sailed on the Neva from the island of Sitka with a cargo of furs to China, and in November arrived at the port of Macau, discovering Lisyansky Island, the Neva Reef and the Krusenstern Reef along the way. The passage from Alaska to the port of Macau took three months. Severe storms, fogs and treacherous shoals required caution. On December 4, 1805, in Macau, Lisyansky again united with Kruzenshtern and Nadezhda. Having sold furs in Canton and accepted a cargo of Chinese goods, the ships weighed anchor and proceeded together to Canton (Guangzhou). Having replenished supplies of provisions and water, the sloops moved to Return trip. Through the South China Sea and the Sunda Strait, travelers entered the Indian Ocean. Together they reached the southeast coast of Africa. But due to thick fog near the Cape of Good Hope, they again lost sight of each other.

It was agreed that the Neva would meet with the Nadezhda off the island of St. Helena, but the meeting of the ships did not take place. Now, until the return to Kronstadt, the ships sailed separately. When Kruzenshtern arrived on the island of St. Helena, he learned about the war between Russia and France and, fearing a meeting with enemy ships, proceeded to his homeland around the British Isles, calling at Copenhagen. Well, Lisyansky’s Neva never entered the island. Having carefully checked the supplies of water and food, Lisyansky decided on a non-stop journey to England. He was confident that “such a brave undertaking will give us great honor; for not a single navigator like us has ever ventured on such a long journey without going somewhere to rest. We have the opportunity to prove to the whole world that we deserve full to the extent of the trust they placed in us."

Lisyansky was the first in the world to decide on such an unprecedented non-stop passage, carrying it out on a sailing sloop in a surprisingly short period of time for those times! For the first time in the history of world navigation, a ship covered 13,923 miles from the coast of China to Portsmouth in England in 142 days without calling at ports or stopping. The Portsmouth public enthusiastically greeted Lisyansky's crew and, in his person, the first Russian circumnavigators. During this time, the Neva explored little-known areas of the Pacific Ocean, observed sea currents, temperature, specific gravity of water, compiled hydrographic descriptions of the coasts, and collected extensive ethnographic material. During the voyage Lisyansky corrected numerous inaccuracies in maritime descriptions and on maps. On the world map, Lisyansky’s name is mentioned eight times. A glorious Russian sailor discovered an uninhabited island in the central Pacific Ocean. Lisyansky is also credited with historical merit for being the first to pave the way across the seas and oceans from Russian America, which belonged to Russia until 1867 and then sold to the United States, to the banks of the Neva.

On July 22 (August 5), 1806, Lisyansky's Neva was the first to return to Kronstadt, completing the first circumnavigation in the history of the Russian fleet, which lasted 2 years, 11 months and 18 days. The sloop "Nadezhda" of the expedition commander Ivan Fedorovich Kruzenshtern returned to Kronstadt fourteen days later. Throughout the journey, Lisyansky conducted oceanographic research and collected valuable ethnographic material about the peoples of Oceania and North America. Of particular value are his observations of sea currents, which allowed him, together with Kruzenshtern, to make corrections and additions to the maps of sea currents that existed at that time.

Lisyansky and his crew became the first Russian circumnavigators. Only two weeks later the Nadezhda arrived here safely. But the fame of the circumnavigator went to Kruzenshtern, who was the first to publish a description of the journey (three years earlier than Lisyansky, who considered the tasks of his duty more important than publishing a report for Geographical Society). And Krusenstern himself saw in his friend and colleague, first of all, “an impartial, obedient, zealous person.” common benefit", extremely modest. True, Lisyansky’s merits were nevertheless noted: he received the rank of captain of the 2nd rank, the Order of St. Vladimir of the 3rd degree, a cash bonus and a lifelong pension. For him, the main gift was the gratitude of the officers and sailors of the sloop, who suffered with him the hardships of the voyage and gave him a golden sword with the inscription as a souvenir: “Gratitude of the crew of the ship “Neva”.”

The meticulousness with which the navigator made astronomical observations, determined longitudes and latitudes, and established the coordinates of harbors and islands where the Neva had moorings, brings his measurements from two centuries ago closer to modern data. The traveler double-checked the maps of the Gaspar and Sunda Straits and clarified the outlines of Kodiak and other islands adjacent to the northwestern coast of Alaska. Along the way, he discovered a small island at 26° N. sh., northwest of the Hawaiian Islands, which, at the request of the Neva crew, was named after him.

During his travels, Lisyansky collected a personal collection of objects, utensils, clothing, and weapons. It also contained shells, pieces of lava, corals, and rock fragments from the Pacific Islands, North America, and Brazil. All this became the property of the Russian Geographical Society. The voyage of Krusenstern and Lisyansky was recognized as a geographical and scientific feat. A medal was struck in his honor with the inscription: “For traveling around the world 1803-1806.” The results of the expedition were summarized in extensive geographical works by Kruzenshtern and Lisyansky, as well as natural scientists G.I. Langsdorf, I.K. Gorner, V.G. Tilesius and its other participants. During the period of his remarkable voyage, Lisyansky carried out astronomical determinations of the latitudes and longitudes of the points visited and observations of sea currents; he not only corrected inaccuracies in the descriptions of currents compiled by Cook, Vancouver and others, but also (together with Krusenstern) discovered inter-trade countercurrents in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, compiled a geographical description of many islands, collected rich collections and extensive ethnographic material.

Thus, the first circumnavigation in the history of the Russian fleet ended in complete triumph. Its success was also caused by the extraordinary personalities of the commanders - Kruzenshtern and Lisyansky, progressive people for their time, ardent patriots who tirelessly cared for the fate of the “servants” - sailors, thanks to whose courage and hard work the voyage was extremely successful. The relationship between Kruzenshtern and Lisyansky - friendly and trusting - decisively contributed to the success of the business. The popularizer of Russian navigation, a prominent scientist Vasily Mikhailovich Pasetsky, cites in a biographical sketch about Kruzenshtern a letter from his friend Lisyansky during the preparation of the expedition. “After lunch, Nikolai Semenovich (Admiral Mordvinov) asked if I knew you, to which I told him that you were a good friend. He was happy about this, spoke about the merits of your pamphlet (that’s what Kruzenshtern’s project was called for his freethinking! - V. G.), praised your knowledge and intelligence and then ended by saying that he would consider it a blessing to be acquainted with you. For my part, in front of the whole meeting, I did not hesitate to say that I envy your talents and intelligence."

However, in the literature about the first voyages, at one time the role of Yuri Fedorovich Lisyansky was unfairly belittled. Analyzing the "Journal of the ship "Neva", researchers of the Naval Academy made interesting conclusions. It was found that out of 1095 days of historical voyage, only 375 days the ships sailed together, the remaining 720 "Neva" sailed alone. The distance traveled by Lisyansky's ship is also impressive - 45 083 miles, of which 25,801 miles - independently. This analysis was published in 1949 in the Proceedings of the Naval Academy. Of course, the voyages of Nadezhda and Neva are, in essence, two circumnavigations of the world, and Yu. F. Lisyansky is equally involved in the great feat in the field of Russian naval glory, as is I. F. Kruzenshtern.

The first Russian circumnavigation of the world opened an entire era of brilliant successes for our sailors. Suffice it to say that in the first half of the 19th century, Russian sailors made 39 trips around the world, which significantly exceeded the number of such expeditions by the British and French combined. And some Russian navigators made these dangerous voyages around the world on sailboats twice or thrice. The legendary discoverer of Antarctica Thaddeus Bellingshausen was a midshipman on Krusenstern's sloop Nadezhda. One of the sons of the famous writer August Kotzebue - Otto Kotzebue - led two expeditions around the world in 1815-1818 and 1823-1826. And he truly became a record holder for discovery: he managed to put more than 400 (!) islands in the tropical Pacific Ocean on world maps.

In 1807-1808, Lisyansky continued to serve on the ships of the Baltic Fleet, commanding the ships "Conception of St. Anna", "Emgeiten" and a detachment of 9 ships of the Baltic Fleet. He took part in hostilities against the fleets of England and Sweden. In 1809, Lisyansky received the rank of captain of the 1st rank and was assigned a lifelong boarding house, his only means of livelihood, since he had no other sources of income. Almost immediately Lisyansky, who was only 36 years old at the time, retired. And he probably left not without some hard feelings. The Admiralty Board refused to finance the publication of his book “Journey around the world in 1803, 1804, 1805 and 1806 on the ship “Neva” under the command of Yu. Lisyansky.” Outraged, Lisyansky left for the village, where he began to put in order his travel notes, which he kept in the form of a diary. In 1812, at his own expense, he published his two-volume “Travel” in St. Petersburg, and then, also with his own money, “Album, a collection of maps and drawings belonging to the journey.” Not finding proper understanding in the domestic government, Lisyansky received recognition abroad. He himself translated the book into English language and released it in London in 1814. A year later, Lisyansky’s book was published in German in Germany. Unlike Russians, British and German readers rated her highly. The navigator's work, containing a lot of interesting geographical and ethnographic data, contains a lot of original things, in particular, he was the first to describe Sitka and the Hawaiian Islands in detail, became a valuable study and was subsequently republished several times.

The traveler died on February 22 (March 6), 1837 in St. Petersburg. He was buried at the Tikhvin Cemetery (Necropolis of Art Masters) in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. The monument at the navigator's grave is a granite sarcophagus with a bronze anchor and a medallion depicting a token of a participant in the circumnavigation of the world on the ship "Neva" (sk. V. Bezrodny, K. Leberecht).

Three times in his life, Lisyansky was the first: he was the first to travel around the world under the Russian flag, the first to continue his journey from Russian America to Kronstadt, and the first to discover an uninhabited island in the central Pacific Ocean. Nowadays, a bay, a peninsula, a strait, a river and a cape on the coast of North America in the area of ​​the Alexandra Archipelago, one of the islands of the Hawaiian archipelago, an underwater mountain in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and a peninsula on the northern coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk are named after him.

Kruzenshtern Ivan Fedorovich(1770–1846), navigator, explorer of the Pacific Ocean, hydrograph scientist, one of the founders of Russian oceanology, admiral, honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

Born in Northern Estonia into a poor noble family. Graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps ahead of schedule. In 1793–1799 he served as a volunteer on English ships in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, as well as in the South China Sea. Upon his return, Kruzenshtern twice presented projects for direct trade connections between Russian ports in the Baltic and Alaska. In 1802 he was appointed head of the first Russian round-the-world expedition.

In the summer of 1803, he left Kronstadt on two sloops - “Nadezhda” (on board was a mission to Japan led by N. Rezanov) and “Neva” (captain Yu. Lisyansky). The main goal of the voyage is to explore the mouth of the Amur and adjacent territories to identify convenient bases and supply routes for the Pacific Fleet. The ships rounded Cape Horn (March 1804) and dispersed three weeks later. A year later, Kruzenshtern on the Nadezhda, having “closed” the mythical lands southeast of Japan along the way, arrived in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Then he took N. Rezanov to Nagasaki and, returning in the spring of 1805 to Petropavlovsk, described the northern and eastern shores of Terpeniya Bay. In the summer he continued filming work, for the first time photographing about 1000 kilometers of the eastern, northern and partly western coast of Sakhalin, mistaking it for a peninsula. At the end of the summer of 1806 he returned to Kronstadt.

The participants of the first Russian round-the-world expedition made a significant contribution to science by removing a non-existent island from the map and clarifying the position of many geographical points. They discovered inter-trade countercurrents in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, measured the temperature of water at depths of up to 400 meters, determined its specific gravity, transparency and color; found out the reason for the glow of the sea, collected numerous data on atmospheric pressure, ebbs and flows in the waters of the World Ocean.

At first Patriotic War In 1812, Kruzenshtern donated a third of his fortune (1000 rubles) to the people's militia. Spent almost a year in England as part of the Russian diplomatic mission. In 1809–1812 he published the three-volume “Travel Around the World...”, translated in seven European countries, and the “Atlas for Travel...”, which included more than 100 maps and drawings. In 1813 he was elected a member of the academies and scientific societies of England, France, Germany and Denmark.

In 1815, Kruzenshtern went on indefinite leave for treatment and scientific studies. Compiled and published the two-volume Atlas of the South Sea with extensive hydrographic notes. In 1827–1842 he was the director of the Naval Cadet Corps, and initiated the creation of a higher officer class, which was later transformed into the Naval Academy. On the initiative of Kruzenshtern, the round-the-world expedition of O. Kotzebue (1815–1818), the expedition of M. Vasiliev - G. Shishmarev (1819–1822), F. Bellingshausen - M. Lazarev (1819–1821), M. Stanyukovich - F. Litke was equipped (1826–1829).

Kruzenshtern put the good of Russia above all else. Without fear of consequences, he boldly condemned the serfdom in the country and cane discipline in the army. Respect for human dignity, modesty and punctuality, extensive knowledge and talent as an organizer attracted people to the researcher. Many outstanding domestic and foreign sailors and travelers turned to him for advice.

13 geographical objects in different parts of the planet are named after Krusenstern: two atolls, an island, two straits, three mountains, three capes, a reef and a lip. In St. Petersburg in 1869 a monument to Krusenstern was erected.

SHELIKHOV Grigory Ivanovich.

In the 80s of the 18th century there were already several Russian settlements on the northwestern coast of America. They were founded by Russian industrialists who, hunting for fur-bearing animals and Navy SEAL, undertook long voyages across the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and the northern part of the Pacific Ocean. However, industrialists then did not yet have a fully realized goal of founding Russian colonies. This idea first arose from the enterprising merchant Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov. Understanding the economic importance of the coast and islands of North America, which were famous for their fur riches, G. I. Shelikhov, this Russian Columbus, as the poet G. R. Derzhavin later called him, decided to annex them to the Russian possessions.

G.I. Shelikhov was from Rylsk. As a young man, he went to Siberia in search of “happiness.” Initially he served as a clerk for the merchant I. L. Golikov, and then became his shareholder and partner. Possessing great energy and foresight, Shelikhov convinced Golikov to send ships “to the Alaskan land, called American, to known and unknown islands for fur trade and all sorts of searches and establishment of voluntary bargaining with the natives.” In company with Golikov, Shelikhov built the ship "St. Paul" and in 1776 set off for the shores of America. After being at sea for four years, Shelikhov returned to Okhotsk with a rich cargo of furs totaling at least 75 thousand rubles at the prices of that time.

To implement his plan for the colonization of the islands and coast of North America, Shelikhov, together with I. L. Golikov and M. S. Golikov, organizes a company to exploit these territories. The company's particular attention was attracted to Kodiak Island for its fur riches. At the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries (from 1784 to 1804), this island became the main center of Russian colonization of the Pacific coast of North America. During his second expedition, launched in 1783 on the Three Saints galliot, Shelikhov lived for two years on this island, the largest of the islands adjacent to the coast of Alaska. On this island Shelikhov founded a harbor, named after his ship, the Harbor of the Three Saints, and also erected fortifications.

A small fortification was built on the island of Afognak. Shelikhov also became acquainted with the coast of Alaska, visited Kenayok Bay and visited a number of islands surrounding Kodiak.

In 1786, Shelikhov returned from his voyage to Okhotsk, and in 1789 - to Irkutsk.

News of his activities off the American coast and the founding of colonies there reached Catherine II, upon whose call he went to St. Petersburg.

Catherine II perfectly understood the significance of Shelikhov’s activities and received him very favorably. Returning to Irkutsk, Shelikhov equipped two ships to explore the Kuril Islands and the coast of America and gave orders to their commanders, navigators Izmailov and Bocharov, to “affirm Her Majesty’s authority in all newly discovered points.” During these expeditions, a description of the North American coast from Chugatsky Bay to Litua Bay was made and its detailed map. At the same time, the network of Russian settlements off the coast of America is expanding. The head of the Russian colony, left by Shelikhov, Delarov, founded a number of settlements on the shores of the Kenai Bay.

Shelikhov, through his various activities, sought to expand and strengthen the network of Russian settlements in Kodiak and the Aleutian Islands.

He developed a number of projects to bring the Russian colonies into a “worthy form.” Shelikhov instructed his manager Baranov to find a suitable place on the shores of the American continent to build a city, which he proposed to call “Slavorossia”.

Shelikhov opened Russian schools on Kodiak and other islands and tried to teach crafts and agriculture to the local residents, the Tlingit Indians, or Koloshes, as the Russians called them. For this purpose, on Shelikhov’s initiative, twenty Russian exiles who knew various crafts and ten peasant families were sent to Kodiak.

In 1794, Shelikhov organized a new “Northern Company”, one of the main goals of which was the establishment of Russian colonies on the coast of Alaska.

After Shelikhov’s death (in 1795), his activities to expand Russian colonization off the coast of Alaska and exploitation of its wealth were continued by the Kargopol merchant Baranov. Baranov turned out to be no less persistent and enterprising leader of the new Russian colonies than Shelikhov himself, and continued the work begun by Shelikhov to expand and strengthen Russian possessions on the northwestern shores of America.

ALEXANDER ANDREEVICH BARANOV – THE FIRST CHIEF RULER OF RUSSIAN AMERICA

Shelikhov's successor in Russian America was the first Chief Ruler of Russian possessions in America, the Kargopol merchant, Irkutsk guest Alexander Andreevich Baranov, invited back in 1790 to manage the North-Eastern American Company.

Baranov was born on November 23, 1747 in Kargopol in the family of a tradesman. At that time, his last name was spelled Boranov. Upon reaching adulthood, he married the merchant widow Matryona Aleksandrovna Markova with two young children. At the same time, he entered the class of merchants and until 1780 had business in Moscow and St. Petersburg. At the same time, he began to write his last name as Baranov. He continued his education as a self-taught person; he knew chemistry and mining quite well. For his articles on Siberia in 1787 he was accepted into the free economic society. He had a vodka and glass farm, and from 1778 he had permission to trade and trade in Anadyr. In 1788, Baranov and his brother Peter were instructed by the government to settle in Anadyr. In the winter of 1789, Baranov's production was ruined by the non-peaceful Chukchi.

Three years ago, in 1787, Shelikhov tried to persuade Baranov to join his company, but Baranov refused. Now Shelikhov invited Baranov to take the place of manager of the Northwestern Company, which was temporarily occupied by Shelikhov’s business manager, Evstrat Ivanovich Delarov.

Shelikhov and his people visited about. Kodiak, in Kenai Bay, in Chugach Bay, near Afognak Island, passed through the strait between Kodiak Island and Alaska. Shelikhov step by step expanded Russia's sphere of interests in the Pacific Ocean. On the northern shore of Kodiak, closest to Alaska, a fortress was built in Pavlovsk harbor and a village grew, fortresses were built on Afognak and at Kenai Bay. After a two-year stay in Kodiak, Shelikhov went to Russia and left the Yenisei merchant K. Samoilov as his first successor. In 1791, Shelikhov published a book about his travels. Shelikhov sent his manager Evstrat Ivanovich Delarov to Kodiak, who replaced Samoilov at the beginning of 1788. By agreement with Shelikhov, Delarov demanded a replacement for himself as the ruler of the company on the spot, in Pavlovsk harbor. Shelikhov had known Baranov since 1775. Upon his arrival from Alaska in 1787, Shelikhov offered Baranov management of the company, but Baranov refused, so Shelikhov sent Delarov. Finally, after the looting of a factory in Anadyr, Baranov was forced by circumstances to enter the service of the company.

On August 15, 1790, Shelikhov in Okhotsk entered into an agreement with Alexander Andreevich Baranov, according to which the “Kargopol merchant, Irkutsk guest” agreed to manage the company on favorable terms for 5 years. The contract was approved in Okhotsk on August 17, 1790. The terms of the contract provided financial support for his wife and children.

With the personality of A.A. Baranov, who became legendary in the history of Alaska, is associated with an entire era in the life of Russian America. Although many reproaches were leveled against Baranov, even the cruelest critics could not accuse him of pursuing any personal goals: having enormous and almost uncontrollable power, he did not make any fortune. Baranov accepted a small artel in the Three Saints harbor of Kodiak Island in 1791, he left in 1818 the main trading post in Sitka, permanent offices for managing affairs in Kodiak, Unalaska and Ross and separate industrial administrations on the Pribilof Islands, in the Kenai and Chugatsky Bays.

By order of the company, the Chief Ruler of Russian America A.A. Baranov founded a settlement on the island in 1798. Sitkha, whose indigenous inhabitants call themselves by the name of the island, and the Russians call themselves Koloshes. The Koloshi are a brave, warlike and ferocious people. US ships that purchase beaver pelts from them for the Chinese market supply the Koloshes with firearms, which they are proficient in using. Nevertheless, Baranov managed to inspire their respect with gifts, justice and personal courage. He wore thin chain mail under his dress and was invulnerable to stab arrows, and, having knowledge of chemistry and physics, he amazed the imagination and was revered as a hero. “The firmness of his spirit and the ever-present presence of reason are the reason that the wild respect him without love for him, and the glory of the name of Baranov thunders among all the barbarian peoples inhabiting the northwestern shores of America to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Even those living in remote areas sometimes come to see him , and are amazed that such enterprising tasks can be performed by a man of such small stature. significant features faces that have not been erased by labor or years, although he is already 56 years old,” wrote midshipman G.I. Davydov, who served on one of the ships that arrived from Okhotsk. After spending some time on Sitkha, Baranov left the settlement with a garrison. Everything was calm for two days, but one night the garrison was attacked by a large number of Koloshes, among whom were several American sailors who incited the attack. They killed all the inhabitants of the settlement with immeasurable cruelty. Only a few Aleuts, who were hunting at that time, managed to escape They brought the news of the destruction of the settlement on Sith.

Baranov himself equipped three ships and, accompanied by the Neva, set off for Sitkha. When the Koloshes learned that Baranov, whom they called “the hero Nonok,” was returning, they were overcome by such fear that they did not even try to prevent the Russians from landing on the shore, they left their fortifications and gave amanats. After negotiations, when the Koloshes were given the opportunity to leave freely, they quietly left at night, having first killed all the old people and children who could delay their flight.

The settlement was rebuilt. It was called Novo Arkhangelsk and was the main city of Russian possessions in America, stretching from 52 N latitude. to the Arctic Ocean.

For his services, by decree of 1802, Baranov was awarded a personalized gold medal on the ribbon of St. Vladimir and was promoted to collegiate adviser - 6th class of the table of ranks, giving the right to hereditary nobility. The decree was implemented in 1804. In 1807 he received the Order of Anna, 2nd degree.

In relations with the indigenous inhabitants, the Russians did not oppose themselves to either the Aleuts, or the Eskimos, or the Indians; not only genocide, but also racism were alien to them. By the mid-1810s, the RAC faced the problem of the Creole population of the Russian colonies. Its numbers grew at a fairly rapid pace, and by 1816 there were more than 300 Creoles, including children, in Russian America. Their fathers were Russians from various provinces and classes. The mothers of the Creoles were mainly Kodiak Eskimos and Aleuts, but there were also Russian-Indian mestizos. A.A. himself Baranov was married to the daughter of one of the Indian tribes - Tanaina, who was taken as an amanat at the beginning of Baranov's stay in Alaska. At baptism her name was Anna Grigorievna Kenaiskaya (Baranov’s mother was also called Anna Grigorievna). Baranov had three children from her - Antipater (1795), Irina (1804) and Catherine (1808). In 1806, Baranov's first wife died. Baranov, through Ryazanov, sent a petition to the Tsar on February 15, 1806, asking for the adoption of Antipater and Irina. In 1808 he married the mother of Antipater and Irina.

Baranov’s assistant, Kuskov, was also married to the daughter of one of the Indian toens in baptism, Ekaterina Prokofyevna. She followed her husband to Totma, Vologda province, when his service in America ended.

The RAC took upon itself the care of the Creoles, their upbringing and education. There were schools in Russian America. Particularly gifted children were sent to study in St. Petersburg and other Russian cities. Every year 5-12 children were sent. The main board of the RAC ordered Baranov: “When Creoles enter legal age, try to start families for them, providing them with wives from native families, if there were no Creoles...” Almost all adult Creoles were trained in writing and literacy. The son of a teacher of the Kodiak and Novoarkhangelsk schools and a Creole woman, a famous traveler, and later the head of the Ayan port and Major General Alexander Filippovich Kashevarov, was educated in St. Petersburg. Among the famous travelers are the names of A.K. Glazunova, A.I. Klimovsky, A.F. Kolmakova, V.P. Malakhov and others. The first priest of the Atha department was the Creole J.E. Not flowers, the son of a Russian industrialist and an Aleut woman, educated at the Irkutsk Theological Seminary. Baranov's children also received a good education. Antipater knew English and navigation well and served as a supercargo on the company's ships. Irina married Lieutenant Commander Yanovsky, who arrived in Novo Arkhangelsk on the ship "Suvorov" and left for Russia with her husband. In 1933, the US Forest Service named two lakes on the Alexander Archipelago in honor of Baranov’s children - Antipater and Irina.

During Baranov's reign, the company's territories and income increased significantly. If in 1799 the total capital of the PAK was 2 million 588 thousand rubles, then in 1816 it was 4 million 800 thousand rubles. (taking into account what was in circulation - 7 million rubles). RAC fully paid off its debts and paid dividends to shareholders - 2 million 380 thousand rubles. From 1808 to 1819, more than 15 million rubles worth of furs arrived from the colonies, and another 1.5 million was in warehouses during Baranov’s shift. For its part, the Main Board sent there only 2.8 million rubles worth of goods, which forced Baranov to purchase goods from foreigners for approximately 1.2 million rubles. The RAC lost at least another 2.5 million rubles as a result of shipwrecks, mismanagement and attacks by natives. The total profit amounted to a huge amount of more than 12.8 million rubles, of which a third (!) went to maintain the company’s bureaucratic apparatus in St. Petersburg. From 1797 to 1816, the state received more than 1.6 million rubles from the RAC in the form of taxes and duties.

It can be argued that if the Russian possessions had not been headed by Baranov, then they, as well as the RAC itself, would inevitably have collapsed back in the early 1800s, when the colonies were actually abandoned to their fate. Baranov, being in extremes, had to extract things for payments from local products, as well as provide food supplies to the entire population of the colonies. The Eskimos and Aleuts did not have the habit or custom of storing supplies for the hungry season; industrialists had to organize hunting parties and force them to work. These are the main articles on which Baranov’s accusers based their evidence, and the reason for his removal from office. But the lives of many people were on his hands, and the company did not fulfill his requests and did not provide Russian America with goods and food.

In addition to Alaska, Russian America also included southern territories. Fort Ross was founded in California in 1812. On May 15, 1812, Baranov’s assistant Kuskov founded a village and a fortress on lands purchased from the coastal Indians with their consent and with their voluntary assistance. The Indians counted on the help and protection of the Russians in their relations with the Spaniards. The Ross Colony was sold in 1841.

During the first trip around the world The Neva visited the Hawaiian Islands, and trade ties began between the crew and the islanders. Having learned that the Russian colonies were experiencing food shortages, King Kamehameha let Baranov know that he was ready to send a merchant ship to Novo Arkhangelsk every year with a cargo of pigs, salt, sweet potatoes and other food products if “sea beaver skins” were received in exchange at a reasonable price." In 1815, Baranov sent a ship with Dr. G.A. to Hawaii. Schaeffer, who was assigned to act as a representative of the company. Along with Schaeffer on the Ilmen was Baranov’s son, Antipater. Schaeffer received permission to set up a trading post, and also land on the islands of Hawaii and Oahu.

From 1807 to 1825, at least 9 RAC merchant ships visited the island of Oahu, not counting a number of round-the-world expeditions equipped with food. After 1825 contacts became less and less frequent.

Baranov spent 28 years in America and in November 1818, 72 years old, forced by Golovnin, who had previously taken Baranov’s son Antipater with him, sailed on the ship “Kamchatka” to Russia.

But he was not destined to see his homeland. On November 27, 1818, Baranov sailed with Gagemeister on the Kutuzov to St. Petersburg to report to the company. Since March 7, 1819, the ship has been in Batavia for repairs, and Baranov, alone on the shore in a hotel, is very ill. While still on the ship, he fell ill with a fever, but it was medical care he was not given any assistance. (Schimonk Sergius 1912). The ship has been under repair for 36 days. Immediately after going to sea, on April 16, 1819, Baranov dies on board. The ship has just left the shore, but Baranov is being buried at sea, in the waters of the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra. He took with him all the documents he had for reporting to the Main Board, but there was no one who saw the specified materials after the return of the Kutuzov ship to St. Petersburg. They disappeared without a trace.

On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of Baranov’s birth, a monument was erected in Kargopol (July 1997).

Subsequently, the main rulers of Russian America, appointed from among honored naval officers, famous navigators and scientists, held this post, as a rule, for five years. Many of them were associated with the Russian-American Company through previous service.

Stadukhin Mikhail Vasilievich(?–1666), explorer and Arctic navigator, Cossack ataman, one of the discoverers of Eastern Siberia.

A native of the Arkhangelsk North. In his youth he moved to Siberia and served as a Cossack for 10 years on the banks of the Yenisei, then on the Lena. In the winter of 1641, he set out at the head of a detachment to “visit new lands.” Having crossed on horseback through the northern part of the Suntar-Khayata ridge, he ended up in the Indigirka basin. In the Oymyakon region, he collected yasak from the surrounding Yakuts, traveled on a kocha to the mouth of the Moma and explored its lower reaches. Then the detachment descended to the mouth of the Indigirka and in the summer of 1643 was the first to reach the delta of the “big Kovami River” (Kolyma) by sea, opening 500 kilometers of the coast of Northern Asia and the Kolyma Bay.

During the voyage, it seemed to the sailor that he observed a “huge land mass.” Thus was born the legend of a great land on the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Eastern Siberia. More than 100 years after Stadukhin’s voyage, service people and industrialists believed that they would find on this “land” valuable “soft junk” (arctic fox fur), “meat bone” (mammoth tusks), “corgi” (braids) with the richest rookeries.” animal-walrus", which gives an equally valuable "fish tooth" (walrus tusks).

Along the Kolyma, Stadukhin ascended to its middle course (discovering the eastern edge of the Kolyma Lowland), and by the fall he placed the first Russian winter hut to collect yasak, and in the spring of 1644 - a second, in the lower reaches of the river, where the Yukaghirs lived. Founded by the explorer, Nizhnekolymsk became the starting point for further colonization of the northeast of Siberia and the coast of the Lama (Okhotsk) Sea. In two years in Kolyma, Stadukhin collected “eight forty sables” (320) and brought this “sovereign yasak collection” in November 1645 to Yakutsk. In addition to furs, he delivered the first news about the newly discovered river: “The Kolyma... is great, there is a river from Lena” (which was a clear exaggeration). But instead of gratitude and payment for his service, by order of the governor, his own “four forty sables” were taken away from him.

The discoverer lived in Yakutsk for about two years, preparing for a new journey to the north to explore the lands about which he collected information during the winter in Kolyma. In 1647, he traveled on a koche down the Lena. In March 1648, leaving some of his companions to spend the winter on the Yana River “in the Yasash winter quarters,” Stadukhin and several servicemen set off on sledges to Indigirka. They built a koch on the river, went down to the mouth and reached the Nizhnekolymsky fort by sea.

In the summer of 1649, the explorer moved further east to reach the “Chukchi Nose”. But the lack of food supplies, the lack of good fisheries and the fear of “starving servicemen and industrial people to death” forced him to turn back, apparently from the Diomede Islands (in the Bering Strait). He returned to Kolyma in September and began preparing for a land campaign against Anadyr. Stadukhin undertook this new journey, which lasted for a decade, not only at his own peril and risk, but also at his own expense. In Anadyr he met S. Dezhnev, with whom he had a dispute over the collection of yasak. Having crushed the Yukaghirs in Anadyr, taking from them as many sables as he could, Stadukhin moved on skis and sledges to the Penzhina River in the winter.

At its mouth, explorers “made kochi” and in nearby areas of the western coast of Kamchatka they harvested timber for the construction of ships. By sea they moved for the winter to the mouth of the Gizhiga (“Izigi”). Fearing an attack by the Koryaks, Stadukhin in the summer of 1652 headed southwest along the rocky coastal strip of Gizhiginskaya Bay and Shelikhov Bay. In the fall, he arrived at the mouth of the Taui River, built a fort there, collected yasak and hunted sable.

In the summer of 1657, Stadukhin and his companions reached the fort at the mouth of Okhota on Kochs, and in the summer of 1659 they returned to Yakutsk through Oymyakon and Aldan, completing a giant circular route through Northeast Asia. From the trip, Stadukhin brought not only a large “sable treasury”, but also a drawing of his route along the rivers and mountains of Yakutia and Chukotka, as well as voyages off the coast of the East Siberian and Okhotsk Seas (this important cartographic document, apparently, has not been preserved). During the expedition, he also collected information about the islands in the Arctic Ocean and the Bering Strait.

Stadukhin was the first to visit Kamchatka.

In 12 years, he walked over 13 thousand kilometers - more than any explorer of the 17th century. total length The northern shores of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk he discovered amounted to at least 1,500 kilometers. His geographical discoveries were reflected on the map of P. Godunov, compiled in 1667 in Tobolsk.

For his service, Stadukhin was promoted to atamans. In 1666, the Yakut authorities instructed him to undertake a new campaign, but on the way the ataman was killed in a battle with “non-peaceful” aborigines. He died not a rich man, but a debtor.

Map of M. Stadukhin’s campaigns in 1641–1659

( ) - proposed hike

More than a hundred years have passed since the discoveries at the military hospital in Irkutsk. During this period, scientists' ideas 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 passing, but it was still warm. Cold rains with strong winds, so common in the Far Eastern autumn, were clearly delayed. September 27, 1961 was a hot, truly summer day. For more than a week now, archaeologists have been sailing on a small barge between the cities of Zeya and Svobodny, examining the area of ​​future flooding and construction of the Zeya hydroelectric power station in order to identify all archaeological sites and draw up a work plan for their further study. The expedition members stood on the bow of the barge and carefully examined the shores slowly floating past. Man has long settled in the most convenient, favorable places. On large rivers, ancient settlements are found, as a rule, in high places that are not flooded during floods and river overflows. Particularly attractive are the places where small channels flow into the river, 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 approached close to the river. The mighty blue pines on the high banks swayed slightly, reflected in the water. From time to time small clearings flashed with white-trunked birches and aspens, which, despite the warm weather, were covered in crimson and were already shedding their finery, preparing for a long and dreary winter.

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

The sun had passed its zenith when the small village of Filimoshki appeared around a bend in the river. The landscape in front of him also changed: the mountains retreated, revealing a wide valley. The houses scattered far along the steep, steep bank of the river. The village spreads 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 the barge there. We moored to the very shore. From the barge, steep coastal sediments were visible. The river, apparently, during a recent strong flood, collapsed the bank in this place, and layers of light yellow sands, sandy loams, and dark clays were clearly visible in the bright sunlight. Coastal sediments, like an open book, can tell scientists about climate and floods for at least many tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years. All members of the expedition impatiently jumped onto the shore: they wanted to walk on solid ground. And the place was convenient for an ancient settlement.

A few minutes later, the first cry of joy was heard - a flint flake had been found, and next to it was a tool of a Neolithic man. While everyone was examining the upper part of the shore, Okladnikov went down to the water and walked downwards along the still warm, well-rounded pebbles. And then the scientist’s experienced eye was attracted by one stone. He took it in his hands and began to examine it carefully. At first glance, it was the most ordinary cobblestone made of yellowish fine-grained quartzite. But only at first glance. Having looked closely, Alexey Pavlovich saw that it was split by several strong blows and at one end there was a sharp blade, reminiscent of a rough and primitive scraper. Next to the stone lay another one, also with traces of processing. Man or nature? Such chips, so rough and primitive they are, 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 tertiary layers were included in the scientific literature; intentional processing was attributed to them. Among them, the most famous are eoliths with traces of fire and fractured flints from sediments 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 hit each other, as a result of which they got kinks and potholes, very reminiscent of artificial processing made by man.

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

Man or nature? Alexey Pavlovich carefully looked at his finds again and again. It seems that this was done by a person, 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.

Slowly, holding back his excitement, he walked towards the coastal deposits. On top lay a thick layer of gray silty sands and sandy loams. Below, at eye level, layers of pebbles could be seen lying on ancient, bedrock of the Tertiary period. Alexey Pavlovich slowly, meter by meter, began to examine the layer in which the pebbles lay.

This day was truly successful. Not even fifteen minutes had passed before he, now from the layer, pulled out a pebble with traces of chips. Several hours of careful searching brought about a dozen broken pebbles. There was no doubt: they were tools of labor and made by human hands. Despite their relatively small number and great primitiveness, it is already possible to distinguish leading forms: products with grooved recesses and massive pebbles with a point - a “spout”. All finds were carefully packaged and sent to the Novosibirsk academic campus.

In 1964, the VII International Congress of Anthropologists and Ethnographers took place in Moscow. Many famous 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 only indifferent people.

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

The nature of the Far East as a whole, throughout the Quaternary period, experienced directed rhythmic changes that were distinguished by local originality. Vegetable and animal world This territory preserved many tertiary relics in the Quaternary period. The Far East is an area with weak changes natural conditions in anthropogenesis in comparison with the north-west of Eurasia, which experienced catastrophic changes in nature. The reason for the differences, as most researchers assume, is the glaciation in the north-west and its absence in the Far East. From which it follows that in the Pleistocene climatic conditions in the basins of the Amur and Zeya rivers and in Primorye were very favorable, and man could well have lived 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, evergreen plants played a decisive role in the undergrowth. The climate was still warm and humid.

The Middle Quaternary glaciation, which was the maximum for this territory, had a significant impact on the formation of flora and fauna. The spore-pollen spectra of sediments, synchronous with the glaciation periods, indicate that birch forests and woodlands were widespread. Large areas were occupied by moss and sphagnum bogs with shrubby 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 marine monsoon climate. The presence in the modern flora of Primorye and the Amur region of a large number of relicts of the Tertiary flora indicates that they survived the glaciation era in the most favorable habitats, greatly reducing their ranges and spreading widely during interglacial periods. The milder climate during glacial times can explain the fact that representatives of the ancient subtropical flora still grow in the Amur and Ussyrian taiga - velvet tree and Manchurian walnut, wild grapes and lemongrass, ginseng and aralia. Favorable climatic conditions, apparently, allowed man to populate these remote territories of Northern Asia in ancient times.

Finds of ancient tools in Filimoshki are not the only ones today. New confirmation of the hypothesis about the habitation of ancient man in the Far East during the Lower Paleolithic are the finds of pebble tools near the village of Kumara, in the Upper Amur basin. This location was discovered back in 1957 by E. Shavkunov. He collected a collection of stone tools that undoubtedly date back to the Paleolithic.

In 1968, the author continued his work in Kumara. Excavations and a thorough examination of the coastal terrace made it possible to identify several cultural horizons in the village area: Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic. Three Paleolithic sites are of particular interest. At the first, several dozen tools were found dating back to a very ancient time - the Lower Paleolithic. The finds are located on the coastal pebble strip, 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. Labor tools are represented by three types - choppers, choppers and tools with points - “spouts”. Several shapeless pebbles were also found, from which rough flakes had been chipped.

The location of the finds is interesting. All the tools were found in ancient pebbles, which are covered by a 10-15-meter thick layer of loam and sandy loam. The loose strata, constantly rising, approach the rocky hills that stretch in a chain 200-300 meters from the modern Amur valley. In some places, the rocks come straight to the water, ending 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 river bed either advanced or retreated. 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 monuments were discovered in the beds of ancient rivers. The loose deposits of the first Amur terrace 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 that lies on the bedrock. The pebble layer is covered by a terrace composed of loose layered deposits of silty sands and sandy loams. The terrace, two or three kilometers long, gradually rises, approaches a low mountain range.

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

Discoveries in the Far East were followed by others - in Siberia and Altai. In the same 1961, A. Okladnikov found rough 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-Altaisk 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 bank ends abruptly with ledges 20-25 meters high. We decided to try our luck and started 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, the heat was thirty degrees. In the 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 for several hours without a break. We had to go a few meters deeper to the bluish color of dense clays lying on quartzite bedrock. 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. Work became 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 several more crude tools and flakes, and they all resembled ancient tools.

A. Okladnikov conducted excavations at Ulalinka for a number of years. And to date, this workshop site has collected a huge amount of material, numbering several thousand items. In terms of its stone inventory, the workshop site on the Ulalinka River is a unique monument of a pronounced pebble culture; not a single plate was found in it, but only human-processed quartzite nodules and primitive tools made from pebbles. This location represents an entire era in the history of the Stone Age of Northern 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 in Ulalinka were dated to an unexpectedly early time. The first dating estimated the layer boundary at more than 700 thousand years, and the upper dating at more than 300 thousand years. In 1979, work to determine the age continued using the thermoluminescent method, and the age of the lower cultural horizon was determined to be 690 thousand years. This puts Ulalinka on a par with the most ancient monuments in North and Central Asia.

The tools discovered at Ulalinka are also among the oldest known in the area. They date back to that distant time, to that era of our history when man took his first steps towards overcoming dependence on nature, exploring more and more new territories of the globe. But these steps were timid and very uncertain; the person was still too dependent on the constantly changing natural environment.

Important discoveries over the past twenty years have been made by archaeologists of Irkutsk University G. Medvedev, M. Aksenov and others. During security work in the flood zone of the Bratsk Reservoir, they drew attention to crude 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 later it was possible to find roughly processed products of ancient man. Among them there were also well-shaped cores of Levallo-Mousterian shape for removing plates with a certain contour. It is worth noting an important feature of the finds dating back to early times: their entire pebble surface seems to be corroded by small pockmarks - the result of prolonged exposure to strong winds and other natural factors on the surface of the stone - the so-called corrosion. The great antiquity of the finds in the Angara region is evidenced by the shape of the tools and the technique of primary and secondary splitting.

We must give credit to Irkutsk archaeologists: they were in no hurry to draw conclusions. While accumulating material, they made dozens of pits, each several meters deep, 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 finds. Patience and perseverance were rewarded with brilliant discoveries. Now there is no doubt that 200-300 thousand years ago ancient man settled in the Angara region.

Completely unexpected, in literally The finds of the Yakut archaeologist Yu. Mochanov on the Lena in the area of ​​Dyuring-Yuryakh, 120 kilometers from Yakutsk, became sensational. In 1983-1985, he and his employees managed to uncover several thousand square meters of area. About two thousand items were found. They are so crude and primitive that they resemble the famous finds in the Olduvai Gorge in eastern Africa.

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

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

It is very important that the story associated with one of the first scientists who laid the foundations of a new science - primitive archeology - Boucher de Perth, does not repeat itself. The finds in Dühring-Yury 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 poses several important questions for scientists that need to be answered. Where and when could the first person come to Siberia? Who was he, this pioneer of North Asia? What is his subsequent fate? But before we try 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, also 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 skeletal remains of an 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 should include an enthusiastic supporter of Darwin's teachings - Associate Professor of Anatomy at the University of Amsterdam Eugene Dubois (1856-1940). In the late 80s of the 19th century, he announced that he was going to the islands of the Malay Archipelago in search of the ape-man predicted by Haeckel. Few people believed in the luck of the young scientist. Firstly, 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 site that could contain the remains of an ancient person is a crazy idea, as it seemed to many. Despite the advice of “well-wishers,” Eugene Dubois, having exchanged the toga of a scientist with a brilliant future for the robe of a simple doctor of the colonial troops, arrived on the island of Sumatra at the end of 1888. There was almost no free time left, but Dubois carried out the excavations with titanic tenacity. Months and years pass. Lack of funds, workers, difficult living conditions in the tropics - nothing can shake the scientist’s confidence in success. He stubbornly continues his search.

It's 1891. Eugene Dubois works in the eastern part of the island of Java. He carefully explores the intermountain belt between the active volcanoes Merbabu and Lawu (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 a reminder of the merciless and inexorable force of the lava flows, which destroyed all living things and froze into a lifeless plain. Meter by meter the workers went deeper into the ground. Every evening the morning hope for luck gave way to disappointment. It seemed that no one believed in the positive outcome of the excavations when, at a fifteen-meter depth, 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 one. The discovery inspired the scientist. Now time flew by. E. Dubois “conjured” the tooth, which he initially considered to be the wisdom tooth of an extinct giant chimpanzee, and the workers continued the excavations. Some time later, not far from the tooth, a fossilized object was found that resembled a turtle shell in shape. Carefully removing the layers, Dubois suddenly realizes that this is nothing more than the skull cap of a “large ape...”.

After the rainy season the next year, new, no less interesting finds followed: a femur and another tooth, the same as the first. In 1893, E. Dubois notifies scientific world about the discovery of the missing link in the human pedigree predicted by E. Haeckel - Pithecanthropus, adding to it the species designation - “erectus”. From that time until his death, the discoverer’s entire life was connected with the heated discussions that took place around Java man. They say that while returning to Europe, the ship was caught in a strong storm on the high seas. Dubois rushed into the hold, where the lost-and-found box stood, and shouted to his wife: “If anything happens, save the children, but I need to think about the box!”

Dubois walked long and hard towards his outstanding discovery. His further fate is even more difficult and even tragic. Immediately after the first reports of the findings, many angry articles appeared, ridiculing the discoverer and his brainchild. Scientists did not have a common point of view on where to place the Javanese find in the evolutionary scheme. Some considered Pithecanthropus to be an ape with human characteristics, others - a man with ape-like features, and others, like Dubois, to be a transitional form between ape and man. To the very end of his life, Du Bois believed that Java Man was the missing link in our ancestry. He traveled a lot around the world, gave presentations, and demonstrated his findings. But gradually he became more and more disappointed: Pithecanthropus did not receive, as it seemed to him, 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 the bones he found to anyone. Only in 1932 did he again invite several major anthropologists to join him, and Pithecanthropus again became the object of in-depth study.

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

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

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

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

Currently, the remains of Pithecanthropus 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, discoveries 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 Zhoukoudian area, on Mount Jigushan (“Chicken Bones Mountain”), in the layer of red clay filling the cave, there were many bones of birds and rodents. When Anderson visited Jwgushan in 1919, he discovered that the clay workers had left the loose sediments that filled the caves untouched. The reason for this was the legend that the bones found in the filling belonged 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 with many dragon bones. This place turned out to be the “Mountain of Dragon Bones”, located 150 meters from Zhoukoudian, where, on Anderson’s initiative, new excavations began. When quartz flakes were discovered along with animal bones, Anderson came to the conclusion that they did not come here by chance: after knocking on the sediments of the 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 during further excavations.

The excavations were led by Davidson Black and Pei Wenzhong. First, two ancient human teeth 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, Franz Weidenreich continued the work. Over the course of ten years, from 1927 to 1937, bones belonging to more than 40 individuals of ancient people were discovered. These were men, women, children. 5 skulls, 9 fragments of them, 6 fragments of facial bones, 14 lower jaws, 152 teeth were found - one of the best collections of the remains of ancient people in the world.

In 1939, Koenigswald brought his findings of the Javan Pithecanthropus to Beijing. A historical “meeting” of Peking man and Javanese took place, about which Koenigswald wrote: “We laid out our findings on a large table in Weidenreich’s laboratory, equipped with last word techniques - 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 with sandstones and tuffs. Comparisons of authentic skulls were made for all characteristics, and in all they showed a high degree of agreement." Scientists have come to the conclusion that Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus are, in all basic characteristics, very related species of ancient people.

The outbreak of Japanese aggression interrupted excavations in Zhoukoudian. As the Japanese approached Beijing, disputes began about what to do with the finds of Sinanthropus. Finally, Chinese scientists decided to pack them and ship them to America. The boxes with the collections were sent by train, accompanied 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 matter, but, unfortunately, only beautiful drawings and plaster casts made by Weidenreich and taken by him earlier to America have been preserved for science. Javanese man was luckier. Despite many misfortunes after the occupation of Java by the Japanese, these collections were preserved almost completely.

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

Very little time passed before new ones followed, no less important discoveries. The years from 1967 to 1977 are called the golden decade in paleoanthropology. In 1967, excavations begin in the Omo Valley in Ethiopia. The American group was led by K. Howell, the French group by K. Arambourg, 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 the excavations of R. Leakey in the area of ​​Lake Turana (Rudolph) in Kenya, where they managed to find a well-preserved skull, somewhat older than the finds of Homo Habilis in Olduvai. Its volume was 773 cubic centimeters, and it exceeded the volume of the skull of Homo habilis by 130 centimeters. A 1.5-million-year-old skull of Pithecanthropus (Homo erectus) was also discovered there.

Even more amazing discoveries awaited scientists in the Afar Triangle region, 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. The remains of more than 350 hominid bones ranging from 3 to 4 million years old were found, including a well-preserved upper skeleton of a female specimen named Lucy. American anthropologists D. Johanson and T. White identified Lucy and forms close to her as 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 dating back more than 2.5 million years were found in the same area.

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

E. White and D. Brown, popularizers of primitive archeology and paleoanthropology, draw attention to the difficulty of searching for the remains of ancient people, write: “The successes of these first people, as they and their culture spread across the far reaches of the Old World, are a story , the pages of which are found at a distance of many thousands of kilometers from each other. When the fragments of this story are put together, its striking content becomes clear. It’s as if scientists found many scattered couplets from the Odyssey, the heroic poem of the ancient Greek singer Homer, put them in the correct order and found out who Odysseus was, how he lived and where he visited while wandering the seas.”

Currently, two points of view are most common. According to one of them, the birthplace of man is Africa, which would seem to be confirmed by the findings of australopithecines 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 am firmly convinced that the earliest ancestors of man came from Asia, where Ramapithecus lived about 10 million years ago. In Java, the remains of an early human (Pithecanthropus) were found next to the remains of one of the Australopithecines (Meganthropus). This is a very curious circumstance, which means that a similar situation existed on both sides Indian Ocean- both in Olduvai and Sangiran. The distance from Java to India is approximately equal to the distance from India to Olduvai, that is, we can assume that the formation of man began in India.”

The facts that science has today undoubtedly indicate that the regions of Southeast Asia were settled 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 an ancient human culture, more than 700 thousand years old, have been discovered. It was called Lantian, and it is much older than Sinanthropus. In 1983, the author managed to visit Zhoukoudian and get acquainted with the finds of Chinese archaeologists. Particularly impressive were the tools about a million years old found in the Nihevan horizons.

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

Also in late XIX— at the beginning of the 20th century, 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 magazine “New East” 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 began to disappear first of all, as a result of which 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 plant food became less and less with the disappearance of forests, our ancestors gradually switched to meat, which they obtained by hunting using primitive tools.

Among foreign scientists, this idea was developed on the basis of the theory he put forward about a single “center of dispersion” by the largest American paleontologist and archaeologist G. F. Osborne. From Central Asia, according to his theory, in the early geological eras, 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 species of animals are so close to each other. They, so similar, could not have arisen on their own, Osborne 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 Plateau, that, according to Osborne, one should expect the discovery of the missing first links of evolution, including man himself. From this gigantic natural “cauldron of nature” its most ancient ancestors should have spread across the globe.

To confirm the hypothesis, an American Central Asian expedition headed by the prominent biologist R. S. Andrews was sent into the depths of Mongolia in the 20s. The expedition included many of the leading 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 area of ​​the globe. Nine cars worked on the expedition - one-ton Fultons and Detroit Dodges. A huge caravan of camels left for the desert one and a half to two months earlier with gasoline and oil to refuel cars.

Scientists worked for several years. Participants in this large scientific enterprise managed to discover a significant number of fossil animals, including a giant dinosaur cemetery in the heart of Central Asia - the Gobi Desert in the area of ​​Baindzak (literally from Mongolian “Rich Saxaul”), or Shabarak Usu (from the name of the “Clay Water” well) ). At sunset, the rock ridges here glow a bright cherry color, which is why they received the romantic name “Flaming Rocks.” In Shabarak Usu they found almost complete skeletons of dinosaurs that inhabited the earth many tens of millions of years ago.

Despite the most thorough searches, the expedition failed to find not only a complete skeleton of an ancient ape, which could be the 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 talk seriously about Central Asia as the ancestral home of humanity.

In Bainzak, the expedition members collected tens of thousands of ancient human artifacts. Near the fires of the ancient inhabitants of the Gobi Desert that went out thousands of years ago, chalcedony flakes and plates lay, according to archaeologist Nelson, like “freshly fallen snow.” Nelson dated these finds to Mesolithic times, that is, no more than 10-12 thousand years old.

The earliest finds discovered by scientists in the area of ​​lakes Tsagan Nur and Orok Nur are also dated by Nelson to a relatively late time - the final stage of the Upper Paleolithic. The finds at Orok Nur were so numerous and unusual that they perplexed 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 by the expedition, the question of the initial settlement of this territory by humans and its role in the formation 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 began a systematic study of the Stone Age of Mongolia. In a variety of areas, 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 a number of new problems and hypotheses... After many years of work, Okladnikov will write: “It turns out that Central Asia was not the ancestral homeland and the first a teacher of man, 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 big people Sciences. But who knows, after all, what else the unexplored land of Mongolia and Tibet holds in its depths, what surprises it may bring us in the future in addition to those already received?

Several years ago, Soviet and Mongolian scientists were tasked with writing a general 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 ancient river valleys and lake basins, where people mainly settled. If previously our routes ran mainly through the most populated places, now archaeologists will have to explore, for a number of years, hard-to-reach areas that were not explored in previous years.

In 1983, field work was carried out on the territory of the Mongolian Altai in the valleys of Sagsay Gol, Uyguryn Gol, Tsagan Gol and partly in the Kobdo River basin. It was possible to discover 59 new Paleolithic monuments, 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 text and drawings.

In 1984, we had to complete work in the Mongolian Altai and begin research in the Gobi Altai, the fieldwork 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 effective and gives significantly better results.

On August 1, 1984, we arrived in Ulegei, the center of the Bayai-Ulgiy aimag in the north of the Mongolian Altai. Yearning for business, we wasted no time and went to the Kobdo River, at the mouth of Bayan Gol, where last year we managed to open a large Paleolithic workshop. It was still light, and without breaking camp, everyone immediately got to work. The Kobdo Valley greeted us inhospitably: clouds of midges and mosquitoes descended on us. There were so many of them that they literally clogged my nose, mouth, and eyes. It was difficult to breathe and talk. It was late in the evening, over tart, fragrant expedition tea, with faces swollen from bites, but nevertheless with pleasure we discussed the results of the day: five new Paleolithic sites with a variety of artifacts had been found. During the conversation, someone did not fail to remember the words of one of the employees of our institute about how good it is for archaeologists who, in addition to vacations, also have the opportunity to relax on expeditions. To be honest, I don’t know a single colleague of mine who would come back from the expedition feeling rested. After everyday worries, big and small, related to work and everyday 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 could be happier than people who, already at night, by the light of a fire, again and again look through the numerous tools found during the day, made by man several tens of thousands of years ago?

The first day instilled confidence in our hearts of success. The next one gave four new sites and a meeting with Mongolian colleagues: the famous scientist D. Havan, a specialist in the Bronze Age, and a young employee of the Institute of History of the Mongolia X. Lkhvagvasuren, who flew 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 strewn with pebbles. It was he who attracted the person's attention. Roughly shaped cores, flakes, and blades lay on an area of ​​several square kilometers. It was not even one giant workshop, but several. For a long time, a person came here, took a suitable pebble and first shaped it so that in the future it could be used to chop flakes and blades of the correct shape, which were used to make tools. There were also well-designed tools: scrapers, cutting and chopping tools. Of particular interest was the place where the processed stones were concentrated in a dense mass. Without a doubt, this is where the ancient craftsmen worked most intensively. Further laboratory research may make it possible to completely 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 discovered on the right bank, make it possible to imagine the life and way of life of ancient people in a vast region much more fully. But at the same time, 27 kilometers northwest of Bayan Nur somon, they managed to open a site 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, and scrapers perfectly crafted on both sides were found here. This is apparently a special, previously unknown culture of the Upper Paleolithic in Central Asia.

A more detailed examination of the left bank of the Kobdo yielded interesting results. Back in 1983, we came to the conclusion that 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 tightly surrounded by granite rocks, carved by time, above which towered high chains with snow-white caps, often merging with the clouds. It is especially beautiful here in the evening, when the setting sun “ignites” a giant fire of granite rocks over the endless blue of the lake.

We walked tens of kilometers along the coast, but we were able to discover only a few Neolithic settlements. Paleolithic items were very rare. Perhaps, indeed, in the Pleistocene, glaciers crawled onto the basin from high mountain ranges, making human life here almost impossible. But the river valley yielded amazing finds. Ancient sites and settlements of the Middle and Upper Paleolithic were concentrated in clusters, a kind of nests, and were also found isolated in the most convenient places. An archaeologist, as a rule, does not search blindly. In order to find the remains of human activity, especially of deep antiquity, in addition to experience and intuition, it is necessary to have an idea of ​​the ancient topography, to know where the rivers flowed at that time, the nature and time of accumulation of loose sediments, and much more. The modern hydraulic network differs significantly from the one that existed tens, especially hundreds of thousands of years ago. And it is no coincidence that we find some sites on the modern bank of the river, while others are separated from it by hundreds of meters, and sometimes kilometers.
I would like to note one feature of the discovered sites: the mass nature of the finds. At one of the sites, located on a terrace in a surprisingly convenient place, we managed to find about 800 artifacts of ancient man. The river in this place flows in a wide floodplain fenced with high cliffs. From the north, a terrace 10-12 meters high adjoins the rocks, reliably sheltered from the cold winds. Several residential areas and places where stone processing took place were identified at the site. During excavation, it was possible to discover finds lying in situ, that is, in the layer. The number of collections collected at sites and workshops along the left bank was equal to the total number of finds from the previous field season, although it was considered one of the most successful in all the years of work in Mongolia. And how many beautiful monuments of later times we saw in the Kobdo Valley: the Bronze, Iron Age, and early Middle Ages!

At the second stage of our expedition, one troupe was supposed 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 for good reason. The southwestern face of the Mongolian Altai gave us the rarest finds.

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

Late in the evening of August 15, we stopped on the banks of the Uench 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 about two in the afternoon, I saw the head of the detachment, V. Petrin, who was quickly walking towards me. Confusion was visible on his face, and I wondered if something had happened during our absence. In a voice trembling with excitement, he began to quickly talk about the discovery of an unusual settlement not far from the camp. Soon we were already climbing a steep 50-meter terrace, from which we had a beautiful view of the river valley. Petrin had every reason to be excited: large cores, plates, and tools lay compactly on a large area. They all had an unusual appearance. The surface of the products was covered with a deep crust of desert tan, worn away 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, subsequently passed from the Altai soum of the Kobdo aimag to the Altai soum of the Gobi-Altai aimag and further to the Bayan-Under soum of the Bayankhongor aimak along the Mongolian-Chinese border. There are hundreds of kilometers from one village to another. All the arats with their herds were in the mountains, on summer pastures, and we often had to get lost 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 continuous potholes; they were often crossed by very fresh ravines with steep walls. Therefore, we drove with great caution, and often only the great experience and professionalism of the driver V. Tikunov saved us from trouble. But in work all the troubles were forgotten. Every day brought new discoveries. We were lucky enough to find dozens of new sites, settlements and workshops along this route. Finds filled the back of our long-suffering UAZ, and we all wondered what we would do with them, and new discoveries followed one after another. The most interesting area was the Baralgin Valley. Once upon a time in ancient times, a deep river flowed here (its valley was at least 10 kilometers wide). Now only the remains of coastal terraces indicate a powerful river flow. Rare semi-desert vegetation and saxaul cover the bottom of the ancient valley without a hint of any body of water. At the entrance to the valley, like a guard, stands 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 explore the surroundings a little. Finds began to be found already a few tens of meters from the camp. But when I climbed onto one of the flat hills, I couldn’t believe my eyes: hundreds of rough-hewn very ancient tools lay all around. After a careful examination of the finds by the light of the 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 complex and a giant workshop were discovered in this area. There were so many finds (several thousand items) that I had to carry them in sleeping bag covers. Around the huge cores, some of them weighing several hundred kilograms, lay dozens and hundreds of flakes and blades.

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

The finds at other sites were no less interesting. All work, despite the scorching heat, had to be completed during the day: we had one and a half buckets of water left for six of us. There is no housing or a single source for many tens of kilometers around. And we don’t know the road. We finished work already at dusk. Much to our regret, due to overload, the machines could only take with them individual, most expressive tools of ancient man. In addition, it turned out that one of the fastenings on the gearbox cover had burst, and there were still more than a thousand kilometers of road ahead through the mountains and desert. In the days following our return to camp, we were also lucky. Every day more and more new Paleolithic complexes were discovered, which we only described and photographed, hoping to explore completely in the next field season.

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

In total, during the field season, it was possible to discover 104 Stone Age monuments dating back to different eras - from the Lower Paleolithic to the Neolithic. Thousands of ancient human artifacts have been collected. The material is unique and rich. Even a brief description of the work within one month indicates the great possibilities of searching for ancient complexes in Mongolia. Future research will certainly help to open new amazing pages there in the history of the population and the exploration of Central Asia by ancient man.

Finds in Mongolia provide an opportunity to identify two trends in stone processing technology. The complexes of western and southeastern Mongolia are characterized by choppers, choppers, points with a protrusion-spike at one end, coarse pebble scrapers, cores with simple undermining of the striking platform and the removal of large flakes along the front. All products are distinguished by their archaic shape and the minimal efforts of the ancient master in designing the working blade. The surface of the artifacts is covered with deep patina and corrosion.

The second direction, well represented at the workshop site 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). Cores similar in shape to Levallois and disc-shaped 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. Opening for last years complexes with handaxes in Korea (Chongokni), China (in the Fen River valley and other places), 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 double-sided stone processing in monuments such as Kehe and others dating from the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene, the discovery of Paleolithic monuments in the early Pleistocene and Eopleistocene deposits does not exclude the convergent development of double-sided stone processing technology in Asia at a very early stages.

Ancient tools found in the south of Siberia, Altai and the Angara region also belong to the Lower Paleolithic, and were made by an ancient man named Pithecanthropus or Sinanthropus. Man at that time already knew how to do a lot. M. Leakey also identified special areas, the so-called “inhabited horizons,” where a skilled person stopped for a long time. An even more astonishing discovery involves a ring about four and a half meters across, deliberately made of stones. It is similar to the shelters now built by the Okombambi tribes in South-East Africa. First, a ring is laid out from stones, and then, at certain intervals, poles or branches are secured with stones, making 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 became acquainted with fire early and learned to use it. During excavations in Zhoukoudian, researchers discovered multi-meter layers of ash, and back in the thirties, some scientists made a bold assumption about the constant use of fire by synanthropes. At present, no one doubts this. Excavations of more ancient complexes in Kehe, Lantian, Xihoudu, Yuanlo revealed 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 is rightfully one of the greatest discoveries of man, who gained the opportunity to cook food, fight the cold and wild animals.

Ancient man faced serious trials: during the anthropogenic period there were several glaciations on earth, during which glaciers accumulated in the mountains in the northern latitudes, slid into valleys and gradually covered vast areas. At this time, the tropics became cooler and more rain fell. Ice ages gave way to interglacial periods, when the ice melted in the north, a climate warmer than at present was established, and long-term 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 into new areas was very slow, and it cannot be represented as a directed migration of ancient populations.
Analysis of the Lower Paleolithic complexes of East and Central Asia shows that there were both general trends in stone processing and a certain uniqueness in individual groups of locations. Most likely, this indicates that at that time the territories north of 40 degrees north latitude were not entirely populated by humans, and 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 groups of people were then completely isolated from each other. Moreover, we cannot deny the direct infiltration of other groups of ancient people from neighboring territories. The great originality in the specification of human stone industries in the early stages is a reflection of the process of settlement of individual groups.

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

Of course, we do not have indisputable evidence. There is still a lot to be done to finally solve such a serious problem. Even the pebble products themselves require careful checking in terms of their artificial origin. This requires new searches, the discovery of new monuments with clear stratigraphic conditions and the presence in them not only of a large number of artifacts themselves, but also, what is especially important, the possibility of establishing the broader specificity of the tools themselves. The variety of products from the Lower Paleolithic complexes indicates a large typological and functional division of tools at the indicated time, which has not yet been established in the monuments of Altai, the Angara and Amur basins. The question of dating the sites themselves also remains open.

Subsequent studies in southern Siberia make it possible to more fully illuminate these problems. But now we can state the fact that the initial settlement of this territory by ancient man apparently occurred very early - in the Lower Paleolithic.

How did the further development of the culture of ancient man in Siberia proceed? This question is far from rhetorical. The ancient man, such as Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus, is being replaced by a new creature - paleoanthropus, or Neanderthal. Until recently, there were no known monuments left by Neanderthals belonging to the Mousterian culture in Siberia. 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 sparsely scattered small fragments of limestone. The average passage width is 2-3 meters. There is a significant expansion at the far end of the cave. The total floor area is about 80 square meters.

Stratigraphic pits, later converted 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 faunal remains, but in general, starting from a depth of 6 meters and up to the top, there is a surprisingly consistent uniformity in both 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 raw materials. Among the cores there are pebbles that retain very archaic features, when massive flakes (rough with a massive impact cusp) were chopped off from pebbles almost without preliminary preparation. Pebble cores are still a survival element. Most of the cores are carefully designed and form very specific typological groups. The bulk of the cores have features of a well-defined Devallois technique. One side—the shear front—is leveled and flattened. The opposite surface is convex. The platforms of the cores are carefully worked and are always beveled in relation to the long axis. Nuclei of the Levallois tradition are single- and double-platform. Long plates of regular shape were removed from them. The third type of cores is disc-shaped. The 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 plates have retouching along the edges - additional minor corrections to make the cutting surface sharper. Some plates were used without additional processing. Among the labor tools, pointed points, knives, side-scrapers, and scrapers are interesting. All material has clearly defined Levallois-Mousterian features. The layer completely lacks prismatic and conical cores, characteristic of the developed phase of the Upper Paleolithic of Siberia. The radiocarbon date of a bone sample taken from the upper horizon of the third layer is more than 45 thousand years.

In recent years, one of the main objects of our research is Denisova Cave. According to some scientists, it was visited by the outstanding Russian scientist and artist N. Roerich in 1926. The famous Indologist L. Shaposhnikova believes that in one of his paintings Roerich used a sketch made at the Denisova Cave.

The cave is located in a beautiful place, among rocks descending steeply into a narrow valley-canyon of the Anui River. The village of Black Anui is located 6 kilometers from the cave. During excavations in the cave, 22 cultural horizons were identified. Thirteen of them are Paleolithic. Three prominent 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 not accidental, because in Northern and Central Asia there are no monuments like this yet, which make it possible to trace the dynamics of the types of stone tools and 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 reference chronological and typological scale for the vast region of the Asian continent.

But now we can say with confidence that the lower horizons of the cave belong to the late stage of the Mousterian culture. 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 can be traced here. This is the first time such a situation has been observed in North and Central Asia so vividly and convincingly.

1984 gave new confirmation of this. In May, the author, with the participation of Doctor of Historical Sciences V. Molodin, opened 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 currently the small river Sibiryachonok flows 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, indicating great antiquity.

After some hesitation, despite the busy summer schedule of expeditionary work, it was decided to begin excavation of the cave. Two young talented scientists V. Petrin and S. Markin took part in the excavations. The excavations were carried out carefully. After viewing, all the soil was lowered down and washed so as not to miss a single find, no matter how small it was. The results of the work were stunning. It was possible to identify three cultural horizons in the cave. Two Mousterian and one, upper, from the initial stage of the Upper Paleolithic. Finds from the last horizon had a lot in common with the underlying ones in their main indicators, which also indicates a genetic connection between the Mousterian and the Upper Paleolithic.

IN in every sense The discovery of the remains of two Neanderthal individuals turned out to be sensational (as determined by Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences V. Alekseev). They were found for the first time in Northern and Central Asia. Now the fact of settlement of Neanderthals in this area has been undoubtedly proven. And the connection of its industry with the human industry of the Upper Paleolithic, in turn, is a strong argument in favor of including these areas in the area where the formation of man of the 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 open sites of Altai. Subsequent research will make it possible to more fully answer many questions that arise in connection with the hypothesis about the possibility of the emergence of Homo sapiens in Siberia. On the way from Mongolia in 1985, I visited the upper Lena near the village of Makarova at excavations conducted by M. Aksenov, G. Medvedev and other Irkutsk archaeologists. They also managed to trace the continuity in the development of industry in complexes of 40-50 thousand years. This, of course, does not mean that the formation of Upper Paleolithic complexes in Siberia is associated only with a more ancient culture. Upper Paleolithic man apparently came here from other regions of our country. It is possible that Maltese culture was left behind by a person 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 certainly had a higher and more developed culture, which allowed him to move uncontrollably after herds of wild animals. He walked 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, and 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 distant past, at least 35-30 thousand years ago, ancient hunting tribes began to explore the north, descending along the Lena River valley further and deeper to the north, closer to the Arctic Ocean.

The settlement of ancient people along the Angara and in its neighboring areas 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 them even longer 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 rhinoceroses, herds of reindeer and bulls, were the first to discover this country completely new to man, trampled the first paths on its virgin soil and kindled their hearths, laying the foundation for the further development of culture and the conquest of vast 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 an original culture of mammoth and reindeer hunters, but also left behind first-class examples of primitive art. During excavations on the Angara, amazing sculptural and carved images of animals, snakes, birds, as well as sculptures of women and jewelry were discovered, which amaze researchers with the skill and vivacity of execution. More than 20 female figurines, that is, almost half of the “world stock” of such products by 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 primitive artistic culture. This culture was at the same level as the contemporaneous centers of Paleolithic art in Western Europe.

Judging by the examples found in Malta and Bureti, the art of Siberia is fundamentally realistic, filled with echoes real life. The richness with which it is presented in archaeological finds also has its basis in the real life conditions of people of that time. Just like the Eskimos, sedentary Chukchi and Koryaks of the recent past, the ancient inhabitants of Malta and Bureti, living in arctic conditions, apparently 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 relaxation. In addition, they had at their disposal an abundance of first-class material for carving: mammoth tusks and animal bones, as well as soft stone, which itself begged for the hands of craftsmen. Apparently, this is why plastic arts developed so magnificently here, and 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 Stone Age art are associated with the study of painted rocks near the ancient Russian village of Shishkina on the Lena River.

In the spring of 1929, on an early sunny morning, two young travelers, both romantics, Alyosha Okladnikov and Misha Cheremnykh, pushed a fragile wooden boat sewn together with willow roots from the shore and followed the ice along a stormy mountain river that had awakened from its winter 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.

Days passed after days, hopes gave way to disappointment. Finally, around the next turn, the village of Shishkin appeared. Behind the old mill, where the river hugged 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 stones. Not knowing fatigue, the guys dismantled layer by layer until they completely discovered the ancient burial of the hunter. Next to him lay carefully finished arrowheads made of stone, and inserted blades for a bone dagger made of translucent chalcedony.
The necropolis of the ancients also presented 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 placed in their hands, and bone knives with sharp flint blades inserted into the grooves lay on their ribs. “Over the common grave of the children, it seemed, the shadows of their loved ones were still invisibly standing, in whose eyes the sadness of separation was frozen...” The burials could tell an inquiring mind a lot about the beliefs and rituals that existed several thousand years ago.

One day one of the local residents told them that there were a lot of drawings on the rocks nearby. We decided to look at these rocks, and when we climbed up a steep slope overgrown with bushes, vertical walls of dark red sandstone opened in front of them. Accurate, with a skillful hand Numerous images of animals, birds, and fish were painted on many rocks. There seemed to be no end to the drawings.

Not paying attention to the thorny bushes and the tangles of angry copperhead snakes, Okladnikov, as if enchanted, walked along the rocks and admired the amazing scenes from the life of primitive man. He remembered sheets of paper from Miller’s famous portfolios, yellowed with time, containing 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, members of the expedition, the project of which Peter I worked on, 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 the Russians. Some of the materials were published by Miller and other expedition members, but most of them were stored in the archives of the Academy of Sciences at Vasilyevsky Island in Leningrad.

The painter Lursenius, on behalf of Miller, who learned about the written stones from the indigenous inhabitants, 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 with time, a stripe of red paint, barely visible under the slanting rays of the setting sun. The paint had faded so much with time, rain and snow that it almost merged with the background of the rock, and could only be detected by an experienced eye, and only in certain lighting. Okladnikov, holding back his excitement, walked up to the rock, moistened the place where the line of the drawing appeared with water, and clearly saw a horse’s tail, spread wide at the bottom and even slightly wavy. There was no doubt - this was a drawing. There was no doubt that it was made, judging by its appearance, much earlier than all the other drawings on the Shishkinsky rocks.

I had to conjure this drawing for a long time before I became convinced that the entire composition, painted many thousands of years ago, had been completely restored. In front of the archaeologists, illuminated by the bright July sun, appeared a unique and probably the oldest of all the drawings on the Shishkinsky rocks, an image of a horse. 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 saggy belly, short thick legs covered with long thick hair, and a long bushy tail. Only the famous Przewalski's horse, which miraculously survived in the depths of Central Asia until the 20th century, could have looked like this.

The image, in its realistic manner of execution, was reminiscent of 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 similarity with images of horses in Pindal and Costillo (Spain), Font-de-Gaume and Lascaux (France). The antiquity of this image was evidenced by the realistic design and manner of execution. The ancient artist made an image of a horse almost life-size, with a spare contour line, in the same way as similar drawings were made by Paleolithic artists in Spain and France during the Ice Age. All other images of horses on the Shishkinsky rocks, dating back to a later period, were made in a completely different manner. The extreme 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 damaged by time that it turned white and swelled with bubbles. The rock itself cracked, and its lower part subsided greatly, causing the lines of the drawing to shift somewhat. The image is made with light red paint, which has faded greatly with time. In the future, this conclusion was confirmed by new discoveries.

Six years passed, and in the immediate vicinity of the first image, during a thorough examination of the rock, archaeologists managed to discover another drawing of a horse. It was made in the same manner and, in fact, was a copy of the first image. The paint was so faded and merged with the background of the rock that it took a lot of effort 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 extreme antiquity. On one of the planes, an oblique line of weathered and faded red paint was first discovered. When carefully washing the rock at the end of this strip, a clearly drawn wide brush was suddenly revealed. Then the beast's body, legs and head appeared. 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 technical techniques as the first Paleolithic figures of horses. The ancient artist managed to talentedly convey not only general form the massive figure of the animal, but also its characteristic pose. The drawing is filled with a formidable and ponderous primordial power. An elongated tail, a downturned head and a steep hump at the transition from neck to back reinforce this impression. The animal is full of uncontrollable internal energy and striving forward. This drawing also had many similarities with famous images of bulls in Spain. The bull from Shishkin is the same distant northern brother of the wonderful bulls of Altamira in Spain, just as Shishkin’s horses are twins of the horses of the cave paintings of the Franco-Cantabrian region of the Old Stone Age. It is interesting that, despite the colossal spaces separating the Lena River valley and the Pyrenees, not only the most general correspondence can be established between the monuments of Paleolithic art, but also some closer matches.

The discovery of Ice Age paintings on the Lena has illuminated the history of art in Siberia in a completely new way. Firstly, the deep regions of Siberia, it turns out, were inhabited by people at an unexpectedly early time, and secondly, the ancient people who settled in the taiga and forest-tundra were characterized by a sense of beauty and artistic taste. Wonderful artists and sculptors left behind unique masterpieces of primitive art and contributed their share to world art at the dawn of humanity. Finds in Malta, Bureti, drawings in Shishkin once again confirmed the important idea that human society is characterized by the same laws of development of thinking and consciousness, regardless of where the groups settled: in the steppe and forest-steppe landscapes of Spain or France, vast expanses Central Asia or Siberia. Man, having cut himself off from the animal world, slowly, gradually, but confidently took his first steps in art, which were 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, Bureti and Shishkin. Mysterious finds were recently made by Doctor of Historical Sciences V. Larichev at the Paleolithic settlement of Malaya Syya in Khakassia. During excavations, bones of fossil animals were discovered: 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 notches on the sides, and spear tips made of bones, cutters, piercing and engraving tools, knives and other tools and weapons.

The art of the Lesser Son caused a lot of controversy. According to Larichev, this settlement displays examples related to “mobile art” or “art of small forms.” He identifies the following main types characteristic of them: sculpture, bas-relief, engraving, embossing or a kind of “chasing” with fine or rough retouching and pictorial images made on the surface of the stone with mineral paint. For coloring, paints of various shades of red were used (from yellowish-red to bright crimson), as well as yellow, black and even green.

The art of Malaya Syya is characterized not only by a variety of species, but also by a clearly expressed originality techniques, with the help of which artists designed their products. Sculptural and bas-relief images made in stone using the upholstery method, during their final finishing and design of the most significant details, were supplemented by engraving, embossing and, in most cases, painted.

The attitude of specialists towards the art of Malaya Syya is far from clear. A number of scientists believe that many objects that are classified as works of art are accidental. But the point of view that there is absolutely no art in this settlement is not entirely correct. Certain things convince us of the authenticity of the images; further research on this interesting monument will allow us to answer the question more definitely. Malaya Syya is one of the oldest monuments in Western Siberia. Its date, based on 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 aspiring 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 an 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 was in Paleolithic art, he began to examine ornamental motifs found on objects of art from other Paleolithic monuments. He developed a special analysis technique that excludes the possibility of subjective or random judgments about the rhythmic “framework” of ornaments. Frolov checked and statistically expressed all the methods of alternating ornamental elements in 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 systematic counting among 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 general rule for figurines with ornamentation is the central role of rhythms 7, 5 and 10, which were present on the vast majority of ornamented products of Malta. It is impossible to explain this combination, confirmed by examples from other collections of Paleolithic art, by chance 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 the Big Dipper, 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 calculation of time in seven-day weeks and the enormous role of the “sacred” number seven among many peoples of the world.

Further research led Frolov to the idea of ​​the closeness of individual ornaments in their semantic meaning to the traditions of different calendar systems and the ability of the Maltese and Mezinians and their contemporaries to take into account time according to the Sun and 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: circle, ball, square, rectangle, meander, 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 mathematics and other sciences began to flourish in later times in the agricultural civilizations of the ancient world.

Eastern. The indigenous peoples of Siberia: Evenks, Khanty, Mansi, Yakuts, Chukchi and others were engaged in cattle breeding, hunting, fishing, and tribal relations prevailed among them. The annexation of Western Siberia occurred in the 16th century - the conquest of the Siberian Khanate. Gradually, explorers and industrialists penetrated into Siberia, followed by representatives of the tsarist government. Settlements and fortresses are founded.

Ostrogs - Yenisei (1618), Ilimsk (1630), Irkutsk (1652), Krasnoyarsk (1628). The Siberian Order is created, Siberia is divided into 19 districts, governed by governors from Moscow.

Pioneers: Semyon Dezhnev, 1648 - discovered the strait separating Asia from North America. Vasily Poyarkov, 1643-1646 - at the head of the Cossacks, sailed along the Lena and Aldan rivers, along the Amur to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. Erofey Khabarov, in 1649, carried out a campaign in Dauria, compiled maps of the lands along the Amur. Vladimir Atlasov, in 1696 - expedition to Kamchatka.

Annexation of Western Siberia (conquest of the Siberian Khanate at the end of the 16th century)

Penetration of explorers and industrialists, as well as representatives of the tsarist government into Siberia (in the 17th century

Foundation of settlements and fortresses:

Yenisei fort (1618)

Krasnoyarsk fort (1628)

Ilimsky fort (1630)

Yakut fort (1632)

Irkutsk fort (1652)

Selenginsky fort (1665)

Creation of the Siberian order. The division of Siberia into 19 districts, which were ruled by governors appointed from Moscow ( 1637 )

Russian pioneers of Siberia

Semyon Dezhnev (1605-1673)- made a major geographical discovery: in 1648 he sailed along the Chukotka Peninsula and discovered the strait separating Asia from North America

Vasily Poyarkov in 1643-1646 at the head of a detachment of Cossacks, he walked from Yakutsk along the Lena and Aldan rivers, went along the Amur to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, and then returned to Yakutsk

Erofey Khabarov (1610-1667)- in 1649-1650 carried out a campaign in Dauria, developed the lands along the Amur River and compiled their maps (drawings)

Vladimir Atlasov in 1696-1697 undertook an expedition to Kamchatka, as a result of which it was annexed to Russia

1. Incorporation of the “Siberian Kingdom” into the Russian state

Since state revenues have declined catastrophically, the problem of replenishing the state treasury, among the mass of urgent matters, was one of the most pressing and painful. In solving this main problem, as well as others, Russian state It was saved by the diversity and vastness of its geopolitical basis - the Eurasian scale of the Moscow Empire.

Having ceded its western provinces to Poland and Sweden and suffered heavy losses in the west, Russia turned to new forces: to its eastern possessions - the Urals, Bashkiria and Siberia.

On May 24, 1613, the tsar wrote a letter to the Stroganovs, in which he described the desperate situation of the country: the treasury was empty, and asked to save the fatherland.

The Stroganovs did not reject the request, and this was the beginning of their significant assistance to the government of Tsar Michael.

The natural result of the conquest of Kazan was the Russian advance into Bashkiria. In 1586, the Russians built the Ufa fortress in the heart of Bashkiria.

The Russian administration did not interfere in the tribal organization and affairs of the Bashkir clans, as well as in their traditions and habits, but demanded regular payment of yasak (tribute paid in furs). This constituted the main source of income for Russians in Bashkiria. Yasak was also the financial basis of the Russian administration of Siberia.

By 1605, the Russians had established firm control over Siberia. The main fortress and administrative capital of Siberia became the city of Tobolsk in the lower reaches of the Irtysh River. In the north, Mangazeya on the Taz River (flowing into the Gulf of Ob) quickly became an important center of the fur trade. In the southeast of Western Siberia, the forward post of the Russians on the border of the Mongol-Kalmyk world was the Tomsk fortress on a tributary of the middle Ob

In 1606-1608, however, there were unrest of the Samoyeds (Nenets), Ostyaks, Selkups (Narym Ostyaks) and Yenisei Kirghiz, the immediate cause of which was the case of a blatant violation of the principles of Russian rule in Siberia - shameful abuses and extortion against the indigenous people of sides of two Moscow heads (captains), sent to Tomsk by Tsar Vasily Shuisky in 1606

Attempts by the rebels to storm Tobolsk and some other Russian fortresses failed, and the unrest was suppressed with the help of the Siberian Tatars, some of whom were attacked by the rebels. During 1609 and 1610 The Ostyaks continued to oppose Russian rule, but their rebellious spirit gradually weakened.

The king became the patron of three khans, one Mongolian and two Kalmyk, who were in hostile relationships. The king was supposed to be the judge, but none of his nominal vassals made concessions to the other two, and the king did not have enough troops to force peace between them.

By 1631, one Cossack gang reached Lake Baikal, and the other two reached the Lena River. In 1632 the city of Yakutsk was founded. In 1636, a group of Cossacks, sailing from the mouth of the Olenek River, entered the Arctic Ocean and walked east along the coast. Following in the footsteps of this and other expeditions, Cossack Semyon Dezhnev sailed around the northeastern tip of Asia. Starting his journey at the mouth of the Kolyma River, he then entered the Arctic Ocean and landed at the mouth of the Anadyr River in the Bering Sea (1648-1649).

Ten years before Dezhnev’s Arctic journey, a Cossack expedition from Yakutsk managed to reach the Sea of ​​Okhotsk along the Aldan River. In the 1640s and 1650s. The lands around Lake Baikal were explored. In 1652 Irkutsk was founded. In the east, Poyarkov descended along the lower reaches of the Amur River and from its mouth sailed north along the coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk (1644-1645). In 1649‑1650 Erofey Khabarov opened the way for the Russians to the middle Amur.

Thus, by the mid-seventeenth century, the Russians had established their control over all of Siberia except the Kamchatka Peninsula, which they annexed at the end of the century (1697-1698).

Concerning ethnic composition newly annexed areas, then most of the vast territory between the Yenisei and the Sea of ​​Okhotsk was inhabited by Tungus tribes. The Tungus, linguistically related to the Manchus, were engaged in hunting and reindeer herding. There were about thirty thousand of them.

Around Lake Baikal there were several settlements of the Buryats (a branch of the Eastern Mongols) with a population of at least twenty-six thousand people. The Buryats were mainly cattle breeders and hunters, some of them were engaged in agriculture.

The Yakuts lived in the Middle Lena basin. They linguistically belonged to the Turkic family of peoples. There were approximately twenty-five thousand of them - mostly cattle breeders, hunters and fishermen.

In the northeastern triangle of Siberia, between the Arctic Ocean and the North Pacific Ocean, lived various Paleo-Asian tribes, about twenty-five thousand reindeer herders and fishermen

The indigenous peoples were significantly more numerous than the Russian newcomers, but they were disunited and did not have firearms. Clan and tribal elders often conflicted with each other. Most of them were ready to recognize the king as their sovereign and pay him tribute.

In 1625 in Siberia there were fourteen cities and fortresses (fortresses), where governors were appointed. These were Tobolsk, Verkhoturye, Tyumen, Turinsk, Tara, Tomsk, Berezov, Mangazeya, Pelym, Surgut, Ketsky Ostrog, Kuznetsk, Narym and Yeniseisk. Two governors were usually appointed to each city, one of whom was the eldest; in each prison - one. With further advancement to the east, the number of cities and forts, and therefore the governors, increased.

Each voivode supervised the military and civil affairs of his region. He reported directly to Moscow, but the Tobolsk voivode had a certain power over all others, allowing him to coordinate the actions of the Siberian armed forces and government bodies. The senior voivode of Tobolsk also had limited rights to maintain (under Moscow's control) relations with neighboring peoples such as the Kalmyks and the Eastern Mongols.

The position of governor in Muscovy, and even more so in Siberia, provided many opportunities for enrichment, but the remoteness, difficulties of travel and unsafe living conditions in the border areas scared off the Moscow court aristocracy. To attract famous boyars to serve in Siberia, the Moscow government granted Siberian voivodes the status that voivodes had in the active army, which meant better pay and special privileges. During his service in Siberia, the governor's possessions in Muscovy were exempt from taxes. His serfs and slaves were not subject to prosecution, except in cases of robbery. All legal cases against them were postponed until the owner returned. Each governor was provided with all the necessary means for travel to Siberia and back.

The Russian armed forces in Siberia consisted of boyar children; foreigners, such as prisoners of war, migrants and mercenaries sent to Siberia as punishment (all of them were called "ditva", since most of them were Lithuanians and Western Russians); Streltsy and Cossacks. In addition to them, there were local auxiliary troops (in Western Siberia, mostly Tatar). According to Lantsev's calculations in 1625. There were less than three thousand Moscow military personnel, less than a thousand Cossacks and approximately one thousand local troops in Siberia. Ten years later the corresponding figures were five thousand, two thousand and about two thousand. Parallel to the growth of the armed forces in Siberia, there was a gradual expansion of agricultural activity. As noted earlier, the government recruited future Siberian peasants either by contract (by appointment) or by order (by decree). Peasants mainly moved from the Perm region and the Russian North (Pomerania). The government employed a significant number of criminals and exiled prisoners of war in agricultural work. It is estimated that by 1645 at least eight thousand peasant families were settled in Western Siberia. In addition, from 1614 to 1624. More than five hundred exiles were housed there.

From the very beginning of the Russian advance into Siberia, the government was faced with the problem of a grain shortage, since before the arrival of the Russians, the agricultural production of the indigenous peoples in western Siberia met only their own needs. To satisfy the needs of military garrisons and Russian employees, grain had to be brought from Rus'.

When building each new city in Siberia, all the land suitable for arable land around it was explored and the best areas were allocated for the sovereign's arable land. The other part was provided to employees and clergy. The remainder could be occupied by peasants. At first, users of this land were exempt from special duties in favor of the state, but during his tenure as governor of Tobolsk, Suleshev ordered that every tenth sheaf from the harvest on the estates allocated to service people be transferred to the state storage of this city. This legislative act was applied throughout Siberia and remained in force until the end of the 17th century. This order was similar to the institution of tithe arable land (a tenth of the cultivated field) in the southern border regions of Muscovy. Thanks to such efforts, by 1656 there was an abundance of grain in Verkhoturye and, possibly, in some other areas of Western Siberia. In Northern Siberia and Eastern Siberia, the Russians were forced to depend on the import of grain from its western part.

The Russians were interested not only in the development of agriculture in Siberia, but also in the exploration of mineral deposits there. Soon after the construction of the city of Kuznetsk in 1618, local authorities learned from the indigenous inhabitants about the existence of iron ore deposits in the area. Four years later, the Tomsk voivode sent the blacksmith Fyodor Eremeev to look for iron ore between Tomsk and Kuznetsk. Eremeev discovered a deposit three miles from Tomsk and brought samples of ore to Tomsk, where he smelted the metal, the quality of which turned out to be good. The voivode sent Eremeev with samples of ore and iron to Moscow, where the experiment was successfully repeated. “And the iron turned out good, and it was possible to make steel from it.” The Tsar rewarded Eremeev and sent him back to Tomsk (1623).

Then two experienced blacksmiths were sent to Tomsk from Ustyuzhna to run a new foundry for the production of guns. The foundry was small, producing only one pound of metal per week. However, it served its purpose for some time.

In 1628, iron ore deposits were explored in the Verkhoturye region, and several foundries were opened there, the total productive capacity of which was greater and the cost of production was lower than in Tomsk. The foundry in Tomsk was closed, and Verkhoturye became the main Russian metallurgical center of Siberia of that period. In addition to weapons, agricultural and mining tools were produced there.

In 1654, iron ore deposits were discovered on the banks of the Yenisei, five miles from Krasnoyarsk. They also searched for copper, tin, lead, silver and gold in Siberia, but the results appeared at the end of the 17th century.

Fur income in 1635, as calculated by Miliukov based on official records, amounted to 63,518 rubles. By 1644 it had grown to 102,021 rubles, and by 1655 - to 125,000 rubles.

It should be noted that the purchasing power of the Russian ruble in the 17th century was equal to approximately seventeen gold rubles of 1913. Thus, 125,000 rubles of the 17th century can be considered equal to 2,125,000 rubles of 1913.

End of the 16th century. Victory of Ermak's squad over the troops of the ruler of Siberia, Khan Kuchum. The story “Description of New Lands, that is, the Siberian Kingdom” said: “...and so by God’s grace and the sovereign’s happiness and providence and zeal, Ataman Ermak and his comrades of the Siberian infidels of many hordes and the language of the military people were beaten in that battle and taken with live bait... Tsar Kuchum, Seeing the strength of his people, many of them were beaten, from the city with a small number of people they fled to their wife, the queen, and to their children in their beloved village on Obalak, from Tobolsk ... "

Some leaders of the Siberian tribes went over to the side of the Russians, others continued for some time to resist the pressure of the Cossacks and the servicemen of the Moscow Tsar.

In the 17th century, European politicians marveled at how, in just fifty-five years, “the Muscovites were able to rapidly advance from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific coast.” They were also surprised by the fact that as a result of this advance, new Russian villages, cities, Orthodox churches, 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 an unknown ocean

“In the summer of 7146, on the 6th day of August (1638, August 6), the sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Mikhailo Fedorovich and all Rus', ordered the captains and governors Pyotr Petrovich Golovin, Matvey Bogdanovich Glebov, and clerk Efim Filatov to go to Siberia, to Tobolesk, and from Tobolsk to the Yenisei fort, and from the Yenisei fort to the great Lena River...”

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

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

“...And it takes two months or more to row down the great river Lena until midnight okiyan, but with sailing weather it will take a week.

And on both sides of the great rivers Lena and to the mouth of the midnight okiyan are the Yakuts, Tungus, Mayads, Panagirs, Koyats, Karigils and many other nomadic and sedentary people. Yes, in the same place, the great Lena River below the Vilyuisk mouth, many great rivers slept on both sides, and along those rivers live the Osei, Tungus, Shamagiri, Bayakhts and many other people, and there are a lot of sables and all kinds of animals and fish along those rivers ..."

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

Few names of the famous explorers and sailors of those times have survived - participants in journeys from the Lena to unknown lands. Among them: Elisey Yuryev, Eleska 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 was called America.

Ninety Brave

According to historical documents, Russian travelers reached the shores of the Pacific Ocean in the 30s of the 17th century. But perhaps this happened earlier.

The great expanse of water with its indomitable character 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 a member of Mikhail Stadukhin’s detachment on the Oymyakon River.

In 1647, the clerk of the Ustyug merchant Fedot Alekseev (known under the surname Popov) assembled a team to sail across the Arctic Sea to the East, from the mouth of the Indigirka. He was interested in walrus hunting. The expedition was also tasked with exploring “uncharted shores” and searching for new “unknown people.”

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

On four kochas, the 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 took part in the expedition. Seven Kochis left the mouth of the Kolyma and headed to the East.

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

Semyon Dezhnev mentioned in his report: “And that Fedot (Fedot Alekseev Popov) with me, Semeyka, was carried away at sea without a trace. And I, the Family (as Dezhnev called himself in the note), carried me along the sea after the Intercession of the Virgin Mary (after October 1/14) everywhere against my will, and threw myself ashore at the front end of the Anadyr river. And there were twenty-five of us in total. And I, poor Semeyka, and my comrades walked to Anadyr for exactly ten weeks...”

There is no clear opinion about the future fate of the expedition members. But there is no doubt: three of the seven Kochas, having rounded the Chukotka 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 fort, explored and mapped the banks of the Anadyr River. Subsequently, Semyon Ivanovich made quite a few trips along the northeastern rivers of Siberia. His services were highly appreciated in Moscow. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich awarded Dezhnev the rank of Cossack ataman. In 1667, thanks to the discoveries and research of Semyon Ivanovich, an image of the North-East of Russia was depicted on the geographical map “Drawing of the Siberian Land”. However, the report of the glorious pioneer on 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, a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Gerard Friedrich Miller, 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 has been preserved about their further fate. In his report, Semyon Dezhnev reported: “... I, Family, defeated the Yakut woman Fedot Alekseev from the Koreans. And that woman said that de Fedot and the serviceman Gerasim died of scurvy, and other comrades were beaten, and only small people remained and fled in boats with one soul, to nowhere.”

Almost a century after the expedition of 1648, the scientist and traveler Stepan Petrovich Krasheninnikov wrote: “Who was the first Russian to be in Kamchatka, they have no reliable evidence, and according to verbal reports this is attributed to a certain merchant Fedot Alekseev, after whom the river flowing into Kamchatka is named It’s called Fedotovism.”

Academician Gerard Miller also mentioned the version of Fedot Alekseev Popov’s stay on the peninsula in his notes: “A rumor circulating among the residents of Kamchatka, which is confirmed by everyone who has been there.

... they say that many years before the arrival of Volodimir Otlasov (Vladimir Atlasov - Cossack explorer) to Kamchatka, a certain Fedotov’s son lived there on the Kamchatka River at the mouth of the river, which is now called Fedotovka after him, and he brought together children from Kamchadal who then at Penzhinskaya Bay, where they crossed the river from Kamchatka, they were beaten by the Koryaks. This Fedot’s son was, by all appearances, the son of the aforementioned Fedot Alekseev...”

But these references to Popov raise doubts among some modern historians. The fate of one of the Russians pioneers XVII centuries remains an unsolved mystery.

Descendants of the missing?

A member of Vitus Bering's expedition, translator of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Jacob Johann Lindenau, spent many years exploring the tribes and peoples of North-Eastern Siberia. He authored a work known in the 18th century: “Description of the Tunguz on foot, or the so-called Lamuts.”

Lindenau managed to record Chukchi stories about the Northern Pacific Islands and the shores of the New World. Of course, the word “America” was not known to these people at that time.

“At the Chukotsky nose there is one island to the north and four islands to the east, and the Chukchi live on those islands.

And not at a distance far from the latter is meant by their title, the Great Land (meaning Alaska), which is so called because that land is larger than their Chukotka land and they Chukchi go from their homes to that land in canoes and from that land they bring wooden utensils , similar to Russian dishes. And according to the rantings of those Chukchi, there is news for certain through the Russian people that supposedly merchant people twelve kochami of the past seventy or more years in the Kolyma middle winter, where before the fair used to be for trade, those who went and separated from each other due to strong sea weather, others sailed through Kamchatka, and others landed on that island, which they called the Greater Land, and there the people living there, who copulated with them, got married and multiplied.”

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

It is very plausible that their flat ships were thrown ashore 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 legends. They heard these legends from their ancestors.

Who and when first told Bible stories to Alaskans? There is no reliable answer yet.

In the early 90s of the 18th century, the “Historical Table of Russian Voyages and Discoveries in the North-East Sea” was published in St. Petersburg.

In this work, an unknown author wrote: “The opinion of many foreign writers is very unfounded that the Russians, before introducing their foreign customs into a state of entry against the learned European peoples, did not have the spirit and ability to turn their attention to the most useful discoveries beyond the conquered in 1697 Kamchatka land. The spirit of the always tireless Russians not only carefully tried to discover the places, lands and peoples beyond Kamchatka, but also went through very difficult and almost impossible trials along the Arctic Sea even before the conquest of Kamchatka.

... a ship passage was undertaken in 1646 between the eternal ... [ice] and the Chukotka nose, lying between the north and the east, not far from the American shore and to the unknown limits of North America, stretching, it has long been bypassed by the sea and therefore that small one has long been known a strait that divides Asia from America, something other nations have never known before.”

Unknown notes of Ivan Rubets

At the end of the 70s of the last century, the author of this book met in Boston with Russians of the White emigrant wave. Two of them, Alexander Nikolaev and Ivan Pozykov, were interested in 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 with his travel 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 saw this document from some Californian antique dealer before World War II.

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

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

As follows from documents of the 17th century, in the summer of 1662, Ivan Rubts 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, sailors, merchants and scientists from Europe closely followed Russian discoveries in the Arctic and Pacific Oceans and possible visits to the northwestern shores of America.

In 1664, the Dutch geographer Nicolaas 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 the strait between Asia and America.

Subsequently, after returning to his homeland, Witsen wrote that the northwestern coast of America was visited by the Russians, and he managed to collect many supporting documents. “When I made my first map, I wrote at the bottom: “It is unknown whether 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 made an amendment to my map,” reported Nicolaas 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 Asian walrus hunters are sometimes carried away by winds and currents on ice floes to unknown lands: “... I have no doubt that many of the hunters, captured in the same way, sail on ice floes to the northern cape of America, very close to this part of Asia, ending with the Tatar Peninsula (probably d'Avril meant the Chukotka Peninsula). I am convinced of my opinion by the fact that the Americans, who live on the part of America that extends further out into the sea on this side, are of the same appearance as the islanders...”

One of the first

There are many facts when European scientists, diplomats and travelers in the 17th century, citing Russian sources, declared 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 sailors 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 preserve rarities and documents related to Russian travel to the shores of America.

Do recordings of Ivan Rubets really exist? If so, who exactly is storing 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 “the century of long-standing movements, significant discoveries”... And also “the time of Rus'’s contact with America.”

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

SIGNS ON THE CARDS

Terra incognita - these words excite the imagination. Ancient people were drawn to unknown lands by the voices of sirens; the echo of these voices sounds in our hearts even now, when modern maps we see spaces designated as unexplored... Geographers were attracted by the opportunity to map the outlines of the Ecumene and show how various phenomena characteristic of it are distributed within it, and also confronted them with a daunting task combining individual elements of existence to create a coherent idea of ​​the whole.

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

The first experiments in Russian cartography

In ancient times, it was possible to discover an unknown land without geographical maps. There are many examples in history when, due to the will of storms, broken 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, defining the borders of the state, regulating relations with neighboring countries, searching for a sea route from the Arctic Ocean to India and China - and therefore resolving the question of whether Asia and America are 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, and 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 Wied, Sigismund Herberstein and others used the works of Russian cartographers in their works.

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 an education worthy of his time. At the age of 13–14 he became interested in drawing maps. There is an assumption that the king discovered some ancient geographical documents in the archives. They were in poor condition and required restoration. Boris Godunov still managed to discern unknown lands and seas on them. The king decided: the old maps should be kept secret for the time being, even from those close to him.

But who should be entrusted with the secret restoration of important documents?

Boris Godunov chose his son. Fifteen-year-old Fedor not only coped with his father’s difficult task, but also took part in drawing up 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 vilely killed by traitors to his homeland, supporters of False Dmitry I.

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 of Fedor’s works that fell into their hands.

The secret carried away by the head of the political investigation

Tsar Boris's second cousin Semyon Nikitich Godunov headed his political investigation. 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, it was unknown who and when it was made, although the names and explanations on it were in Russian. However, what surprised Semyon Nikitich most of all was the outlines of the northeastern outskirts of Siberia and the “unknown land” separated by the 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. First, some foreigner came to see him from the capital. He tried to find out where the geographical map brought from the Nogai possessions was hidden.

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

Monument to Russian historical and geographical thought

The “Big Drawing” map, compiled in 1570 by the Moscow Discharge Order, was highly praised by scientists and specialists in Europe. But time passed, new lands, rivers, lakes, sea coasts opened up, and 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 Moscow state.

In the introduction of this remarkable monument of Russian historical and geographical thought, it was noted: “By decree of the sovereign Tsarev and Grand Duke Mikhail Fedorovich of all Russia, a drawing was found in the old Rozryad of the entire Moscow state for all surrounding states, and in that drawing there is a measure of versts, and miles, and horse driving, how much to travel during the day, village driving per day, is written, and the measure is set for miles.

And that old drawing is dilapidated, henceforth it will not be possible to look at the tracts from it, it was all beaten up and fell apart...

And in the Rozryad, the clerks, Duma Fyodor Likhachev and Mikhailo Danilov, ordered, trying on that old drawing, to create a new drawing for the entire Moscow state throughout all the surrounding states ... from the mouth of the Tenuya River, along the sea coast east to the mouth of Kola; and from the mouth of Kola along the seashore to the Solovetsky turn to the mouth of the Ntsva River to the east along the seashore to the Sumsky fort 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 Pusto Lake to the mouth of the Knyazkova River and along the Narym bank to the river to the Ob, rivers and all sorts of tracts; and beyond the river beyond the Ob 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 still did not include the Chukotka Peninsula, the Pacific Ocean, or the coast and islands of America. All these geographical objects appeared on maps only in the 18th century.

Only copies of the “Book of the Big Drawing” have survived to this day, and the map itself has not survived.

“And Siberia takes on contours”

In 1667, Tobolsk voivode Pyotr Ivanovich Godunov compiled new map Siberia. By that time, Russian pioneers in northeast Asia had made expeditions to the Lena, Indigirka and Kolyma, and founded settlements on the Lena and other eastern Siberian lands. And the Cossacks, merchants, fur hunters have already heard a lot from 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, declared: “And Siberia is taking on contours.” The Emperor himself put a lot of effort into this.

In 1698, the historian, geographer and cartographer Semyon Ulyanovich Remezov compiled the “Drawing of All Siberia.” His work received the approval of Peter I. Inspired by success and royal praise, Remezov continued his studies in cartography. He recruited his sons to help - Ivan, Leonty and Semyon.

By 1701, they 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 wonderful 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 a hitherto unknown corner of Asia to Western Europe: according to the Russian map copied by the Swedes, immediately after its publication, the outdated Herberstein map 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, arranged 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. It did not yet indicate America, the shores and islands of the Pacific Ocean.

Thanks to the works of Pyotr Godunov, Semyon Remezov and his sons, as well as the research of many Russian pioneers and sailors of the 17th–18th centuries, Siberia truly “found contours” on the geographical map.

“The Earth has been explored again”

Many researchers believe that the outlines of Alaska and some of the North Pacific islands of America appeared on a Russian map in 1700. Its creator was the Yakut governor Dorofei Traurnicht. On the so-called “Mourning Drawing,” to the east of Chukotka there was a large island with the name “Zemlitsa Revisited.” This is what 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 route 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 pioneers of lands in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean was the Cossack Vladimir Vasilyevich Atlasov. Back in 1672, he was recruited to “search 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 exploration of Kamchatka.”

The records of the Cossack Pentecostal Vladimir Atlasov about his campaign have been preserved. They mention unknown islands: “And between the Kolyma and Anandyr rivers there is a necessary nose, which fell into the sea (which cannot be bypassed), and on the left side of that nose there is ice on the sea in the summer, and in the winter that sea is frozen: and on the other side of that there is ice on the nose in the spring... But Volodymer (Atlasov) has never been on that necessary nose.

And the local Chyukchi foreigners, 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 winter, when the sea freezes, foreigners come, speak in their own language and bring thin sables, like a ferret beast; and those sables... Volodymer saw them. And those sables have tails a quarter of an arshin long, with transverse stripes of black and red.”

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 morals and customs 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 Found within the Siberian Kingdom.” In this book, he mentioned an unknown land - probably Alaska, and a strait through which you can get from the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific.

Long before the expedition of Vitus Bering, 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 along the Arctic and Eastern Seas,” Academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Gerard Miller provided an interesting entry. It dates back to around 1715. It reported on a resident of Alaska who, by chance, ended up with the Russians: “... There lived in Kamchatka a foreign man who... declared himself that he was born in a land where tall cedar trees grow, and the nuts on them are much larger than those from Kamchatka; and this land lies from Kamchatka to the east...

It contains large rivers that flow into the Kamchatka Sea (as the Bering Sea was called at that time). Residents de name Tontala; Their customs are similar to the Kamchadals and they use the same leather boats or canoes for water travel as the Kamchadals. Many years ago, he and his fellow countrymen came to Karaginsky Island, where his comrades were killed by the local residents, and he, left alone, went to Kamchatka...”

One of the Cossacks, according to an Alaska resident, tried to sketch a map of the “great land” “across the sea to the east.” She was sent to Yakutsk. Whether this geographical document was lost or is still stored in an archive or in someone’s collection is unknown.

At all times, behind every sign on a geographical map were the destinies of people, dangerous adventures, searches, discoveries, successful or unsuccessful journeys. 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 understanding 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 death throes, he hurried 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)

Order of Evreinov's expedition

“I have a presentiment that someday, and perhaps during our lifetime, the Russians will put to shame the most enlightened peoples with their success in science, tirelessness in their work and the majesty of their firm and loud glory,” wrote Peter I.

The desire to find out whether there was a strait between the Arctic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean arose in him during his trip to European countries at the end of the 17th century. This was probably facilitated by meetings and conversations with foreign scientists. 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 victories 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 surveyors Ivan Evreinov and Fyodor Luzhin to go to the Pacific Ocean and explore whether 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 famous travelers. And finding out the existence of a strait between Asia and America was only a cover for the true intentions of the sovereign.

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

The tsar’s instructions to Ivan Evreinov and Fyodor Luzhin emphasized: “You go to Tobolsk and from Tobolsk take an escort to go to Kamchatka and then wherever you are indicated. And describe the places there where America met..."

Evreinov and Luzhin completed the expedition and arrived in 1722 to report to Peter I. However, their travel route did not come into contact with America. The northern part (up to Simushir Island) of the Kuril Islands was examined and mapped, and the coordinates of 33 points in Kamchatka and Siberia were determined.

The Emperor 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. - Author) in conversation and with pleasure looked at the map of Kamchatka and the mentioned islands and the description of their entire voyage, composed by him and his comrade, Luzhin.”

The documents of that time do not indicate whether Peter I mentioned “the lands on the other side of the Pacific Ocean” at this meeting. After all, the travelers did not follow the instructions: “...describe the places there where America met.”

This reticence aroused suspicion among some researchers: maybe Evreinov and Luzhin did visit the shores 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 conceals many mysteries.

The 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 Emperor 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. Who should be appointed 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:

"1. It is necessary to make one or two boats with decks in Kamchatka or some other place there.

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

3. And in order to look for where it came into contact with America, but also to get to which city of European possessions or, if they see a European ship, to find out from it what that bush (shore) is called, and take it in writing and visit it yourself shore and take the original statement and put it on the card, come here..."

This 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 to the shores of America not only on orders from the capital. In 1720–1725, the sea expedition of the industrialist and navigator Prokopiy 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 reports were probably lost.

A native of Denmark, Vitus Bering entered 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 acquired rich navigator experience.

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

Only 3 years later, Bering’s detachment, having covered approximately 10 thousand kilometers, reached the Nizhne-Kamchatsky fortress. 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 towards Chukotka.

The first Kamchatka expedition discovered land, which was named St. Lawrence Island, and reached a latitude of 67 degrees and 18 minutes. Bering, despite Chirikov's objections, decided not to continue moving north, since 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, called St. Deomides. It later turned out that these are actually 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, after spending the winter 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 realized.

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

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

The 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 Bering’s expedition, the travelers reached the eastern tip of Asia. Then they crossed the strait separating Asia and America, and ended up off the coast of Alaska.

Mikhail Gvozdev wrote about this event: “On August 21, at midnight at 3 o’clock the wind began to blow, they raised the anchor, unfurled the sails and went to the mainland, they anchored and there were no dwellings against it, and 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 we saw yurts - dwellings for a mile and a half, and it was impossible to get close to these yurts due to the wind, and they went near the ground to the southern side, and it turned out to be a shallow place, they threw lots, a depth of 7 and 6 fathoms, and from that place they returned back and began to maneuver near the Great Land (Alaska. - Auth.), to blow towards the earth, and the wind began to be great from the opposite earth...

And such a great wind blew away from this Great Land, and the wind was north-north-west. And from the fourth island he rowed aboard the Chyukcha in a small yalych, as they call it Kukhta... Gvozdev, through an interpreter, asked about the Big Earth: what kind of land is it, and what kind of people live on it, and are there forests, also rivers, and what kind of animals. And he, the Chyukcha, told the interpreter and called it the Great Land, and on it their own Chyukchi live, and it has a forest, and also rivers, and about the animals he said that it has wild red deer, martens and foxes, and beavers.”

Russian travelers, due to weather conditions, were unable to land on American soil. As researchers suggest, the ship "St. Gabriel" approached Alaska near Cape Prince of Wales, and a day later visited King Island, or Ukivok. There a meeting between Russians and local residents took place.

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 “Main Land” 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 was only approximately restored based on the notes of Ivan Fedorov.

BETTING LIGHTS

...Columbus Rossi,

despising gloomy fate,

Between the ice the path will open to the east

And our power will reach America...

(Mikhail Lomonosov)

The Sitka tribe has an obscure legend about white people who were washed ashore many years ago.

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

(T. L. Andrews)

There is no name for him

A long, tiring flight from New York to Alaska.

And after this, failure came to me...

No matter what seas and lands she overtakes you, she has the same habits.

An unexpected blow to plans and intentions. The dream shatters into many fragments and seems to fall into an invisible abyss. People around you become gloomy and do not make eye contact. The voices of birds sound different. Trees and grass bow weakly to the wind. The sea waves are angry. And then the heavy rains begin...

This is how failure comes.

The wind from the ocean tried to break into the window of my room. The sound of raindrops waxed and waned. And from these sounds it was clear that the bad weather was coming for a long time.

This means that the helicopter promised to me will not fly over the town of Juneau, proudly called administrative center Alaska. And I will no longer be able to visit the island where Russian sailors landed almost two and a half centuries ago and for some reason never returned.

An unsolvable mystery!

Or will someone get lucky, and failure will let him go to find the answer? For now, she left me the rains and winds and even cold, rational thoughts. What did you want to find on that island? Do you really hope that after two and a half centuries there remains at least some sign of the presence of the disappeared travelers?..

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

And failure can be right.

Resign yourself? Wait another day or two and then return to New York without even touching the secret?

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

According to the stories of local residents, the spirit of passion and excitement loves to play with people. He throws down heavenly lights, and on earth they form a “path to the unknown.” A playful spirit attracts people to step on this path, intoxicating with the feeling of imminent success and happy changes...

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

I asked my Juneau friends what this mysterious spirit of passion, excitement, and the unknown is called?

And they answered me: he has no name.

Packet boats "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 sailing in the Pacific Ocean. According to contemporaries, the ships were suitable for any sea trials. From Okhotsk the packet boats made the transition to Avachinskaya Bay of Kamchatka. There, preparations for the long voyage continued.

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

Separation in the fog

“...we left the harbor of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul for a roadstead in the Avacha Bay of the Maya on the 29th, in which the nasty wind delayed June until the 4th, and on the 4th we set out to sea with a calm and followed a certain course to the land of Ianda Gamma...”.

This is how Alexey Chirikov reported about the start 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 ship "St. Pavel” Lieutenant Commander Alexey Ilyich Chirikov, according to contemporaries, was one of the best officers and the hope of the Russian fleet.

The Admiralty instructions for the expedition noted that when the shores of America were reached, “...then to visit them and find out what kind of people there really are and what that place is called and whether those shores are truly American and having done that... put everything on the map and then go for that.” reconnaissance near those shores as long as time and opportunity permits...”

During the first days, the expeditionary ships sailed together. But on June 20, 1741, heavy fogs began. Neither the experience of Bering and Chirikov, nor the sound signals helped. Packet boats "St. Peter" and "St. Pavel" lost each other.

The fog separated Vitus Bering and Alexei Chirikov forever.

Unknown land

After unsuccessfully searching for each other, the ships of the Second Kamchatka Expedition continued their journey to the shores of America, but each on their own course. Chirikov's crew, consisting of 75 people, continued to carry out everyday work: astronomical observations, measuring ocean depths, studying currents and winds, making corrections to the map, preparing for a meeting with the unknown Pacific coast of America.

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

The Russian sailors looked at the unknown land with excitement. Snow-capped mountains, small bays, seabirds and animals - all this was reminiscent of Kamchatka. And yet there was something new and unique in what he saw.

Did anyone think in those hours on the packet boat “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 manner, Chirikov noted: “... on July 16, from noon at 8 o’clock, there was no place for anchorage, for fear we went from the shore and into the night time, moving away from the shore, at midnight at 5 o’clock, as light as the wind was able to support us, we turned north to that point, as lay the last part of the land visible from us to the north of the last evening, and at midnight at 10 o’clock at of this land we walked a distance of half a mile, it was very foggy, and for this, moving away from it, several walked in the parallel between the north and the west... and, if the unfortunate event, which appears below, had not prevented me, then I had hoped for a considerable part America to describe..."

In response - unkind silence

On July 18, Chirikov ordered the yalboat to be sent ashore. The boat accommodated ten sailors led by navigator Avram Dementiev.

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

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

... and if no one knows the language, then at least there will be signs - what kind of land it is and the people under whose power and call a few of them to visit us on the ship;

...to see if there is a convenient place for a ship to arrive from the sea where it would be possible to safely stand and measure out such a harbor with a lot and make a drawing...

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

...are there any excellent stones and soil in which one can expect to be rich in ore...

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

...if the residents treat them hostilely, then defend against them and return to the ship as soon as possible, and not make them any angry...

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

...as God brings it to the shore, then for our knowledge, launch a rocket... and being on the shore, lay out a big fire, if you see that it will be possible for us to see it...”

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

Hours of anxious waiting slowly dragged on. The sailors took turns climbing the mast of the packet boat to get a better look at the shore through the fog.

Despite the unfavorable weather, Alexey Chirikov kept the ship under low sail and dangerously close to the island.

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

Bonfire! Alive!

There was joyful excitement on board the St. Pavel”: obviously, something happened to Dementiev’s boat and his crew cannot return to the ship. They hastily began to assemble a new detachment for the island.

The last boat left on the packet boat. The boatswain Sidor Savelyev and three other sailors went to rescue his comrades.

Chirikov ordered the ship's cannons to be fired several times, so that those on shore would know that help was close. But there were no response signals.

There is fog and an unkind silence on the island.

On the way back

“...And then the weather was very calm, then in the meantime they released him ashore and they themselves followed him to the shore and came very close and saw that the boatswain on a boat approached the shore about noon at the 6th hour, precisely determined from He didn’t fix my signals and didn’t return to us at the expected time, and the weather was very calm...”

This is what Alexey Chirikov noted in his report.

There are no boats left on the packet boat, which means communication with the shore has been lost. The travelers could no longer help their comrades on the island or 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 of the oarsmen on them were most likely from the Tlingit tribe. Swimming closer to the ship, the Indians jumped to their feet and shouted: “Agai! "Agai!"

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

The Tlingits took up the oars again and turned towards the island. The heavy packet boat was unable to catch up with the nimble Indian boats. The ship followed them to a dangerous limit. It was impossible to get closer to the shore. Being stranded meant certain death for both the ship and the entire crew.

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

It was bitter to realize such a loss and my powerlessness, the inability to help my comrades.

“...we walked near that place until the evening, waiting for our ships, only at night, out of fear, we moved away from the shore, and at night we had a lantern with a fire on the stern flask, so that if, beyond our expectations, they were blown out, then they could come to us at night... "- recalled Alexey Chirikov.

There were very few fresh water supplies 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" passed by the ominous, mysterious shore. Another salvo from the cannons - and the ship set off on its way back to Kamchatka.

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

Different versions

Having heard from Alexei Chirikov a story about the disappearance of the sailors, Sven Vaksel came to the conclusion: “We can reasonably assume 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 The boats, unaware of the danger threatening them when landing on the shore, dispersed in different directions for water.

Thus, they must have been separated from each other when the Americans, having finally found a convenient time, suddenly appeared between them and the boat, blocking the return path...”

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 from the ship “St. Paul,” was inhabited by peace-loving Indians - the Tlinglits, who would not attack strangers.

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

Nikolai Chukovsky was inclined to believe that both boats of the packet boat “St. Pavel" died in a whirlpool. Whirlpools that are dangerous for small vessels often form during high tides off the northwest coast of the United States. In the eighties of the 18th century, approximately in the places where the sailors disappeared from the ship “St. Pavel,” died in the whirlpool of the boat of the French traveler Jean Francois La Perouse.

"Ageoy" - lights from heaven

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

At the beginning of the 20th century, my grandfather Grigory Burlak traveled the Pacific coast of the United States from California to Alaska 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, my grandfather heard from local residents a story about how many years ago, blond bearded people who sailed on a large ship from “the land where the sun goes” were enchanted by “Agea”.

When my grandfather asked what this word meant, they explained to him: “Ageoi” - lights that fell from the sky.

What trouble happened later with the bearded fair people - they said different things. Some claimed that the “path of heavenly lights” led the aliens to the magical land of Gemm. Others said that a spirit without a name ordered bearded people to make boats and sail towards the sun to the mainland and begin there new life.

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

The expedition report 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” incorrectly instead of “Ageoi”?..

Of course, my grandfather later regretted that he had not asked in detail and recorded the stories of the inhabitants of the archipelago. He never had the chance to visit there again.

Who knows, maybe ancient Indian legends would at least slightly lift the curtain on the mystery of the disappearance of fifteen Russian sailors?

“Path to the unknown” made from lights falling from the sky...

Everyone sees in these lights what they want to see when they begin their journey along the “path into the unknown.” But at the end of the road, “everyone gets what they deserve”...

That's what my Juneau friends said. This is what the spirit of passion and excitement told them, which has no name and which intoxicates people with the feeling of imminent success and happy changes.

For some who have set foot on the “path into the unknown,” it seems that this is the righteous path. Others see alluring lights as precious stones that lead to earthly wealth. Still others see in them something mysterious that must be comprehended and experienced...

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

Through the plane's window, in the darkness, some islands were barely visible. Maybe this is the Alexander Archipelago?

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

From ocean to ocean

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

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, disappearance of sailors from the packet boat “St. Paul".

From a Russian emigrant who lived in New York, Shields became acquainted with a handwritten copy of the notes of the famous entrepreneur 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 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 Koloshe 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 packet boat “St. Pavel” and decided that the fair-haired Indians were their children or grandchildren.

Around the seventies of the 18th century, an unusual, silent old man appeared in New York. He knew only a few words in English.

He was encountered by hunters in the upper reaches of the Delaware River. With signs, gestures, and individual words, the old man managed to explain that many years ago he was captured by some Indians on the ocean shore. 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 no longer saw his comrades from the ship. The Indians decided to make him, then still a young, strong man, a “white shaman.”

From the island where he was captured, he was transported to the mainland. This path turned out to be a long one. In the boat, the future “white shaman” was constantly given a drink that first made him dizzy and then lost consciousness.

The old man could not tell how and what the “supreme teacher of shamans” taught the Russian sailor. When the “hour of initiation” arrived many months later, 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 unlucky student to run - all the time towards the sun, until he comes to the shore of another ocean. And there, if he does not find 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 Indians of different tribes. Sometimes he ran away, but more often the Indians, having learned how far he had traveled and how far 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. Have you found peace in an unfamiliar city? Was he actually a member of the crew of the St. Paul"?..

There is no documentary evidence left about all this... Another unsolved secret of Russian America.

Russian pioneers

The Russian Tsar Peter I had long been tormented by the question of whether the Asian continent was united with America. And one day he ordered to equip an expedition, the head of which he appointed the foreign navigator Vitus Bering. Lieutenant Alexey Ilyich Chirikov became the assistant to the leader of the sea voyage.

Ships "St. Peter" and "St. Paul" on the high seas

On the appointed day, the travelers set off on a difficult journey. The road on sleighs, carts and boats passed through the East European and Siberian plains. It took the pioneers exactly two years to cross this space. At the last stage of the journey, it seemed that a new blow of fate awaited the travelers. In the harsh conditions of the Siberian winter, they had to overcome enormous distances, often harnessing themselves instead of horses and dogs to sleighs loaded with the necessary equipment and provisions. Be that as it may, the participants of the Russian expedition reached the shores of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. Having crossed to the opposite shore of the sea, the travelers built a ship that helped them reach the mouth of the Kamchatka River. Then they directed the ship to the northeast and reached the Gulf of Anadyr. Beyond the Gulf of Anadyr, travelers discovered another bay, which was called the Gulf of the Cross. And they called the nearby bay Providence Bay. Then the boat of the Russian discoverers went out into the strait, at the entrance to which there was an island, called by travelers the Island of St. Lawrence.

Traveler Vitus Bering

Bering then gave the order to direct the ship north. Soon the shores of Asia disappeared beyond the horizon. For two days, Vitus Bering led an expedition to the north. However, they did not encounter a single island or archipelago on their way. Then Alexey Ilyich Chirikov suggested that the captain change the course of the ship and send it west. But Bering refused to comply with the lieutenant’s request and ordered the helmsman to turn the ship to the south. Everyone understood that the leader of the expedition had decided to return to the capital. On the way home, the travelers managed to make another discovery - they discovered an island, which they called the Island of St. Diomede. A year later, Vitus Bering again led an expedition sent by the Russian Tsar to search for the shores of America. However, his second trip did not produce positive results. Somewhat later, navigator Ivan Fedorov and surveyor Mikhail Gvozdev began exploring the strait named after Bering. In addition, they were able to approach the American coast and even map the waters located between Alaska and Chukotka.

Geyser in Kamchatka

Meanwhile, Vitus Bering equipped a new expedition to the shores of America. On his difficult journey, he was again accompanied by Alexey Ilyich Chirikov. In addition, geographers sent on the trip by the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences also took part in the expedition. Then the group of researchers received the name of the Academic detachment of the Great Northern Expedition.

The new expedition consisted of two ships. The first, which was called “St. Peter,” was commanded by Bering, and the second, called “St. Paul,” was commanded by Chirikov. There were 75 crew members on board each vessel. First of all, it was decided to head southeast. However, no land was found. After this, the ships took different courses.

In mid-summer, Bering's ship reached the shores of America. From the ship, the sailors could see numerous mountains. The highest of them was called Mount St. Elijah. Then the expedition set off on the return journey. On the way home, the travelers encountered a chain of small islands. The largest island was named Tumanny (later renamed Chirikov Island).

Next, the ship "St. Peter" sailed along the coast of the Aleutian Islands, which travelers considered to be the American shores. However, the researchers did not land on shore and continued sailing. Soon they encountered an unknown land on their way, which Bering mistook for Kamchatka. Then the leader of the expedition decided to stay there for the winter.

The sailors disembarked the ship and set up camp. By that time, many members of the expedition, being seriously ill, had died. On December 8, 1741, the organizer and leader of the campaign, Vitus Bering, also died.

The scientist L. S. Berg at one time put forward his own assumption regarding the discovery of the strait named after Bering. He wrote: “The first... was not Dezhnev or Bering, but Fedorov, who not only saw the land, but was the first to put it on the map...”

Those who were able to withstand the hardships of the journey remained to live on the island. Their main occupation in the unknown land was hunting sea animals. Naturalist Georg Steller discovered a hitherto unknown animal off the coast of the island, which was called a sea cow. It should be noted that the sea cow is currently considered an extinct species. Last time she was seen at the end of the 19th century.

With the arrival of spring, the surviving Russian sailors began to prepare for the return journey. Their ship was almost completely rotten by that time. Cossack Savva Starodubtsev came to the rescue of the team. With the help of his comrades, he built a light boat, which, almost three weeks later, delivered travelers to the shores of Kamchatka.

Kamchatka

The campaign of "St. Paul", commanded by Alexey Ilyich Chirikov, also turned out to be tragic. One day the expedition landed on the island. The captain sent several people into the interior of the island. After they did not return to the ship, he sent four more to investigate. However, they were also lost in the depths of an unknown land. After this, Chirikov gave the command to direct the ship home. Judging by the remaining documents, Chirikov’s ship reached the American coast much earlier than Bering’s ship. However for a long time these papers were considered strictly secret. Therefore, it is generally accepted in science that Vitus Bering was the first to reach the shores of America from Asia.

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