What Semyon Dezhnev researched. Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnev is an outstanding Russian sailor. Biography

Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnev can rightfully be called one of the greatest pioneer travelers in the history of our country. During his campaigns in search of new lands, he explored the northeastern coast of Eurasia, the Anadyr basin, and discovered the Koryak Highlands. And most importantly, Dezhnev was the first, eighty years ahead of Vitus Bering, to pass through the strait separating America and Eurasia. The extreme one is named after him eastern point Eurasia - Cape Dezhnev.

Trips for yasak

Almost nothing is known about Dezhnev’s life before arriving in Siberia. Presumably he was born in 1605 in Veliky Ustyug. In 1630, he entered the service as a Cossack and, together with other recruits, went to Tobolsk, and then to Yeniseisk. Eight years later, Dezhnev was transferred to the newly founded Yakut fort, where he was supposed to carry out security service among the unconquered tribes of foreigners. The salary of an ordinary Cossack at that time was only five rubles in money and a little salt and rye. According to Dezhnev himself, with this money it was impossible to “buy a dress and shoes.”

Therefore, after two years, he begins to participate in campaigns for fur tribute, also known as yasak. Very often it fell to his lot to be a reconciliator of warring tribes - inter-tribal discord prevented the successful collection of yasak, so the government made every effort to prevent conflicts between the aborigines. In general, Dezhnev, who spoke Yakut well and knew how to get along with local residents, was very different from the rest of the Cossacks, who often did not hesitate to use force when negotiating with the indigenous population. In 1640, Dezhnev was able to peacefully subjugate the Yakut prince Sahei to Russia. He even found a wife among local girls.

But despite all this, service in Yakutia was full of dangers. Returning from a trip for yasak to the Yana River in 1641, a detachment of three people led by Dezhnev was attacked by forty Lamut Tungus; during the battle, Dezhnev received two wounds: arrows hit him in the head and leg, but still the Cossacks managed to defend the sovereign's "sable" treasury."

A year later, as part of a campaign led by Mikhail Stadukhin, Dezhnev was assigned to serve on the Oymyakon River. Having learned that Oymyakon is a tributary of the Moma, which in turn flows into the Indigirka, Stadukhin decided to go down the river. From Oymyakon, the servicemen sent the collected yasak and an “unsubscribe” (report) about the campaign, which became the first geographical description one of the coldest places on the planet.

At the beginning of 1643, the ship with Stadukhin’s expedition reached the mouth of the Indigirka River and reached the Arctic Ocean. Having set off by sea to the east, the travelers reached the mouth of the Alazeya River. There they united with the party of Dmitry Mikhailov, nicknamed Zyryan, who had arrived overland, under whose command Dezhnev served on Yan.

The service people went further east and reached the mouth of the Kolyma, where they founded the Nizhnekolyma fort. Service in this remote settlement was not easy. Three years later, Stadukhin and Zyryan, together with the collected yasak and half of the people, went back to Yakutsk, leaving only 18 people under Dezhnev’s command (according to some sources, even 13). Returning from the road, Mikhailov learned that during his absence the small garrison of the prison managed to repel an attack of about five hundred Yukaghirs.

Travelers' Excitement

Little by little, from the direction of Bolshoi Anyui, rumors began to penetrate into Nizhnekolymsk about the “backbone river Paryga (Anadyr)”, whose banks and surroundings are rich in sable and that the lands east of Kolyma are abundant in “fish tooth” - walrus bone. These rumors attracted more and more people to the remote fort on Kolyma. more people who wanted to get rich. Among them, Fyodor Alekseev and Isai Ignatiev came to Nizhnekolymsk, who in 1646, together with their comrades, traveled by sea from the mouth of the Kolyma to the Chaunskaya Bay, where they exchanged a lot of “fish tooth” with local residents for various goods. Naturally, such success fueled the excitement of travelers even more. According to the memoirs of Dezhnev himself, after Ignatiev and Alekseev returned to Nizhnekolymsk, the residents of the prison began to “fever.”

The next year, a new party of hunters was equipped, to which the government clerk of the prison, Vasiliev, added Dezhnev at the latter’s personal request, obliging him to collect duties on the prey and explain to the natives he encountered. He promised to present the sovereign with 280 sable skins from Anadyr, to the mouth of which from the Kolyma “it will take a day or three or more to run by sailing weather.” It is not known how far the expedition managed to advance, but due to unfavorable ice conditions, 4 kochas (single-masted sailing and rowing boats) with 63 industrialists on board under the control of Alekseev returned back empty-handed that same summer.

But Alekseev did not give up and a year later decided to repeat his attempt. Dezhnev this time asked to be appointed as the responsible yasak collector. But suddenly he had a rival. Yakut Cossack Gerasim Ankundinov promised to obtain the same 280 sable skins for the sovereign and to bear all the costs of collecting them.

The angry Dezhnev promised to bring 290 skins, and Ankundinov accused that he “had taken in about thirty thieves, and they want to beat up the trade and industrial people who are going with me to that new river, and rob their bellies, they want to beat foreigners.” In the end, Dezhnev was confirmed in office, but at the same time the authorities did not interfere with the participation of Ankundinov and his people in the campaign, believing that large quantity going on a hike will help increase profits.

“...and that Nose went out to sea much farther away”

On June 20, 1648, a party of 90 people on seven kochas left Nizhnekolymsk and set off by sea to the east. Somewhere in the Long Strait, the expedition suffered its first losses: during a storm, two kochas were wrecked, breaking on the ice. Some of those who were able to land on the shore were killed by the Koryaks, the rest died of starvation.

It is unknown what happened to two more ships, but, according to Dezhnev’s memoirs, only three Kochas, led by Dezhnev, Alekseev and Ankundinov, entered the strait separating Asia from America. For the first time in history - long before the Bering expedition - Europeans managed to sail from the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific, thereby proving that Asia and America are not connected and that from China it is possible to get to Europe via the northern seas, that is, to prove the existence of the North Sea. sea ​​route.

In his petition to the Yakut governor Akinfov, Dezhnev described what he saw as follows: “... and that Nose went out into the sea much far away, and a lot of good Chukhchi people live on it. Opposite the same Nosu, people live on the islands, they call them toothy, because they understand two large bone teeth through their lips...” But these islands were remembered by the explorers not because of their importance geographical discovery, but due to the fact that near this “Big Stone Nose” Ankudinov’s kochka crashed, the crew of which, however, was saved.

“Come and visit us in Kolyma...”

Some time after passing the Nose, for unknown reasons, the travelers were forced to land on the shore, where they had a clash with the aborigines, during which Fedor Alekseev was wounded. Having gone out to sea again, around October 1, in the area of ​​​​the Gulf of Cross, Kochi were caught in a severe storm, in which Alekseev’s ship went missing. Semyon Dezhnev and 23 of his companions on the remaining kocha were washed ashore by a storm nine hundred kilometers southwest of Chukotka - on the Olyutorsky Peninsula. From there, the surviving members of the once large party moved on foot to the northeast towards the mouth of the Anadyr.

Surprisingly, having completed the first ever difficult ten-week trek through the Koryak Highlands, all twenty-four “cold, hungry, naked and barefoot” explorers managed to reach the shore of Anadyr on December 9. Half of the people were sent up the river in search of native settlements and camps. Having found neither people, nor teams, nor “foreign roads,” twelve days later only three of those who had gone in search returned to the camp.

With great difficulty, 15 explorers survived the winter of 1648-1649. In a cold and treeless region, people were forced to dig shelters for themselves right in the snowdrifts; grain reserves were also coming to an end. When the ice broke up on the river, they built boats and rode them five hundred kilometers up the river, to the villages of the warlike Alauns. When meeting with the natives, Dezhnev’s party had to engage them in battle, in which Semyon Ivanovich was wounded, but the Cossacks were still able to explain the Alauns. Due to the lack of forests, the natives were unable to pay yasak in sables, but their lands were rich in walrus ivory.

Soon, on the middle reaches of the river, Dezhnev founded the Anadyr fort, where a new party of Cossacks led by Semyon Motora arrived overland from Kolyma, and then a third under the leadership of Dezhnev’s old acquaintance Mikhail Stadukhin. In an unsuccessful search for sables, Dezhnev’s people walked around the entire basin of Anadyr and part of Anyuy, thanks to which the first plan of the river and its environs was drawn up, which was subsequently presented to the sovereign.

Due to Stadukhin’s hostile attitude towards the already pacified natives, whom he once even robbed and beat, Dezhnev and Motora quarrel with him, as a result of which Stadukhin leaves Anadyr and goes south, thus becoming one of the first explorers of Kamchatka and the northern part Sea of ​​Okhotsk. And in the summer of 1652, Dezhnev’s people discovered a huge walrus rookery in the Gulf of Anadyr, simply dotted with “fish teeth,” which provided the prison with an influx of new people and funds.

Ataman Dezhnev

Having lived in the Anadyr prison for more than ten years, Dezhnev surrendered his command and went back to Yakutsk through Nizhnekolymsk along the same land route that Motora and Stadukhin came to him in 1649 and to whom he sent walrus ivory and “soft junk” all these years.

He reached Yakutsk only in 1662, from where, together with a group of sovereign people under the leadership of the boyar’s son Ivan Erastov, he went to Moscow in the summer to deliver “sable, yasak and bone treasury.” The journey to the capital took almost two years. Upon arrival, Dezhnev submitted a petition to the Tsar, in which he described in detail his discoveries and travels, and also asked to be given a salary for nineteen years of service. Replenishment of the treasury with 289 pounds of walrus tusks in the amount of 17,340 rubles. silver was appreciated: Dezhnev was given 126 rubles in silver, and Dezhnev received the other two-thirds of his salary in skins.

In addition, for “service and for the mine of a fish tooth, for a bone and for wounds,” the Cossack Semyon Dezhnev was promoted to atamans. Upon returning to Siberia, the ataman served as a clerk on the Olenek, Yana and Vilyui rivers, where he again collected yasak and reconciled the warring Tungus tribes. In 1670, he again went with the sable treasury to Moscow, where in 1671 he fell ill and died a year and a half later.

Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnev left a significant mark on the history of the development of the Far East of our country. It remains unclear why Dezhnev opened the strait separating Eurasia from America for a long time was not known in the West. There is a version that this happened because Dezhneva’s petition, with a description resembling Anadyr, remained in distant Yakutsk with governor Akinfov. But, having arrived in Moscow, Dezhnev compiled a detailed account of his travels.

Perhaps tsarist officials did not attach significance to the discovery due to the presence of a more convenient and safe land route from Anadyr to Kolyma. The fact remains: with light hand James Cook, who did not know about Dezhnev’s feat, the strait was named after Vitus Bering, who visited these places almost a century later than Dezhnev and did not pass through the strait from the Pacific Ocean to the Arctic Ocean, but only approached it.

Dezhnev’s geographical merits were appreciated only in the 19th century, when in 1898, in honor of the 250th anniversary of the campaign from Kolyma to Anadyr, at the proposal of the Russian Geographical Society, the extreme eastern point of Eurasia was named after him - the name of the man who proved that Far East is an integral part of our country. Dezhnev's discoveries allowed Russia to move further east and eventually led to the conquest of Alaska.

(around 1605 - early 1673), Cossack chieftain, explorer and Arctic navigator, one of the discoverers of the strait between Asia and North America, Chukchi Sea, North Pacific Ocean and Chukotka Peninsula.

Born on Pinega in a family of Pomor peasants. He began his Siberian service as an ordinary Cossack in Tobolsk at the end of 1630; then he moved to Yeniseisk, and in 1638 - to the Yakut fort. In 1639 and the summer of 1640, he collected yasak on the Middle Vilyui, as well as on the Tatta and Amga, the left tributaries of the Aldan. In the winter of 1640/41 he served in the Upper Yana basin in the detachment of D. Erila (Zyryan). In the summer of 1641, he was assigned to a detachment, and with him reached the prison on Oymyakon (the left tributary of the Indigirka).

In the spring of 1642, up to 500 people 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, a 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 joint action, and the combined detachment, led by two ships, moved east.

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 F. Popov’s fishing expedition 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.

Scheme map of S. Dezhnev’s voyage and campaign in 1648–1649

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, detachments of Semyon Motors and. Dezhnev agreed with Motora about unification and in the fall made an unsuccessful attempt to reach the Penzhina River, but, without a guide, he 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, he 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 very rich rookery of walruses with a huge amount of “meat teeth” - the fangs of dead animals.

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.

Dezhnev Semyon Ivanovich (about 1605 - death 1673) - Russian polar explorer, pioneer sailor, Cossack ataman, explorer of the Northern and Eastern Siberia, North America. The first of the famous European navigators, in 1648, 80 years earlier than, opened the strait between Asia and North America (now the Bering Strait) and founded the first Russian settlement in Chukotka - the Anadyr fortress. A cape, which is the northeastern tip of Eurasia, an island in the Laptev Sea, islands in the Nordenskiöld archipelago (Kara Sea) and other geographical objects are named after Dezhnev.

early years

There is information about Dezhnev only from 1638 to 1671. A native of Pomor peasants, he was born in Veliky Ustyug; when Semyon Ivanovich came to Siberia is unknown. In Siberia, he first served in Tobolsk, and then in Yeniseisk, from where in 1638 he moved to the Yakut fort, which had just been founded in the neighborhood of still unconquered foreign tribes.

Cossack service

The first couple of years of service in Yakutsk were difficult. Semyon Dezhnev was an ordinary Cossack whose modest salary had not been paid for years. The service people had nothing to “buy a dress and shoes.” Dezhnev began to engage in fur farming and acquired a farm. Soon he married a Yakut woman, Abakayada Syuchyu. From this marriage he had a son, Lyubim, who would eventually also begin to carry out Cossack service in Yakutsk.

Collection of yasak by Cossacks

Beginning in 1640, Semyon repeatedly took part in campaigns across Eastern Siberia. On these campaigns, he most often served as a yasak collector (tax collector mainly for furs), and he often had the opportunity to reconcile tribes that were warring among themselves. Dezhnev's entire service in Yakutsk was often associated with danger to life; during 20 years of service here he was wounded 9 times.

1641 - Semyon Ivanovich, with a party of 15 people, collected yasak on the Yana River and was able to deliver it to Yakutsk, having withstood a battle with a gang of 40 people along the way. 1642 - he, along with Stadukhin, was sent to collect yasak on the Oemokon River (now Oymyakon), from where he descended into the Indigirka River, and along it went out into the Arctic Ocean, then reached the Alazeya River and Kolyma. So in the summer of 1643, Dezhnev, as part of a detachment of explorers under the command of Mikhail Stadukhin, discovered the Kolyma River.

Opening of the Bering Strait

Semyon served in Kolyma until the summer of 1647, and after that he was included as a yasak collector in the fishing expedition of Fedot Popov. 1648, summer - Popov and Dezhnev went to sea on 7 Kochs.

The expedition set out to sea with 90 people. Part of it soon separated, but three Kochas, with Dezhnev and Popov, continued to head east, in August they turned south, and in early September they entered the Bering Strait. Then they had a chance to go around the “Big Stone Nose”, where one of the kochys was broken, and on September 20 some circumstances forced them to land on the shore, where F. Popov was wounded in the battle with the Chukchi and Dezhnev remained the only commander.

Having passed the strait and, of course, not even understanding the full significance of his discovery, Dezhnev went with his companions further south, along the shores; but storms broke the last two kochas and carried Dezhnev across the sea until he was thrown ashore.

By Dezhnev’s “Big Stone Nose” one should mean Cape Chukotsky, as the only one whose location matches the description of the sailor. This circumstance, together with Semyon Ivanovich’s indication (in a petition of 1662) that his kochka was thrown “beyond the Anadyr River,” undoubtedly confirms Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnev’s honor as the first explorer of the strait, called the Bering Strait only out of ignorance of Dezhnev’s feat.

Founding of the Anadyr fort

Having suffered a shipwreck, Dezhnev walked for ten weeks with 25 comrades to the mouth of the Anadyr River, where 13 more people died, and with the rest he spent the winter here and in the summer of 1649, on newly built boats, climbed the river 600 kilometers, to the first settlements foreigners, whom he explained. Here, on the middle reaches of the Anadyr River, they set up a winter hut, which was later called the Anadyr fortress. 1650 - a party of Russians from Nizhne-Kolymsk arrived here by land; Dezhnev (1653) also used this route, more convenient than the sea, to send the walrus ivory and “soft junk” he had collected to Yakutsk.

The further fate of the sailor. Death

1659 - Semyon Ivanovich surrendered command of the Anadyr fort and the servicemen, but did not leave the region until 1662, when he returned to Yakutsk. He delivered a large cargo of “bone treasury” to Yakutsk. With this luggage, the sailor was sent to Moscow, he arrived there in January 1664. In Moscow, in the Siberian Prikaz, Dezhnev was able to earn a salary for himself for many years of service in Eastern Siberia. By decree of the tsar it was decided: “... for his service, Senkina, and for the mine of a fish tooth, for a bone and for wounds, to become atamans.”

Returning to Eastern Siberia, the explorer served for some time in winter quarters on the Olenek, Vilyui and Yana rivers.

1671, December - he came from Yakutsk to Moscow for the second time, this time with the “sable treasury”. He stayed in the capital, apparently falling ill. He died in Moscow in 1673.

Monument to S.I. Dezhnev

The meaning of discoveries

The main merit of the polar explorer is that he opened the passage from the Arctic to Pacific Ocean. The sailor described this route and compiled it detailed drawing. Despite the fact that the maps developed by Semyon Ivanovich were very simplified, with approximate distances, they were of great practical importance. Strait, opened by Semyon Ivanovich, became accurate evidence that Asia and America are separated by the sea. In addition, the expedition led by Semyon Dezhnev for the first time reached the mouth of the Anadyr River, where walrus deposits were discovered.

1736 - Dezhnev’s forgotten reports were discovered for the first time in Yakutsk. It is clear from them that the navigator did not see the shores of America. It should be noted that 80 years after Dezhnev, the Bering expedition visited the southern part of the strait, confirming Semyon Ivanovich’s discovery. 1778 - James Cook visited these parts, who knew, as mentioned above, only about the first Bering expedition half of the XVIII centuries. It was at Cook’s suggestion that this Strait was named the Bering Strait.

Essays

(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 1641, Dezhnev, with a party of 15 people, collected yasak on the Yana River and safely delivered it to Yakutsk, having withstood a fight with a gang of 40 people along the way. In 1642, he and Stadukhin were sent to collect yasak on the Oymyakon River, from where he descended into the Indigirka River, and along it went out into the Arctic Ocean. Here Stadukhin and Dezhnev connected with Dmitry Mikhailov Zyryan.

After three years of service, Stadukhin and Zyryan, with yasak and half the people, went to Yakutsk, leaving Dezhnev and 13 other people in the Kolyma prison. Dmitry Mikhailov (Zyryan) returned from the road, and meanwhile Dezhnev had to repel the attack of more than 500 Yukaghirs who wanted to destroy the weak garrison of the prison.

Dezhnev served in Kolyma until the summer of 1647, and then was included as a yasak collector in the fishing expedition of Fedot Popov.

Having suffered a wreck, Dezhnev sailed for ten weeks with 25 people. to the mouth of the Anadyr River, where 13 more people died, and with the rest he spent the winter here and in the summer of 1649, on newly built boats, he ascended the river to the first settlements of foreigners, whom he explained. Here, on the middle reaches of the Anadyr River, a winter hut was built, which was later called the Anadyr fort. In 1650, a party of Russians from Nizhne-Kolymsk arrived here by land; Dezhnev (1653) also used this route, more convenient than the sea, to send the walrus ivory and furs he collected to Yakutsk. In 1659, Dezhnev surrendered command of the Anadyr fort and the servicemen, but remained in the region until 1662, when he returned to Yakutsk. From there Dezhnev, with the sovereign's treasury, was sent to Moscow, where he probably arrived by mid-1664. Dezhnev’s petition has been preserved for the payment of the salary he deserved, but not received, for 19 years, which was fulfilled. In 1665, Dezhnev went back to Yakutsk and served there until 1670, when he was again sent with the sovereign treasury to Moscow, where he arrived in 1672.

Essays

Letters from Semyon Dezhnev about the campaign to Anadyr. // Notes of Russian travelers of the 16th-17th centuries. - M., 1988. P.393-411.

Memory

• His name is given to: the cape, which is the extreme northeastern tip of Asia (called by Dezhnev - Big Stone Nose), as well as an island, bay, peninsula, and village.
• In the center of Veliky Ustyug in 1971, a monument to Dezhnev was erected.
• In Moscow there is Dezhnev Passage (North-Eastern District)
• In 1983, the film “Semyon Dezhnev” was released, filmed at the Sverdlovsk film studio with Alexei Buldakov in the title role.
• In 2001, the Bank of Russia, in the series of commemorative coins “Development and Exploration of Siberia”, issued a coin “Expedition of F. Popov and S. Dezhnev” with a face value of 100 rubles.
• In September 2005, a monument to Semyon Dezhnev, his Yakut wife Abakayada Syuch and their son Lyubim was unveiled in Yakutsk.
• Dezhnev Street has existed in Kazan since 1953.
• There is Komandnoe in Novosibirsk River School named after S.I. Dezhnev, opened on April 2, 1943 to train specialists with secondary specialized education for the West Siberian River Shipping Company.
• In 2009, a Russian postage stamp with the image of Dezhnev was issued.

In 1648, Dezhnev, together with Popov, sailed from Kolyma around the Chukotka Peninsula to the Bering Sea, passing for the first time and actually opening the Bering Strait. Dezhnev drew up a drawing of the river. Anadyr and parts of the river Anyui described his voyage and the nature of the Anadyr region. Subsequently, the easternmost cape of the Chukotka Peninsula, one of the bays of the Bering Sea, a mountain range and a village on the river were named after him. Amur.

Until now, there is information about Dezhnev only from 1638 to 1671. His homeland is Veliky Ustyug, from where he went to seek his fortune in Siberia. He served in Tobolsk, Yeniseisk, and in 1638 he moved to the Yakut fort, which had just been founded next to the still unconquered tribes of foreigners. Semyon Dezhnev was an ordinary Cossack and received 5 rubles a year, but this modest salary was not paid for years.

Beginning in 1640, Dezhnev repeatedly participated in campaigns in Eastern Siberia. On these campaigns, he most often served as a yasak collector. He often had to reconcile tribes that were warring among themselves, but he knew how to get along with the indigenous population of Siberia without resorting to harsh methods of military control. Dezhnev's service in Yakutsk was often associated with danger to life; during 20 years of service here he was wounded 9 times. In 1639-1640, Dezhnev forced the native prince Sahei to submit, and in 1641, with a party of 15 people, he withstood a battle with a gang of 40 people. In 1642, he, together with Stadukhin, was sent to collect yasak on the Oemokon River (now Oymyakon), from where he descended into the Indigirka River, and along it went out into the Arctic Ocean. Remaining in the Kolyma prison with 13 people, Dezhnev repelled the attack of more than 500 Yukaghirs who wanted to destroy the small garrison.

In 1646, Isai Ignatiev made the first voyage across the Arctic Ocean to the East from the mouth of the Kolyma River and brought a walrus bone (fish tooth) to Nizhne-Kolymsk. In 1647, a new batch of industrialists was sent for a fish tooth, which included Dezhnev. Having encountered impassable ice on the way, they were forced to return. In 1648, Kholmogory resident Fedot Alekseev Popov equipped a new party, which Dezhnev joined.

She went to sea with 90 people, on six boats. The expedition had to endure difficult trials, two kochas (a Pomeranian decked single-masted sailing and rowing vessel) died and two more disappeared when caught in a storm near Cape Shelagsky. Dezhnev and the rest of the ships continued sailing and by the beginning of September, they went around the Chukotka Peninsula from the north into the strait between Asia and America. On the shore of the “Big Stone Nose” (later called Cape Dezhnev), the travelers made a stop; some circumstances forced them to land on the shore, where Popov was wounded in the battle with the Chukchi and Dezhnev remained the only commander.

During the stop they visited the Eskimos on the islands of the strait. For the first time in history, having passed through this strait and actually opened it, S.I. Dezhnev solved an important geographical problem. Evidence has emerged that America is an independent continent, and from Europe to China it is possible to sail in the northern seas around Siberia. By Dezhnev’s “Big Stone Nose” we must mean Cape Chukotsky, as the only one whose location matches Dezhnev’s description. This circumstance, together with Dezhnev’s indication (in a petition of 1662) that his koch was thrown “beyond the Anadyr River,” undoubtedly confirms Dezhnev’s honor as the first explorer of the strait, which Cook called the Bering Strait only out of ignorance of Dezhnev’s feat.

However, due to the lack of information about this discovery in European countries (the materials of Dezhnev’s campaigns remained in the Yakut prison), the priority of the discoverer went to V.I. Bering.

Having passed the strait, the Kochi went to the Gulf of Anadyr; during a storm and storm, one koch crashed against the rocks, and others went around the Olyutorsky Peninsula. In October 1648, the koch, on which Dezhnev himself and 24 comrades were, was washed ashore by a storm south of the mouth of the Anadyr. From here the industrialists set off on foot in a northerly direction and at the beginning of 1649 reached the mouth of the Anadyr. Having ascended the river, Dezhnev and his comrades built a winter hut and founded the Anadyr fort.

In 1650, a party of Russians from Nizhne-Kolymsk arrived here by land; Dezhnev (1653) also used this route, more convenient than the sea, to send the walrus ivory he collected to Yakutsk.

For several years, Dezhnev conducted a survey of the Anadyr River basin, compiled detailed plan, also explored part of the Anyui River basin. Detailed petition reports were drawn up on the work carried out to the authorities in Yakutsk. Dezhnev also informed the Yakut governor I. Akinfov that he had passed along the “ocean sea” past islands inhabited by Eskimos, and that the shores of the “mother land” were nowhere connected with the “New Land” (America). The petitions described in detail the Chukotka Peninsula, the nature and population of the Anadyr Territory. Having discovered a rich walrus rookery in the Gulf of Anadyr, Dezhnev founded the animal fishery in 1652, which brought great profit to the Russian state.

In 1659, Dezhnev surrendered command of the Anadyr fort and the servicemen, but remained in the region until 1662, when he returned to Yakutsk. In the summer, together with a group of “sovereign people”, he traveled by land to Moscow to deliver “sable, yasak and bone treasury.” Dezhnev presented petitions to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich detailed description their travels, discoveries and activities in Anadyr. In 1665, by a royal decree, it was decided “for his service, Senkina, and for the mine of a fish tooth, for a bone and for wounds, to be made atamans.” After several years of activity in Eastern Siberia, Dezhnev again heads to Moscow with his “sable treasury.” He arrived in the capital of Russia at the end of December 1671. He died in Moscow in 1673.

In commemoration of the merits of S.I. Dezhnev before the Fatherland, a peninsula and a mountain range on the western coast of the Bering Strait, a bay on Kamchatka, a cape - the eastern tip of the Asian continent, islands in the Nordenskiöld archipelago in the Kara Sea, and sea vessels were named after him.

In 1898, at the request of the Russian Geographical Society, the extreme eastern tip of Asia was given the name “Cape Dezhnev”. A monument to him was erected in the center of Veliky Ustyug in 1972.