Ivan Fyodorovich Kruzenshtern and Yuri Fedorovich Lisyansky were combat Russian sailors: both in 1788–1790. participated in four battles against the Swedes; sent in 1793 as volunteers to England to serve in the English fleet, fought the French off the coast North America. Both had experience sailing in tropical waters; on English ships for several years they went to the Antilles and India, and Kruzenshtern reached South China.
Returning to Russia, I. Kruzenshtern in 1799 and 1802. presented projects of circumnavigations as the most profitable direct trade communication between the Russian ports of the Baltic Sea and Russian America. At Paul I the project did not pass, with a young Alexandra I it was accepted with the support of the Russian-American Company, which took on half the costs. In early August 1802, I. Kruzenshtern was approved as the head of the first Russian round-the-world expedition.
Y. Lisyansky in 1800 returned from India through England to his homeland. In 1802, after being appointed to a round-the-world expedition, he traveled to England to buy two sloops: the tsarist officials believed that Russian ships would not survive a round-the-world voyage. With great difficulty, Kruzenshtern ensured that the crew on both ships was staffed exclusively by domestic sailors: Russian noble Anglo-lovers argued that "the enterprise would by no means succeed with Russian sailors." The sloop "Nadezhda" (430 tons) was commanded by I. Kruzenshtern himself, the ship "Neva" (370 tons) - Yu. Lisyansky. On board the Nadezhda was Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov, son-in-law G. I. Shelikhova, one of the founding directors of the Russian-American Company. He was on his way to Japan with an entourage as an envoy to conclude a trade agreement. At the end of July 1803, the ships left Kronstadt, and three months later, south of the Cape Zeleny Islands (near 14 ° N), I. Kruzenshtern established that both sloops were being carried to the east by a strong current - this was how the Intertrade countercurrent was discovered A warm sea current directed from west to east in the low latitudes of the Atlantic. Atlantic Ocean. In mid-November, for the first time in the history of the Russian fleet, ships crossed the equator, and on February 19, 1804, rounded Cape Horn. AT pacific ocean they separated. Y. Lisyansky, by agreement, went to Fr. Easter, completed an inventory of the coast and got acquainted with the life of the inhabitants. At Nukuhiva (one of the Marquesas Islands), he caught up with the Nadezhda, and together they moved to the Hawaiian Islands, and then the ships followed different routes: I. Kruzenshtern - to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky; Yu. Lisyansky - to Russian America, to Fr. Kodiak.
Having received from A. A. Baranova a letter testifying to his plight. Yu. Lisyansky arrived at the Alexander archipelago and provided military assistance to A. Baranov against the Tlingit Indians: these "koloshi" (as the Russians called them), instigated by disguised agents of an American pirate, destroyed the Russian fortification on about. Sitka (Fr. Baranova). In 1802, Baranov built a new fortress there - Novoarkhangelsk (now the city of Sitka), where he soon transferred the center of Russian America. At the end of 1804 and in the spring of 1805, Yu. Lisyansky, together with the navigator of the Neva Daniil Vasilievich Kalinin described in the Gulf of Alaska about. Kodiak, as well as part of the Alexander archipelago. At the same time, west of Sitki D. Kalinin discovered about. Kruzov, which was previously considered a peninsula. Large island north of Y. Lisyansky named Sitka after V. Ya. Chichagova. In the autumn of 1805, the Neva, with a load of furs, moved from Sitka to Macau (South China), where it joined the Nadezhda. On the way, uninhabited about. Lisyansky and the Neva reef, classified as part of the Hawaiian archipelago, and to the south-west of them - the Kruzenshtern reef. From Canton, where he managed to profitably sell furs, Y. Lisyansky made an unparalleled non-stop passage around the Cape of Good Hope to Portsmouth (England) in 140 days, but at the same time parted from Nadezhda in foggy weather off the southeast coast of Africa. On August 5, 1806, he arrived in Kronstadt, having completed a round-the-world voyage, the first in the annals of the Russian fleet.
The St. Petersburg authorities reacted coldly to Y. Lisyansky. He was given another rank (captain of the 2nd rank), but that was the end of his naval career. Description of his voyage "Journey around the world in 1803-1806. on the ship "Neva" (St. Petersburg, 1812) he published at his own expense.
The Nadezhda anchored at Petropavlovsk in mid-July 1804. Then I. Kruzenshtern delivered N. Rezanov to Nagasaki, and after negotiations that ended in complete failure, in the spring of 1805 he returned with an envoy to Petropavlovsk, where he parted ways with him. On the way to Kamchatka, I. Kruzenshtern followed the Eastern Passage to the Sea of Japan and photographed the western coast of about. Hokkaido. Then he passed through the La Perouse Strait to Aniva Bay and made a number of determinations of the geographical position of noticeable points there. Intending to map the still poorly studied eastern coast of Sakhalin, on May 16 he rounded Cape Aniva, moving north along the coast with the survey. I. Kruzenshtern discovered a small bay of Mordvinov, described the rocky eastern and northern low-lying shores of the Gulf of Patience. The names of the capes assigned to them are also preserved on the maps of our time (for example, Capes Senyavin and Soimonov).
Strong ice floes prevented us from reaching Cape Patience and continuing shooting to the north (end of May). Then I. Kruzenshtern decided to put aside the descriptive work and go to Kamchatka. He headed east to the Kuril ridge and the strait, now bearing his name, went out into the Pacific Ocean. Unexpectedly, four islets (Lovushki Islands) opened up in the west. The approach of a storm forced the Nadezhda to return to the Sea of Okhotsk. When the storm subsided, the ship proceeded through the Severgin Strait to the Pacific Ocean and on June 5 arrived in the Peter and Paul Harbor.
To continue exploration of the eastern coast of Sakhalin, I. Kruzenshtern in July passed through the Strait of Hope into the Sea of Okhotsk to the Sakhalin Cape Patience. After weathering the storm, on 19 July he began filming north. The coast to 51 ° 30 "N did not have large bends - only minor recesses (mouths of small rivers); in the depths of the island, several rows of low mountains (the southern end of the Eastern Range) were visible, stretching parallel to the coast and rising noticeably to the north. After a four-day storm, accompanied by dense fog (end of July), "Nadezhda" was again able to approach the coast, which became low and sandy. At 52 ° N. latitude, the sailors saw a small bay (they missed the other two, located to the south, they missed). The low-lying coast continued and further north, until on August 8 at 54 ° N I. Kruzenshtern discovered a high coast with a large cape named after Lieutenant Yermolai Levenshtern. The next day, in cloudy and foggy weather, the Nadezhda rounded the northern end of Sakhalin and entered a small bay (Northern), its input and output capes received the names of Elizabeth and Mary.
After a short stay, during which a meeting with the Gilyaks took place, I. Kruzenshtern explored the eastern shore of the Sakhalin Bay: he wanted to check whether Sakhalin was an island, as it was indicated on Russian maps of the 18th century. or a peninsula, as claimed J. F. La Perouse. At the northern entrance to the Amur Estuary, the depths turned out to be insignificant, and I. Kruzenshtern, having come to the “conclusion that leaves no doubt” that Sakhalin is a peninsula, returned to Petropavlovsk. As a result of the voyage, he first mapped and described more than 900 km of the eastern, northern and northwestern coast of Sakhalin.
In the autumn of 1805, Nadezhda visited Macao and Canton. In 1806, without stopping, she moved to Fr. Helena, where she waited in vain for the Neva (see above), then circled Great Britain from the north and returned to Kronstadt on August 19, 1806, without losing a single sailor from illness. This expedition made a significant contribution to geographical science, erasing a number of non-existent islands from the map and clarifying the geographical position of many points. Participants of the first round-the-world voyage carried out various oceanological observations: they discovered the trade wind countercurrents in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans; measured water temperature at depths up to 400 m and determined its specific gravity, transparency and color; found out the cause of the glow of the sea; collected numerous data on atmospheric pressure, tides and tides in a number of areas of the World Ocean.
The voyage of Kruzenshtern and Lisyansky is the beginning of a new era in the history of Russian navigation.
In 1809–1812 I. Kruzenshtern published three volumes of his “Travel around the world in 1803-1806. on the ships "Nadezhda" and "Neva". This work, translated in many European countries immediately won general recognition. In 1813, the "Atlas for a trip around the world by Captain Kruzenshtern" was published; most of the maps (including the general one) were compiled by Lieutenant Faddey Faddeevich Bellingshausen. In the 20s. Kruzenshtern published the "Atlas of the South Sea" with an extensive text, which is now a valuable literary source for historians of the discovery of Oceania and is widely used by Soviet and foreign specialists.
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Vasily Mikhailovich Golovnin, like his predecessors, a combat sailor, sailed as a volunteer on English warships to the Antilles. Then he showed himself as an innovator: he developed new marine signals. At the end of July 1807, commanding the sloop "Diana", V. Golovnin set off from Kronstadt to the shores of Kamchatka. He was a senior officer Petr Ivanovich Rikord(later one of the founders of the Russian Geographical Society). Reaching Cape Horn. V. Golovnin, due to contrary winds, at the beginning of March 1808 turned to the Cape of Good Hope and arrived in Simonstown in April, where the British detained the sloop for more than a year due to the outbreak of the Anglo-Russian war. In May 1809, on a dark night, taking advantage of a fair storm wind, V. Golovnin, despite the fact that a large English squadron was in the roadstead, took the ship out of the harbor and into the sea. He rounded Tasmania from the south and made a non-stop transition to about. Tanna (New Hebrides), and in the fall of 1809 he arrived in Petropavlovsk. In 1810, he sailed in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean from Kamchatka to about. Baranova (Sitka) and back.
In May 1811, the Diana went to sea to the Kuril Islands, to the Strait of Hope (48 ° N). From there, V. Golovnin began a new inventory of the central and southern groups of the Kuril Islands - the old ones turned out to be unsatisfactory. Between 48 and 47° N. sh. new names of accurately plotted straits appeared on the map: Middle, in honor of the navigator of the Diana Basil the Middle(the islands near this strait are also named after him), Rikord, Diana, and in the southern chain - Catherine's Strait. This strait was discovered by the commander of the Russian transport "Ekaterina", navigator Grigory Lovtsov in 1792, when he delivered the first Russian ambassador Adam Kirillovich Laxman to Japan. So "Diana" reached Fr. Kunashir. There, V. Golovnin landed to replenish supplies of water and provisions, and was taken prisoner by the Japanese along with two officers and four sailors. They spent two years and three months in Hokkaido. In 1813, after Russia's victory over Napoleon I, all Russian sailors were released. On the "Diana" V. Golovnin returned to Petropavlovsk. His truthful Notes of Vasily Mikhailovich Golovnin Captured by the Japanese (1816) were and are being read with riveting interest as an adventure novel; this work is the first (after E. KaempferThe German physician in the Dutch service, Engelbert Kaempfer, lived in Nagasaki from 1690–1692. His History of Japan and Siam was published in London in 1727.) a book about Japan, artificially isolated from the outside world for two centuries. The glory of V. Golovnin as a remarkable navigator and writer increased after the publication of his "Journey of the sloop" Diana "from Kronstadt to Kamchatka ..." (1819).
In 1817–1819 V. Golovnin made the second round-the-world voyage, described by him in the book “Journey around the world on the Kamchatka sloop” (1812), during which he specified the position of a number of islands from the Aleutian ridge.
command trusted a well-discovered twenty-five-year-old lieutenant Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev, appointing him commander of the ship "Suvorov", which departed in October 1813 from Kronstadt to Russian America. Passing the Cape of Good Hope and Cape South about. Tasmania, he went to Port Jackson (Sydney), and from there he took the ship to the Hawaiian Islands. At the end of September 1814 at 13° 10" S and 163° 10" W. e. he discovered five uninhabited atolls and called them the Suvorov Islands. In November, M. Lazarev arrived in Russian America and spent the winter in Novoarkhangelsk. In the summer of 1815, from Novoarkhangelsk, he went to Cape Horn and, having rounded it, completed his circumnavigation in Kronstadt in mid-July 1816.
Otto Evstafievich Kotzebue had already circumnavigated the globe once (on the Nadezhda sloop), when Count N. P. Rumyantsev in 1815 he invited him to become the commander of the brig "Rurik" and the head of a research expedition around the world. Its main task was to find the Northeast Sea Passage from the Pacific to Atlantic Ocean. invited as a senior officer Gleb Semenovich Shishmarev. In Copenhagen, on board the "Rurik" O. Kotzebue took an outstanding naturalist and poet, a Frenchman but by origin Adalberta Chamisso. On the brig "Rurik", a very small ship (only 180 tons), the crowding was extreme, conditions for scientific work- none.
O. Kotzebue left Kronstadt in mid-July 1815, rounded Cape Horn, and after stopping in Concepción Bay (Chile) for some time searched in vain at 27 ° S. sh. fantastic "Davis' Land". In April - May 1816, in the northern part of the Tuamotu archipelago, he discovered about. Rumyantsev (Tikei), Spiridov (Takopoto), Rurik (Arutua), Krusenstern (Tikehau) atolls and in the Ratak chain of the Marshall Islands - Kutuzov (Utirik) and Suvorov (Taka) atolls; part of the discoveries was secondary. Then he headed to the Chukchi Sea to the American coast. At the end of July, at the exit from the Bering Strait, O. Kotzebue discovered and explored Shishmareva Bay. With a fair wind in fine weather, the ship moved near the low-lying coast to the northeast, and on August 1, the sailors saw a wide passage to the east, and in the north - a high ridge (the southern spurs of the Byrd Mountains, up to 1554 m). At the first moment, Kotzebue decided that in front of him was the beginning of the passage to the Atlantic Ocean, but after a two-week survey of the coast, he was convinced that this was a vast bay named after him. The opening of Shishmareva Bay and Kotzebue Bay was helped by a drawing of Chukotka, compiled in 1779 by the Cossack centurion Ivan Kobelev. In this drawing, he also showed part of the American coast with two bays - small and large. In the southeastern part of the bay, sailors discovered Eschsholz Bay (in honor of the ship's doctor, then a student, Ivan Ivanovich Eshsholts, who proved to be an outstanding naturalist). On the shores of the Kotzebue Bay, scientists from the Rurik discovered and described fossil ice - for the first time in America - and found a mammoth tusk in it. Turning south, "Rurik" moved to about. Unalaska, from there to San Francisco Bay and the Hawaiian Islands.
In January - March 1817, the expedition members again explored the Marshall Islands, and in the Ratak chain they discovered, examined and put on an accurate map a number of inhabited atolls: in January - New Year (Medzhit) and Rumyantsev (Votye), in February - Chichagov (Erikub), Maloelap and Traverse (Aur), in March - Kruzenshtern (Ailuk) and Bikar. Together with A. Chamisso and I. Eschsholz, O. Kotzebue completed the first scientific description the entire archipelago, having spent several months on Rumyantsev Atoll. They were the first to express the correct idea about the origin of coral islands, which was later developed by C. Darwin. Then Kotzebue again moved to the northern part of the Bering Sea, but due to an injury received during a storm, he decided to return to his homeland.
The only officer on the "Rurik" - G. Shishmarev withstood the double load with honor. He, with the help of a young assistant navigator Vasily Stepanovich Khromchenko, from which a first-class navigator came out, who later circled the globe twice more - already as a ship commander. On the way to the Philippines, the expedition explored the Marshall Islands for the third time and in November 1817, in particular, mapped the inhabited atoll of Heyden (Likiep) in the center of the archipelago, completing basically the discovery of the Ratak chain, which apparently began even in 1527 a Spaniard A. Saavedroy.
July 23, 1818 "Rurik" entered the Neva. Only one person from his team died. The participants of this round-the-world voyage collected a huge amount of scientific material - geographical, especially oceanographic, and ethnographic. It was processed by O. Kotzebue and his collaborators for the collective three-volume work “Journey to the Southern Ocean and the Bering Strait to Find the Northeast Sea Passage, undertaken in 1815–1818. ... on the ship "Rurik"..." (1821-1823), the main part of which was written by O. Kotzebue himself. A. Chamisso gave a highly artistic description of navigation in the book “Around the World Journey ... on the Rurik brig” (1830) - a classic work of this genre in German literature of the 19th century.
The task of opening the Northern Sea Passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic was set by the government and before the Arctic expedition, sent in early July 1819 around the Cape of Good Hope on two sloops - "Discovery", under the command of a combat officer Mikhail Nikolaevich Vasiliev, he is also the head of the expedition, and "Good-meaning", Captain G. Shishmarev. In mid-May 1820, in the Pacific Ocean (at 29°N), the sloops separated by order of M. Vasiliev. He went to Petropavlovsk, G. Shishmarev - to Fr. Unalaska. They joined in the Gulf of Kotzebue in mid-July. From there they went out together, but the slow-moving "Benevolent" lagged behind and reached only 69 ° 01 "N, and M. Vasiliev on the "Opening" - 71 ° 06" N. sh., 22 minutes north of Cook: solid ice prevented further advance to the north. On the way back, they went through Unalaska to Petropavlovsk, and by November they arrived in San Francisco, where they made the first accurate inventory of the bay.
In the spring of 1821, the sloops through the Hawaiian Islands at different times moved to about. Unalaska. Then M. Vasiliev moved to the northeast, to Cape Newznhem (Bering Sea), and on July 11, 1821, he discovered at 60 ° N. sh. about. Nunivak (4.5 thousand km²). M. Vasiliev named it in honor of his ship - Fr. Opening. The officers of the "Discovery" described the southern coast of the island (two capes received their names). Two days later, Fr. Nunivak, regardless of M. Vasiliev, was discovered by the commanders of two ships of the Russian-American company - V. Khromchenko and a free sailor Adolf Karlovich Etolin, later the main ruler of Russian America. Etolin Strait is named after him, between the mainland and about. Nunivak. Having then passed into the Chukchi Sea, M. Vasiliev described the American coast between Capes Lisburn and Ice Cape (at 70 ° 20 "N), but because of the ice he turned back. In September, the sloop anchored in the Peter and Paul harbor.
Meanwhile, G. Shishmarev, according to the assignment, penetrated through the Bering Strait into the Chukchi Sea, but by the end of July, with the greatest efforts, he could only reach 70 ° 13 "N: contrary winds and heavy ice forced him to retreat. He arrived in Petropavlovsk ten days after M. Vasiliev Both ships returned through the Hawaiian Islands and around Cape Horn in early August 1822 to Kronstadt, having completed their circumnavigation.
1823–1826 O. Kotzebue on the sloop "Enterprise" made his second round-the-world voyage (as commander of the ship). His companion was the student Emily Khristianovich Lenz, later an academician, an outstanding physicist: he studied the vertical distribution of salinity, the temperature of the Pacific waters and the daily changes in air temperature at different latitudes. With the help of a barometer and a depth gauge designed by him, he performed many measurements of water temperature at depths of up to 2 thousand meters, laying the foundation for accurate oceanological research. Lenz was the first in 1845 to substantiate the scheme of the vertical circulation of the waters of the World Ocean. He presented the results of his research in the monograph "Physical observations made during a round-the-world trip" (Izbrannye trudy. M., 1950). I. Eschsholz, then already a professor, went with O. Kotzebue. On the way from Chile to Kamchatka and in March 1824 in the Tuamotu archipelago, O. Kotzebue discovered the inhabited atoll of the Enterprise (Fakahina), and in the western group of the Society Islands - the Bellingshausen atoll. In low southern latitudes, the ship got into a calm zone and moved very slowly to the north. May 19 at 9°S sh. showers and squalls began. O. Kotzebue noted a strong current, daily carrying the "Enterprise" to the west by 37-55 km. The picture changed dramatically at 3° S. sh. and 180°W d.: the direction of the current has become directly opposite, but the speed has remained the same. He could not explain the reason for this phenomenon. Now we know that O. Kotzebue collided with the South Equatorial Countercurrent. He made another discovery in October 1825: on the way from the Hawaiian Islands to the Philippines, he discovered the atolls of Rimsky-Korsakov (Rongelan) and Eshsholz (Bikini) in the Ralik chain of the Marshall Islands.
In 1826, at the end of August, two sloops of war left Kronstadt under the general command Mikhail Nikolaevich Stanyukovich; commanded the second ship Fedor Petrovich Litke. The main task - the study of the northern part of the Pacific Ocean and the inventory of the opposite coasts of America and Asia - M. Stanyukovich divided between both ships, and each subsequently acted mainly independently.
M. Stanyukovich, commanding the sloop "Moller", in February 1828 found about. Leyson, and in the extreme northwest - Kure Atoll and basically completed the discovery of the Hawaiian chain, proving that it extends for more than 2800 km, counting from the eastern tip of about. Hawaii - Cape Kumukahi. Then M. Stanyukovich explored the Aleutian Islands and surveyed the northern coast of the Alaska Peninsula, and the navigational assistant Andrey Khudobin discovered a group of small islands of Khudobin.
F. Litke, commanding the Senyavin sloop, explored the waters Northeast Asia, and in the winter of 1827–1828. moved to the Caroline Islands. He explored a number of atolls there and in January 1828, in the eastern part of this archipelago, visited by Europeans for about three centuries, he unexpectedly discovered the inhabited Senyavin Islands, including Ponape, the largest in the entire Caroline chain, and two atolls - Pakin and Ant ( perhaps it was a secondary discovery, after A. Saavedra). F. Litke gave a detailed description of the warm Pacific Equatorial Countercurrent, which flows eastward in the low latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere (I. Kruzenshtern was the first to pay attention to it). In the summer of 1828, F. Litke astronomically determined the most important points on the eastern coast of Kamchatka. the officer Ivan Alekseevich Ratmanov and navigator Vasily Egorovich Semenov first described about. Karaginsky and the Litke Strait, separating it from Kamchatka. Then the southern coast of the Chukchi Peninsula from the Mechigmenskaya Bay to the Gulf of the Cross was put on the map, the Senyavin Strait was discovered, separating the islands of Arakamchechen and Yttygran from the mainland.
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In the history of the first half of XIX century, a number of brilliant geographical studies are known. Among them, one of the most prominent places belongs to Russian round-the-world travel.
At the beginning of the 19th century, Russia occupied a leading position in the organization and conduct of round-the-world voyages and exploration of the oceans.
The first voyage of Russian ships around the world under the command of lieutenant commanders I.F. Kruzenshtern and Yu.F. Lisyansky lasted three years, like most of the round-the-world voyages of that time. With this journey in 1803, a whole era of remarkable Russian round-the-world expeditions began.
Yu.F. Lisyansky received an order to go to England to buy two ships intended for circumnavigation. These ships, Nadezhda and Neva, Lisyansky bought in London for 22,000 pounds sterling, which was almost the same in gold rubles at the exchange rate of that time.
The price for the purchase of "Nadezhda" and "Neva" was actually equal to 17,000 pounds sterling, but for the corrections they had to pay an additional 5,000 pounds. The ship "Nadezhda" has already counted three years from the date of its launch, and the "Neva" is only fifteen months old. "Neva" had a displacement of 350 tons, and "Nadezhda" - 450 tons.
In England, Lisyansky bought a number of sextants, compasses, barometers, a hygrometer, several thermometers, one artificial magnet, chronometers by Arnold and Pettiwgton, and more. Chronometers were tested by Academician Schubert. All other instruments were Troughton's work.
Astronomical and physical instruments were designed to observe longitudes and latitudes and orient the ship. Lisyansky took care to purchase a whole pharmacy of medicines and antiscorbutic drugs, since in those days scurvy was one of the most dangerous diseases during long voyages. Equipment for the expedition was also purchased from England, including comfortable, durable clothing suitable for various climatic conditions for the team. There was a spare set of underwear and dresses. Mattresses, pillows, sheets and blankets were ordered for each of the sailors. The ship's provisions were the best. The crackers prepared in St. Petersburg did not spoil for two whole years, just like saltonia, whose ambassador with domestic salt was produced by the merchant Oblomkov. The Nadezhda team consisted of 58 people, and the Neva of 47. They were selected from volunteer sailors, who turned out to be so many that everyone who wanted to participate in a round-the-world trip could be enough to complete several expeditions. It should be noted that none of the crew members participated in long-distance voyages, since in those days Russian ships did not descend south of the northern tropic. The task that confronted the officers and the expedition team was not easy. They had to cross two oceans, go around the dangerous Cape Horn, famous for its storms, and rise to 60 ° N. sh., to visit a number of little-studied coasts, where sailors could expect uncharted and undescribed pitfalls and other dangers. But the command of the expedition was so confident in the strength of its "officers and ratings" that it rejected the offer to take on board several foreign sailors familiar with the conditions of long-distance voyages. Of the foreigners in the expedition were naturalists Tilesius von Tilenau, Langsdorf and astronomer Horner. Horner was of Swiss origin. He worked at the then famous Seeberg Observatory, the head of which recommended him to Count Rumyantsev. The expedition was also accompanied by a painter from the Academy of Arts.
The artist and scientists were together with the Russian envoy to Japan, N.P. Rezanov, and his retinue on board the large ship - Nadezhda. "Hope" was commanded by Kruzenshtern. Lisyansky was entrusted with the command of the Neva. Although Kruzenshtern was listed as the commander of the Nadezhda and the head of the expedition for the Naval Ministry, in the instructions transmitted by Alexander I to the Russian ambassador to Japan, N.P. Rezanov, he was called the chief head of the expedition. This dual position was the cause of the conflict between Rezanov and Krusenstern. Therefore, Kruzenshtern repeatedly sent reports to the Office of the Russian-American Company, where he wrote that he was called upon by the highest order to command the expedition and that "it was entrusted to Rezanov" without his knowledge, to which he would never have agreed that his position "does not consist only to look after the sails, "etc. Soon, relations between Rezanov and Krusenstern escalated so much that a riot broke out among the crew of the Nadezhda.
The Russian envoy to Japan, after a series of troubles and insults, was forced to retire to his cabin, from which he did not leave until his arrival in Petropavlovsk-on-Kamchatka. Here Rezanov turned to Major General Koshelev, a representative of the local administrative authorities. An investigation was appointed against Kruzenshtern, which took on an unfavorable character for him. Considering the situation, Kruzenshtern publicly apologized to Rezanov and asked Koshelev not to give further progress to the investigation. Only thanks to the courtesy of Rezanov, who decided to stop the case, Kruzenshtern avoided major troubles that could have fatal consequences for his career.
The above episode shows that discipline on the Nadezhda ship, commanded by Kruzenshtern, was not up to par if such a high and special person as the Russian envoy to Japan could be subjected to a number of insults by the crew and the captain of the Nadezhda himself. It is probably no coincidence that during her voyage the Nadezhda was in a very risky position several times, while the Neva only once landed on a coral reef and, moreover, in a place where it could not be expected. by cards. All this suggests that the generally accepted idea of the leading role of Krusenstern in the first Russian round-the-world trip is not true.
Although the first part of the journey to England, and then across the Atlantic Ocean, bypassing Cape Horn, the ships were supposed to make together, but then they had to separate at the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands. Nadezhda, according to the expedition plan, was to go to Kamchatka, where she was to leave her cargo. Then Kruzenshtern should have gone to Japan and brought there the Russian ambassador N.P. Rezanov with his retinue. After that, "Nadezhda" was supposed to return to Kamchatka again, take a load of furs and take it to Canton for sale. The path of the Neva, starting from the Hawaiian Islands, was completely different. Lisyansky was supposed to go "and northwest, to Kodiak Island, where the main office of the Russian-American Company was located at that time. The Neva was supposed to winter here, and then she was supposed to take a load of furs and deliver it to Canton, where she was appointed meeting of both ships - "Neva" and "Nadezhda". From Canton, both ships were supposed to head to Russia past the Cape of Good Hope. This plan was carried out, albeit with retreats caused by storms, which separated the ships for a long time, as well as lengthy stops for necessary repairs and food replenishment.
The naturalists who were present on the ships collected valuable botanical, zoological and ethnographic collections, observations were made on sea currents, temperature and water density at depths of up to 400 m, tides, ebbs and barometer fluctuations, systematic astronomical observations to determine longitudes and latitudes and established the coordinates of the whole a number of points visited by expeditions, including all the harbors and islands where there were moorings.
If the special tasks of the expedition in the Russian colonies were successfully completed, then the same cannot be said about that part of the expedition plans that was connected with the organization of an embassy to Japan. The embassy of N.P. Rezanov was unsuccessful. Although he was surrounded by attention and all kinds of signs of honor and respect upon arrival in Japan, he failed to establish trade relations with this country.
On August 5, 1806, the Neva arrived safely at the Kronstadt raid. The cannon salutes of the Neva and the return volleys of the Kronstadt fortress rang out. Thus, the Neva stayed at sea for three years and two months. On August 19, the Nadezhda arrived, which was in a round-the-world voyage for fourteen days longer than the Neva.
The first Russian round-the-world voyage marked an epoch in the history of the Russian fleet and provided world geographical science with a number of new information about little-explored countries. A whole series of islands that were visited by Lisyansky and Kruzenshtern were only recently discovered by navigators, and their nature, population, customs, beliefs and economy remained almost completely unknown. Such were the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands, discovered in 1778 by Cook, less than thirty years before they were visited by Russian sailors. Russian travelers could observe the life of the Hawaiians in its natural state, not yet changed by contact with Europeans. The Marquesas and Washington Islands, as well as Easter Island, have been little explored. It is not surprising that the descriptions of the Russian round-the-world travel made by Kruzenshtern and Lisyansky aroused the keenest interest among a wide range of readers and were translated into a number of Western European languages. The materials collected during the journey of the "Neva" and "Nadezhda" were of great value for the study of the primitive peoples of Oceania and the northern part of the Pacific Ocean. Our first Russian travelers observed these peoples at the stage of tribal relations. For the first time, they described in detail the peculiar, ancient Hawaiian culture with its immutable taboo laws and human sacrifice. The rich ethnographic collections collected on the ships "Neva" and "Nadezhda", together with descriptions of the customs, beliefs and even the language of the Pacific islanders, served as valuable sources for studying the peoples inhabiting the Pacific islands.
Thus, the first Russian round-the-world trip played a big role in the development of ethnography. This was greatly facilitated by the great observation and accuracy of the descriptions of our first round-the-world travelers.
It should be noted that numerous observations of sea currents, water temperature and density, which were carried out on the Nadezhda and Neva ships, gave impetus to the development of a new science - oceanography. Prior to the first Russian round-the-world voyage, such systematic observations were not usually made by navigators. Russian sailors proved to be great innovators in this respect.
The first Russian round-the-world voyage opens up a whole galaxy of brilliant round-the-world trips made under the Russian flag.
During these trips, excellent cadres of sailors were created, who gained experience in long-distance navigation and high qualifications in the art of navigation, which is difficult for a sailing fleet.
It is interesting to note that one of the participants in the first Russian circumnavigation of the world, Kotzebue, who sailed as a cadet on the ship Nadezhda, subsequently himself carried out an equally interesting circumnavigation on the ship Rurik, outfitted at the expense of Count Rumyantsev.
The expedition on the ships "Neva" and "Nadezhda" paved the route of a new route to the Russian North American colonies. Since then, they have been supplied with the necessary food and goods by sea. These continuous long-distance voyages revived colonial trade and in many respects contributed to the development of the North American colonies and the development of Kamchatka.
Maritime ties between Russia and the Pacific have been strengthened, and international trade. A number of valuable observations along the long-distance navigation routes, the first Russian round-the-world voyage, laid a solid scientific foundation for the difficult art of long-distance navigation.
The idea of circumnavigating the world in Russia has been around for a long time. Nevertheless, the first draft of a round-the-world trip was developed and prepared only by the end of the 18th century. Captain G.I. was to lead a team of four ships. Mulovskiy, however, because of the war with Sweden, Russia canceled this expedition. In addition, its potential leader was killed in battle.
It is noteworthy that on the battleship Mstislav, commanded by Mulovsky, the young Ivan Kruzenshtern served as midshipman. It was he, who became the conductor of the idea of the Russian circumnavigation of the world, who would later head the first Russian circumnavigation. Simultaneously with Ivan Fedorovich Kruzenshtern, Yuri Fedorovich Lisyansky, his classmate, sailed on another battleship, which also participated in naval battles. Both sailed in the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans. Having fought on the side of the British against the French and returning to their homeland, both received the rank of lieutenant commander.
Kruzenshtern presented his project for a circumnavigation to Paul I. The main goal of the project was to organize the fur trade between Russia and China. However, this idea did not evoke the response that the captain had hoped for.
In 1799, the Russian-American Company was founded, the purpose of which was the development of Russian America and the Kuriles and the establishment of regular communications with overseas colonies.
The relevance of circumnavigation was due to the urgent need to maintain Russian colonies on the North American continent. Supplying food and goods to the colonists, providing settlers with weapons (the problem of frequent raids by the indigenous population (Indians), as well as potential threats from other powers) - these pressing issues faced the Russian state. It was important to establish regular communication with the Russian colonists for their normal life. By this time, it became clear that the passage through the polar seas was postponed for an indefinite future. The way by land, through the whole of Siberia and the Far East on the road, and then across the Pacific Ocean is a very expensive and long "pleasure".
From the beginning of the reign of the son of Paul I, Alexander, the Russian-American Company began to be under the patronage of the royal house. (It is noteworthy that the first director of the Russian-American Company was Mikhail Matveyevich Buldakov from Ustyuzhan, who actively supported the idea of a round-the-world trip financially and organizationally).
In turn, Emperor Alexander I supported Kruzenshtern in his desire to explore the possibilities of communication between Russia and North America, appointing him head of the first Russian round-the-world expedition.
Captains Kruzentshtern and Lisyansky, having received two sloops under their command: "Nadezhda" and "Neva", carefully approached the preparation of the expedition, purchasing a large amount of medicines and antiscorbutic drugs, staffing the crews with the best Russian military sailors. It is interesting that another Ustyuzhan (here it is - the continuity of generations of Russian explorers) Nikolai Ivanovich Korobitsyn was in charge of all the cargo on the Neva ship. The expedition was well equipped with various modern measuring instruments, since its tasks included, among other things, scientific goals (the expedition included astronomers, naturalists, and an artist).
In early August 1803, with a large gathering of people, the Kruzenshtern expedition left Kronstadt on two sailing sloops - Nadezhda and Neva. On board the Nadezhda was a mission to Japan headed by Nikolai Rezanov. The main goal of the voyage was to explore the mouth of the Amur and neighboring territories in order to identify convenient places and routes for supplying goods to the Russian Pacific Fleet. After a long stay near the island of Santa Catarina (the coast of Brazil), when two masts had to be replaced on the Neva, for the first time in the history of the Russian fleet, ships crossed the equator and headed south. On March 3, they rounded Cape Horn and separated three weeks later in the Pacific Ocean. From the island of Nuku Hiva (Marquesas Islands), the sloops proceeded together to the Hawaiian Islands, where they again parted.
On July 1, 1804, the Neva came to Kodiak Island and stayed off the coast of North America for more than a year. The sailors helped the inhabitants of Russian America defend their settlements from the attack of the Tlingit Indian tribes, participated in the construction of the Novo-Arkhangelsk (Sitka) fortress, conducted scientific observations and hydrographic work.
At the same time, Nadezhda arrived in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in July 1804. Then Kruzenshtern took Rezanov to Nagasaki and back, describing the northern and eastern shores of Patience Bay along the way.
In the summer of 1805, Kruzenshtern first photographed about 1000 km of the coast of Sakhalin, tried to pass in the south between the island and the mainland, but could not and mistakenly decided that Sakhalin was not an island and was connected to the mainland by an isthmus.
In August 1805, Lisyansky sailed on the Neva with a cargo of furs to China, in November he arrived at the port of Macau, where he again joined Kruzenshtern and Nadezhda. But as soon as the ships left the port, they again lost each other in the fog. Following on his own, Lisyansky for the first time in the history of world navigation navigated a ship without calling at ports and parking from the coast of China to the English Portsmouth. On July 22, 1806, his Neva was the first to return to Kronstadt.
Lisyansky and his crew became the first Russian sailors around the world. Only two weeks later, Nadezhda arrived safely here. But the fame of the circumnavigator went mainly to Kruzenshtern, who was the first to publish a description of the journey. His three-volume Journey Around the World... and Atlas for a Journey were published three years earlier than the works of Lisyansky, who considered duty assignments more important than publishing a report for the Geographical Society. Yes, and Kruzenshtern himself saw in his friend and colleague, first of all, "an impartial, obedient, zealous person for the common good", 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 lifetime pension. For him, the main gift was the gratitude of the officers and sailors of the sloop, who endured the hardships of navigation with him and gave him a golden sword with the inscription: “Thanks to the crew of the Neva ship.”
The participants of the first Russian round-the-world expedition made a significant contribution to geographical science by erasing a number of non-existent islands from the map and specifying the position of the existing ones. They discovered inter-trade countercurrents in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, measured water temperature at depths of up to 400 m and determined its specific gravity, transparency and color; found out the cause of the glow of the sea, collected numerous data on atmospheric pressure, tides and tides in a number of areas of the oceans.
During his wanderings, Lisyansky collected an extensive natural and ethnographic collection, which later became the property of the Russian Geographical Society (one of the initiators of which was Kruzenshtern).
Three times in his life, Lisyansky was the first: the first to travel around the world under the Russian flag, the first to pave the way from Russian America to Kronstadt, the first to discover an uninhabited island in the central Pacific Ocean.
The first Russian circumnavigation of the world by Kruzenshtern-Lisyansky turned out to be practically a standard in terms of its organization, support and conduct. At the same time, the expedition proved the possibility of communication with Russian America.
The enthusiasm after returning to Kronstadt "Nadezhda" and "Neva" was so great that in the first half of the 19th century more than 20 circumnavigations were organized and completed, which is more than France and England combined.
Ivan Fedorovich Kruzenshtern became the inspirer and organizer of subsequent expeditions, the leaders of which were, among other things, members of the team of his sloop Nadezhda.
Midshipman Thaddeus Faddeevich Bellingshausen traveled on the Nadezhda, who would later discover Antarctica in 1821 in a round-the-world voyage in high southern latitudes.
On the same sloop, Otto Evstafievich Kotzebue went as a volunteer, under whose command 2 round-the-world voyages were carried out.
In 1815-18 Kotzebue led a round-the-world research expedition on the brig Rurik. At Cape Horn in a storm (January 1816), a wave washed him overboard, he escaped by grabbing a rope. After an unsuccessful search for the fantastic "Davis Land" west of the coast of Chile, at 27 ° S. latitude. in April-May 1816 he discovered the inhabited island of Tikei, the atolls of Takapoto, Arutua and Tikehau (all in the Tuamotu archipelago), and in the Ratak chain of the Marshall Islands - the atolls of Utirik and Taka. In late July - mid-August, Kotzebue described the coast of Alaska for almost 600 km, discovered Shishmareva Bay, Sarychev Island and the vast Kotzebue Bay, and in it - Good Hope Bay (now Goodhop) and Eschsholtz with the Choris Peninsula and Shamisso Island (all names are given in honor of the sailors). Thus, he completed the identification of the Seward Peninsula, begun by Mikhail Gvozdev in 1732. To the northeast of the bay, he noted high mountains (spurs of the Brooks Range).
Together with the naturalists of Rurik, for the first time in America, Kotzebue discovered fossil ice with a mammoth tusk and gave the first ethnographic description of the North American Eskimos. In January-March 1817, he again explored the Marshall Islands, discovered seven inhabited atolls in the Ratak chain: Mejit, Votje, Erikub, Maloelap, Aur, Ailuk and Bikar. He also mapped a number of atolls whose coordinates were incorrectly determined by his predecessors and "closed" several non-existent islands.
In 1823-26, commanding the sloop Enterprise, Kotzebue completed his third circumnavigation. In March 1824, he discovered the inhabited Fangahina atoll (in the Tuamotu archipelago) and the island of Motu-One (in the Society archipelago), and in October 1825, the Rongelap and Bikini atolls (in the Ralik chain, Marshall Islands). Together with naturalists on both voyages, Kotzebue made numerous determinations of the specific gravity, salinity, temperature, and transparency of sea water in the temperate and hot zones. They were the first to establish four features of near-surface (up to a depth of 200 m) oceanic waters: their salinity has a zonal character; the waters of the temperate zone are less salty than the hot ones; the temperature of the waters depends on the latitude of the place; seasonal temperature fluctuations appear up to a certain limit, below which they are absent. For the first time in the history of ocean exploration, Kotzebue and his satellites made observations on the relative transparency of water and its density.
Another famous navigator was Vasily Mikhailovich Golovnin, who, having made a round-the-world trip on the Diana sloop, in 1817 led an expedition on the Kamachka sloop. Many members of the crew of the ship in the future made up the color of the Russian fleet: midshipman Fedor Petrovich Litke (later - captain of the circumnavigation), volunteer Fedor Matyushin (later admiral and senator), junior watch officer Ferdinand Wrangel (admiral and explorer of the Arctic) and others. For two years, the Kamchatka, passing the Atlantic Ocean from north to south, rounding Cape Horn, visited Russian America, visited all significant groups of islands in the Pacific Ocean, then passed Indian Ocean and the Cape of Good Hope, through the Atlantic Ocean returned to Kronstadt.
Fyodor Litke two years later was appointed head of the polar expedition on the Novaya Zemlya ship. For four years, Litke explored the Arctic, summarizing the rich expeditionary materials, published the book "Four-fold trip to the Arctic Ocean on the military brig Novaya Zemlya in 1821-1824." The work was translated into many languages and received scientific recognition; sailors used the maps of the expedition for a century.
In 1826, when Fyodor Litka was not even 29 years old, he led a round-the-world expedition on the new Senyavin ship. Accompanying the "Senyavin" sloop under the command of Mikhail Stanyukovich "Moller". The ships turned out to be different in their running characteristics (“Moller” is much faster than “Senyavin”), and for almost the entire length the ships sailed alone, meeting only at parking lots in ports. The expedition, which lasted three years, turned out to be one of the most successful and rich in scientific discoveries of travel, not only Russian, but also foreign. The Asian coast of the Bering Strait was explored, islands were discovered, materials on ethnography and oceanography were collected, and numerous maps were compiled. During the trip, Litke was engaged in scientific research in the field of physics, experiments with a pendulum allowed the scientist to determine the magnitude of the polar compression of the Earth and make a number of other important discoveries. After the end of the expedition, Litke published "Travel around the world on the sloop-of-war Senyavin in 1826-1829", having received recognition as a scientist, and was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences.
Litke became one of the founders of the Russian Geographical Society, for many years he was its vice-chairman. In 1873, the society established the Big Gold Medal named after V.I. F. P. Litke, awarded for outstanding geographical discoveries.
The names of brave travelers, heroes of Russian round-the-world expeditions are immortalized on the maps of the globe:
A bay, a peninsula, a strait, a river and a cape on the coast of North America in the region of the Alexander Archipelago, one of the islands of the Hawaiian archipelago, an underwater year in the Sea of Okhotsk and a peninsula on the northern coast of the Sea of Okhotsk are named after Lisyansky.
The name of Kruzenshtern is carried by: a number of straits, islands, capes in the Pacific Ocean, a mountain in the Kuriles.
In honor of Litke are named: a cape, a peninsula, a mountain and a bay on Novaya Zemlya; islands: in the Franz Josef Land archipelago, Baydaratskaya Bay, Nordenskiöld archipelago; the strait between Kamchatka and Karaginsky Island.
In circumnavigations in the 19th century, expedition members showed their best qualities: Russian navigators, military men and scientists, many of whom became the color of the Russian fleet, as well as domestic science. They forever inscribed their names in the glorious annals of the "Russian civilization".
On August 7, 1803, two sloops left the port in Kronstadt. The names Nadezhda and Neva flaunted on their sides, although until recently they had other names - Leander and Thames. It was under the new names that these ships, bought by Emperor Alexander I in England, were to go down in history as the first Russian ships to circumnavigate the globe. The idea of a round-the-world expedition belonged to Alexander I and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count Nikolai Rumyantsev. It was supposed that its participants would collect as much information as possible about the countries that would be on their way - about their nature and about the life of their peoples. And besides, it was planned to establish diplomatic relations with Japan, through which the route of travelers also passed. 
Yuri Lisyansky, captain of the Neva sloop
Conflicts on board
Ivan Kruzenshtern was appointed captain of the Nadezhda, and Yuri Lisyansky became the captain of the Neva - both at that time were already quite famous sailors who had been trained in England and participated in naval battles. However, another co-leader, Count Nikolai Rezanov, who was appointed ambassador to Japan and endowed with very great power, was “attached” to Kruzenshtern on the ship, which the captain naturally did not like. And after the sloops left Kronstadt, it turned out that Rezanov was not Krusenstern's only problem. As it turned out, among the members of the Nadezhda team was Fyodor Tolstoy, a well-known brawler, duelist and lover of eccentric antics in those years. He never served in the Navy and did not have the education necessary for this, and he got on the ship illegally, replacing his cousin, who bore the same name and surname and did not want to go on a long journey. And the brawler Tolstoy, on the contrary, was eager to sail - he was interested in seeing the world, and even more wanted to escape from the capital, where he was threatened with punishment for another drunken brawl.
Fyodor Tolstoy, the most restless member of the expedition During the trip, Fyodor Tolstoy entertained himself as best he could: quarreled with other members of the team and pitted them against each other, made fun, sometimes very cruelly, of the sailors and even of the priest accompanying them. Kruzenshtern several times put him in the hold under arrest, but as soon as Fedor's imprisonment ended, he fell back to the old. During one of the stops on an island in the Pacific Ocean, Tolstoy bought a tame orangutan and taught him various pranks. In the end, he launched the monkey into the cabin of Krusenstern himself and gave her ink, with which she spoiled the captain's travel notes. This was the last straw, and in the next port, in Kamchatka, Krusenstern landed Tolstoy ashore. 
Sloop "Nadezhda" By that time, he finally quarreled with Count Rezanov, who refused to recognize his captain's authority. The rivalry between them began from the very first days of the voyage, and now it is already impossible to say who initiated the conflict. In the surviving letters and diaries of these two, directly opposite versions are expressed: each of them blames the other for everything. Only one thing is known for sure - Nikolai Rezanov and Ivan Kruzenshtern at first argued about which of them was in charge on the ship, then they stopped talking to each other and communicated using notes passed by the sailors, and then Rezanov completely locked himself in his cabin and stopped answering captain even on notes. 
Nikolai Rezanov, who never reconciled with Krusenstern Reinforcements for the colonists
Autumn 1804 "Neva" and "Nadezhda" were divided. Kruzenshtern's ship went to Japan, and Lisyansky's ship went to Alaska. Rezanov's mission in the Japanese city of Nagasaki was unsuccessful, and this was the end of his participation in the round-the-world expedition. "Neva" at that time arrived in Russian America - the settlement of Russian colonists in Alaska - and its team took part in the battle with the Tlingit Indians. Two years earlier, the Indians had ousted the Russians from the island of Sitka, and now the governor of Russian America, Alexander Baranov, was trying to return this island. Yuri Lisyansky and his team provided them with very important assistance in this.
Alexander Baranov, founder of Russian America in Alaska Later, Nadezhda and Neva met off the coast of Japan and moved on. "Neva" went ahead along the east coast of China, and "Nadezhda" explored the islands in the Sea of Japan in more detail, and then went to catch up with the second ship. Later, the ships met again in the port of Macau in southern China, for some time they walked together along the coasts of Asia and Africa, and then the Nadezhda fell behind again. 
Sloop "Neva", drawing by Yuri Lisyansky triumphant return
The ships returned to Russia at different times: the Neva on July 22, 1806, and the Nadezhda on August 5. The expedition members collected a huge amount of information about many islands, created maps and atlases of these lands, and even discovered a new island, called Lisyansky Island. The almost unexplored Aniva Bay in the Sea of Okhotsk was described in detail and the exact coordinates of Ascension Island were established, about which it was known only that it was “somewhere between Africa and South America”.
Thaddeus Bellingshausen All participants in this circumnavigation of the world, from captains to ordinary sailors, were generously rewarded, and most of them continued to pursue a maritime career. Among them was midshipman Thaddeus Bellingshausen, who traveled on the Nadezhda, who 13 years later led the first Russian Antarctic expedition. Many readers of the magazine are asked to tell about the origins of Russian round-the-world travel. This request is supplemented by other letters from our readers who would like to see an essay on the first Russian round-the-world expedition on the pages of the magazine.
History of long-distance voyages
In the summer of 1803, two Russian ships set sail under the command of naval officers, captain-lieutenants of the fleet Ivan Fedorovich Kruzenshtern and Yuri Fedorovich Lisyansky. Their route amazed the imagination - it was laid, as it was customary to say at that time, "around the world." But, talking about this voyage, one cannot fail to notice that the traditions of "distant voyages" date back to times much older than early XIX century.
In December 1723, the carts of Admiral Daniel Wilster arrived at Rogverik, which lay not far from Reval. Here the admiral was met by members of the expedition. In the bay covered with thin ice, there were two ships. The secret decree of Peter the Great was read in the cabin of flag-captain Danila Myasny. Captain Lieutenant Ivan Koshelev, "Russian under the Swede" advisor to the expedition, was also present. “You must go from St. Petersburg to Rogverik,” the decree said, “and there sit on the frigate Amsterdam-Galei and take another Dekrondelivde with you, and with the help of God, embark on a voyage to the East Indies, namely to Bengal". They were to be the first to cross the "line" (equator). Alas, the plan to “do business” with the “great mogul” failed.
The ships set out on December 21, but due to a leak formed in a storm, they returned to Revel. And in February of the following year, Peter I canceled the voyage until "another favorable time."
Peter also had a dream to send ships to the West Indies. That is why he decided to establish trade relations with the mistress of the "Gishpan lands" in America. In 1725-1726, the first commercial voyages to Cadiz, a Spanish port near Gibraltar, took place. The ships prepared for the voyage "to Bengal", to which the "Devonshire" was added, also came in handy. A detachment of three ships with goods in May 1725 was led by Ivan Rodionovich Koshelev. After returning to his homeland, the former adviser was promoted to captain of the 1st rank, "after all, he was the first in Spain with Russian ships." So the tradition of ocean voyages of Russian ships was laid.
But when did the idea of circumnavigating the world emerge in Russian minds?
250 years ago, a well-thought-out plan for a round-the-world trip was drawn up for the first time: the minutes of the Senate meeting of September 12, 1732 are known. The senators puzzled over how to send Bering's expedition to the East, by sea or by land. “For advice, members of the Admiralty Board were called to the Senate, who suggested that ships could be sent to Kamchatka from St. Petersburg ...” The authors of the project are Admiral N.F. Golovin, President of the Admiralty Boards and Admiral T.P. Sanders. Golovin himself wanted to lead the voyage. He considered such a voyage best school, for "... in one such way those officers and sailors can learn more than at the local sea in ten years." But the senators chose a dry path and did not heed the advice of eminent admirals. Why is unknown. Apparently there were good reasons. They doomed Vitus Bering to incredible hardships with the transportation of thousands of pounds of equipment to Okhotsk, where the construction of ships was planned. Therefore, the epic of the Second Kamchatka stretched out for a good ten years. But it could have been different...
And yet - remember - this was the first project of a round-the-world trip.
In the annals of long-distance voyages, 1763 is distinguished by two remarkable events. The first took place in St. Petersburg. Mikhailo Lomonosov proposed to the government a project for an Arctic expedition from Novaya Zemlya to the Bering Strait via the North Pole. The following year, three ships under the command of Captain 1st Rank Vasily Chichagov made the first attempt to penetrate the polar basin north of Svalbard. The transpolar transition failed. The meeting scheduled in the Bering Strait between Chichagov and the leader of the Aleutian expedition, Krenitsyn, did not take place. After the departure of both expeditions, it was planned to send two ships around the world from Kronstadt with a call to Kamchatka. But the preparations for the approach were delayed, and the Russian-Turkish war that began soon forced them to completely cancel the exit to the sea.
In the same 1763, in London, Ambassador A. R. Vorontsov received from the board of the East India Company permission to send two Russian officers on the ship Spikey. So in April 1763 midshipman N. Poluboyarinov and non-commissioned lieutenant T. Kozlyaninov went to Brazil. They were destined to become the first Russians to cross the equator. Midshipman Nikifor Poluboyarinov kept a journal, which conveyed to the descendants the impressions of this one and a half year voyage to the shores of Brazil and India ...
The long-distance voyage of the Russians from Kamchatka around Asia and Africa took place in 1771-1773. Colonel of the Commonwealth Confederation Moritz Beniowski, exiled to Bolsheretsk for speaking out against the authorities, revolted. Together with his accomplices, the exiles, he captured a small ship - the galliot "St. Peter, who was wintering at the mouth of the river. About 90 Russians, among whom, in addition to the exiles, were free industrialists and several women, went into the unknown - some voluntarily, some under threat of reprisals, and some simply out of ignorance. The ship of the fugitives was led by sailors Maxim Churin and Dmitry Bocharov.
In the Portuguese colony of Macao, Beniovsky sold a Russian ship and chartered two French ones. In July 1772, the fugitives arrived at a French port in southern Brittany. From here
16 people who wished to return to Russia set out on foot for 600 miles to Paris. In the capital, through the ambassador and famous writer Fonvizin, permission was obtained. Among the returning sailors was a navigator's student, the commander of the Okhotsk ship "St. Ekaterina" Dmitry Bocharov. Later, in 1788, he became famous in a wonderful voyage to the shores of Alaska on the galliot "Three Saints", completed on the instructions of the "Columbus of Russia" - Shelikhov, together with Gerasim Izmailov. No less interesting is the fact that women participate in this voyage. One of them, Lyubov Savvishna Ryumina, is probably the first Russian woman to visit southern hemisphere Earth. By the way, the husband of a brave traveler most reliably told about the adventures of the fugitives in the “Notes of the clerk Ryumin ...”, printed half a century later.
The next attempt to pass "near the world" was the closest to being realized. But this was again interrupted by the war. And so it was. In 1786, the personal secretary of Catherine II, P. P. Soymonov, submitted to the Commerce Collegium a "Note on trading and animal trades on the Eastern Ocean." It expressed fears for the fate of Russian possessions in America and proposed measures to protect them. Only armed ships could hold back the expansion of the British. The idea was not new either for the maritime or for the trade department and their leaders. By decree of the Empress of December 22, 1786, the Admiralty was instructed to "immediately send from the Baltic Sea two ships armed, following the example of those consumed by the English captain Cook and other sailors for such discoveries ...". The 29-year-old experienced sailor Grigory Ivanovich Mulovsky was appointed to lead the expedition. The most capable ships for discoveries were hastily prepared: Kholmogor, Solovki, Sokol, Turukhtan. The route of the expedition was laid "meeting the sun": from the Baltic Sea to the southern tip of Africa, then to the shores of New Holland (Australia) and to Russian lands in the Old and New Worlds. The Olonets plant even cast iron coats of arms and medals for installation on newly discovered lands, but the war with Turkey began again. A decree followed: "... we order the expedition to be canceled due to the present circumstances." Then Mulovskiy's squadron was planned to be sent on a campaign to the Mediterranean Sea to fight the Turkish fleet, but ... a war broke out with Sweden. Having suddenly attacked Russian positions and ships, the Swedish king Gustav III intended to return all pre-Petrine possessions, destroy St. Petersburg and put his autograph on the recently opened monument to Peter I. So in the summer of 1788, Mulovsky was appointed commander of the Mstislav. The 17-year-old midshipman Ivan Kruzenshtern, released ahead of schedule (on the occasion of the war), arrived on the same ship. When the 36-gun Mstislav forced the 74-gun Sophia-Magdalena to surrender, Mulovsky instructed the young officer to take the flags of the ship and the Swedish Admiral Lilienfild. Mulovsky's dreams of an ocean campaign sunk into the heart of Kruzenshtern. After the death of Mulovsky in battle on July 15, 1789, a series of failures ends and the story of the first Russian journey "around the whole world" begins.
Three years in three oceans
The draft of the first round-the-world was signed by Kruzenshtern "on January 1, 1802." The conditions for the implementation of the project were favorable. Naval Minister Nikolai Semenovich Mordvinov (by the way, included by the Decembrists in the future "revolutionary government") and Minister of Commerce Nikolai Petrovich Rumyantsev (the founder of the famous Rumyantsev Museum, whose book collections served as the basis for the creation of the State Library of the USSR named after V. I. Lenin) supported the project and highly appreciated the progressive undertaking of the 32-year-old lieutenant commander. On August 7, 1802, Kruzenshtern was approved as the head of the expedition.
It is known that most of the funds for the equipment of the expedition were allocated by the board of the Russian-American Company. The haste in collecting and the generosity of the company were the reason that the ships decided not to build, but to purchase abroad. To this end, Kruzenshtern sent Lieutenant Commander Lisyansky to England. For 17 thousand pounds sterling, two rather old, but with a strong hull, two three-masted sloops "Leander" and "Thames" were bought, which received the new names "Nadezhda" and "Neva".
The peculiarity of the campaign was that the ships carried naval flags and at the same time served as merchant ships. On the Nadezhda, a diplomatic mission headed by one of the company's directors, Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov, was heading to Japan ...
The historic day came on August 7, 1803. Driven by a light fair wind, Nadezhda and Neva left the Great Kronstadt roadstead. Having visited Copenhagen and the English port of Falmouth and survived the first severe storm, the ships made their last "European" stop in Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
On November 26, 1803, the guns of Nadezhda and Neva saluted the Russian flag for the first time in the southern hemisphere of the Earth. A holiday was arranged on the ships, which became traditional. The role of the "sea lord" - Neptune was played by the sailor Pavel Kurganov, who "welcomed the Russians on their first arrival in the southern Neptune regions with sufficient decency." After stopping in Brazil and replacing part of the rigging, on March 3, 1804, the ships rounded Cape Horn and began sailing in the Pacific Ocean. After a separate voyage, the ships met at the Marquesas Islands. In an order for sailors, Kruzenshtern wrote: "I am sure that we will leave the coast of this quiet people, without leaving a bad name behind us." A humane attitude towards the "wild" - a tradition laid down by our sailors, was strictly observed by all subsequent Russian expeditions ...
Kruzenshtern and Lisyansky have already done a lot for science: for the first time, hydrological observations were made, as well as magnetic and meteorological ones. In the area of Cape Horn, the current velocity was measured. During the stay of the Neva at Easter Island, Lisyansky clarified the coordinates of the island and compiled a map. A collection of weapons and household items was collected in the Marquesas Islands. In early June 1804, the sailors reached the Hawaiian Islands. Here the ships parted for almost a year and a half. The meeting was scheduled for November 1805 near the Chinese port of Canton.
On the way to Petropavlovsk, according to the instructions, the Nadezhda passed the ocean area southeast of Japan and dispelled the myth about the lands supposedly existing here. From Kamchatka, Kruzenshtern took a ship to Japan to deliver Rezanov's envoy there. A fierce typhoon caught sailors off the eastern coast of Japan. “One must have the gift of a poet in order to vividly describe his rage,” Kruzenshtern wrote in his diary and lovingly noted the courage and fearlessness of the sailors. The Hope was in the Japanese port of Nagasaki for more than six months, until mid-April 1805. Rezanov's mission was not accepted by the authorities, who adhered to an archaic law in force since 1638 that prohibited foreigners from visiting the country "as long as the sun illuminates the world." On the contrary, on the day of departure of the Nadezhda, ordinary Japanese, showing sympathy for the Russians, saw the ship off in hundreds of boats.
Returning to Kamchatka, Kruzenshtern took the ship in courses completely unknown to Europeans - along the western shores of the Land of the Rising Sun. For the first time, a scientific description of Tsushima Island and the strait separating it from Japan was made. Now this part of the Korea Strait is called the Krusenstern Passage. Further, the sailors made an inventory of the southern part of Sakhalin. Crossing the ridge of the Kuril Islands by the strait, now bearing the name of Kruzenshtern, the Nadezhda almost perished on the rocks. They entered the Avacha Bay in early June, when floating ice was visible everywhere and solid shores were white.
Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov left the ship in Petropavlovsk. On one of the company's ships, he went to Russian America. We must pay tribute to this active person, who did a lot for the development of fisheries in the waters of Russian possessions. Rezanov is also involved in choosing a site for the southernmost Russian settlement in America, Fort Ross. The story of Rezanov's engagement to the daughter of the Spanish governor José Argüello, Conchita, is also romantic. At the beginning of 1807, he left for Russia to apply for permission to marry a Catholic. But in March 1807, Nikolai Petrovich died suddenly in Krasnoyarsk on his way to St. Petersburg. He was 43 years old. His betrothed in the New World a year later received news of the death of the groom and, fulfilling her vow of fidelity, went to the monastery.
The time remaining before the meeting with the Neva, Kruzenshtern again devoted to the survey of Sakhalin. It just so happened that Sakhalin, discovered back in the 17th century, was considered an island, and no one seemed to doubt it. But the French navigator La Perouse, exploring the Tatar Strait from the south on an expedition of 1785-1788, mistakenly considered Sakhalin a peninsula. Later, the mistake was repeated by the Englishman Broughton. Krusenstern decided to penetrate the strait from the north. But, having sent Lieutenant Fedor Romberg on the boat, Kruzenshtern ordered the boat to return to the ship ahead of time with a cannon signal. Of course, fearing for the fate of sailors in uncharted places, the head of the expedition hurried. Romberg simply did not have time to go far enough to the south to find the strait. The decreasing depths seemed to confirm the conclusions of previous expeditions. This delayed the discovery of the mouth of the Amur and the restoration of the truth for some time ... Having completed over one and a half thousand miles of route survey with many astronomical definitions, the Nadezhda anchored in Petropavlovsk. From here, the ship, after loading the furs for sale, headed for the meeting point with the Neva.
No less difficult and interesting was the voyage of the Neva. The silhouette of the "Nadezhda" melted away over the horizon, and the crew of the "Neva" continued to explore the nature of the Hawaiian Islands. Everywhere the locals warmly welcomed the kind and considerate envoys of the northern country. Sailors visited the village of Tavaroa. Nothing reminded of the tragedy 25 years ago, when Captain Cook was killed here. The hospitality of the islanders and their unfailing help made it possible to replenish the ethnographic collections with samples of local utensils and clothing...
After 23 days, Lisyansky brought the ship to the village of Pavlovsky on Kodiak Island. The Russian inhabitants of Alaska solemnly welcomed the first ship that had made such a difficult and long journey. In August, the sailors of the Neva, at the request of the chief ruler of the Russian-American company Baranov, participated in the liberation of the inhabitants of the fort Arkhangelskoye on the island of Sitka, captured by the Tlingit, led by American sailors.
More than a year "Neva" was off the coast of Alaska. Lisyansky, together with navigator Danila Kalinin and navigator Fedul Maltsev, compiled maps of numerous islands, made astronomical and meteorological observations. In addition, Lisyansky, studying the languages of local residents, compiled a “Concise Dictionary of the Languages of the Northwestern Part of America with a Russian Translation”. In September 1805, having loaded furs from Russian crafts, the ship headed for the shores of southern China. On the way, the Neva ran into a sandbank near an island hitherto unknown to sailors. In stormy conditions, the sailors selflessly fought to save the ship - and won. On October 17, a group of sailors spent the whole day on the shore. In the very middle of the island, the discoverers placed a pole, and under it they buried a bottle with a letter containing all the information about the discovery. At the insistence of the team, this piece of land was named after Lisyansky. “This island, except for obvious and inevitable death, promises nothing to the enterprising traveler,” wrote the commander of the Neva.
Three months took the passage from Alaska to the port of Macau. Severe storms, fogs and treacherous shoals required caution. On December 4, 1805, the sailors of the Neva happily looked at the familiar silhouette of the Nadezhda, congratulating them with flag signals on their safe return.
Kruzenshtern and Lisyansky
After selling furs in Canton and accepting a cargo of Chinese goods, the ships weighed anchor. Through the South China Sea and the Sunda Strait, travelers entered the Indian Ocean. On April 15, 1806, they crossed the meridian of the Russian capital and thus completed the bypass of the globe.
Here it must be remembered that the round-the-world route for Krusenstern personally closed back in Macau in November 1805, and for Lisyansky on the meridian of Ceylon a little later. (Both commanders, while sailing abroad on English ships, visited the West Indies, the USA, India, China and other countries in the period 1793-1799.)
However, the concept of round-the-world travel has changed over time. More recently, to circumnavigate the world meant to close the circle of the route. But in connection with the development of the polar regions, a round-the-world trip according to such criteria has lost its original meaning. Now a more rigorous formulation is in use: the traveler must not only close the circle of the route, but also pass near the antipode points lying at opposite ends of the earth's diameter.
At the Cape of Good Hope, in thick fog, the ships parted. Now, until the very return to Kronstadt, the navigation of the ships took place separately. Kruzenshtern, upon arriving on the island of St. Helena, learned about the war between Russia and France and, fearing a meeting with enemy ships, proceeded to his homeland around the British Isles with a stop at Copenhagen. Three years and twelve days later, on August 19, 1806, the Nadezhda arrived in Kronstadt, where the Neva had been waiting for her for two weeks.
Lisyansky, after parting in the fog with the flagship, having carefully checked the supplies of water and food, decided on a non-stop passage to England. He was sure that “... a brave enterprise will bring us great honor; for no navigator like us has ventured so far a journey without going somewhere for rest. The Neva traveled from Canton to Portsmouth in 140 days, covering 13,923 miles. The Portsmouth public enthusiastically greeted the crew of Lisyansky and, in his person, the first Russian sailors around the world.
The voyage of Krusenstern and Lisyansky was recognized as a geographical and scientific feat. In his honor, a medal was knocked out with the inscription: "For traveling around the world 1803-1806." The results of the expedition were summarized in the extensive geographical works of Kruzenshtern and Lisyansky, as well as natural scientists G.I. Langsdorf, I.K. Horner, V.G. Tilesius and other participants.
The first voyage of the Russians went beyond the "distant voyage". It brought glory to the Russian fleet.
The personalities of the ship commanders deserve special attention. There is no doubt that they were progressive people for their time, ardent patriots, tirelessly caring for the fate of the "servants" - sailors, thanks to whose courage and diligence the voyage went extremely well. The relations between Kruzenshtern and Lisyansky - friendly and trusting - decisively contributed to the success of the case. A popularizer of domestic navigation, a prominent scientist Vasily Mikhailovich Pasetsky, cites a letter from his friend Lisyansky in his biographical sketch about Kruzenshtern during the preparation of the expedition. “After dinner, Nikolai Semenovich (Admiral Mordvinov) asked if I knew you, to which I told him that you were a good friend of mine. He was glad about this, spoke about the dignity of your pamphlet (that was the name of Kruzenshtern's project for his free-thinking! - V. G.), praised your knowledge and intelligence, and then ended up saying that he would have considered it happiness to be acquainted with you. For my part, in front of the entire assembly, 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 ", the researchers of the Naval Academy made interesting conclusions. It was found that out of 1095 days of historical navigation, 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 are on their own. This analysis was published in 1949 in Proceedings of the Naval Academy. Of course, the voyages of the Nadezhda and the Neva are, in essence, two round-the-world voyages, and Yu. F. Lisyansky is equally involved in the great feat in the field of Russian naval glory, like I. F. Kruzenshtern.
In the finest hour, they were on an equal footing ...
Vasily Galenko, long-distance navigator