March 7, 1605
In the Dvinsky district (now - Arkhangelsk region) was born Semyon Dezhnev — Russian Columbus. Discoverer Kolyma and the strait between Asia and America, which would later be named in honor of Vitus Bering.
He came from a family of Pomor peasants. At 14, he set out on his first voyage with his father to deliver gifts to Solovetsky monastery. At 17 he left for Arkhangelsk and entered the service of a wealthy shipowner as a sailor. He went to Siberia with trade caravans.
At 25 he enlisted in the military Tobolsk, and then - in Yakut Ostrog, to "pacify" rebellious tribes and collect taxes from them. He was a skilled diplomat, trying to avoid bloodshed and reconciling warring clans.
In 1643, Dezhnev was 38 years old, together with the Cossack ataman Mikhail Stadukhin During another campaign and tax collection, he discovered the Kolyma River.
In 1648, together with an industrialist and merchant Fedot Popov set out on a new expedition to seek new northern riches. Seven koches (small sailing boats), 90 people. Their route lay across the Arctic Ocean: three boats sank in the first storm, and another soon after. Three months later, the surviving sailors saw a "large stone nose" - that's what they called the future Cape Dezhnev, resembling the shape of a human nose. This was the "edge" Chukotka and the entire Eurasian continent.
Dezhnev himself was illiterate; he dictated all his observations, discoveries, and reports to the Tsar to scribes.
And from the Kolyma River, there is a sea route to the Anadyr River, and there is the Nos, which goes far out to sea. And opposite that Nos are two islands, and on those islands live the Chukhchi, and their teeth are cut into them, their lips are cut, and the bone is like a fish tooth [referring to the Eskimos and their adornments]. And that Nos lies between the north and the northwest [from north to northeast]. And on the Russian side of the Nos, there is a sign: a river, the Chukhchi have made a camp here, like a tower of whalebone [a lighthouse], and the Nos turns sharply towards the Anadyr River in the summer [to the south]. And a good run [sailing passage] from the Nos to the Anadyr River is three days, and no more.
(Dezhnev's reply to the Yakut voivode after the campaign)
Thus, it was proven that there was a strait between Asia and North America (which was then an uncharted "new land" for the Russians). There is a theory that Dezhnev even reached Alaska — at the narrowest point between Chukotka and Alaska, 86 km. But its discovery remained unknown for a long time—no one attached any significance to it. And Vitus Bering, whose name this strait was named after 80 years later, only rediscovered it.
For Dezhnev, the discovery of the "nose" was only the beginning of the expedition. Of the three remaining vessels, only his survived. His detachment (24 men) spent several months traveling on skis and sleds through the gorge to the river. Anadyr. Then they built boats, sailed 600 km along it and spent the winter there, founding the Anadyr prison.
I, a poor little family, and my comrades walked to the Anandyr River for exactly ten weeks, and then we fell on the Anandyr River, down near the sea, and couldn't catch any fish, there was no timber. And out of hunger, we poor things scattered. And twelve people went up the Anandyr.
He commanded the Anadyr fort for 12 years. In 1664, he arrived in Moscow with the sovereign's treasury and sold everything he had plundered in the North. He received his percentage—"500 rubles in sables"—making him a wealthy man.
A year later he returned to Yakutsk with the rank of ataman.
In almost 30 years of service, he had 13 wounds, three of which were serious.
He died in Moscow in 1673, during one of his visits with the sovereign's sable treasury. He was approximately 68 years old; his exact date of death is unknown.
The "Big Nose" received Dezhnev's name only 250 years after their "meeting".
