12/21/1763 (3.1). – Khariton Prokofievich Laptev, explorer of the Arctic and Russian North, captain 1st rank, died.

(1700–12/21/1763) - polar explorer, creator of the map of Taimyr, who wrote a glorious page in the history of the development of the Russian North. Born in 1700 into a family of small landed nobles in the village of Pekarevo, Velikoluksky district (later part of the Pskov province). He received his first education at Trinity Church under the guidance of priests. In 1715 he continued his studies at the St. Petersburg Maritime Academy, graduating in 1718.

He began serving in the navy in 1718 as a midshipman. In the spring of 1726 he was promoted to midshipman. In 1734 he took part in the War of the Polish Succession on the frigate Mitava, which was captured by the French by deception. After returning from captivity and being found innocent, Laptev returned to the fleet. In 1737 he commanded the court yacht "Dekrone" and was promoted to lieutenant. However, quiet service in the capital did not correspond to his character, and upon hearing that officers were being recruited for a long-distance expedition to Kamchatka and the Arctic, he applied for enlistment.

In December 1737, he was appointed head of one of the detachments with instructions to survey and describe the Arctic coast west of the Lena to the mouth of the Yenisei. They had no idea how labor-intensive this task was and how far to the north the Arctic tip of the earth’s continental land (now) goes.

In July 1739, Laptev and his people left Yakutsk on the double-boat "Yakutsk". Having gone out into the ocean and constantly struggling with the ice, walking now under sail, now under oars, now pushing with poles among the ice, almost a month later he reached the mouth of the Olenek River. Having described part of the mouth, he walked to Khatanga Bay, where he was detained by ice. Only on August 21 did he approach Cape St. Thaddeus at 76°47" north latitude. Here he encountered solid ice and returned to Khatanga Bay, where he had to spend the winter next to several Evenk families. Taking advantage of their experience, to protect the team from scurvy, Laptev included it in the daily diet Stroganina (frozen fresh fish) During the winter, he collected information from local residents about the northern coast, taking it into account in his plans.

The next year, by August, we again reached the ocean. At a latitude of 75°30" the ship was covered in ice and drifted across the sea, threatening to be crushed every minute. Two days later it was decided to abandon the ship, which had developed a leak; a day later it was crushed and sank along with the main part of the cargo. Having dragged some of the vital supplies to the shore along ice, after a grueling campaign, they returned to their old winter quarters on October 15. Thus, two years of efforts to go around the northern tip of Eurasia by sea failed (even large ships do not succeed every year in our time).Laptev decided to describe the shores by land, moving on dogs, to which he began with the onset of daylight in the spring of 1741. The polar day (when the sun does not set below the horizon, making circles in the sky) on Taimyr lasts about four months, and snow blindness became an unforeseen obstacle for the researchers.

Having sent surplus people on reindeer to Dudinka, Laptev left surveyor Nikifor Chekin, four soldiers, one carpenter and a non-commissioned officer to inventory the banks of Taimyr. Laptev divided the remaining ones into three groups. He initially sent Chelyuskin to the west to inventory the Pyasina River and the western bank from the mouth of the Pyasina to the Taimyra River. Chekin was sent to describe the eastern coast, moving northwest (that is, he had to discover the northernmost cape), but due to snow blindness, he described only 600 kilometers and was forced to return to the winter quarters. Laptev himself in April-May 1741 went from the winter quarters to Lake Taimyr and then along the Lower Taimyr reached the ocean. Then, changing the original route, he moved northeast along the coast to the intended meeting with Chekin. However, also suffering from snow blindness, Laptev was able to reach only 76°42’N, left a sign there for Chekin and returned to Taimyr Bay. The food warehouse previously prepared there for the expedition was stolen and eaten by polar bears and arctic foxes. Having barely recovered from an eye disease and hoping to find food from Chelyuskin, Laptev went west, examined several islands (from the Nordenskiöld archipelago), turned south and on June 1 at Cape Leman (in Middendorf Bay) met Chelyuskin. However, Semyon Ivanovich also had little food, and his dogs were very exhausted, so he had to hunt a polar bear. Further, in a joint campaign, they identified and mapped a number of bays, capes and coastal islands in the Kara Sea. This entire section of the Arctic Ocean was subsequently called the Khariton Laptev coast (and the famous northern cape, discovered a year later, was named after Chelyuskin).

On June 9, 1841, both returned to the mouth of the Pyasina, where they separated again: Laptev went up the river by boat to Lake Pyasino, and from there on reindeer went to the Yenisei, Chelyuskin on reindeer along the shore also reached the mouth of the Yenisei and there caught up with Laptev, and near Chekin met them at the mouth of the Dudinka River. In August, everyone moved to the Yenisei and spent the winter in Turukhansk to gain strength and prepare to describe the most inaccessible northern part of the Taimyr Peninsula. We decided to start this under polar night conditions. S.I. was sent there in December 1741. Chelyuskin, along with the three soldiers accompanying him and the cargo on five dog sleds. On May 7, 1742, Chelyuskin reached this cape and then made an inventory from Cape St. Thaddeus to the Taimyra River, where Laptev went to meet him. After that, they returned to Turukhansk, and Laptev went to St. Petersburg with reports and reports that contained valuable information about the previously unexplored Arctic coast, over two thousand kilometers long, and about the Taimyr Peninsula with its lakes and rivers.

Subsequently, Laptev continued to serve on ships of the Baltic Fleet. From 1746 he commanded the ship Ingermanland. In 1754 he was promoted to captain of the 3rd rank, in 1757 - to the 2nd rank. During the course, commanding the ship "Uriel", he went to Danzig and Karlskron, in 1758 he was promoted to captain of the 1st rank. In 1762, Ober-Ster-Kriegs was appointed commissar, who was in charge of providing the armed forces with everything necessary. Laptev worked in this position until his death in his native village of Pekarevo on December 21, 1763.

In honor of Khariton Laptev, the southwestern coast of the Taimyr Peninsula is named the Khariton Laptev Coast. The two capes of Makhotkin Island are named Cape Laptev and Cape Khariton. In 1913, the Russian Geographical Society approved the name Laptev Sea in honor of Khariton Laptev and his cousin Dmitry Yakovlevich Laptev (he also participated in the Great Northern Expedition, describing the shores east of the Lena River to the mouth of the Kolyma River).

On December 20, 1737, the Admiralty Board reviewed Bering’s reports with the materials attached to it and, disagreeing with him, decided to continue mapping the sea coast in this area. Both detachments were given new deadlines for completing the work and ordered to continue it “to completion in another or a third summer in the same way without the slightest loss of convenient time; and if some impossibility does not allow it to be completed in the third summer, then in the fourth summer try with utmost zeal and diligence to ensure that the work is completed.”

At the same time, the Admiralty Board approved new, more detailed and accurate instructions for detachment commanders. According to this instruction, the detachments had to prepare for campaigns in advance, and immediately, as soon as the ice conditions allowed, without wasting precious summer time, set off. The detachment commanders were instructed to wait for changes in the ice situation directly in those places where it would not be possible to overcome the ice, and at the slightest opportunity to move on. In addition, the instructions recommended stopping for the winter as close as possible to those points where winter would overtake the ships. This was supposed to save the troops from wasting time moving along already known shores.

At the same meeting, the Admiralty Board appointed Khariton Prokofievich Laptev as head of the detachment that mapped the sea coast between the mouths of the Lena and Yenisei. Subsequent events showed that the board was not mistaken in its choice, sending this comprehensively educated naval officer, who possessed exceptional energy, willpower and courage, to the most difficult part of the expedition’s work.

H.P. Laptev had solid experience in the navy. Before his appointment to the expedition, he had already sailed on various ships for nineteen years.

But, despite Laptev’s impeccable attitude towards his duties, his service did not go smoothly. In 1734, during the operations of the Russian fleet near Danzig, the frigate Mitau, sent for reconnaissance, on which midshipman Khariton Laptev served, was fraudulently captured by the French fleet, which had acted a few days earlier on the side of the enemy, which the Russian commander did not know frigate. All Mitau officers, including X. Laptev, were put on trial for surrendering the ship to the enemy without a fight and were sentenced to death. After an additional investigation into the circumstances of the case, carried out by decision of the government, it became clear that neither the commander nor the other officers of the frigate were guilty of surrendering the ship to the French, and therefore on February 27, 1736, they were all pardoned.

In 1736, Laptev took part in the summer voyage of the Baltic Fleet, and then was sent to the Don “to find the most convenient place for the ship’s structure.” The following year, Laptev was appointed commander of the court yacht "Dekrone", but upon learning that officers were needed to participate in the Great Northern Expedition, he asked to be appointed there. Obviously, the life of a polar explorer, full of hardships, attracted Khariton Laptev more than the calm and honorable service at court.

In February 1738, Khariton Laptev’s cousin, Dmitry Yakovlevich Laptev, the head of the detachment that mapped the coast east of the Lena, arrived in St. Petersburg with journals, reports and maps. He provided the Admiralty Boards with completely new information about working conditions near the mouth of the Lena, in particular about ice accumulations, which are observed in the same places from year to year and impede the movement of ships. Dmitry Laptev proposed mapping the coast in such areas, moving on land.

Having read the report of Dmitry Laptev, the Admiralty Board on March 3, 1738 confirmed its decision on a four-year period of work for both detachments, but gave Khariton and Dmitry Laptev completely new instructions regarding how to complete the task.

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The detachment commanders were instructed, if the ice did not allow them to complete the voyage in the first and second summers, to send the ships with part of the teams to Yakutsk or put them in a convenient place for the winter, and continue working with the rest of the people, moving along the coast.

The detachments were instructed to pay attention to the places where standing ice would be encountered, determine how far it extended, note the position of the floating ice, its concentration, the duration of its stay near the shore, as well as places “where there is no strong obstacle from the ice.” The detachments had to determine the possibility of navigation in the work area, measure depths, find river mouths and other convenient places for anchorage and wintering of ships.

The decision to continue work from the shore if it was impossible for ships to move by sea was allowed to be made by the detachment commanders only after a consultation with their officers.

The Laptevs left St. Petersburg together. In Kazan they received rigging for ships, in Irkutsk - provisions, things for gifts to residents of the Siberian coast and money. Khariton Laptev demanded that the Irkutsk office prepare deer and dogs on the coast in case his detachment had to conduct an inventory from the land, and resettled two families of industrialists from the mouth of Olenek to the mouths of Anabar, Khatanga and Taimyra, ordering them to engage in harvesting fish and building houses In case the detachment wintered at these points, at the same time Khariton Laptev informed the office of Turukhansk about the need to send provisions for his detachment to the mouth of the Pyasina River in the summer of 1739.

At the beginning of March 1738, the Laptevs arrived in Ust-Kut, located in the upper reaches of the Lena. Small river vessels were built here for the expedition. In the spring, when the river opened up, property and provisions for the detachments were delivered to Yakutsk on these ships.

On May 25, 1739, Khariton Laptev arrived in Yakutsk. The double boat "Yakutsk" was already ready for the trip. Her crew consisted of forty-five people; Almost all of them were participants in Pronchishchev’s voyage.

Having finally put everything in order, Khariton Laptev took his ship down the Lena on June 5; boarders with provisions went with him.

In the Lena delta, Laptev managed to find the entrance to the Krestyatskaya channel and by July 19 he reached the seashore.

On July 21, "Yakutsk" headed west to Khatanga Bay, and Laptev ordered the planks, not adapted for sailing on the open sea, to be led to the mouth of Olenek and stored provisions in Pronchishchev's old winter quarters.

Near the mouth of Olenek, the ship entered the “great ice.” The dubel-boat sailed under sails and oars, the crew pushed the ice floes with poles, and sometimes made a path in the ice with picks. A week later, on August 28, Laptev reached the eastern entrance to the strait separating Begichev Island from the mainland. The strait was clogged with motionless ice.

It seemed to the surveyor Chekin, who was sent ashore for an inventory, that the ice was pressed against the shore that closed the bay from the west; therefore, he mistook the strait for a bay open to the east, and Begichev Island for a peninsula. The bay was put on the map under the name Nordvik.

Moving away from the Nordvik "bay", the "Yakutsk" headed north to go around the "peninsula" and enter the Khatanga Bay. In an effort to avoid being compressed by the ice, pressed to the shore by the wind, Laptev sailed the boat into some cove, where he waited for five days for the ice situation to improve.

Having broken through the ice, Laptev entered the Khatanga Bay on August 6. A winter quarters could be seen on the western shore of the bay. Laptev decided to take some of the provisions ashore in case he had to spend the winter in this place. But before this intention could be realized, the north wind blew again, driving ice into the bay.

Again we had to look for shelter, and Laptev took the boat-boat south along the coast. Soon another winter hut appeared. Near it, the Yakutsk entered the mouth of a small river and stood there for a whole week, which was spent unloading part of the provisions ashore.

On August 14, when the wind changed direction and drove away the ice, Laptev led the ship along the coast to the north. When leaving the Khatanga Bay, an island was discovered called Transfiguration Island.

On August 17, the Yakutsk passed the Peter Islands and went along the coast to the west. The next day we had to stand due to ice at the Thaddeus Islands, and then move forward in the ice. Only on August 21, "Yakutsk" approached the high Cape Thaddeus. On one side of the cape the coast stretched to the southwest, and on the other to the west. The further path was blocked by motionless ice. It was not possible to determine the boundaries of the ice due to dense fog. Therefore, Laptev sent Chekin on dog sleds to find out how far the ice extended to the west, and Chelyuskin to Cape Thaddeus to set up a lighthouse there. Returning twelve hours later, Chekin reported that the ice was impassable.

Frost has set in. I had to think about wintering. An inspection of the shore yielded disappointing results: there was no driftwood to build housing. At a consultation organized by Laptev on August 22, it was decided to return to Khatanga Bay. By August 27, "Yakutsk" barely made its way to the winter quarters, where it was located at the beginning of the month. Laptev took the ship further south. Entering Khatanga, he reached the mouth of its right tributary - the Bludnaya River, where several families of deerless Evenks lived.

Here the detachment built a house and stayed for the winter.

By September 25, Khatanga became. The hard winter work of the detachment began. Back in the fall, Laptev sent soldier Konstantin Khoroshikh to Turukhansk with a demand that the voivode’s office deliver provisions for the winter and provide reindeer and dog sleds. Now Laptev used these sleds to transport the provisions that had previously been unloaded at the mouth of Olenek and on the shore of the Khatanga Bay. Local residents were involved in this work. The winterers did not have enough driftwood for fuel, and had to walk several miles from the winter hut every day to get it.

To protect the team from scurvy, Laptev introduced fresh frozen fish into the daily diet, thanks to which there was not a single case of scurvy throughout the winter.

Laptev continued to collect information about the northern region during the winter. From the stories of local residents - Russians, Tavgians, Yakuts and Evenks - he learned that no one lives permanently north of the Bolshaya Balakhnya River, although there is a winter hut on the sea coast, where industrialists come during hunting.

To explore the coast from the mouth of the Pyasina to Cape Thaddeus, Laptev at the end of October 1739 sent boatswain* Medvedev with one soldier to the mouth of the Pyasina on a sleigh. Having reached the mouth by the beginning of March 1740, Medvedev set off along the seashore to the northeast. But severe frosts and strong winds prevented him from carrying out the necessary work, and, having traveled along the coast for only about forty miles, he was forced to return to the detachment.

On March 23, 1740, Chekin left his winter quarters with the task of describing the coast between the mouths of the Taimyr and Pyasina. Since it was then believed that Thaddeus Bay was the mouth of the Taimyr, Chekin, therefore, had to move towards Medvedev. Laptev learned that the latter was returning back to wintering only at the end of April, when Medvedev arrived at the detachment. One soldier and one Yakut, who was settled at the mouth of the Taimyr, went with Chekin. Chekin had two teams of dogs at his disposal.

Chekin reached the source of the Taimyra River and followed it to the mouth, and then along the seashore to the west. He walked about 100 miles and reached the point where the coast turns south. Having placed a navigation sign here - a pyramid of stones - Chekin was forced to turn back, since “there was very little food for himself and for the dogs, with which it was dangerous to go further to an unknown place.”

On May 17, Chekin and his companions returned to their winter quarters on foot, “in extreme need,” having lost almost all their dogs from lack of food and abandoned the sledges.

In April of the same year, cartography of the coast between the mouths of the Pyasina and Taimyra was carried out by the navigator Sterlegov sent by Minin. Apparently, he arrived at the mouth of the Pyasina shortly after Medvedev left there. Chekin and Sterlegov moved towards each other, and both turned back almost at the same time. There were about 200 kilometers between the extreme points they reached.

Preparing for the next voyage, Laptev decided to stock up on food for his squad. For this purpose, he sent two industrialists to the mouth of the Taimyr River to catch and stock fish.

Khatanga was opened on June 15, but due to ice accumulated in the Khatanga Bay, the dubel-boat was able to leave the river only on July 13. It took another month for the Yakutsk to overcome the ice in the bay and go to sea.

During the first 24 hours after leaving Khatanga Bay, the ship moved quite far to the north. On the morning of August 13, at 75°26" north latitude, the Yakutsk approached the edge of unbroken ice, stretching from the shore to the northeast. Laptev directed the ship along the edge. The wind, which soon changed, began to catch up with the ice, and the boat-boat got stuck. The wind grew stronger, the ice As the vessel became more and more compressed, a leak appeared.

The crew continuously bailed out water and used logs to protect the sides of the boat from the ice pressure. But this did not save Yakutsk. Soon the ice broke the stem, and by the morning of August 14 the ship was in completely hopeless condition. Laptev ordered a heavy cargo to be unloaded onto the ice, hoping to ease the situation of the double boat: guns, anchors, provisions and other cargo were removed, and then, when it became clear that the ship could not be saved, people abandoned it.

A day later, when sufficiently strong ice had formed, Laptev led the team ashore. The sailors carried provisions; The sleds of the dog sled on the doubel-boat were loaded to the limit with provisions. Having warmed up by the fire, the tired people began to build a dugout and transfer the cargo remaining near the ship to the shore.

This work continued until August 31, when the ice that began to move destroyed the Yakutsk double boat and the cargo remaining on the ice.

It was not possible to move south to populated areas due to ice drift on the rivers. Only on September 21 the detachment was able to set off. On the fifth day he reached the winter quarters of Konechnoye, where the industrialists were located. Twelve patients remained here, and the rest took advantage of the transport of industrialists and by October 15 arrived for the winter near the Bludnaya River. Soon the industrialists, whom Laptev had sent in the spring to the mouth of the Taimyr River to stock up on fish, also arrived for the winter. They managed to successfully complete the task within a short summer.

The experience of Pronchishchev's voyages in 1736, as well as Laptev's own research in 1739 and 1740, convinced him that it was impossible to sail along the coast between the mouths of Pyasina and Taimyra. Moreover, the only ship of the detachment, the Yakutsk, was lost. There was only one possibility left - to carry out cartographic work from land.

On November 8, 1740, Laptev arranged a consultation with his subordinates - Chelyuskin, Chekin and Medvedev. The council agreed with Laptev’s opinion that “the state of the ice and the depth of the bays and rivers cannot be described at any other time, given the local climate, but to start in June and follow through the months of July and August, observing their condition, because at that time... the ice breaks both on the sea, and in the lips and in the rivers, and [in] other times stand still." Therefore, it was decided to describe the coast, which had not yet been mapped, from land.

But it was impossible to carry out an inventory from the shore in the summer, since dog and reindeer sleds, which served as the only means of transport, could move across the tundra only in winter. Taking this into account, the council decided to carry out mapping in winter, although the results could be less accurate and complete.

On November 25, Laptev sent all these decisions, along with his report, to the Admiralty Boards for approval. Giving a number of arguments in favor of the council’s decision, he said that he could begin work in April 1741 and that he would send people free from work to the Yenisei “to a residential place where there is enough food, and also healthy places.”

Laptev’s envoy, sailor Kozma Sutormin, quickly delivered the detachment’s report and journals to St. Petersburg at that time, and already on April 7, 1741, the Admiralty Board began considering these materials. She agreed with the decision of the council and allowed an inventory of the seashore to be made from land.

Laptev began to implement his plan long before receiving the order from the Admiralty boards. He decided to make an inventory; in three batches at once. One party was supposed to work between the mouths of Khatanga and Taimyra, the second - from the mouth of Pyasina to the east before meeting with the third party, moving from the mouth of Taimyra to the west. This distribution of routes is explained by the fact that at that time Laptev still believed that the mouth of the Taimyr River was located in the area of ​​Cape Thaddeus, that is, much east of its true position. Therefore, the section of coast from Khatanga to Taimyra seemed much shorter than it actually is, and the section between Taimyra and Pyasina, on the contrary, was very large.

Relatively few people were required to complete the land inventory. Laptev left with him Chelyuskin, Chekin, one non-commissioned officer, four soldiers and a carpenter, and sent the rest in two groups (one on February 15, the other on April 10) on reindeer to Dudinka on the Yenisei. Part of the property rescued from the double boat was sent with the second group. The heaviest cargo remained in the warehouse at the wintering site.

At the same time, Laptev received a message from the Turukhansk voivodeship office that his requirements regarding the preparation of dog food at the mouth of the Pyasina and in other “convenient places” on the coast, sent to the office in the fall of 1740, had been fulfilled. However, this news turned out to be false: there were no food reserves anywhere, and all parties of Laptev’s detachment experienced extreme difficulties due to this.

On March 17, 1741, the second party, Chelyuskin and two soldiers, left the detachment’s winter quarters on three dog sleds.

On April 15, the first party left the detachment’s winter hut - Chekin with soldiers and a Yakut, and on April 24 - the third party, led by Khariton Prokofievich Laptev himself.

Six days later, Laptev’s party reached Lake Taimyr, crossed it and, reaching the source of Taimyr, moved along its valley further to the north. On May 6, Laptev arrived at the mouth of the Taimyra River and became convinced that it was located significantly west of Thaddeus Bay. This forced him to change his work plan. Seeing that Chekin had to make an inventory of the coast over a much larger area than he had expected, Laptev decided to go towards Chekin, that is, to the east, and not to the west. Having mapped the coast, Laptev approached a place where a long-term accumulation of ice had formed. He discovered this accumulation through various layers of ice that had formed over a number of years. In those places where “the ice breaks in summer,” in winter it was clear “that in some places there are fresh hummocks.” Most of the hummocks were near the shore, and far from it there were ice floes “with summer thawed patches.” Summarizing his observations, Laptev came to the conclusion that in summer the ice cover breaks up, and the accumulation of hummocks occurs where moving ice encounters an obstacle - stationary ice or the shore.

This conclusion of H.P. Laptev was confirmed by later studies. It is still true today.

On May 13, having reached latitude 76°42", Laptev was forced to stop due to a blizzard and fog. In addition, he and the soldier accompanying him began to experience snow blindness. Further advancement could only worsen the disease. After waiting out the bad weather, Laptev decided to return to the mouth Taimyr, where he expected to find food.

However, there was no food at the mouth of the Taimyr River, where Laptev arrived on May 17. Arctic foxes and polar bears ate the fish stored here, and Chekin needed the food supply brought here to feed his dogs.

Thus, Laptev could not take anything for his four teams. Therefore, he decided to go west, towards Chelyuskin, hoping to receive “help with food” from him.

On May 19, when the pain in his eyes had subsided somewhat, Laptev set off. On May 24, he approached the cape, from which the coast turned south. Having determined the latitude of the cape (76°39") and placing a noticeable sign on it, Laptev moved on.

On June 1, Laptev met with Chelyuskin near the sign erected in 1740 by Sterlegov at the end point of his route. Chelyuskin’s dogs were also exhausted, since he and he had little food to spare. Only a successful hunt for polar bears helped the travelers.

Spring was approaching, and Laptev, afraid of being stuck on the deserted seashore for a long time, was in a hurry to get to the winter quarters at the mouth of the Pyasina River. By June 9, he, together with Chelyuskin, reached the mouth of the Pyasina, where he was forced to wait out the flood. Only a month later they managed to go by boat up the river. The path was extremely difficult, but, fortunately, the detachment soon met the Nenets wandering in the lower reaches of Pyasina and by the end of July reached Golchikha with them on reindeer, and then on a passing ship up the Yenisei to Dudinka.

Chekin was already here. It turned out that he only managed to reach latitude 76°35", that is, to the Peter Islands. He was unable to proceed further due to snow blindness.

In Dudinka, Laptev learned that part of his detachment, sent from Khatanga on April 15, had not yet arrived here. A sailor who came to Dudinka said that when their group reached the Dudypta River on reindeer, the owners of the reindeer - the Tavgians - dropped their loads and went on a summer nomad in the tundra. Having obtained boats, the sailors went down the Dudyptedo Pyasina. Here they remained to wait for help. Laptev sent the Nenets and Tavgians gathered in Dudinka after them.

When Laptev summed up the work of all three parties, it turned out that the cartographic work had not been completely completed, since the section of coast between Cape Thaddeus in the east and the extreme point in the west, which he himself had reached, remained unmapped. Laptev postponed the filming of this section until next winter, but in the meantime he decided to go to Turukhansk to request from the authorities the necessary transport for a trip to the coast, provisions for people and food for dogs, and also to arrange winter quarters for the detachment’s people free from work.

On September 29, Laptev with all the people who were with him in Dudinka arrived in Turukhansk, and on September 15, part of the detachment taken from Lake Pyasina arrived there. For the first time this year, the entire detachment gathered in Turukhansk. Preparations for the last campaign began. By December all preparations were completed. On December 4, 1741, Chelyuskin with three soldiers left Turukhansk on five dog sleds, and on February 8, 1742, also on five sleds, Kh.P. himself. Laptev.

Chelyuskin headed to the mouth of Khatanga, and from there to the north, along the coast. Laptev's path was more complex and lengthy. Having reached Dudinka along the Yenisei, Laptev’s group turned east and through the tundra reached Pyasina, and then along it to Dudypta. From here Khariton Laptev turned north, crossed the Bolshaya Balakhnya River and approached the southern shore of Lake Taimyr. The further path lay on the ice across the lake and along the Taimyr River to its mouth.

Arriving at the mouth of the Taimyr in early May, Laptev sent a soldier Khoroshikh and one Yakut with a supply of provisions and dog food to meet Chelyuskin. At this time, Chelyuskin had already reached the northernmost cape of Asia and was mapping the northern coast.

On May 15, Chelyuskin met with the people sent by Laptev, and together with them went to the mouth of the Taimyr River to meet with the head of the detachment, since he had completed the inventory of the site by that time. From the mouth of the Taimyra, Khariton Laptev and Chelyuskin hurried to Turukhansk, and from there the entire detachment went to Yeniseisk, mapping the banks of the Yenisei along the way. On August 27, 1742, the detachment arrived at its destination. The task assigned to him was completed.

Now it was already possible to present to the Admiralty Boards a new, more accurate map of the Taimyr Peninsula. Of course, the information collected by Khariton Laptev’s detachment could not be considered absolutely accurate. He himself and his expedition comrades knew this. They had imperfect instruments and methods for determining longitude, which gave very approximate results. At that time, there was not even a chronometer (this device was invented only in 1772). In addition, Khariton Laptev’s detachment worked in winter, when the snow cover did not allow establishing the exact outlines of the coastline.

All this determined the errors on the map compiled by Laptev, on which the eastern coast of the Taimyr Peninsula is plotted much further east than it actually is, and the islands lying north of the Taimyr Peninsula are designated as capes (for example, Cape North-West).

However, all this in no way detracts from the merits of Khariton Laptev, the first explorer of one of the harshest areas of the Arctic Ocean.

September 13, 1743 H.P. Laptev submitted a report to the Admiralty Board, in which he outlined the results of the detachment’s work and his personal notes, which are of great scientific value. Laptev explained that he compiled these notes “for information” to his descendants, that he included in them what he considered “indecent to add to the journal,” as not related to the work performed by the detachment. He called them "The shore between the Lena and the Yenisei. Notes of Lieutenant Khariton Prokofievich Laptev."

The notes consisted of three parts. In the first part, he gives a brief description of the coast from Stolb Island on the Lena River to the mouth of the Yenisei. In a concise form, but quite fully, he described the nature of the coast, coastal depths, “decent places”, their soil, the state of the ice, the mouths of rivers, their width and depth, data on the ebb and flow of the tides and other information very important for science are given.

The second part describes the rivers sequentially, starting from the Lena and further west to the Yenisei. Each river is given a characteristic - where it flows from, how long it is, where the forest ends and the tundra begins, in what places people live and what they do. The following describes Lake Taimyr. It tells “about the tundra lying near Lake Taimursky”, “about mammoth horns” (that is, about fangs). Much space in this part is devoted to the life, activities, morals and customs of the inhabitants of Turukhansk.

In the third part, entitled “Finally, this description is appended about the nomadic peoples near the northern Siberian places in Asia, in what superstition they contain themselves, and about the state of something about them,” Khariton Laptev systematizes ethnographic information about the peoples inhabiting the Taimyr Peninsula.

These observations are fully confirmed by modern data. A characteristic feature of the ethnographic descriptions of H.P. Laptev is the absence of arrogance towards representatives of northern peoples. Khariton Laptev speaks with praise, for example, of the Evenks - “Tungus”. Reporting that local residents eat raw meat and fish, he does not express any contempt for them for such “savagery.” On the contrary, Laptev notes the need for food in northern places with raw planed meat, which “does not allow a sick person to develop scurvy, but at the same time drives out old ones; even better is the effect of frozen planed meat, deer, and the same disease is treated.”

The notes of Khariton Prokofievich Laptev, which are of enormous scientific value, were highly appreciated by leading scientists in Russia and other countries.

Khariton Prokofievich Laptev also continued to serve in the navy after the expedition. In the spring of 1757, he was assigned to the Navigation Company to train future navigators. Until 1762, Laptev held combat positions, commanding ships in the summer months. By this time he had the rank of captain 1st rank. On April 10, 1762, Laptev was appointed Ober-Ster-Kriegs-Commissar of the Fleet. On December 21, 1763, he died.

The Motherland has not forgotten the names of the heroic participants of the Great Northern Expedition - the leaders of the detachment that described the coast between the mouths of the Lena and Yenisei. Their names remained on the world map, reminding descendants of the scientific feat of their compatriots.

On the eastern coast of the Taimyr Peninsula, somewhat north of the Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands, there is Cape Pronchishcheva. The eastern coast of this peninsula, stretching from the Peter Islands to the entrance to the Khatanga Bay, is called the coast of Vasily Pronchishchev.

In 1913, approximately in the middle of the coast of Vasily Pronchishchev, a large bay was discovered by a Russian expedition on the icebreakers "Taimyr" and "Vaigach", which it called Maria Pronchishcheva Bay. On the sea coast between the mouths of the Anabar and Olenek rivers there is a low mountain range called Pronchishchev.

The part of the western coast of the Taimyr Peninsula, lying between the mouths of the Pyasina and Taimyr, is called the Khariton Laptev coast.

Opposite the middle part of the Kharitov Laptev coast, closer to the mouth of the Taimyr, in a complex archipelago lies the island of the pilot Makhotkin. Its two northeastern capes are called: one Cape Laptev, the other Cape Khariton, in honor of Khariton Laptev. On the eastern coast of the Taimyr Peninsula opposite the islands of Komsomolskaya Pravda, in the place where the coast turns sharply to the west towards Theresa Claveness Bay, Cape Khariton Laptev juts out into the sea.

These names remind us of the brave Russian naval officers who, more than two hundred years ago, led the first exploration of the northernmost section of the Asian coast.

Born in 1700. In 1718 he entered the service as a midshipman, and in 1726 he was promoted to midshipman. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1737, when he commanded the court yacht Dekrone.

In December of the same year, he was appointed head of the Great Northern Expedition detachment with instructions to survey and describe the Arctic coast west of the Lena to the mouth of the Yenisei.

He reached Khatanga Bay on the boat “Yakutsk” by August 1739. However, for two years he failed to circumnavigate the Taimyr Peninsula by sea. Therefore, in the spring of 1741, he began a land survey of the peninsula.

I got to Lake Taimyr, then returned to the coast, where I began exploring the coastal islands.

In June 1741, Laptev took a boat up the river to Lake Pyasino, and from there rode reindeer to the Yenisei. Spent the winter in Turukhansk.

Khariton Laptev mentions in his reports about the Norilsk River and the Norilsk Mountains. In March 1742, during its research, the Laptev expedition stopped for the night in the Norilsk winter quarters.

In 1743, having successfully completed the task, Khariton Laptev returned to St. Petersburg.

The reports and reports of Khariton Laptev for the years 1739 - 1743 contained valuable information about the hydrography of the coast of the Taimyr Peninsula.

The Laptev Sea is named after Khariton Laptev and his cousin Dmitry Laptev.

The southwestern coast of the Taimyr Peninsula is also called today the Khariton Laptev coast.

Dmitry Yakovlevich (1701-1767)

Khariton Prokofievich (1700-1764) Russian polar explorers

Peter I laid the foundation for a grandiose scientific expedition to the shores of the Arctic Ocean - the Great Northern Expedition. These shores were well known to the Pomors, who had long sailed here on their boats and boats. And the Siberian Cossacks, leaving the mouths of the Siberian rivers, passed along almost the entire ocean coast. However, the Pomors and Cossacks, being brave sailors, did not know how to draw up accurate geographical maps. When compiling geographical maps at the beginning of the 18th century, the need arose to establish the exact outlines of the shores of the Arctic Ocean.

The Great Northern Expedition, which worked from 1733 to 1743, set as its task the study and accurate description of the Russian shores of the ocean from Yugorsky Shar to Kamchatka and plotting this data on a map. Up to 600 people took part in it, divided into several detachments. The expedition was led by Vitus Bering until 1741. He appointed his closest assistant, Lieutenant Dmitry Yakovlevich Laptev, as commander of the two-masted deck boat "Irkutsk", and his brother, Khariton Prokofievich Laptev, as commander of the double-boat "Yakutsk". They had served in the navy since 1718, when they enlisted as midshipmen. In 1721, the brothers were promoted to midshipman. Then their paths diverged. D. Ya. Laptev, who established himself as an experienced and educated naval officer, plied the waters of the Baltic Sea on various ships. From 1730 he was transferred to the Northern Fleet, and in 1734 he was included in the Great Northern Expedition.

During these years, Kh. P. Laptev also served on ships of the Baltic Fleet, traveled to the Don, and looked for places suitable for organizing a shipyard.

D. Laptev in 1736-1739, leading a detachment on the boat "Irkutsk", for the first time in history, surveyed the coast from the mouth of the Lena to the mouth of the Kolyma, compiled maps of this coast on a mathematical basis and with reference to astronomical points. In 1740, he began a sea voyage from the mouth of the Kolyma to the Pacific Ocean. Having traveled about 80 kilometers, the expedition was forced to stop, since solid ice did not allow sailing further. Even the boats that Laptev took with him could not move forward and had difficulty getting out of the ice. D. Laptev and his detachment had to return to Nizhnekolymsk. However, the expedition still managed to reach the Pacific coast: in the fall of 1741 they moved from the Nizhnekolymsky fort to the village of Anadyrsky fort. Since it snowed, they traveled most of the way by dog ​​sled. After spending the winter there and building two large boats, D. Ya. Laptev’s detachment went down the river. During this trip, reliable information was obtained about the natural conditions of this part of Siberia. In 1743, Dmitry Laptev went to St. Petersburg with a report from the Admiralty boards, but in the capital he learned that it had been decided to consider the work of the expedition completed.

During the same years, Khariton Laptev’s team conducted research on the northernmost and most ice-saturated section of the Siberian coast. He was the first to reveal the outlines and dimensions of the huge Taimyr Peninsula. In 1739, Kh. P. Laptev set out on the Yakutsk from the mouth of the Lena, repeating the voyage of his predecessor, Lieutenant V. V. Pronchishchev. Ice did not allow Kh. P. Laptev’s detachment to go as far to the north as V. V. Pronchishchev did, but he was able to more accurately survey the eastern coast of Taimyr and clarify the position of the coastal islands. Solid ice blocked the path to the north, and Kh. P. Laptev turned back to the mouth of the Khatanga River. Here the detachment remained for the winter.

To prevent scurvy, Kh. P. Laptev and members of his squad ate raw frozen fish during the difficult winter months. The following year, 1740, the ice situation became even more difficult. Coming out of the Khatanga Bay, the Yakutsk was captured by ice: the ice pinched the ship and seriously damaged it. The team was forced to unload provisions and get to the coast along drifting ice. We still had to walk 500 kilometers to our winter quarters in Khatanga. Along the way, several people died from scurvy and deprivation. The loss of the ship did not stop the researchers. Khariton Laptev began filming unknown shores, traveling on dog sleds. In 1741-1742, he and his most active assistant, S.I. Chelyuskin, described most of the coast of the Taimyr Peninsula, but were unable to reach its northernmost part. The detachment moved for the winter to the city of Turukhansk, located on the banks of the Yenisei River. In the spring of 1742, Chelyuskin again began describing the coast. In May he reached a low stone cape in the north of Taimyr. This was the northernmost point of Eurasia, which later became known as Cape Chelyuskin.

At the same time, Kh.P. Laptev drove from Turukhansk to the mouth of the Taimyr River and sent sledges with provisions to meet Chelyuskin, which were accompanied by one of the members of the detachment. At the end of the summer of 1743, the expedition of Kh. P. Laptev sailed along the Yenisei to the city of Yeniseisk and then returned to St. Petersburg.

In addition to the official report, Kh. P. Laptev left an interesting geographical and ethnographic description of the huge territory, which extends greatly to the north, lying between the Yenisei and Lena rivers. At that time Taimyr did not yet have this name; it was given to it in 1843 by researcher A.F. Middendorf.

After the end of the expedition, the brothers continued their naval service in the Baltic. Little is known about their further fate. There is only reliable information that Dmitry Laptev retired in 1762 with the rank of vice admiral, and captain 1st rank Khariton Laptev died in 1764.

Noting the merits of the Laptev brothers, in 1913 the Russian Geographical Society decided to name one of the largest Arctic seas, which lies east of Taimyr and the shores of which were explored by the brothers, the Laptev Sea. The strait between Bolshoi Lyakhovsky Island and the mainland is named in honor of Dmitry Laptev, and the western coast of the Taimyr Peninsula, which is located between the Pyasina and Taimyr rivers, is called the Khariton Laptev Coast.

During the Great Northern (second Kamchatka) expedition, it fell to the lot of Kh. Laptev (cousin of D. Laptev) to continue the work of the untimely deceased head of the third detachment V. Pronchishchev, that is, to explore and describe the coast of the Arctic Ocean from the mouth of the Lena River to the Khatanga bay.

Kh. Laptev began serving in the Baltic Fleet in 1718, participated in a long voyage to the shores of Italy, in 1734 he went to the Don River with an order to find a convenient place for shipbuilding shipyards, and in 1737 he commanded the court yacht “Dekrone”.

Lieutenant Kh. Laptev went to his new destination - Yakutsk in 1738. In July 1739, under his leadership, the sailing and rowing ship "Yakutsk" left the mouth of the Lena River into the sea. Overcoming great difficulties of navigation in ice, the Yakutsk passed the mouth of the Olenek River, rounded the Bolshoi Begichev Island from the north and entered the Khatanga Bay. Near a small river, the researchers set up a food warehouse for the future winter hut. Then they began to move north in heavy ice and reached Cape Thaddeus. It was impossible to go further. Kh. Laptev decided to return and spend the winter in Khatanga Bay. During wintering, a land survey was carried out on the eastern shores of the Taimyr Peninsula for almost 150 km. A small detachment under the leadership of V. Medvedev crossed almost the entire peninsula in a westerly direction on dogs, reached the Pyasina River and descended along it to the sea. In April 1740, he returned to the wintering place of the main detachment, making a description of the route more than 1000 km long. Another member of the expedition, surveyor N. Chekin, also walked along Taimyr on dog sleds from east to west: from Nizhnyaya Khatanga to Lake Taimyr and further along the Nizhnyaya Taimyr River to its mouth. Here he described the sea coast west of the mouth for more than 100 km.

The campaigns of Medvedev and Chekin confirmed Kh. Laptev in the idea that it was most reliable to carry out an inventory of the shores by land, but he nevertheless decided to make another attempt to break through the ice by sea at the mouth of the Yenisei. But it also turned out to be unsuccessful. The ship was covered in ice. The team, having unloaded food supplies onto the ice floe, left the Yakutsk, which, along with the ice, was soon carried out to sea. Kh. Laptev decided to return to the Khatanga River.

The unsuccessful voyage and the loss of the Yakutsk did not stop Laptev. In order to explore as much of the peninsula as possible, he divided the detachment into three parties. The first, under the leadership of Laptev’s assistant S. Chelyuskin, was supposed to go to the mouth of the Pyasina River and from there follow the coast east to the mouth of the Nizhnyaya Taimyra River. N. Chekin was tasked with describing the eastern and northern shores of the peninsula. Laptev himself went from the Khatanga River to Lake Taimyr, and then to the mouth of the Lower Taimyr and from there to survey the sea coast to the west. All units completed the task. At the end of 1741 they gathered in Turukhansk and summed up the results.

Having spent the winter in Turukhansk, Laptev’s expedition at the beginning of 1742 again set out in separate parties on dog sleds along almost the same routes to clarify geographical data. By the end of the summer of 1742, the expedition completed its work, and Laptev left with a report to St. Petersburg.

The significance of the Laptev expedition is very great. The researchers surveyed a large and inaccessible area of ​​northern Siberia (Taimyr Peninsula), hitherto unexplored. For the first time, general geographical information about this region was obtained: on meteorology, tides, ice, magnetism, fauna, flora, and ethnography. The “Notes” compiled by Laptev are notable for their accuracy, especially in terms of observations of the sea ice regime.

At the end of the expedition, Kh. Laptev served in the Baltic Fleet with the rank of captain 1st rank. The coast between the mouths of the Pyasina and Nizhnyaya Taimyr rivers and two capes are named after him (in addition to the Laptev Sea).

Years of life 1700 – 1763