Born 1605, Veliki Ustyug, Russia
Died c. 1673, Moscow, Russia
From the time the Russian people formed a state in the ninth century, they steadily expanded their empire eastward, across the vast northern lands of Siberia, toward the Pacific Ocean. They established routes and forts along the rivers of Siberia, conquering the inhabitants of successive river valleys as they made their way toward the ocean. The new lands were steady sources of furs and mineral wealth (especially silver), and it was rumored that in some inlets of the northern Pacific lay walrus breeding grounds that were heaped with the animals’ tusks, which are a source of precious ivory. Such promises of new wealth spurred the czars—the imperial rulers of Russia—to continue to launch expeditions farther east.
During the seventeenth century Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnev, a Russian Cossack (frontier soldier), participated in several such expeditions. Born in 1605 in Veliki Ustyug, in the northern part of European Russia, he worked as a sailor before entering the czar’s service. During the 1630s he lived in frontier settlements in Siberia, including Tobolsk and Yeniseysk, collecting tributes for the czar from the local inhabitants. In 1638 he moved to Yakutsk, the main Russian post on the great Lena River in eastern Siberia. During 1640–41 he participated in fur-trading expeditions to the Yana River, located farther east. In the winter of 1641–42 he was a member of Cossack leader Mikhail Stadukhin’s expedition, which traveled east again, overland to the upper Indigirka River. The following year Dezhnev accompanied Stadukhin on a second expedition to the Indigirka, this time the party sailing in small boats to the river’s mouth on the Arctic Ocean. The expedition sailed eastward along the northern Siberian coast to the mouth of the Alazeya River, and from there traveled overland to the Kolyma River, which also emptied into the Arctic Ocean even farther to the east. Stadukhin established an outpost there, anxious to assert Russian control in the area.
In 1647 Dezhnev was asked to take part in another expedition, this time led by Cossack Fyodor Alekseyev Popov. The party’s mission was a difficult one: to travel by sea from the mouth of the Kolyma, around the eastern tip of Siberia, and on to the Anadyr River, which empties into the Pacific Ocean. The Anadyr region was rumored to be heavily populated with walruses, which could provide a rich supply of ivory. But heavy Arctic ice forced the expedition to turn around well before they had reached their goal.
The next year, however, Dezhnev and Popov set out for the Anadyr again. They set sail with seven koches, ships built with very strong hulls meant to withstand the pounding of ice-filled waters. Popov had more than 100 men under his command: traders, explorers, and Cossacks like himself. The travelers departed the mouth of the Kolyma River on June 20, 1648, not suspecting how treacherous their journey would become.
By August, four of the ships and their crews had already been lost in the Arctic Ocean. But the remaining three vessels rounded the easternmost tip of Asia—what is now called Cape Dezhnev—on the Chukotski Peninsula. After one more boat was lost, the last two went ashore sometime around September 20; there the travelers were attacked by the local inhabitants. Popov was wounded, and Dezhnev became leader of the expedition.
Not long after the ships resumed their journey, Popov’s vessel was lost as well. Then Dezhnev and his crew were shipwrecked off the coast of northeastern Siberia, but managed—over the course of ten weeks—to make their way overland to their destination. As the twenty-six survivors reached the Anadyr River, they were unaware of what they had achieved. Dezhnev and his men had become the first Westerners to sail through the narrow passageway that separates Asia and North America, answering a key geographical question of the time: Were the two continents joined? Seekers of the Northeast Passage—a northern water route from Europe to the Orient—were uncertain whether the two land masses were connected and if their quest to find an Arctic sailing route was hopeless. But because Dezhnev kept no records of his journey and word of his discovery did not make its way back to Europe, eighty years would pass before the nature of Siberia’s coastline would at last be confirmed: In 1728 Vitus Bering (1681–1741), a Danish navigator in the service of Russian czar Peter the Great, would sail through the same passageway in which Dezhnev and his men had traveled, approaching it from the south, by way of Siberia’s Pacific coast. The passageway would be called the Bering Strait in the Dane’s honor.
Dezhnev and his men were forced to spend the winter of 1648 at the mouth of the Anadyr. Some members of the party tried to travel up the river on foot, and perished in the bitter cold. Dezhnev and his remaining crew of twelve men built a boat, and when summer arrived, they sailed up the river, stopping halfway to build a camp. This became the fort of Anadyrsk, which would later serve as a major base for further Russian advances into eastern Siberia. In the river valley, Dezhnev and his men encountered the Anual people. Like many Cossack leaders before him, Dezhnev claimed the territory for the czar and forced the native inhabitants to give him goods, such as furs and ivory, as tributes to their new ruler. When some members of the Anual tribe refused Dezhnev’s demands, he used the cruel Cossack methods of kidnapping and imprisonment to force their submission.
In 1652 Dezhnev and his men traveled to the Gulf of Anadyr, where they came upon several walrus rookeries (breeding grounds). The animals provided them with a steady supply of ivory and hides. Dezhnev spent the next ten years exploring the area, and collecting more tributes for the czar. When Dezhnev was finally relieved of his command in 1662, he traveled overland to Yakutsk. With him was a treasure trove of silver, luxurious sables and other furs, and more than two tons of walrus tusks.
By 1664 Dezhnev had made his way to Moscow, bringing with him the riches he had collected during his travels. He presented most of the goods to the czar, but kept some for himself, which made him a wealthy man. He gave a detailed account of his various adventures in the Siberian wilderness, and he received payment for his nineteen years of service on the Russian frontier. He was also made an ataman, or Cossack leader. Dezhnev returned to Yakutsk with his nephew and remained in the area from 1665 to 1671, serving as a commander on the Olenek River for much of that time. Following a brief command on the Vilyui River, he was put in charge of a fur shipment, and accompanied it to Moscow. He remained in the city until his death, sometime during 1672 or 1673.
Baker, Daniel B., ed. Explorers and Discoverers of the World. Detroit: Gale Research, 1993.
Bohlander, Richard E., ed. World Explorers and Discoverers. New York: Macmillan, 1992.
Waldman, Carl and Alan Wexler. Who Was Who in World Exploration. New York: Facts on File, 1992.
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