Why explore a land?
People explore for three reasons: to find resources (furs, metals, fish), to find routes (rivers and seas for travel and trade) and to know the land (maps and science). A very large land cannot be explored at once. It happens in waves.
An expedition is a planned trip by a group with a goal. An explorer is a person who goes to places that are new to their own country's maps.
Wave 1: east along the rivers (1580s to 1640s)
The great rivers of Siberia (Ob, Yenisei, Lena) flow north, but between them are short low land bridges. Groups carried their boats over these bridges (a portage) and moved from one river to the next. This made rivers the "roads" of the east.
- 1581 to 1582: Yermak led a band of Cossacks across the Urals and into western Siberia.
- 1619 and 1632: forts (ostrogs) were built at Yeniseysk and Yakutsk. These were bases for the next move.
- 1639: Ivan Moskvitin's group reached the Sea of Okhotsk, the Pacific coast.
- 1648: Semyon Dezhnev sailed round the far north-eastern cape. He passed through the strait between Asia and America, 80 years before Bering.
- 1649 to 1653: Yerofey Khabarov travelled down the Amur river.
Wave 2: the sea and the Great Northern Expedition (1700s)
In 1697 Vladimir Atlasov explored Kamchatka. Then Tsar Peter I wanted to know if Asia and America were joined. Vitus Bering, a Danish-born navy officer in Russian service, sailed north in 1728 and found the strait (now named after him). In 1741 he reached the coast of North America and died on the way back.
The Great Northern Expedition (1733 to 1743) was one of the biggest mapping projects ever. Many small parties charted the long Arctic coast. In 1742 Semyon Chelyuskin reached the northernmost point of the Asian mainland, now called Cape Chelyuskin.
Wave 3: scientific surveys (1800s)
In 1820 the ships of Bellingshausen and Lazarev sailed round Antarctica and saw its ice coast. Closer to home, the Russian Geographical Society was founded in 1845. It sent scientists to measure heights, collect rocks and plants and draw maps.
- Pyotr Semyonov studied the Tian Shan mountains in 1856 and 1857.
- Nikolay Przhevalsky made long journeys in Central Asia in the 1870s and 1880s and described its deserts, lakes and animals.
Wave 4: the poles, planes and satellites (1900s)
In 1932 the icebreaking ship Sibiryakov sailed the whole Arctic coast in one summer. This opened the Northern Sea Route. In 1937 a team of four lived on a drifting ice floe near the North Pole (the station "North Pole-1"). Later, aerial photographs and satellites finished the map. Today explorers use GPS, radar and remote sensing.
Key formulas and definitions
- Waves of exploration: Rivers (1580s-1640s) → Seas (1700s) → Science (1800s) → Poles and space (1900s)
- Pacific reached about 1639, from Yermak (1582): about 57 years
- Key terms: expedition, portage, ostrog (fort), survey, strait
Worked examples
1. How many years passed between Yermak crossing the Urals (1582) and Moskvitin reaching the Pacific coast (1639)?
1639 − 1582 = 57 years. A very fast move across a huge land, because the rivers worked as roads.
2. Why did explorers use rivers and not forests or mountains to travel?
Rivers are open paths. Boats carry heavy loads, and a river keeps its direction. In thick forest and marsh there were no roads, and mountains are slow to cross.
3. Why did Dezhnev's 1648 voyage not become famous at the time?
His report stayed in a distant office and was found much later, in the 1700s. Bering made the strait known to the world in 1728, so it carries his name.
4. A map in 1700 shows only rivers and forts. A map in 1900 shows heights, rocks and plants too. Which wave made this change?
The scientific surveys of the 1800s. They measured heights and collected rocks and plants, which added detail to the old route maps.
Common mistakes
- Thinking the whole land was explored by one person. It took four waves and hundreds of groups.
- Mixing up Dezhnev (1648, found the strait) and Bering (1728, named after him).
- Thinking Yermak reached the Pacific. He only crossed the Urals into western Siberia in 1581 to 1582.
- Forgetting that exploration did not stop in the 1700s. Science and polar work continued in the 1800s and 1900s.