Discoveries of geography in the 19th century. Russian travelers of the 19th century

RUSSIAN PIONEERS AND TRAVELERS OF THE 19TH CENTURY

Prepared by a 8th grade student:

Barinov Alexey

19 CENTURY - TIME OF DISCOVERIES

• The 19th century was the time of the largest geographical discoveries made by Russian explorers. Continuing the traditions of their predecessors - explorers and travelers of the 17th - 18th centuries, they enriched the ideas of Russians about the world around them, contributed to the development of new territories that became part of the empire. Russia for the first time fulfilled its long-standing place: its ships entered the oceans.

EXPEDITION OF KRUZENSHTERN AND LISYANSKY

• In 1803 an expedition was undertaken to explore the northern part of the Pacific Ocean. It lasted 3 years. The island of Sakhalin, one of the islands of the Hawaiian archipelago, was explored. Data were collected on the Aleutian Islands and Alaska, the islands of the Pacific and Arctic Oceans.

KRUZENSHTERN IVAN FYODOROVYCH

• Ivan Fedorovich Kruzenshtern, at birth Adam Johann von Krusenstern (November 8, 1770 - August 12, 1846) - Russian navigator, admiral. Descended from Ostsee nobles. Ivan Kruzenshtern and Yuri Lisyansky on the ships "Nadezhda" and "Neva" made the first Russian round-the-world expedition.

LISYANSKY YURI FYODOROVYCH

• Yuri Fedorovich Lisyansky (August 2, 1773, Nizhyn - February 22, 1837, St. Petersburg) - Russian navigator and explorer. Captain of the first rank.

EXPEDITION OF BELLINGSHAUSEN AND LAZAREV

• Expedition 1819 - 1821 - Bellingshausen, together with Lazarev, approached the shores of Antarctica. After stopping in Australia, sailors discovered new islands in the Pacific Ocean and called them the Russian Islands.

BELLINGSHAUSEN FADDEY FADDEEVICH

• Faddey Faddeevich Bellingshausen (born Fabian Gottlieb Thaddeus von Bellingshausen; September 9, 1778 - January 13, 1852, Kronstadt) - Russian navigator, admiral (1843), discoverer of Antarctica. By origin - a Baltic German from the Baltic noble family of Bellingshausen.

LAZAREV MIKHAIL PETROVICH

• Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev (November 3, 1788, Vladimir - April 11, 1851, Vienna, buried in Sevastopol) - Russian naval commander and navigator, admiral (1843), holder of the Order of St. George IV class for long service (1817), commander of the Black Sea Fleet and discoverer of Antarctica.

EXPEDITION BARANOV

• A.A. Baranov explored the island of Kodiak, searched for minerals, founded new Russian settlements. Secured the coast of North America for Russia.

BARANOV ALEXANDER ANDREEVICH

• Alexander Andreevich Baranov (February 3, 1746, Kargopol - April 16, 1819, near the island of Java) - Russian statesman, entrepreneur, the first Chief Ruler of Russian settlements in North America (1790-1818).

EXPEDITION OF NEVELSKY AND PUTYATIN

• Nevelskoy G. And in two expeditions he discovered a number of new territories and entered the lower reaches of the Amur. Here he founded a new settlement - the Nikolaevsky post. His travels proved that Sakhalin Island is a separate island.
• Putyatin traveled around the world and left to posterity a description of what he saw. Discovered the Rimsky-Korsakov Islands. The first Russian who managed to visit closed Japan.

NEVELSKY GENNADY IVANOVICH

• Gennady Ivanovich Nevelskoy (November 23, 1813, Drakino, Kostroma province - April 17, 1876, St. Petersburg) - Russian admiral (1874), explorer of the Far East, founder of the city of Nikolaevsk-on-Amur. He proved that the mouth of the Amur is accessible to ships and that Sakhalin is an island.

PUTYATIN EVFIMIY VASILIEVICH

• Count Evfimy (Efim) Vasilyevich Putyatin (November 8, 1803, St. Petersburg - October 16, 1883, Paris) - Russian admiral, statesman and diplomat. In 1855 he signed the first treaty of friendship and trade with Japan, an honorary member of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society.

On the world map of the late XVIII - early XIX century. the outlines of Europe, Asia, Africa are correctly shown; with the exception of the northern outskirts, America is correctly depicted; Australia is outlined without major errors. The main archipelagos and the largest islands of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans have been mapped.

But inside the continents, a significant part of the surface is indicated on the map by "white spots". Unknown to cartographers were vast and deserted polar regions, almost three-quarters of Africa, about a third of Asia, almost all of Australia, large areas of America. All these territories were reliably displayed on the map only during the 19th century and at the beginning of our century.

The largest geographical achievement of the 19th century was the discovery of the last, sixth continent of the Earth - Antarctica. The honor of this discovery, made in 1820, belongs to the Russian round-the-world expedition on the sloops Mirny and Vostok under the command of F. F. Bellingshausen and M. P. Lazarev.

When creating a modern map, cartographic knowledge and geographical information of various peoples and different eras were generalized. Thus, for European geographers of the 19th century, who studied Central Asia, ancient Chinese maps and descriptions were of great value, and when exploring the interior of Africa, they used ancient Arabic sources.

In the 19th century began a new stage in the development of geography. She began not only to describe the lands and seas, but also to compare natural phenomena, look for their causes, discover patterns of various natural phenomena and processes. During the 19th and 20th centuries, major geographical discoveries were made, considerable progress was made in the study of the lower layers of the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the upper layers of the earth's crust and the biosphere.

In the second half of the XIX century. Russian voyages from the Baltic to the Far East almost ceased due to the outbreak of the Crimean War, and then - the sale of Alaska by the tsarist government to the United States.

Among foreign round-the-world expeditions of the first half of the 19th century. The French expedition aboard the Astrolabe in 1825-1829 became famous for its geographical discoveries. under the Command of Jules Sebastian Dumont-Durville; During this journey, the northern shores of the islands of New Zealand and New Guinea were put on a map.

Of particular importance in the history of science was the round-the-world voyage of the English ship Beagle in 1831-1836. commanded by Robert Fitz Roy. The expedition carried out extensive hydrographic work and, in particular, for the first time in detail and accurately described most of the Pacific coast of South America. The famous naturalist Charles Darwin traveled on the Beagle. Observing and comparing the nature of various regions of the Earth, Darwin later created a theory of the development of life that immortalized his name. Darwin's teaching dealt a crushing blow to religious ideas about the creation of the world and the immutability of plant and animal species (see Vol. 4 DE).

In the second half of the XIX century. a new stage in the study of the ocean begins. At this time, special oceanographic expeditions began to be organized. Techniques and methods for observing the physical, chemical, biological and other features of the World Ocean have been improved.

Oceanographic research of a wide range was carried out by the English round-the-world expedition of 1872-1876. on a specially equipped vessel - the sail-steam corvette "Challenger". All the work was carried out by a scientific commission of six specialists, headed by the head of the expedition, Scottish zoologist Wyville Thomson. The corvette passed about 70 thousand nautical miles. During the voyage, at 362 deep-sea stations (places where the ship stopped for research), they measured the depth, took soil samples and water samples from different depths, measured the water temperature at different horizons, caught animals and plants, and observed surface and deep currents. During the whole journey, every hour the state of the weather was noted. The materials collected by the expedition turned out to be so large that a special institute had to be created in Edinburgh to study them. Many English and foreign scientists took part in the processing of materials, headed by John Murray, a participant in the voyage, who was the editor of the works.

expeditions. The report on the results of research on the Challenger amounted to 50 volumes. It was possible to complete the publication only 20 years after the end of the expedition.

The studies of the Challenger provided a lot of new information and for the first time made it possible to reveal the general laws governing the natural phenomena of the World Ocean. For example, it was found that the geographical distribution of marine soils depends on the depth of the ocean and the distance from the coast, that the temperature of the water in the open ocean everywhere, except for the polar regions, continuously decreases from the surface to the very bottom. For the first time, a map of the depths of three oceans (Atlantic, Indian, Pacific) was compiled and the first collection of deep-sea animals was collected.

The voyage of the Challenger was followed by other expeditions. Generalization and comparison of the collected materials led to outstanding geographical discoveries. The remarkable Russian naval commander and marine scientist Stepan Osipovich Makarov became especially famous for them.

When Makarov was 18 years old, he published the first scientific work on the method he invented for determining deviation 1 in the sea. At this time, Makarov sailed on the ships of the Baltic Fleet. One of these training voyages in 1869 on the armored boat "Mermaid" almost ended in the death of the ship. "Mermaid" ran into a pitfall and got a hole. The ship was far from the harbor and would have sunk, but the resourceful commander sent it aground. After this incident, Makarov became interested in the history of shipwrecks and learned that many ships died from underwater holes. Soon he found an easy way to seal holes with a special canvas patch named after him. "Makarov's patch" began to be used in all the fleets of the world.

1 Deviation - deviation of the magnetic needle of ship's compasses from the direction of the magnetic meridian under the influence of the metal parts of the ship.

Makarov also developed the design of drainage systems and other emergency devices on ships and thereby became the founder of the doctrine of the ship's unsinkability, that is, its ability to stay on the water, having holes. This doctrine was later developed by the famous shipbuilder Academician A.I. Krylov. Soon Makarov became famous as a hero of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. Seeing its inevitability, he achieved a transfer to the Black Sea even before the start of hostilities. According to the Paris Peace Treaty concluded after the Crimean War, Russia did not have the right to build warships on this sea until 1871 and therefore did not have time to create its own fleet here. Foreign military experts predicted complete freedom of action for the Turkish fleet in the Black Sea. However, thanks to Makarov, this did not happen. He suggested using high-speed merchant ships as floating bases for deckless mine boats. The passenger steamer "Grand Duke Konstantin" Makarov turned into a formidable warship. The boats were launched into the water and they went into a mine attack on enemy ships. Makarov also used a new military weapon - a torpedo, that is, a self-propelled mine. Stepan Osipovich destroyed and damaged many enemy ships, including armored ones; his dashing raids fettered the actions of the Turkish fleet and contributed a lot to Russia's victory in the war. The mine boats used by Makarov became the founders of a new class of ships - destroyers.

After the war, Stepan Osipovich was appointed commander of the Taman steamer, which was at the disposal of the Russian ambassador to Turkey. The ship was in Constantinople. Makarov decided to use his free time to study the currents in the Bosphorus. From Turkish fishermen, he heard that in this strait there is a deep current from the Sea of ​​​​Marmara to the Black Sea, it goes towards the surface current from the Black Sea. The deep current was not mentioned in any of the sailing directions, it was not shown on any map. Makarov, on a boat-four, went out to the middle of the strait, and the sailors lowered a barrel (anchor) filled with water with a heavy load tied to it on a cable. This “directly showed me,” he said, “that there is a reverse current below and quite a strong one, because an anchor of five buckets of water was sufficient to force the four to move against the current.”

Convinced of the existence of two currents, Makarov decided to study them carefully. At that time, they still did not know how to measure the speed of deep currents. Stepan Osipovich invented a device for this, which soon became widespread.

Makarov made a thousand measurements of the speed of currents in various places of the Bosporus from the surface to the bottom and made four thousand determinations of the temperature of the water and its specific gravity. All this allowed him to establish that the deep current is caused by the different density of the waters of the Black and Marmara Seas. In the Black Sea, due to the abundant flow of rivers, the water is less salty than in the Marmara, and therefore less dense. In the strait at depth, the pressure from the Sea of ​​Marmara turns out to be greater than from the Black Sea, which gives rise to the lower current. Makarov spoke about his research in the book “On the Exchange of Waters of the Black and Mediterranean Seas”, which in 1887 was awarded the Academy of Sciences Prize.

In 1886-1889. Makarov circumnavigated the world on the Vityaz corvette. The voyage of the Vityaz has gone down in the history of oceanography forever. This is the merit of Makarov and the officers and sailors who were carried away by him to the path of serving science. In addition to the daily military service, the crew of the corvette participated in oceanographic research. Already the first observations made on the Vityaz shortly after leaving Kronstadt led to an interesting discovery. The stratification of water into three layers, characteristic of the Baltic Sea in summer, was established: a warm surface layer with a temperature of over 10°C, an intermediate one at a depth of 70-100 m with a temperature of no more than 1.5 ° and near-bottom with a temperature of about 4 °.

In the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the Vityaz sailors successfully carried out multilateral observations and, in particular, surpassed the Challenger expedition in determining the temperature and specific gravity of deep water.

The Vityaz spent more than a year in the Far East, making several voyages in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean, during which regions were explored that had not yet been visited by any oceanographic vessel. The Vityaz returned to the Baltic through the Indian Ocean, the Red and Mediterranean Seas. The entire voyage took 993 days.

At the end of the voyage, Makarov carefully processed the vast material of observations on the Vityaz. In addition, he studied and analyzed the ship's logs of all round-the-world voyages, not only Russian, but also foreign ships. Stepan Osipovich compiled maps of warm and cold currents and special tables of temperature and water density distribution at different depths. He made generalizations that reveal the patterns of natural processes in the oceans as a whole. So, he first came to the conclusion that surface currents in all the seas of the northern hemisphere have, as a rule, circular rotation and are directed counterclockwise; in the southern hemisphere, currents move clockwise. Makarov correctly pointed out that the reason for this is the deflecting force of the Earth's rotation around its axis (the "Coriolis law", according to which all bodies deviate to the right in the northern hemisphere, and to the left in the southern hemisphere).

The results of Makarov's research amounted to the capital work "Vityaz" and the Pacific Ocean. This work was awarded the Prize of the Academy of Sciences and the big gold medal of the Russian Geographical Society.

In 1895-1896. Makarov, already commanding a squadron, again sailed in the Far East and, as before, carried out scientific observations. Here he came to the conclusion about the need for the fastest development of the Northern Sea Route. This path, said Stepan Osipovich, “will bring to life the now dormant North of Siberia” and will connect the center of the country with the Far East as the shortest, and at the same time safe, sea road far from foreign possessions. Returning to St. Petersburg, Makarov turned to the government with a project to build a powerful icebreaker to explore the Arctic, but stupid tsarist officials opposed him in every possible way. Then the scientist made a presentation at the Geographical Society, in which he convincingly proved that "no country is interested in icebreakers as much as Russia." The most prominent scientists, including P. P. Semenov-Tyan-Shansky and D. I. Mendeleev, strongly supported Makarov’s project, and in October 1898 the world’s first powerful icebreaker Ermak, built according to Makarov’s drawings in Newcastle (England ) was launched.

In the summer of 1899, Yermak, under the command of Makarov, made the first Arctic voyage. He penetrated to the north of Spitsbergen and carried out research in the Arctic Ocean.

New glory was brought to Yermak by the rescue of the battleship General-Admiral Apraksin, which ran into stones off the island of Gotland during a snow storm. During this operation, the great invention of A. S. Popov, radio, was first used.

In 1904, the Russo-Japanese War began. Vice-Admiral Makarov was appointed commander of the Pacific Fleet, whose actions, due to the indecision of Makarov's mediocre predecessors, were limited to the passive defense of Port Arthur. In an effort to make a turning point in the course of hostilities, Makarov embarks on active operations, personally leading the military campaigns of ship formations. March 31, 1904 the battleship Petropavlovsk, on which Stepan Osipovich was returning after repulsing another attack by Japanese ships on Port Arthur, was blown up by a mine. The battleship, which sank within a few minutes, became the grave of this remarkable man.

Makarov's research in the Bosporus marked the beginning of the study of the Black Sea. In this sea in 1890-1891. The expedition was headed by Professor of the Naval Academy Iosif Bernardovich Spindler. The expedition found that in the Black Sea to a depth of 200 m water has a lower salinity than in the underlying layers, and at a depth of more than 200 m there is no oxygen and hydrogen sulfide is formed. In the central part of the sea, researchers have found depths up to 2000 m.

In 1897, Spindler's expedition explored the Caspian bay of Kara-Bogaz-Gol and found mirabilite in it, a valuable chemical raw material.

In 1898, the Murmansk Scientific and Fishing Expedition began its work. She studied the possibilities of developing fisheries in the Barents Sea. This expedition, which worked on the scientific fishing vessel "Andrey the First-Called", was headed by Professor, later Honorary Academician Nikolai Mikhailovich Knipovich. He was vice-president of the International Council for the Study of the Seas, established in 1898, for marine fisheries and the development of measures to protect the natural resources of the sea from predatory extermination.

The Murmansk expedition worked until 1906. It carried out a detailed oceanographic study of the Barents Sea and, in particular, compiled the first map of the currents of this sea.

The First World War of 1914 suspended the exploration of our seas. They resumed already under Soviet rule, when they assumed a systematic character and unprecedented scope.

Geographical discoveries of Russian travelers
XVIII-XIX centuries

Eighteenth century. The Russian Empire unfolds its shoulders broadly and freely and turns its gaze to the east, where everything is wild and free for thousands of kilometers, where wild tribes and entire peoples live among nature and where great forces are hidden underground. Who will awaken these forces? For whom are untold riches prepared? For whom are these expanses, this earth, this sky and these waters, to which there is no end and edge? Why, where did Shelikhov, Rezanov, Kuskov, Baranov and, together with them, thousands of unknown pioneers go? How did these people live, what was their feat for? What drives a person from his familiar place? What does he imagine beyond the horizon, where watery clouds envelop black rocks and where the freezing ocean is so majestically deserted?

1757
Sailor Bashmakov visited the Rat Islands.

1758 - 1759
The project (unrealized) of the Irkutsk merchant Bechevin sailing from Okhotsk to Kamchatka and around the Chukotsky Nose to the river. Lena.

1759
M. V. Lomonosov delivered a speech “Discourse on the great accuracy of the sea route”.

1759 - 1762
Yarensky townsman Stepan Glotov visited the islands of Umnak and Unalashka and put them on the map.

1760
Lieutenant Colonel F. Kh. Plenisner was appointed chief commander of the Anadyr Territory.

1760 - 1764
The Selenginsky merchant Andrian Tolstykh explored the islands, which later received his name.

1761
The ship of the merchant Bechevin reached the Alaska Peninsula and wintered in the Isanak Strait.

1762 - 1763
Stepan Glotov visited Fr. Kodiak.

1762
The first (unsuccessful) voyage of I. Sindt to the shores of North America.

1763
M. V. Lomonosov presented Catherine II with a “Brief description of various travels in the northern seas and an indication of a possible passage by the Siberian Ocean to East India”, presented “Thoughts about the origin of ice mountains in the northern seas” to the Swedish Academy of Sciences. The first campaign of Sergeant Andreev from Nizhnekolymsk to the Bear Islands.

1764 - 1767
Expedition of I. Sindt from Okhotsk to the Bering Strait. In the navigation of 1766 on the galliot “St. Ekaterina, she managed to get close to the American coast in the Bering Strait area. Open. Matthew (1766).

1764 - 1765
Journey of N. Daurkin in the Chukotka Peninsula. I visited about. St. Lawrence and visited the Kolyuchinskaya Bay.

Early 60s of the XVIII century.
Olonchan Savva Loshkin circumnavigated Novaya Zemlya for the first time in two navigations.

1765 - 1766
Sailing of the first high-latitude expedition to find the Northeast Sea Passage from Svalbard to the Bering Strait under the command of V. Ya. Chichagov.

1764 - 1771
Secret Russian expedition for the inventory and position on maps of the American territories of Russia and the ridge of the Aleutian Islands under the command of Levashov and Krenitsyn.

1766
The Veliky Ustyug merchant Vasily Shilov presented Catherine II with a map he had compiled of the Aleutian Islands up to about. Amki (Andrianovsky Islands). Yakov Chirakin passed through the Matochkin Shar strait from west to east up to the Kara Sea and drew up a plan of the strait.

1768
Tallow fishing and herring trading were confiscated from Shuvalov's company and transferred to the ownership of the Arkhangelsk merchant class.

1773 - 1779
The navigator Potap Zaikov sailed to the Aleutian Islands and gave their first map close to reality.

1778 - 1779
The expedition of the East India Company, headed by D. Cook, visited the coast of Russian America (Alaska), passed through the Bering Strait to the north and visited Kamchatka.

1803 - 1853
The ships of the Russian sailing fleet completed sixty round-the-world voyages.

1804
On about. Sitkha founded Novoarkhangelsk - the residence of the main ruler of Russian possessions in North America.

1821
The expedition of the Russian-American company on the brig "Golovin" under the command of Khromchenko described the northwestern coast of Alaska. The Russian government has banned the navigation of foreign ships in the Pacific Ocean north of 51 "N.

1838
The expedition of the Russian-American company on the brig "Polifem" under the command of Kashevarov made an inventory of the northern coast of Alaska from Cape Lisburn to Cape Barrow.

1840
Etolin on the brig of the Russian-American company "Chichagov" undertook a voyage from Novoarkhangelsk to the Bering Strait and the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

1842 - 1844
Lieutenant L. A. Zagoskin examined the basins of the river in Alaska. Kvihpak (Yukon) and Kuskokwim and compiled a "pedestrian inventory" of a significant part of Russian America.

1867
The tsarist government sold to the United States the possessions of the Russian-American Company - Alaska and the Aleutian Islands.

Geographical discoveries of the era of Peter $I$

The end of the $17th century was marked by the entry of Russian explorers and scientists to the Pacific Ocean, the discovery of Chukotka, and the description of the shores of Kamchatka.

In Russia, the end of the 17th century was marked by the accession to the throne of Tsar Peter $I$. The end of $XVII$ and the beginning of $XVIII$ centuries in Russia is called "Petrine times" or " the era of Peter I". These times were marked by a radical restructuring and breaking of the old stereotypes and ways of public life, economy, domestic and foreign policy of Russia.

Peter $I$ sought to create a powerful state with, as they would say now, a competitive economy independent of foreign suppliers. The development of production required a lot of raw materials. By order of the tsar, a number of expeditions were equipped to study the nature and minerals of the European part of Russia (especially the northern regions). The Corps of Military Topographers was created. Work began to refine and systematize the maps of the "Russian State". The positions of the Russians in Siberia and the Far East were strengthened. The "Nerchinsk Peace" made it possible to clarify the border between Russia and China. In $1701$, S. U. Remezov published the first domestic atlas - "The Drawing Book of Siberia". The most important achievement of geographical research of the “Petrine times” is the organization of Kamchatka expeditions under the command of Vitus Bering.

The first Kamchatka expedition led by Vitus Bering and Aleksey Chirikov ($1725–$30) opened the strait between Eurasia and North America for the second time, explored the coast of Kamchatka and the Diomede Islands.

The second Kamchatka expedition $1733-43$, headed by V. Bering, entered the history of Russian geographical discoveries under the name of the Great North, sometimes it is called the Siberian-Pacific.

The Commander and Aleutian Islands were discovered, the shores of North America and the Kuril Islands were explored.

In the middle of the $18th century, five detachments carried out a cartographic survey and description of the northern coast of Russia to the east of Arkhangelsk. In $1742, S.I. Chelyuskin reached the extreme northern point of Eurasia and plotted it on the map.

"Lomonosov" period of research

The middle of the 18th century is deservedly called " Lomonosov period of studying Russia". He was the initiator of many areas of study of the nature of Russia. He summarized the material of studies of the nature of the North of Russia, drew up diagrams of the movement of ice, and put forward the idea of ​​the "Northern Sea Route". To do this, he achieved equipment for the secret polar expedition of V. Ya. Chichagov. In addition, Mikhail Vasilievich was the organizer of systematic cartographic and geodetic work for the geographical study of the country. Lomonosov for the first time tried to allocate economic regions on the territory of Russia. Thanks to his initiative, the richest collections of minerals were collected, and exploration of many types of minerals was carried out. In the second half of the $18th century, the Russian Academy of Sciences organized a number of expeditions (they are known as academic) to study the Asian part of the country. The composition of these expeditions included such scientists as:

• P.S. Pallas,
• I.I. Lepekhin,
• S.G. gmelin,
• I.S. Georgi,
• I.P. Falk
• and etc.

Geographical discoveries in Russia in the 19th century

In the $XIX$, the study of the nature of the interior regions of Russia continued by the expeditions of the Academy of Sciences. Expedition A.F. Middendorf explored Central Siberia from Taimyr to Krasnoyarsk. The south of the Far East was studied by G.I. Nevelskoy. He opened the strait between the mainland and Sakhalin, proving that Sakhalin is an island.
The riches of the Urals and Altai were studied.

Remark 1

Some openings were, in fact, "closures". So, for example, "Andreev's Land", "Sannikov's Land" were not discovered.

But at the same time, the New Siberian Islands were discovered, and the system of Arctic currents was studied.

P.P. Semenov-Tyan-Shansky, who headed the Russian Geographical Society for more than $40$, did a lot to study the nature of Russia. V.V. Dokuchaev, A.N. Krasnov, G.I. Tanfiliev studied the soil cover and natural areas of Russia.

The intensification of industrial relations also led to the intensification of geographical research of an applied and economic nature. Few people know that at the end of the 19th century, the work of V. I. Ulyanov was published ( Lenin) "The development of capitalism in Russia". In this work, not only an analysis was given of the development and distribution of production forces, but also a scientifically based economic and geographical zoning of the territory of Russia was carried out.

Modern geographical research

The beginning of the $XX$ century in Russia was marked by wars. At first it was Russian-Japanese, then the first world war, which turned into a civilian one. The revolutionary events of $1905-1907$ and $1917$ were superimposed on the military events. During this period, all research programs were curtailed. Peaceful life and, consequently, economic activity begins to improve only from $20$-s. The industrialization of the $30$s intensified further study of the natural resource potential of the young Land of Soviets. Little-known regions of the Arctic were studied (expeditions of I. D. Papanin and O. Yu. Schmidt).

The expedition of the "Papanintsy" at the "North Pole $1$" station made it possible to study the movement of ice and the climate in the region of the pole.

In the $30$ years O.Yu. Schmidt led the study of the seas of the Arctic Ocean, supervised the work of the Main Northern Sea Route.

The territories of the Urals, the Volga region, Western Siberia, Yakutia, Altai, Sayan, and the Baikal region were surveyed at the same time.

Economic geography developed. Lev Semenovich Berg is considered the founder of economic geography in the USSR. And his textbook was for a long time the best textbook on economic geography.

During the Great Patriotic War, many scientific programs had to be curtailed again. But the results of the pre-war expeditions made it possible to survive the loss of many mineral deposits in the European part of the Soviet Union.

After the end of the war, the attention of scientists was drawn to the possibility of developing fertile virgin lands in order to provide the country's population with food as soon as possible. A program was also adopted for the construction of a network of hydroelectric power plants (to obtain cheap electricity). To protect the European part of the Soviet Union from dry winds from Asia, a system was developed for the construction of protective forest belts and forest massifs. These programs, unfortunately, were not always scientifically substantiated, therefore, in a number of cases, economic losses were incurred. Given such mistakes and miscalculations, since the second half of the XX$ century, geographical science has begun to pay more attention to the environmental aspects of nature management, the consequences of human influence on nature.

Such studies are now playing an important role in the active development of the regions of Siberia, the Far East and the Far North. Aerial and space survey methods are of great help in modern research.

Remark 2

Modern economic geographers pay attention to the study of the distribution of productive forces and resources, the improvement of the economic zoning of the country's territory.

In 1725, the 1st Kamchatka Expedition set off from St. Petersburg. The Russian emperor Peter I appointed Vitus Bering (1681-1741) as its head, instructing him to build ships, go north on these ships and look for where Asia met America. Bering was a native of Denmark, who had been in the Russian naval service for 20 years. As a result of his research, the first accurate maps of the sea and were created.

In 1741, during the second expedition on the ships "St. Peter" and "St. Paul" under the command of captain-commanders Vitus Bering and Alexei Chirikov (1703-1748), the coasts of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands were explored, their nature and population were described.

This voyage marked the beginning of Russian research in. The great merit of A. Chirikov is that he summarized the material collected during the expeditions and compiled exceptionally valuable maps. For the first time in the history of cartography, the northwestern coast of North America and the Aleutian Islands are plotted on them. On the world map you will also find Chirikov Island.

It consisted of five separate detachments that surveyed the northern coast of Asia from 1733 to 1743. Among the participants of one of them were the outstanding Russian pioneers Semyon Chelyuskin (1700-1764), Khariton (1700-1763) and Dmitry (1701-1767) Laptev, Vasily Prdnchishchev (1702-1736). As a result, the rivers flowing into (Ob, Yenisei, Lena, Yana, Indigirka) were explored, and the northernmost point of the mainland, Cape Chelyuskin, was discovered.

The members of the expedition collected and presented material, invaluable for geography, about the tides of the sea, about the nature of the northern region, about the life and way of life of the local population.

Since that time, new geographical names have appeared on the map: the sea, the Dmitry Laptev Strait, Cape Laptev, the coast of Khariton Laptev, Cape Chelyuskin. The eastern coast of the Taimyr Peninsula is named after Vasily Pronchishchev. On the same coast there is a bay that bears the name of Maria Pronchishcheva, the first Russian polar explorer, the wife of a brave explorer.

The first Russian round-the-world trip lasted three years (1803-1806). The expedition circled the globe on the ships "Nadezhda" and "Neva" under the command of Ivan Kruzenshtern and Yuri Lisyansky.

Discovery of Antarctica

The round-the-world Antarctic voyage of Thaddeus Bellingshausen (1778-1852) and Mikhail Lazarev (1788-1851) on the ships Vostok and Mirny in 1819-1821 is a great feat, and their discovery on January 28, 1820 of a new continent - Antarctica - is the most important event.

Since ancient times, the area around the South Pole has been designated by cartographers as dry land. Sailors who were attracted by "Terra australis incognita" (unknown southern land), making sea voyages in search of it, and the chain of islands, but remained a "blank spot".

The famous English navigator (1728-1779) in 1772-1775 several times crossed the boundary of the Antarctic Circle, discovered islands in the Antarctic waters, but never found the southern polar continent.

“I went around the ocean of the Southern Hemisphere,” Cook wrote in his report, at high latitudes and did it in such a way that he undeniably rejected the possibility of the existence of the mainland ... “However, it was he who said that, judging by the great cold, the huge number of ice islands and floating ice , land in the south should be.

The members of the expedition of Bellingshausen and Lazarev conducted meteorological observations of winds, precipitation, and thunderstorms. Based on these data, Bellingshausen drew a conclusion about the features of the Antarctic climate. The cartographic material of the researchers was distinguished by its accuracy. This was later confirmed by many travelers.

New geographical names appeared on the world map: the Bellingshausen Sea, Peter I Island, Lazarev Island, the Mirny polar station and others.