Ivan Mikhaylovich Yevreinov (; 1694 – 3 February O.S. 1724) was a Russian geodesist and explorer. Ivan Yevreinov was born in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, then brought to Russia and baptized into

Orthodox Christianity Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pag ...

. Ivan Yevreinov was first a student at the Moscow School of Mathematics and Navigation (from 1714) and then in a

geodesic In geometry, a geodesic () is a curve representing in some sense the locally shortest path ( arc) between two points in a surface, or more generally in a Riemannian manifold. The term also has meaning in any differentiable manifold with a conn ...

class of the ''Naval Academy'' in St. Petersburg. In 1719, Ivan Yevreinov was sent to

Kamchatka The Kamchatka Peninsula (, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and western coastlines, respectively. Immediately offshore along the Pacific ...

and

Kuril Islands The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands are a volcanic archipelago administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the Russian Far East. The islands stretch approximately northeast from Hokkaido in Japan to Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, separating the ...

by the order of

Peter the Great Peter I (, ; – ), better known as Peter the Great, was the Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Prince of all Russia, Tsar of all Russia from 1682 and the first Emperor of Russia, Emperor of all Russia from 1721 until his death in 1725. He reigned j ...

to secretly perform

cartography Cartography (; from , 'papyrus, sheet of paper, map'; and , 'write') is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an imagined reality) can ...

together with

Fyodor Luzhin Fyodor Fyodorovich Luzhin (Russian: ''Федор Федорович Лужин'') (died 1727) was a Russian geodesist and cartographer. Fyodor Luzhin was first a student at the School for Mathematical and Navigational Sciences in Moscow and then ...

and find if

America The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

are joined. In 1720, he reached

Okhotsk Okhotsk ( rus, Охотск, p=ɐˈxotsk) is an urban locality (a work settlement) and the administrative center of Okhotsky District of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia, located at the mouth of the Okhota River on the Sea of Okhotsk. Population: ...

by land (through

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

), then on a small ship ''Vostok'' he reached

, then by land traveled to Nizhnekamchatsk (and was the first to measure geographical coordinates of this place). He returned to the ship, mapped the shores of Kamchatka, then sailed to the south along

(was first to map sixteen of Kuril Islands) down to

Hokkaidō is the second-largest island of Japan and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by railway via the Seikan Tunnel. The ...

. On the Kuril Islands they collected taxes from the local population, then through Kamchatka,

and

Yakutsk Yakutsk ( ) is the capital and largest city of Sakha, Russia, located about south of the Arctic Circle. Fueled by the mining industry, Yakutsk has become one of Russia's most rapidly growing regional cities, with a population of 355,443 at the ...

they returned to

Tobolsk Tobolsk (, ) is a town in Tyumen Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Tobol and Irtysh rivers. Founded in 1587, Tobolsk is the second-oldest Russian settlement east of the Ural Mountains in Asian Russia, and was the historic capita ...

and finally to

Kazan Kazan; , IPA: Help:IPA/Tatar, ɑzanis the largest city and capital city, capital of Tatarstan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Kazanka (river), Kazanka Rivers, covering an area of , with a population of over 1. ...

, there Ivan reported about his findings to Peter the Great. Ivan Evreinov was not able to answer whether America and Asia are connected by land, but he was first to make accurate mapping of Kamchatka, Kuril Islands and Russian Pacific Coast, before him even coordinates of local forts and villages were not known. Since 1723 he worked on mapping Khlynov and surroundings and died there. Name of Evreinov is given to a Mountain and a Peninsula on

Okhotsk Sea The Sea of Okhotsk; Historically also known as , or as ; ) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It is located between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, Japan's island of Hokkaido on the south, ...

and one of the straits between Kuril Islands.

External links

Biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yevreinov, Ivan 1694 births Explorers from the Tsardom of Russia 18th-century explorers from the Russian Empire Explorers of Asia Geodesists from the Russian Empire 1724 deaths