Vladimir Vasilyevich Atlasov or Otlasov ( or Отла́сов; – 1711) was a

Siberian Cossack Siberian Cossacks were Cossacks who settled in the Siberian region of Russia from the end of the 16th century, following Yermak Timofeyevich's conquest of Siberia. In early periods, practically the whole Russian population in Siberia, especiall ...

who was the first Russian to organize systematic exploration of the

Kamchatka Peninsula 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 ...

Atlasov Island Atlasov Island, known in Russian as Ostrov Atlasova (Остров Атласова), or in Japanese as Araido (阿頼度島), is the northernmost island and volcano and also the highest volcano of the Kuril Islands, part of the Sakhalin Oblast ...

, an uninhabited volcanic island off the southern tip of Kamchatka, and the Atlasova volcano are named after him.

Biography

Atlasov was born in

Veliky Ustyug Veliky Ustyug () is a town in Vologda Oblast, Russia, located in the northeast of the oblast at the confluence of the Sukhona and Yug Rivers. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 31,665. Veliky Ustyug has a great historical signific ...

. The first mention of him in the historical records comes from around 1682, when he was collecting the ''

yasak ''Yasak'' or ''yasaq'', sometimes ''iasak'', (; akin to Yassa) is a Turkic word for "tribute" that was used in Imperial Russia to designate fur tribute exacted from the indigenous peoples of Siberia. Origin The origins of yasak can be trace ...

'' on the

Aldan River The Aldan ( Sakha and ) is the second-longest right tributary of the Lena in the Sakha Republic in eastern Siberia.Uda rivers. In 1695, the

voyevoda Voivode ( ), also spelled voivod, voievod or voevod and also known as vaivode ( ), voivoda, vojvoda, vaivada or wojewoda, is a title denoting a military leader or warlord in Central, Southeastern and Eastern Europe in use since the Early Mid ...

of Yakutsk appointed Atlasov as the '' prikazshchik'' of

Anadyrsk Anadyrsk was an important Russian ostrog (fortified settlement) in far northeastern Siberia from 1649 to 1764. It was on the Anadyr River, near the head of small-boat navigation, about 300 miles upstream, 12 miles northeast of the present Marko ...

. The Russians here had heard reports of a 'Kamchatka River' to the south and were already collecting yasak on the headwaters of the rivers that flow south toward Kamchatka. At least one of them had followed the Penzhina River to the

Sea of Okhotsk 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 sou ...

. In 1696, he sent Luka Morozko south to explore. Morozko got as far south as the Tegil river on the west side of the peninsula and returned with some 'mysterious writings', apparently from a wrecked Japanese ship. In 1697, Atlasov set off south with 65 serving-men and 60

Yukaghir The Yukaghirs, or Yukagirs ( (), ), are a Siberian ethnic group in the Russian Far East, living in the basin of the Kolyma River. Geographic distribution The Tundra Yukaghirs live in the Lower Kolyma region in the Sakha Republic; the Taiga Y ...

s. Travelling on

reindeer The reindeer or caribou (''Rangifer tarandus'') is a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, native to Arctic, subarctic, tundra, taiga, boreal, and mountainous regions of Northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. It is the only re ...

, they reached the

mouth A mouth also referred to as the oral is the body orifice through which many animals ingest food and animal communication#Auditory, vocalize. The body cavity immediately behind the mouth opening, known as the oral cavity (or in Latin), is also t ...

of the Penzhina River. He went down the west coast for two weeks and then crossed to the east coast. (Lantzeff has this as February 1697 on the Olyutor Gulf, but the Russian wiki has him leaving in the spring of 1697 and the Olyutor Gulf is rather far to the northeast). He left Morzoko to explore the east side and returned to the west side, but Morozko had to be recalled to deal with a Yukaghir mutiny (at the Palana River). Going south to the Tegil river, he heard reports of the Kamchatka river and recrossed the Central Range to the Kamchatka where he met the

Itelmens The Itelmens (; ) are an Indigenous ethnic group of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. The Itelmen language is distantly related to Chukchi and Koryak, forming the Chukotko-Kamchatkan language family, but it is now virtually extinct, the va ...

for the first time. He made an alliance with one clan and went downriver and burned a village of their enemies. Returning, he learned that some

Koryaks Koryaks () are an Indigenous people#North Asia, Indigenous people of the Russian Far East who live immediately north of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Kamchatka Krai and inhabit the coastlands of the Bering Sea. The cultural borders of the Koryaks i ...

had stolen his reindeer. He chased them, killed about 150 and retrieved his reindeer. Continuing down the west side he reached the Icha River where he rescued or captured a Japanese sailor who had been shipwrecked. Further south he reached the Golygina River area, from which he was able to see

. Here he met the first Ainu and managed to kill fifty of them. Returning north to the Icha, he sent a party of men over the mountains to build an '' ostrog'' at Verkhnekamchatsk on the upper Kamchatka. Here he decided to return to Anadyrsk, either under pressure of his men or because he was running short of gunpowder and lead. He reached Anadyrsk in July 1699 and wrote a report. He reached Yakutsk in June 1700 and in February 1701 reached Moscow where he presented his report. He was promoted to Golova and sent back to administer Kamchatka. On the

Angara River The Angara (; ) or Angar ( мүрэн) is a major river in Siberia, which traces a course through Russia's Irkutsk Oblast and Krasnoyarsk Krai. It drains out of Lake Baikal and is the headwater tributary of the Yenisey. It is long, and has a ...

in 1701 he met and plundered a merchant's boat loaded with Chinese goods. For this he and his men were thrown in jail. Kamchatka became increasingly disorderly and in 1707 Atlasov was released and sent to Kamchatka to restore order. On the journey his methods were so rough that most of his men sent a letter of protest to Yakutsk. He pacified the natives to some degree, but in December 1707 his own cossacks revolted and imprisoned him. He escaped (from Verkhnekamchatsk) and went downriver to Nizhnekamchatsk, but the local commander refused to step aside and give him command. What he did for the next four years is uncertain. In January 1711, he was murdered in his sleep by another band of mutineers.

References

Sources

* *George V. Lantseff and Richard A. Price, 'Eastward to Empire', 1973
Russian historians about Vladimir Atlasov
by N.V. Tolkacheva

Biography

References

Sources

See also