Very little documentary evidence has been preserved about the very first explorers of the 17th century. But already from the middle of this “golden age” of Russian colonization of Siberia, “expedition leaders” compiled detailed “skasks” (that is, descriptions), a kind of reports about the routes taken, the open lands and the peoples inhabiting them. Thanks to these “skasks,” the country knows its heroes and the main geographical discoveries they made.

Chronological list of Russian explorers and their geographical discoveries in Siberia and the Far East

Fedor Kurbsky

In our historical consciousness, the first “conqueror” of Siberia is, of course, Ermak. It became a symbol of the Russian breakthrough into the eastern expanses. But it turns out that Ermak was not the first. 100 (!) years before Ermak, Moscow governors Fyodor Kurbsky and Ivan Saltykov-Travin penetrated into the same lands with troops. They followed a path that was well known to the Novgorod “guests” and industrialists.

In general, the entire Russian north, the Subpolar Urals and the lower reaches of the Ob were considered the Novgorod patrimony, from where enterprising Novgorodians “pumped” precious junk for centuries. And the local peoples were formally considered Novgorod vassals. Control over the untold wealth of the Northern Territories was the economic rationale for the military capture of Novgorod by Moscow. After the conquest of Novgorod by Ivan III in 1477, not only the entire North, but also the so-called Ugra land went to the Moscow principality.

The dots show the northern route along which the Russians walked to Ermak

In the spring of 1483, the army of Prince Fyodor Kurbsky climbed the Vishera, crossed the Ural Mountains, went down the Tavda, where they defeated the troops of the Pelym Principality - one of the largest Mansi tribal associations in the Tavda River basin. Having walked further to Tobol, Kurbsky found himself in the “Siberian Land” - that was the name then of a small territory in the lower reaches of Tobol, where the Ugric tribe “Sypyr” had long lived. From here the Russian army marched along the Irtysh to the middle Ob, where the Ugric princes successfully “fought”. Having collected a large yasak, the Moscow detachment turned back, and on October 1, 1483, Kurbsky’s squad returned to their homeland, having covered about 4.5 thousand kilometers during the campaign.

The results of the campaign were the recognition in 1484 by the “princes” of Western Siberia of dependence on the Grand Duchy of Moscow and the annual payment of tribute. Therefore, starting from Ivan III, the titles of the Grand Dukes of Moscow (later transferred to the royal title) included the words “ Grand Duke of Yugorsk, Prince of Udorsky, Obdorsky and Kondinsky.

Vasily Suk And n

He founded the city of Tyumen in 1586. On his initiative, the city of Tobolsk was founded (1587). Ivan Suk And n was not a pioneer. He was a high-ranking Moscow official, a governor, sent with a military detachment to help Ermakov’s army to “finish off” Khan Kuchum. He laid the foundation for the capital arrangement of Russians in Siberia.

Cossack Penda

Discoverer of the Lena River. Mangazeya and Turukhansk Cossack, legendary personality. He set out with a detachment of 40 people from Mangazeya (a fortified fort and the most important trading point for Russians in Northwestern Siberia (1600-1619) on the Taz River). This man made an unprecedented trek of thousands of miles through completely wild places in terms of his determination. Legends about Penda were passed down from mouth to mouth among the Mangazeya and Turukhansk Cossacks and fishermen, and reached historians in almost their original form.

Penda and like-minded people climbed the Yenisei from Turukhansk to Nizhnyaya Tunguska, then walked for three years to its upper reaches. I reached the Chechuysky portage, where the Lena comes almost close to the Lower Tunguska. So what is next, having crossed the portage, he sailed along the Lena River down to the place where the city of Yakutsk was later built: from where he continued his journey along the same river to the mouth of the Kulenga, then along the Buryat steppe to the Angara, where, having boarded the ships, he arrived again in Turukhansk through Yeniseisk».

Petr Beketov

Sovereign serviceman, governor, explorer of Siberia. The founder of a number of Siberian cities, such as Yakutsk, Chita, Nerchinsk. He came to Siberia voluntarily (he asked to go to the Yenisei prison, where he was appointed rifle centurion in 1627). Already in 1628-1629 he took part in the campaigns of Yenisei servicemen up the Angara. He walked a lot along the tributaries of the Lena, collected yasak, and brought the local population into submission to Moscow. He founded several sovereign forts on the Yenisei, Lena and Transbaikalia.

Ivan Moskvitin

He was the first European to reach the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. I was the first to visit Sakhalin. Moskvitin began his service in 1626 as an ordinary Cossack in the Tomsk prison. He probably took part in the campaigns of Ataman Dmitry Kopylov to the south of Siberia. In the spring of 1639, he set out from Yakutsk to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk with a detachment of 39 servicemen. The goal was the usual - “the search for new lands” and new unclear (that is, not yet subject to tribute) people. Moskvitin’s detachment descended along the Aldan to the Mai River and They walked up May for seven weeks, from Maya to the portage by a small river they walked for six days, they walked for one day and reached the Ulya River, they walked down the Ulya river for eight days, then they made a boat and sailed to the sea for five days..

Results of the campaign: The coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk for 1300 km, Udskaya Bay, Sakhalin Bay, Amur Estuary, the mouth of the Amur and Sakhalin Island were discovered and surveyed. In addition, they brought with them to Yakutsk a large booty in the form of a fur tribute.

Ivan Stadukhin

Discoverer of the Kolyma River. Founded the Nizhnekolymsk fort. He explored the Chukotka Peninsula and was the first to enter the north of Kamchatka. He walked along the coast on Kochs and described one and a half thousand kilometers of the northern part of the Sea of ​​​​Okhotsk. He kept records of his “circular” journey, described and drew up a drawing map of the places he visited in Yakutia and Chukotka.

Semyon Dezhnev

Cossack ataman, explorer, traveler, sailor, explorer of Northern and Eastern Siberia, as well as a fur trader. Participated in the discovery of Kolyma as part of Ivan Stadukhin’s detachment. From Kolyma, on Kochs, he traveled along the Arctic Ocean along the northern coast of Chukotka. 80 years before Vitus Bering, the first European in 1648 passed the (Bering) Strait separating Chukotka and Alaska. (It is noteworthy that V. Bering himself did not manage to pass the entire strait, but had to limit himself to only its southern part!

Vasily Poyarkov

Russian explorer, Cossack, explorer of Siberia and the Far East. Discoverer of the Middle and Lower Amur. In 1643, 46 led a detachment that was the first Russian to penetrate the Amur River basin and discovered the Zeya River and the Zeya Plain. Collected valuable information about the nature and population of the Amur region

1649-1653

Erofey Khabarov

A Russian industrialist and entrepreneur, he traded furs in Mangazeya, then moved to the upper reaches of the Lena River, where from 1632 he was engaged in buying furs. In 1639 he discovered salt springs on the Kut River and built a brewery, and then contributed to the development of agriculture there.

In 1649-53, with a detachment of eager people, he made a trip along the Amur from the confluence of the Urka River into it to the very lower reaches. As a result of his expedition, the Amur indigenous population accepted Russian citizenship. He often acted by force, which left him with a bad reputation among the indigenous population. Khabarov compiled “Drawing on the Amur River.” The Khabarovka military post founded in 1858 (since 1893 - the city of Khabarovsk) and the Erofey Pavlovich railway station (1909) are named after Khabarov.

Vladimir Atlasov

Cossack Pentecostal, clerk of the Anadyr prison, “an experienced polar explorer,” as they would say now. Kamchatka was, one might say, his goal and dream. The Russians already knew about the existence of this peninsula, but none of them had yet penetrated the territory of Kamchatka. Atlasov, using borrowed money and at his own risk, organized an expedition to explore Kamchatka at the beginning of 1697. Having taken into the detachment the experienced Cossack Luka Morozko, who had already been to the north of the peninsula, he set out from the Anadyr fort to the south. The purpose of the campaign was traditional - furs and the annexation of new “unknown” lands to the Russian state.

Atlasov was not the discoverer of Kamchatka, but he was the first Russian to walk almost the entire peninsula from north to south and from west to east. He compiled a detailed story and map of his journey. His report contained detailed information about the climate, flora and fauna, as well as the amazing springs of the peninsula. He managed to persuade a significant part of the local population to come under the rule of the Moscow Tsar.

For the annexation of Kamchatka to Russia, Vladimir Atlasov, by decision of the government, was appointed clerk there. The campaigns of V. Atlasov and L. Morozko (1696-1699) were of great practical importance. These people discovered and annexed Kamchatka to the Russian state and laid the foundation for its development. The government of the country, represented by Sovereign Pyotr Alekseevich, already then understood the strategic importance of Kamchatka for the country and took measures to develop it and consolidate it on these lands.

Russian travelers and pioneers

Again travelers of the era of great geographical discoveries

In the House of Russian Abroad. Alexandra Solzhenitsyna, Doctor of Philology, Professor, Head of the School of Philology, Faculty of Humanities, National Research University Higher School of Economics Elena Penskaya gave a lecture on the origins of tourism. She talked about the mysterious fish for which travelers went to foreign lands, and also explained how the Romans struggled with “fatigue from eating.”

At what point does a tourist become a traveler? No matter what different names are called - Afanasy Nikitin, Bartolomé de las Casas or Rudyard Kipling - they all have one thing in common: travelers had to look for and create a new language for the things and realities that they encountered. The one who describes his travels is always a pioneer and discoverer. The same thing happens to the modern traveler, who seems doomed due to the virtual habitability of cultural, geographical and historical spaces. The question remains unchanged - why? Why see Paris or Rome? What's the difference between Moscow, Baltimore or Grenoble? These are discussions about “strangers” and “ours”, about the important ability to see someone else’s world anew, to discover it for oneself.

After the death of the English-language writer and journalist Shiva Naipaul, The Spectator magazine, for which he wrote, established an award in his name for the best travelogue (travel literature). Naipaul gave a very precise definition of travel: “Travel is one of the ultimate forms of self-denial. An attempt to escape from what you are, to doubt the knowledge, understanding, images written in you - into the unknown. Into unknown self-renewal. Yes, we create our own journey, but in a more prosaic sense we are consumers - of civilizations, symbols, meanings and, first of all, a myriad of freedoms, without which there can be no true journey.”

Where and how did tourism come from?

Tourism as we understand it today first arose in Ancient Rome. Its foundation was laid several centuries earlier, during the era of the conquests of Alexander the Great.

For tourism to emerge, certain prerequisites were needed. Firstly, this is at least one common language in which people from different lands can speak. Secondly, a universal form of payment, that is, mutually convertible material assets. In the Hellenistic era, the lingua franca - the common Greek language (koine) - was first formed, and silver Greek coins turned into currency, circulating in all ports and most cities from the eastern borders of Afghanistan to the western Libyan oases.

During two centuries of expansion (relatively 2nd-1st centuries BC), the Roman Empire expanded and deepened the sphere of universalism. Conquering lands in the west and north of the European continent, Rome made the Latin language commonly used in everything related to government affairs, trade and the arts. After conquering the Hellenistic empires in the east, Rome added Latin and koine as a second common language. Both languages ​​existed on equal terms. Roman coins were in circulation at the same time as Greek coins. Both of them were in circulation throughout the lands of modern Western and Central Europe, right up to the British Isles in the west and Teutonic settlements in the north.

Statue of Mercury, the Roman god of travelers. Photo: Christopher Furlong

A third universal factor was also necessary - Roman law, uniform for all, which protected the foreigner from the arbitrariness of local authorities and the vagaries of tradition. Judging by the surviving information, the Roman legions, local prefects, and the fleet that patrolled the main waterways provided an extremely high level of security.

Finally, in order to travel, roads were necessary. Everywhere where the Roman legionary set foot, roads were built, and over time, a network of roads covered most of the gigantic empire. With roads came new vehicles.

Among other important milestones of the Roman period, the emergence of historical and cultural tourism should be noted. Although the title of “father of history” belongs to Herodotus, neither the ancient Greeks, nor the Egyptians, nor the Jews had a historical consciousness. Their perception of the past was thoroughly mythological, and in the case of the Jews, apparently theological. As for the Romans, neither the power of the legions, nor the imperial peace and prosperity, nor the flourishing of technology, nor the wonderful drama and theater could rid their daughter civilization of the complex of cultural inferiority in relation to the mother Greek - the ideal always remained in the past, in the Golden Age of Athens.

Like the French language for the Russian nobles, the Greek language was considered in Rome appropriate for philosophy, literature, theater, debates and conversations “about the intelligent,” therefore, only by making a pilgrimage to Greece could an educated Roman cling to the roots of the bygone greatness of his culture; Only the recognition of Roman wisdom by Greek philosophers ensured his status in his fatherland. This is how the concept of the “past” was formed, which was destined to play a critical role in the development of all subsequent Western civilizations and world tourism.

Improve your health

At all times, people have been driven to tourism not so much by cultural or spiritual needs as by physiological ones: to improve their health, to try something unusual. Our culture keeps these physiological realities in a dark closet, where all the “obscene” features of modern civilization are dumped.

Meanwhile, judging by the surviving historical information, it is medical travel that should be considered the oldest form of world tourism. Since time immemorial, the Greeks have traveled to the temples of the god Asclepius to get rid of ailments. But the Romans, having introduced Asclepius into their pantheon and built many new temples to the healing god on the Apennine Peninsula, made medical tourism widespread.

Now people came to Asclepius for help not only from Greek cities, but also from distant Apennine and Iberian regions, from Egypt and Dacia, from Marseille and Antioch. Three temples were especially popular: on the island of Kos (according to legend, Hippocrates practiced here), the ancient temple of the healer god in Epidarus, and the Pergamon temple (on the Asia Minor coast of the Aegean Sea), where the great physician Galen treated in the middle of the 2nd century AD.

Roman tourists

Nowadays, ancient Rome would be considered an advanced city: all types of transport were moved outside the city limits. There was also a “station” where the future tourist chose a convenient mode of transport. The rich hired palanquins; the middle class received a simple chariot (birota); large families and groups of people pooled together to take the cart (raeda). The journey along Via Domitiana to the Bay of Naples took four days, and although in many places on the planet such a road would still be revered as an engineering miracle, the lack of springs had a painful effect on some parts of the body.

By evening, the foreman of the palanquin porters was looking out for a square-within-a-square road sign - the equivalent of today's luxury hotel. Passengers birota and raeda wondered whether there would be free seats under the sign of two triangles - this was how a stone building without amenities was designated, but with a fireplace and servants who carried luggage, prepared dinner, and took horses to water. Finally, the triangle above the square is a roadside shack with a toilet in the yard. Even the cheapest option for a four-day journey cost a decent amount - people said that it would be better to become a gladiator than to pay such exorbitant money. However, the poor could be consoled by the thought that bedbugs do not recognize property qualifications.

Closer to Bayeux, the wind began to intoxicate with the smell of the sea. Travelers forgot about expenses and gazed lustfully at the marble villas on the slopes along the coast. Everyone stayed in the city: the resort was famous for its special oysters.

After villas and restaurants, in honorable third place in popularity in Bayeux were establishments that combined hotel services with gambling and - in a very specific sense - public. Golden youth flocked to these places. Older people went to the lake, where floating brothels opened at moonrise, or to the stadium for a gladiatorial battle. Since the time of Nero, fights with the participation of girls from good families have become fashionable, and all of Rome came to root for their own.

It is difficult to say why the desire to relax incites a brutal appetite in people, but the fact remains: a buffet was an indispensable attribute of all ancient Roman resorts. We drank a little, since social life began very early. At the same time, in the 2nd century AD, a curious ritual developed : vacationers walked from villa to villa to admire the pet fish.

A pilgrimage to Greece, even for very rich Romans, cost approximately the amount of a year's income. Where did the resorts come from? Unknown. The oldest texts, as in the Roman case, describe an already established, developed structure.

Traveler Genealogy

Genealogically, modern tourists go back to medieval pilgrims. In the closed world of the village, where everything is in sight, a medieval person, in the precise words of an English historian, “had no legitimate reasons to leave home, except for pilgrimage,” and the reasons for traveling had to be serious, compelling for the family and community.

The cost of such an undertaking was unaffordable for an ordinary person, and preparations for the journey began with the search for a sponsor. For a craftsman, this could be a guild; a pious parishioner whose illnesses and misfortunes required God's intervention was helped by the local church. Often the sponsor was a village rich man who hired a walker to secure the blessing of a saint or to acquire a particularly valuable indulgence or relic.

The pilgrim’s chances of returning home were, perhaps, less than burning on the way from fever, cholera and other countless diseases, falling from an arrow or flail, drowning in a shipwreck, being captured by pirates, becoming a victim of the masses of swindlers and thieves who fed from the pilgrimage highways. and prostitutes. In short, the risk was too great for a person to give in to the impulse to simply see the world. Who joined the pilgrim stream can be recognized from the wonderful stories of Geoffrey Chaucer and the ballads of Francois Villon. The safest and therefore most popular among pilgrims was the town on the northwestern tip of Spain, Santiago de Compostella, where, according to legend, the remains of St. James rest.

There were guidebooks for pilgrims, one of which I held in my hands. This is a unique five-volume treatise of the 12th century, Liber Sancti Jacobi. He provided the pilgrim with the necessary information - from a list of inns to recommended prayers and practical advice for every day.

In each country there were well-known gathering points, from where pilgrims headed to the main pan-European center - the Parisian Church of St. James (St. Jacques). They left Paris in large groups: the more numerous, the safer. And in Spain, where the most important shrine of the Christian world was kept, a royal meeting awaited the pilgrim. From the southern spurs of the Pyrenees to Compostella, the El Camino de Santiago road was served by specially built inns, kitchens, and laundresses at the monasteries. Robbery or even simply offending a pilgrim was considered a crime here.

"Godfather" of travelers

The linguistic godfather who gave us a whole range of travel-related terms was Stendhal. Almost two centuries ago, he observed foreigners in Italy, and it was he who came up with this word - “tourists”. When Stendhal picked it up, he envisioned a parody of a connoisseur, an esthete who devoted his life to the service of beauty. The tourist preferred the “idea” of the picture to the contemplation of it; he littered left and right with ignorant opinions and was in a hurry to see everything indiscriminately.

The concept came in handy. Fifty years later, thanks to two revolutions in transport (steamships, railways), it was no longer thousands of restless or bored scions of the best families who traveled, but tens of thousands of members of the new ruling class, the bourgeoisie. Ridiculed by Mark Twain and Wilde, the English, American, and French Poshekhonians at first imitated in everything the traditions of the aristocratic Grand Tour (this is how the British, with a light hand, called a set of foreign impressions obligatory for a gentleman).

The next gateway is opened by progressive social legislation. The introduction of paid vacations and holidays made travel accessible to hundreds of thousands of people. This is how tourism turned into an industry.

Tourist or traveler?

Any trip can become an excursion or a journey, with the same soil under your feet, the same stars above your head. The stakes rise sharply when it comes to the tourism business, and soar into the stratosphere if we take into account that the wandering subject (he is also a tourist in one form and a traveler in another) today represents the only guarantor of the preservation of the past, be it Aztec temples or “ the all-human hills of Tuscany." Both aspects are interconnected: the traveler makes a long-term economic and cultural contribution to a new place at a percentage, the value of which is ensured by the turnover of tourist cash.

Recorded by Vladimir Paramonov