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Vitus Jonassen Bering (also, less correctly, Behring) (August, 1681 - December 19, 1741)
was a Danish-born navigator in the service of Russia, captain-komandor of
the Russian Navy known among the Russian sailors as Ivan Ivanovich.
Bering was born in the town of Horsens. After a voyage to the East Indies, he
joined the Russian Navy in 1703, and
served in the Baltic Fleet during the Great Northern War. In 1710-1712 he served in the Azov Sea Fleet
and took part in the Russo-Turkish war. He married a Russian woman, and in 1715 he made
a brief visit to his hometown, never to see it again. A series of explorations of the north coast of Asia, the outcome of a far-reaching plan devised by Peter the
Great, led up to Bering's first voyage to Kamchatka. In 1725, under the auspices of the Russian government, he went overland
to Okhotsk, crossed to Kamchatka, and built the ship Sviatoi Gavriil
(St. Gabriel). In her he pushed northward in 1728, until he could no longer
observe any extension of the land to the north, or its appearance to the east.
In the following year he made an abortive search for mainland eastward rediscovering one of the Diomede Islands (Ratmanov Island) observed earlier by Dezhnev. In summer of
1730 Bering returned to St. Petersburg. During the long trip through Siberia
along the whole Asian continent he became very ill. Five of his children died during this
trip. Bering was subsequently commissioned to a further expedition, and returned to Okhotsk in 1735. He had the local craftsmen, Makar Rogachev and Andrey Kozmin, build two vessels, Sviatoi Piotr (St.
Peter) and Sviatoi Pavel (St. Paul), in which he sailed off and in 1740 established the settlement of Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka.
From there he led an expedition towards America in 1741. A storm separated the ships, but Bering sighted the southern coast of Alaska, and a landing was made at Kayak Island or in the vicinity. The second ship, under the command of Alexei Chirikov,
discovered the shores of the north-western America (Aleksander Archipelago of present day Alaska). These voyages of Bering and Chirikov were
a major part of the Russian exploration efforts in the North Pacific known today as the .
Bering was forced by adverse conditions to return quickly, and discovered some of the Aleutian Islands on his way back. One of the sailors died and was buried on one of these islands which was
named after him (Shumagin
Island). Bering became too ill to command his ship, which was at last driven to refuge on an uninhabited island in the
Commander Islands group
(Komandorskiye Ostrova) in the SW Bering Sea, where Bering himself and
28 men of his company died. This island bears his name. A storm shipwrecked Sv. Piotr but the only surviving carpenter
S. Starodubtsev with the help of the crew managed to build a smaller vessel out of the wreckage. The new vessel had the keel
length of only 12.2 meters (40 feet) and it was also named Sv. Piotr. Out of 77 men aboard Sv. Piotr only 46
survived the hardships of the expedition which claimed its last victim just one day before coming into homeport. Sv.
Piotr was in service for 12 years sailing between Kamchatka and Okhotsk till
1755. Its builder Starodubtsev returned home with governmental awards and later built
several other seaworthy ships.
It was long before the value of Bering's work was fully recognized; but Captain
Cook was able to prove his accuracy as an observer. Nowadays, the Bering
Strait, the Bering Sea, Bering Island and the Bering Land Bridge
bear the Russian explorer's name.
In August 1991, Bering's grave and the graves of five other seamen were discovered by a Russian-Danish expedition. The remains
were transported to Moscow where they were investigated by the forensic physicians who succeeded in recreating Bering's
appearance. Examination of Bering's teeth showed no sign of scurvy, leading to the conclusion that he died of some other
disease.
See also
References
- 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
- G. F. Müller, Sammlung russischer Geschichten, vol. iii. (St Petersburg, 1758)
- P. Lauridsen, Bering og de Russiske Opdagelsesrejser (Copenhagen, 1885)
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