YAKUTSK, August 4. /TASS/. The expedition the Russian Geographical Society's branch in Yakutia set off on a sailing yacht from the river port in Yakutsk to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a TASS correspondent reported.

The expedition features Captain Andrey Antipin, Chairman of the regional branch Alexander Gorokhov, and member of the Russian Geographical Society Maxim Ivanov.

"Today, we start a sailing expedition from Yakutsk to Tiksi, then Pevek, Anadyr and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. The route is 7,300 km long, which is about 4,000 nautical miles. We dedicate this project to the 300th anniversary of the Vitus Bering expeditions and the 180th anniversary of the Russian Geographical Society, the oldest public association in this country, and to the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory in the Great Patriotic War. We want to draw attention to our great history, its achievements, its global significance, because those expeditions have changed the world map," Alexander Gorokhov said.

 

About the expedition

The expedition participants plan a series of lectures on the great geographical discoveries and the Russian Geographical Society projects; they will meet school students and offer sailing workshops under the Russian Geographical Society's Navigation School educational project. The expedition will collect materials for a documentary about the expedition, will study ethnography of the North's indigenous peoples who have helped the expeditions and acted as guides, and also will assess future of extreme yachting along the Northern Sea Route.

The expedition's main events include a visit to the Bering Island and a memorial ceremony to lay land from Denmark. The land has been delivered from Horsens, Denmark. "We have a project to deliver land from [Vitus] Bering's home town to his grave on the Bering Island of the Commander Islands. We have used popular diplomacy to deliver a capsule with the land, consecrated according to Christian traditions, and we will take it along the route of Bering's detachments - Bering has covered that route - to the Commander Islands. <...> Our friends, counterparts, and partners are participating in this event: their kind wishes inspire us, and we hope that, of course, with the support of our loved ones and families, who are also nearby and who support us in this great project, <...> we will do our best to have this expedition go in a calm, regular mode," Alexander Gorokhov said.

The 18th century's discoveries were by the northern coast of Eurasia, in Siberia, Kamchatka, in seas and lands of the Pacific Ocean, Japan's coasts, and scientists and navigators discovered America's northwestern shores. Research and scientific discoveries were conducted in geography, geology, physics, botany, zoology, and ethnography. It was the first time that a complete and detailed map of the Russian Empire's vast northeastern part was created.