Vitus Bering

Vitus Jonassen Bering ( August 12, 1681–December 8, 1741) was born in Denmark.

After a voyage to the East Indies, he joined the fleet of the Russian Navy as a sublieutenant in 1703 and served in the Baltic Fleet during the Great Northern War. In 1710–1712 he continued his career in the Azov Sea Fleet in Taganrog and took part in the Russo-Turkish War. He was a captain-komandor known among the Russian sailors as Ivan Ivanovich.

In 1713, Vitus married Ann, who was the daughter of a German merchant from Vyborg. Her marriage was difficult because of the frequent loneliness. All her life she had to wait for her husband because of his sea voyages. Sometimes she followed him not to be alone. They had 4 sons and a daughter.

In January 1725 Peter I asked Bering to command the first Kamchatka expedition. The goal of this expedition was to determine whether Asia and North America were connected or not. On 14 July 1728, Bering began his first exploration aboard the ship Gabriel and sailed northward from the Kamchatka Peninsula and through the strait that now bears his name.

On 14 August he rounded the East Cape, and since the Asiatic coast trended westward and no land appeared to the north, Bering believed he had fulfilled his first exploration mission and sailed back to the Kamchatka Peninsula not to spend the winter on a desolate and unknown shore. Next year he made 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. Ann was waiting for him during five long years.

In 1731, Bering was ennobled and received a reward for his discoveries. He soon proposed a second expedition, much more ambitious than the first one. Bering was commissioned to the expedition, which involved 600 people from the outset and several hundred added along the way. Bering was back in Okhotsk in 1735. The local craftsmen Makar Rogachev and Andrey Kozmin built two vessels St. Peter for Bering and St. Paul for his deputy A. Chirikov, in which they sailed off.

In 1741 he led an expedition towards North America from the newly established harbor town of Petropavlovsk. This expedition was to map the Russia-Siberia coast, the western part of North America and even parts of Mexico. While doing so, the expedition spotted the volcano Mount Saint Elias, and passed Kodiak Island. A storm separated the ships, but Bering sighted the southern coast of Alaska, and a landing was made at Kayak Island. Under the command of Aleksey Chirikov, the second ship discovered the shores of the northwestern 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 Great Northern Expedition.

Bering was forced by adverse conditions to return, and he discovered some of the Aleutian Islands on his way back. One of the sailors died and was buried on one of these islands, and the group was named after him (as the Shumagin Islands). Bering became too ill to command his ship, which was at last driven to refuge on an uninhabited island of the Commander Islands group in the southwest Bering Sea.

On 19 December, 1741 Vitus Bering died reportedly from scurvy along with 28 men of his crew on one of the uninhabited islands located near the Kamchatka Peninsula. Later this island was named after him (Bering Island).

A storm shipwrecked St. Peter, 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 was also named St. Peter. Out of 77 men aboard St. Peter, only 46 survived the hardships of the expedition.

After Semen Dezhnev and Fedot Popov in 1648, Vitus Bering was the first known explorer to pass between Asia and North America and thus proved that they were separate continents, though he did not realize it at that time.

The importance of Bering's work was not fully recognized for many years, but Captain Cook was able to prove Bering's accuracy as an observer.

Nowadays, the Bering Strait*, the Bering Sea, Bering Island, Bering Glacier and the Bering Land Bridge bear the explorer's name.

6. Answer the following questions:

•What kind of man was Vitus Bering?

•How old was he when he joined the fleet of the Russian Navy?

•What was the aim of his first expedition?

•Did Vitus Bering start his second expedition from Okhotsk or Petropavlovsk?

•What were the results of the Great Northern Expedition?

•How many men survived the hardships of the expedition?

•What geographical places bear the name of Vitus Bering?

7. Complete the following sentences:

• Vitus Beringwas born _________________________________________________________

•He married ___________________________________________________________________

•The duration of the first expedition was _________________________________________

•Vessels for Bering’s second expedition were built in _______________________________

•Petropavlovsk-Kamchatksky was established by __________________________________

•Bering’s crew stopped to refuge on an uninhabited island of the Commander Islands group because _________________________________________________________________

•On December 19, 1741 Vitus Bering ______________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

•Captain Cook proved ____________________________________________________________

9. Translate into Russian:

Первая экспедиция Беринга возбудила еще больший интерес российского правительства к Восточной Сибири и северной части Тихого океана.

Вторая Камчатская экспедиция, отправившаяся из Петербурга в 1733 году, представляла собой, по сути, целую сеть экспедиций. От одного только перечня поставленных перед ними задач перехватывает дыхание.

Им предстояло исследовать все тысячекилометровое северное побережье Азии, описать тогда еще малоизученную флору, фауну и историю народов Сибири, совершить плавания через неизвестные моря к Америке и Японии, расширить и упрочить территориальные притязания Российской империи, заботиться о процветании торговли и улучшении условий жизни в Сибири, христианизации местного населения, заведении школ и железоделательных заводов. Ни одна другая европейская географическая экспедиция XVIII века не была столь крупномасштабной. И во главе ее опять был поставлен Витус Беринг.

В октябре 1734 года после полугодичного странствия семейство Берингов добралось до Якутска, где задержалось почти на три года. Управлять экспедицией из Якутска было удобнее всего. Сюда было сравнительно просто доставлять и хранить съестные припасы, корабельные снасти и строительные материалы. Отсюда Беринг мог одновременно следить за продвижением отрядов, исследовавших побережье Северного Ледовитого океана, держать под контролем строительство в Охотске судов для предстоящих плаваний в Америку и в Японию и в то же время поддерживать связь с Петербургом на расстоянии менее полугода курьерской езды.

В сентябре 1737 года Беринг один, без семьи, продолжил путь в Охотск, при этом предполагалось, что Анна с детьми поедет домой. Но в Охотске Беринг тяжело заболел, и Анне пришлось, спешить к мужу. И только в феврале 1742 года Анна, наконец, добралась до Тобольска, где узнала о смерти мужа.

После смерти Витуса Беринга его офицеры послали Анне некоторые личные вещи мужа, среди них золотые карманные часы, личную печать, серебряные башмачные пряжки с хрустальными вставками, шпагу с серебряным эфесом и письма.