Audiotour Tomsk. Kamchatka expeditions

The success of the First Kamchatka Expedition in the development and study of Siberia was so large-scale that the Second Kamchatka or Great Northern Expedition of 1733-1743 was not long in coming. The expedition was reassembled under the command of Vitus Bering but that time it had not only military purpose. It was attended by the Academic Detachment, which included academicians and professors : Johann Gmelin, Gerhard Miller, Stepan Krasheninnikov, Georg Steller, Johann Fischer and other scientists who were willing to study the nature, history and ethnography of the inhabitants of Siberia.

In the time of Bering expeditions,Tomsk  was one of the oldest towns based in the vastness of Siberia. The geodesists of the expedition spent some time in this provincial town and drew up the first known plan of the city and planned a section of the Great Siberian Tract from Tomsk to Irkutsk, also known as the Irkutsk Tract. The academic members of the expedition - professors of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Gerhard Miller and Johann Gmelin compiled descriptions of Tomsk and the Tomsk district. By the way, they became witnesses of a fire that destroyed a wooden church that stood on the site of the future Epiphany Cathedral.

In addition to scientists, the expedition was attended by the painters Johann Berkhan and Johann Lursenius. They left unique graphic images - panoramas of the city. Two works by Krasheninnikov also deserve special attention - "Road Journal" of 1734-1736 and a small ethnographic monograph "On the sable trade". "Road Journal" is a diary that Krasheninnikov kept for himself. He wrote down everything that interested him on the way, everything that attracted his attention. As it turned out, his interests were vast. Being an inquisitive explorer, he carefully observed the life and customs of local peoples (Tatars, Buryats, Tungus, Mongols, etc.), as well as the customs of the Russian population in Siberia.

Thanks to the research of the Academic Detachment in the city of Tomsk, we have an idea of ​​the life of the peoples inhabiting this area.