Vladimir Vasilyevich Atlasov or
Otlasov ' onMouseout='HidePop("80930")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Veliky_Ustyug">Veliky Ustyug
Veliky Ustyug is a town in the northeast of Vologda Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Sukhona and Yug Rivers. Administratively, it is incorporated as a town of oblast significance . It also serves as the administrative center of Velikoustyugsky District, by which it is completely...
between 1661 and 1664—died in 1711) was a Siberian Cossack who was the first Russian to explore the
Kamchatka PeninsulaThe Kamchatka Peninsula is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of . It lies between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west...
.
Atlasov IslandAtlasov Island, known in Russian as Ostrov Atlasova , or in Japanese as Araido , is the northernmost island and volcano and also the highest volcano of the Kuril islands, part of the Sakhalin Oblast in Russia. The Russian name is sometimes rendered in English as Atlasova Island...
, an uninhabited volcanic island off the southern tip of Kamchatka, is named after him.
For background see
Russian conquest of SiberiaThe Russian conquest of Siberia took place in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the Siberian Khanate had become a loose political structure of vassalages which were becoming undermined by the activities of Russian explorers who, though numerically outnumbered, pressured the various family-based...
,
Siberian River RoutesSiberian River Routes were the main ways of communication in the Russian Siberia before the 1730s, when roads began to be built. The rivers also were of primary importance in the process of Russian exploration and colonisation of vast Siberian territories...
and
Kamchatka PeninsulaThe Kamchatka Peninsula is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of . It lies between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west...
.
He is first heard of around 1682 collecting
YasakYasak or yasaq, sometimes iasak, is a Turkic word for "tribute" that was used in Imperial Russia to designate fur tribute exacted from the indigenous peoples of Siberia.- Origin :...
on the
Aldan RiverThe Aldan River is the second-longest tributary of the Lena River in the Sakha Republic in eastern Siberia. The river is 2,273 km long, of which around 1,600 km is navigable. It was part of the River Route to Okhotsk...
and one of the Uda Rivers. In 1695 the voyevoda of Yakutsk appointed him prikazshchik of
Anadyrskthumb|Anadyrsk was on the east-west part of the Anadyr River at the point where it swings northAnadyrsk was an important Russian ostrog in far northeastern Siberia from 1649 to 1764...
. The Russians here had heard reports of a 'Kamchatka River' to the south and were already collecting yasak on the headwaters of the rivers that flow south toward Kamchatka. At least one of them had followed the Penzhina River to the Sea of Okhotsk. In 1696 he sent Luka Morozko south to explore. Morozko got as far south as the Tegil River on the west side of the peninsula and returned with some 'mysterious writings', apparently from a wrecked Japanese ship. In 1697 Atlasov set off south with 65
serving-menService class people were persons bound by obligations of service, especially military service, to the Muscovite Russian state.In early Siberia, service-men and promyshleniks were the two main classes of the Russian population. Service-men were nominally servants of the tsar, had certain legal...
and 60
YukaghirThe Yukaghir, or Yukagirs , деткиль ) are a people in East Siberia, living in the basin of the Kolyma River.-Region:The Tundra Yukaghirs live in the Lower Kolyma region in the Sakha Republic; the Taiga Yukaghirs in the Upper Kolyma region in the Sakha Republic and in Srednekansky District of...
s. Travelling on reindeer, they reached the mouth of the Penzhina River. He went down the west coast for two weeks and then crossed to the east coast. (Lantzeff has this as February 1697 on the
Olyutorsky GulfThe Olyutorsky Bay is a gulf or bay of the Bering Sea in the northern part of Kamchatka Krai, Russia.It is bounded on the west by the Govena Peninsula which separates it from Korfa Bay and on the east by the Olyutorsky Peninsula. It extends roughly 83 km inland and is 228 km at its...
, but the Russian wiki has him leaving in the spring of 1697 and the Olyutorsky Gulf is rather far to the northeast). He left Morzoko to explore the east side and returned to the west side, but Morozko had to be recalled to deal with a Yukaghir mutiny (at the
Palana RiverPalana River is a west-flowing river on the west side of the upper Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia. The town of Palana is here.Jurassic radiolarians have been found near the mouth of the river....
). Going south to the Tegil River, he heard reports of the Kamchatka River and recrossed the Central Range to the Kamchatka where he met the
ItelmensThe Itelmen, sometimes known as Kamchadal, are an ethnic group who are the original inhabitants living on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. The Itelmen language is distantly related to Chukchi and Koryak, forming the Chukotko-Kamchatkan language family, but it is now virtually extinct, the vast...
for the first time. He made an alliance with one clan and went downriver and burned a village of their enemies. Returning, he learned that some Koryaks had stolen his reindeer. He chased them, killed about 150 and retrieved his reindeer. Continuing down the west side he reached the Icha River where he rescued or captured a
Japanese sailorDembei was a Japanese castaway who, through Vladimir Atlasov, provided Russia with some of its first knowledge of Japan. He was a fisherman who, along with a number of others, had been caught in a storm; they found their way to Kamchatka, where Dembei was found by Atlasov in 1701 or 1702. Despite...
who had been shipwrecked. Further south he reached the
Golygina RiverThe Golygina River is a river on the southwest coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula. A Russian expedition under Vladimir Atlasov first reached it in the last decade of the seventeenth century....
area, from which he was able to see
Atlasov IslandAtlasov Island, known in Russian as Ostrov Atlasova , or in Japanese as Araido , is the northernmost island and volcano and also the highest volcano of the Kuril islands, part of the Sakhalin Oblast in Russia. The Russian name is sometimes rendered in English as Atlasova Island...
. Here he met the first
AinuThe , also called Aynu, Aino , and in historical texts Ezo , are indigenous people or groups in Japan and Russia. Historically they spoke the Ainu language and related varieties and lived in Hokkaidō, the Kuril Islands, and much of Sakhalin...
and managed to kill fifty of them. Returning north to the Icha, he sent a party of men over the mountains to build an
ostrogOstrog may refer to:* Ostrog, Slovenia, a settlement in Šentjernej municipality in Slovenia* Ostrog monastery, a Serbian Orthodox Christian monastery in Montenegro* Ostroh, a historic town in Ukraine* Ostrog, a Russian term for a small fortress...
at Verkhnekamchatsk on the upper Kamchatka. Here he decided to return to Anadyrsk, either under pressure of his men or because he was running short of gunpowder and lead.
He reached Anadyrsk in July 1699 and wrote a report. He was in Yakutsk in June 1700 and in February 1701 he reached Moscow where he presented his report. He was promoted to Golova and sent back to administer Kamchatka. On the
Angara RiverThe Angara River is a long river in Irkutsk Oblast and Krasnoyarsk Krai, south-east Siberia, Russia. It is the only river flowing out of Lake Baikal, and is the headwater tributary of the Yenisei River....
in 1701 he met and plundered a merchant's boat loaded with Chinese goods. For this he and his men were thrown in jail. Kamchatka became increasingly disorderly and in 1707 Atlasov was released and sent to Kamchatka to restore order. On the journey his methods were so rough that most of his men sent a letter of protest to Yakutsk. He pacified the natives to some degree, but in December 1707 his own cossacks revolted and imprisoned him. He escaped (from Verkhnekamchatsk) and went downriver to Nizhnekamchatsk, but the local commander refused to step aside and give him command. What he did for the next four years is uncertain. In January 1711 he was murdered in his sleep by another band of mutineers.