Vasily Poyarkov Biography

It came from the service people of the city of Kashin. In the years, V. Polyarkov led a detachment, which first entered the Amur River basin, opened the Zeya River, the Amur-Equal Plain, the middle and lower stream of the Amur River to the mouth. He collected valuable information about the nature and population of the Amur region. Founded in the year on the banks of the Lena River, “Yakutsky Ostrozhk” occupied a profitable geographical position and in the year became the administrative center of the newly organized Yakut Voivodeship.

Russian explorers were looking for new "earth" in the south, moving up the tributaries of Lena - Olekme and Vitim. Soon they exceeded the watershed ridges, and a vast country opened in front of them on the great river Shilkar Amur, inhabited by sedentary Downes, in the language of related Mongols. The country of Dauria from the Russians was the first to visit the Cossack Maxim Perfiliev in Dauria, who went there in the year, probably for intelligence.

After Perfiliev, Dauria visited the “industrial man” Averkiev. He reached the confluence of Shilka and Arguni, where, in fact, the Amur begins. Averkiev further multiplied rumors about the wealth of Dauria. The first Yakut governor Peter Golovin took up the land development of the lands. He decided to send a military expedition to Dauria. In July, Golovin sent Cossacks to Shklkar with a gun under the command of the “written head” of Vasily Danilovich Vesarkov, highlighting a ship's instrument, a lot of canvas, ammunition, food, as well as copper boilers and basins, cloths and beads for gifts to local residents.

Poyarkov, by the standards of that time, was an educated person. A native of the northern provinces of European Russia, he rose in the Siberian service to the post of written head - an official for special assignments under the governor. One and a half dozen volunteers-industrialists of “hunting people” joined the detachment. As a translator, Semyon Petrov Chistoy was chosen.

Poyarkov was given a number of tasks: to describe the rivers and the peoples living on them, their classes, to find out the natural wealth of the region and imagine "the drawing and painting of their roads and dragging, to the river and the slope of the rivers and lands in them." The campaign route was drawn up, and some information about the rivers and the people living on the Amur, as well as a firm order to Vesarkov, was given so that the people of his detachment do not touch and offend the local population.

Poyarkov moved to Dauria in this way: climbed along Aldan and the rivers of his pool - Podsur and Gonamu. Shipping by gonam is possible only kilometers from the mouth, then the thresholds begin. Poyarkov’s people had to drag ships on themselves, dragging. And this had to be done more than 40 times. Meanwhile, autumn came, and the river became. The watershed between Lena and the Amur was still very far away.

Poyarkov decided to leave some of the people to winter here, near the courts, and he himself lightly with a detachment of 90 people went to the winter road in the sledges. Through the backward ridge, he went to the upper reaches of the Zei River. Here they finally got into the country of “plowed people”, to Dauria. Dauras were a peaceful and working people. On the banks of the zei there were villages with spacious wooden houses, the windows were covered with oiled paper.

The population had large stocks of bread, a lot of livestock, poultry. Daura wore clothes made of silk and cotton fabric, which also spoke of prosperity. They received silk and chintz from China in exchange for fur. Pushnina, on the other hand, paid tribute to the Manchu, who gradually elected this fertile land to their hands. Poyarkov immediately demanded from the Daurs so that from now on they paid tribute to the Russian king.

And in order to reinforce his words by action, he seized several noble people with amanates hostages. Apparently, Poerkov was a rather tough and decisive person. He put the Amanats on a chain, beat with whips. I got everything from them about Dauria, and about neighboring Manchuria and China. He decided to stay winter on Zee and began to build a prison. In the middle of winter, bread was already running out.

In the surrounding villages, all reserves have long been captured and eaten, and still far away. The courts left with supplies in Gonam should not have come soon. Hunger began. The Cossacks began to mix the bark of trees for flour, ate roots and carrion, and often hurt. Mor began. In the spring, finally, vessels with supplies came. Poyarkov now had less man, but he still decided to move on, down Zee.

I had to swim through the relatively densely populated areas of the outskirts of the Zesko-Burean plain, but the locals, having heard about the strict orders of Poyarkov, did not allow the Russians to land ashore. Finally, the detachment went to the Amur and continued to swim down the river to the mouth of the Sungari. The lands of a completely different people have already begun here - “plowed” duchers related to the Manchu.

Duchens lived in the villages of 70-80 houses in each, surrounded by obese bread fields. To explore the situation, Poyarkov sent a group of Cossacks forward. The Düchers suddenly attacked them and almost everyone killed. Only two wounded Cossacks managed to return to the detachment. The army of Poyarkov was even more reduced, now there were seven dozen people. But even then he did not refuse to continue swimming down Amur.A few days later, the huts of the Nanai Golds appeared.

The villages here were large, one hundred yurts in each. This people almost did not know farming, and their cattle breeding was poorly developed. Golds mainly caught fish, and ate it. Even from the leather of large fish they sewed their clothes, and then painted it. Poyarkov called them "fish people." Two weeks later, the ways on the shores of the lower Amur Poyarkov saw summer dwellings on piles and met a new “people”.

These were the Gilyaks of Nivha. Also fishermen, like the Golds, but even more backward and poor. They went to dogs. In some Gilyaks, the Cossacks saw up to hundreds of dogs and more. They fished in small birch bark boats and spat on them even in the open sea. Two weeks later, the puers reached the mouth of the Amur. The time was later, September, and the traveler stayed here in the second winter.

In the neighborhood in the dugouts, Gilyaks lived. At first, everything went peacefully. The Cossacks bought fish and firewood from the Gilyaks, and Poyarkov collected information about the island of Sakhalin, rich in fur, where Aina's "hairy people" live. He also learned that from the mouth of the Amur you can get into the southern warm seas. In his report to Golovin, Poyarkov wrote: "Only by that, none of the Russians went to China." So for the first time, an idea was obtained about the existence of the Tatar Strait, separating Sakhalin from the mainland.

But they will open the strait and apply it to the card only after years. At the end of winter, the Cossacks again had to endure hunger. Before sending on a campaign, Poyarkov raided Gilyakov, captured the amanates and collected tribute by sables. At the end of the year, when the mouth of the Amur was freed from the ice, Poyarkov and his Cossacks went to the Amur Liman. The results of the expeditions went to the Amur Liman, Poyarkov did not dare to go south, but turned to the north.

From the sides, the shore of Sakhalin was visible, where Aina's "hairy people" lived. The sea swimming on fragile river boats - planks - lasted three months. The expedition first moved along the mainland of the Sakhalin Bay, and then went to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. The sailors went around the “every lip”, which is why they walked for so long, opening, at least, filling the academy.

The broken storm threw them to some kind of island-most likely to one of the Chantar group. Fortunately, everything worked out well, and in early September, Poyarkov entered the mouth of the Hive River. Here the Cossacks met the “people” who was already familiar to them - Evenkov Tungus. Poyarkov, out of his habit, captured the Amanas, put the Evenks tribute and stayed here for the third winter.

In the early spring of the year, the detachment moved on the sleds up the hive and, having crossed a low watershed, went to the May River, already belonging to the Lena basin. And then, by Aldan and Lena, Poyarkov returned to Yakutsk in mid -June. On the way, 80 people died, mostly from hunger. 52 traveler returned back. During this three -year expedition, Poerry made about 8 thousand kilometers.

From the mouth of Zei, he was the first to go down the Amur to the sea, following about 2 thousand kilometers of its course. Vasily Danilovich Poyarkov opened the Amur Liman, the Sakhalin Bay and collected some information about the very island of Sakhalin. His merits belong to the fact that he was the first to make historically quite proven swimming along the southwestern coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk.