The disappearance of the sailors of "St. Paul"

One of the main objectives of the Great Northern Expedition was the task of finding a way to North America and islands in the northern Pacific Ocean ^[1] .

To this end, by the summer of 1740 in Okhotsk two packet boats “Saint Peter” and “Saint Paul” were built, which, under the command of Vitus Bering and Alexei Chirikov, respectively, went to sea in September 1740. After spending the winter in Avacha Bay , on June 4, 1741, the ships sailed to the shores of America.

On June 20, the ships lost each other in heavy fog and tried to meet for three days, but to no avail, after which they set off on their own voyages.

On July 15, 1741, the “St. Paul” packet boat, under the command of Chirikov, reached the shores of America near the Baker Island, which is part of the Alexander Archipelago . The search began for a bay suitable for landing.

The circumstances of the mysterious disappearance are known from the report of Chirikov to the Admiralty College, compiled on December 7, 1741, and his own letter to Captain Laptev , quotes from which will be given below.

On July 17, after a meeting with the officers, it was decided that a small detachment would land on the shore in a Langbot - the larger of the two boats available on the ship. A group of ten sailors and soldiers was led by navigator Avram Dementyev, young, but "experienced in his craft and zealous for serving the fatherland." The group is faced with the task of finding a source of fresh water, as well as performing work directly related to the objectives of the expedition: to draw a drawing of the bay, find a place for safe anchorage, search on the shore “are there any excellent stones and land in which to be rich in ore ".

The members of the expeditionary group were armed, in addition, they were given two missiles and a copper cannon, and in case of impossibility of returning on the same day due to fog or bad weather - provisions for a week. Dementyev was given detailed instructions of 11 points, a copy of which was given in the report. Among the items were detailed alarm instructions for the packet boat:

If the boat cannot be ashore, then it should return to the ship, having previously notified about it by a shot from a gun. The boat was supposed to return the same day.

At 15:30 a packet boat, approaching as close to the shore as possible, lowered the lang boat to the water. According to modern calculations, this was off the coast of the island of Jacobi in the archipelago of Alexander . The boat headed for the bay visible from the ship, went over the rocks and disappeared. There were no signals, no rockets, no gun shots. By evening, the weather turned bad, the wind intensified, and for safety, the packet boat moved further into the sea. The next morning it turned out that the coast was foggy, then it started to rain and the squally wind that carried the ship from the bay. On July 21, the sun came out briefly and the shore became visible, but soon the weather began again.

July 23, the fog broke and at 16:00

The fire burned until about midnight, and went out by morning. At the officer’s council, they decided that the langbot was obviously damaged and therefore did not go to the ship, despite the weather being suitable. It was decided that it was necessary to send a second boat with a ship carpenter and a caulk gunner Gorin with tools, which the boatswain Saveliev volunteered to take, the sailor Fadeev also volunteered. Savelyev was ordered that he, arriving ashore and finding a bot, drop off the carpenter and caulker, and he, taking on board Dementiev and three or four of his people, would immediately return. The alarm system was even more detailed and detailed:

• if upon arrival on the shore it turns out that both the bot and the people are safe, then you should have informed about it by laying out two bonfires so that from the packet boat you can see smoke during the day and fire at night;
• if the bot is damaged, but suitable for repair, then lay out three bonfires;
• if the bot is so damaged that it is impossible to fix it, four bonfires should be lit already, making sure that the lights are far from each other. At the same time, it was necessary to bring Dementyev and as many of his people on the boat as it would be possible to accommodate without the danger of overload.

At 9 PM

On a packet boat, two lanterns were lit and one hung on a flagpole , the other on a gaffle . On the shore, a fire appeared and disappeared, as if covering it, but there was no agreement on such a signal. At one o’clock in the morning, several more shots were fired from cannons, and fire was still visible on the shore.

During July 25, the packet boat continued to be near the bay, unsuccessfully awaiting news of the fate of 15 of its sailors. On the ship there was no longer a single small vessel, and it was impossible to stick to an unfamiliar shore.

at 1 o'clock we saw coming from that lip, where a bot and a tray were sent from us, two trays on a rowing, one small and one larger, about which we hoped that our bot and tray would return. And went to meet them. Then we examined that the rower was not ours, it was thinner than the hull and rowing, but rowed with oars just at the sides, which didn’t come close to the packet boat so that it could be seen in the person’s face, only four people were sitting in it : one at the stern, and the prostia rowed, and the dresses were visible on one red, which, being in such a distance, got to their feet and shouted twice: agai, agai and waved their arms and immediately turned and buried to the shore. And then I ordered to wave white handkerchiefs and bow down so that they would arrive to our ship, which was repaired by many ministers, but they too were soon buried to the shore, and it was not possible to chase after them, the wind was quieter and the tray was still much faster, and the other large tray, no longer picking up to the packet boat, returned, and both entered again into the bay from which they had raked. Then we affirmed that the ministers sent from us were utterly in misfortune, at least bearing on the navigator Dementyev, as he was sent, the eighth day had already arrived and there was quite a time capable of returning, and we went to that place very close, he didn’t return. But on the departure of the boatswain, we didn’t go away from that place, and the weather was still calm, and if there weren’t any misfortune to them, then we’ve returned to us by now. And you can expect that Americans didn’t dare to drive to our packet boat that with the people sent from us from them on the shore they received adversely: either they were beaten, or detained. However, even before evening, we went near that place, waiting for our ships, but at night we got rid of the shore for fear of the shore, and at night we had a flashlight on the stern flushstock so that we could blow out if we had more expectations than we could at night to infuse.

- Report by A. I. Chirikov to the Admiralty Board on swimming to the shores of America

On July 27, a military council was held at which, in view of the fact that there are no more small vessels left on the ship that can be disembarked, it is impossible to replenish the reserves of fresh water, which has already begun to deteriorate, while now it was not enough for the return trip, even if all the barrels were intact and the wind was always fair, it was decided to return to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky .

The fate of fifteen Russian sailors remained unknown and for many years attracted the attention of researchers from various countries.

Based on Chirikov's report to the Admiralty College ^[2] : Naval:

• Navigator Avram Dementiev
• Sailor I articles Peter Tatilov
• Gunner I articles Grigory Zubov
• Sailor I articles Ivan Oshmarin
• Boatswain Sidor Saveliev
• Sailor II articles Dmitry Fadeev
• Carpenter Fedor Colonels
• Kopopachik Elistrat Gorin

Soldiers of the Siberian garrison:

• Yakov Asalalov
• Grigory Kultyshev
• Nikifor Panov
• Ivan Glatkoy
• Mikhailo Lozhnikov the lesser

Kamchatka language translators:

• Dmitry Sharakhov
• Ivan Panov

In 1764, an expedition of Krenitsyn and Levashev went to the coast of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands . Among the most important tasks for her, compiled by Lomonosov , was this: “It would be very reliable to receive news of those Russians whom Chirikov had lost on the West American coast.” This task of the expedition failed.

In 1765, a map compiled by the “Chukchi scientist” Nikolai Daurkin was delivered to Petersburg from Yakutsk on the instructions of the head of the Anadyr prison , Colonel Fyodor Plenisner , who had previously sailed with Bering in the rank of “corporal painter”. Another participant in the Great Northern Expedition, Academician Miller, by that time had discovered documents on the sailing of Semen Dezhnev , and received information from the Chukchi that there were villages across the ocean in which “bearded people in a long dress” lived. To test such rumors, Plenisner sent Daurkin to the Bering Strait to collect more information. The result of his research was a map on which, in Alaska, much north of the place where the Chirikov sailors landed, a log fort with peaked turrets was drawn near the Heuwren River ^[3] , similar to those that were placed in all Siberian islands. On the turret there are warriors with spears in their hands, and lower to the walls other warriors are selected - with feathers sticking out of their hats.

In 1774, the Spanish ship Santiago, among the islands of the southern part of the Alexander Archipelago, was engaged in trade with the Haida Indians. In one of the native boats, the Spaniards notice a fragment of either an iron bayonet, or a saber obviously not of local origin. Mindful of the disappearance of Russian sailors, the Spaniards are trying to beg or barter a mysterious piece of iron, but to no avail. When asked about its origin, the Indians vaguely wave their hands somewhere north. Upon returning to Madrid, this story becomes known, and reaches St. Petersburg and London , though in very exaggerated details: as if the Spaniards met among the Indians “civilized people of a pleasant kind, white-skinned and familiar with clothes” ...

In 1778, Captain James Cook sailed past the west coast of America on the Resolution and Discovery ships. His lieutenant, James King , studied the coast of Jacobi Island through a telescope for a long time and wrote the following entry in his diary: “For the sake of humanity, it is hoped that those of the fifteen people who are still alive will not know anything about our ships that came to these shores, and "they will not be disappointed so cruelly in their dreams of returning to their homeland again ..."

In 1779, the Cossack centurion Ivan Kobelev , who knew Daurkin, got to the island of Imaglin , which is approximately in the middle between Asia and America, where in conversation with the local foreman Toyon he heard from the hedgehog on the banks of the river, or Heuvren, in which people live with long and thick beards, revered icons , painted on the boards, literate and able to write. Despite all the persuasions of Kobelev, who had been keenly interested in Russian settlements in America since childhood, having heard about such grandfathers who had been shipwrecked by Russian sailors from his grandfather, one of the participants in Dezhnyov’s expedition, to transfer him to the American coast, the Chukchi refused to do this, as he wrote in the report: “surely because the Yasukuni Chukchi are afraid that Evo, Kobeleva, would not be killed on the American coast or not detained, and in that case they would be afraid of a penalty ...” However, the Chukchi agreed to transmit his letter to “Russian people pits in America ":" My dear flesh, living on a large revered American land ... If you have any, you will receive this letter from me, how is it possible for a miner to be sent every summer to that island of Imaglin, or with whom to send letters, and especially according to which you have a residence on the river, and this river itself fell into the sea with its mouth or lip, or, at the mouth of that river, or lips, in a bright place, so that it could be seen from the sea, or put a high wooden cross from the lip ... ” But neither a response to the letter, nor a cross appeared in a conspicuous place, remained the axis is unknown whether the letter reached the addressees.

Also in his report, in addition to the text of the letter sent, Kobelev reports that he met the Chukchi from the coast of Ehipku Opukhin, who boasted that he had been on the American coast up to five times and also heard about bearded men living in American forests. According to him, his friend, who lives on the island of Ukipen (now King’s Island ), allegedly brought and showed him a letter on a tablet written on one side with red paint, and on the other with black-cut words - and this is in an era when neither Indians nor Eskimos did not know writing. But Ekhipka was afraid to take the letter, fearing unnecessary interrogations, remembering only that “they have enough of everything, except one piece of iron.”

In 1786, Captain Laperuz , sailing on the Bussoli and Astrolabes past the bay where the Russian sailors disappeared, wrote: “contemplating this bay, I always thought, most likely, the Bering’s boat and its crew were destroyed by a violent sea, and not wild the Indians ... ". His own expedition had recently lost twenty-one sailors just north of Ltua Bay, when two boats entering a narrow strait at high tide were broken on stones.

In 1788, two Spanish ships visited Russian settlements on the Aleutian Islands . The Irkutsk Governor-General reported to St. Petersburg that the head of the Spaniards, Don Martinez, was already in 1774 swimming in the area where the sailors Chirikov landed, and “found things left by him by the islanders ...” In the same year, one of the agents Grigory Shelikhov said that in Yakutat Bay, about three hundred miles away from the landing site in 1741, among the Indians who came to trade, “there were many white-faced and fair-haired, why it was concluded that these people were descendants of the navigator Dementyev” and his comrades. This message was included in the official document "Summary of the acquisition of land in America in 1788"

In 1789-1791, Nikolai Daurkin and Ivan Kobelev served as translators for the Billings - Sarychev expedition, which was entrusted with the task of exploring and describing Chukotka and the surrounding seas and lands. On Billings' instructions, Koblev wandered around Chukotka for almost a year, during the travels he received information collected by Shelikhov's agent about white-faced and fair-haired Indians. Later, he reported to his superiors that he had found a man whom he persuaded to take him on a kayak to American soil. On June 11, 1791, he landed on the American shore, probably somewhere on the Cape of the Prince of Wales , but "couldn’t enter the mouth of the Hevren River, but couldn’t get into the lip behind the obstacles of the great ice." He went to Ukipen Island, where Indians and Eskimos even from distant tribes gathered for trade, and then he again heard stories about bearded people living somewhere in Alaska. However, the Chukchi refused to show the way, or simply let Kobelev go there, in every possible way preventing direct communication between the Russians and the Eskimos and Indians, since it was more profitable for them that all trade with America went only through them. Also, when translating, they translated only the most general things to Kobeleva, many obviously deliberately confused and hid a lot. On the island, Kobelev also met Americans living on the Hevren River:

On the same island, Americans themselves found up to ten people who have a residence on the Heveren River, koi moved before kayaking last summer for bargaining. Those same Americans treated me in a friendly and affectionate way ... Well, Americans, their face and chest and my face are also stroking and hugging my chest, it means their friendship is great and inextricable. And they point to their land, and they pull me for a fee, and, apparently, they are calling me to America. When I speak Russian, they point to their land with their finger and their land ... Openly from our arrivals, three kraths were baptized by one hand and waved to their own land. And from all it seems that there are people like me, the same is the conversation ...

Kobelev was not allowed to stay on the island for more than the Chukchi, he was forced to return to Russia, where he later found out that it was as if last summer “there was an American coming so that with me a videographer who would find out about me on the island of Igellin that I arrived in Chukchi and I will be the one who, not admitting to me, was killed in the Eastern Cape ^[4] . ”

Nikolai Daurkin also could not get deep into the American mainland. Neither one nor the other was able to visit the American coast.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the situation with America’s accessibility is changing, just a hundred miles to the south of the Dementyev’s landing site with comrades, the Russian city of Novo-Arkhangelsk is founded, which has become the capital of Russian Alaska , and other territory is quickly developing. In 1801, the Russian-American company received information that, according to rumors, on the island of Prince of Wales found Russian clothes in Russian fur. The search for the missing continues, trying to find at least some traces of fifteen Russian sailors or the mysterious settlements of white-faced. Unsuccessful inquiries of local residents were carried out by seafarers who visited these parts: Lisyansky , Golovnin , Wrangel . The future historian of the Russian fleet, and for the time being warrant officer Vasily Berkh, wrote: “But according to all the news from the wild, this place is inhabited, it is not audible that they have ever seen or heard about white people.” He translated the recently released book by Alexander Mackenzie about his travels in Canada . There he especially highlighted the place where the traveler described that the Indians once said that somewhere in the west of them, in Alaska, there is a large river and lake beyond the high mountains. Allegedly white-faced people live on their shores. The Indians exchange their iron from them, which other white people bring from somewhere far away in large boats sailing at the mouth of this river. Berch commented on this information in such a way: “One can seem to hope that their words are true, because according to the legends we also know that Russian white bearded people worshiping icons live near the Heuverein river.”

In 1808, the clerk of the Russian-American company Timothy Tarakanov was shipwrecked a little south of those places where the sailors disappeared. He, with his small detachment, went north more than a hundred miles, built a hut, lived there all winter, surrendered to the Indians, who, however, treated him in a friendly manner, and in 1810 he was bought out by the captain of an American ship with his companions. His example showed that it was quite possible to survive and be saved in such conditions.

In 1818, the governor of the Russian possessions, Gagemeister sends Peter Korsakovsky to the north, giving him the task of collecting information about the mysterious Russians among the Indians. Tom was not able to go further than the Cuskokwim River, but one old Indian told him that it was as if two men were skiing out of the woods one day. “They have a camisole or triplets and harem pants made of deer skin without hair and painted with black paint. Black leather boots. beards. They have a different conversation, so all the Indians ... could not understand it. They saw a copper trunk in them, one end wider, and the other narrower like a musketon, and the other a copper barrel like a gun, decorated with black sepia and white features, ”wrote Korsakovsky in detail. Having rested, the aliens "disappeared into the unknown." According to the Indian, their dress is “just as tailored as ours.” Such clothes and weapons, described in such detail, appeared only after the reforms of Peter I and could not belong to the descendants of Dezhnyov’s companions or his contemporaries.

In 1819 and 1821, attempts were again made to search, but by this time there were already too many Russians in Alaska, and no definite information could be gathered more about either the sailors or the mysterious “Russian” settlements . Perhaps the last rumor to suggest that he refers to the missing sailors was the information that someone from the leader of one of the Tlingit tribes saw an old musket with a bell and a mahogany box, namely these were in service with the Russian army during expedition times.

One of the main versions, supported by the authoritative opinion of Laperouse, is the death of sailors in whirlpools or rips . However, Chirikov and Lieutenant Sven Waxel , who succeeded Bering, who were familiar with the experience and skill of sailors who landed on the shore, did not think so. Although rips really are not uncommon in those places, and at the same time rips are very dangerous, but the boats entered the bay at different times of the day, and therefore with different conditions of the sea, and the weather was good. Chirikov and Waxel were sure that such an experienced sailor, as Dementiev, would have completely coped with the rip. And the probability of a happy outcome is confirmed by the same Laperuz. Despite the fact that two of his boats were lost along with the crew, the third safely overcame the barrier, and all the sailors in it remained intact. Contrary to this version, the discovery of various finds, possibly belonging to the Chirikovites: a fragment of a bayonet or saber seen by the Spaniards, a musket stored by the Tlingit . And the fire burning at night was hardly lit by the Indians. They did not know about the agreed signal, and they themselves would not have kindled a fire so that it was visible from the sea. “St. Paul”, no matter how much he sailed along the American coast, which, as it became known later, was inhabited, never before and later did he see any fire, smoke, or any signs of human presence.

Another version that Chirikov adhered to is their death at the hands of the Indians. However, Chirikov began to adhere to this point of view already at the end of all events that lasted more than a week. When a skiff was sent ashore, all the officers of the ship believed that the bot was damaged, but the team was intact, and therefore the hitchhiker and the carpenter were sent, not the soldiers. This version also raises certain doubts among researchers. It is doubtful that the Indians even decided to attack such a large group of strangers at the first meeting. This is contrary to all the customs of the Indians. So, when the sailors disembarked from St. Peter, the locals simply hid, giving the naturalist Steller the opportunity, accompanied by just one Cossack, to roam the forest without hindrance, to inspect their homes, even to pick up different household utensils. In addition, the landed men were well armed, they even had a gun, but no shots were heard on the ship. And there were quite a few Indians on the island, even if by the beginning of the 19th century there were no more than a hundred people in the local tribe.

As the most amazing fact in the entire history of the disappearance of Russian sailors, experts note the fact that the sailors disappeared without a trace. All that remains is vague rumors about several objects, possibly belonging to sailors, and about meetings with their alleged descendants.

However, no information about their landing has been preserved. The American historian Golder, the author of a two-volume work dedicated to the swimming of Bering, specifically interviewed the Jacobi Indians, studied the works of the experts on Native American folklore, Davidon and Emmons, but did not find the slightest mention, legend or legend about this case. At the same time, according to Chirikov's report, the Indians were there exactly and knew exactly what happened: they went to sea from this very bay in two boats and shouted “Agay! Agay! ”(It is assumed that the sailors heard the word“ agou ”-“ come here ”). Given that this was the first meeting with white-faced aliens who sailed on a large ship, this was a great event that would certainly leave a mark in folklore. About ten hours the sailors from St. Peter stayed on the shore, but the Indians did not forget this, and after half a century they told Captain Sarychev about this, which made it possible to clarify the landing site of the Bering sailors. The Indians also remembered the meeting with the French, so much so that the drawings made a hundred years later from their stories quite accurately reflected the appearance of the frigates of Laperouse. Also known is the fact that the Eskimos preserved their memory for three centuries by visiting the Frobisher ships of Baffin , and the folk memory retained such details that it was possible to establish the fate of five sailors who were previously considered missing. At the same time, the Indians did not have any information about the death of two boats with sailors that happened before their eyes.

The only information that can be attributed to this case at a stretch was the message recorded by Alaskan historian T. L. Andrews in 1922, as if the Sith Indians living south of the island of Jacobi, on Baranova Island

However, it is doubtful that eleven people would immediately fall on such a bait, and then four more from the second boat. These were all experienced and experienced sailors and sailors who first landed on an unfamiliar shore. Again, there were no agreed landing signals or shooting sounds, although it was unbelievable that they would try to catch a bear without firearms. Andrews himself believed that the legend most likely dates back to the beginning of the 19th century, when the Russians had settled down in these places and hunted and fished in small groups of two or three people, and the Indians did not miss the chance to ambush.

Soviet researcher Gleb Golubev believes that perhaps the first boat really crashed, but some of the sailors escaped, but it was impossible to give a signal with damp rockets. And then, not being able to return to the ship, they went north. This, in his opinion, is confirmed by rumors about white-faced and fair-haired, 60 years later met in Yakutat Bay, presumably descendants of sailors. He explains the lack of traces in folklore by the fact that the sailors somehow managed to outwit the Indians with humiliating pride for the pride and get over from the island to the mainland. In such circumstances, even if the second boat was indeed ambushed, this could not change the overall result of the incident. "No people make legends about how his soldiers were led and deceived, left in the cold."

Attempts to uncover the mystery of a mysterious incident about which the American historian F. Golder, who studied the Russian archives in the 1920s, wrote that "... the disappearance of Chirikov’s people will remain one of the unsolvable mysteries of the North ...", continue to this day.

In 2005-2006, the Russian-American scientific-search expedition “Following the Trail of the Great Mariners” took place, which was supposed to pinpoint the place where the sailors disembarked from the packet boat ^[5] . The fact is that Chirikov used rather imperfect navigation tools of his time, which did not allow to accurately determine the position of the ship, a separate difficulty was the correction for wind and currents. Recognizing inaccurate coordinates due to the impossibility of accurately determining longitude, Alexey Ivanovich for the sake of accuracy even presented the Admiralty Board with a map with two options for the ship’s path, since the distance calculations between Kamchatka and America did not coincide on the way back and forth due to accumulated calculation errors. And although later studies have shown that the accuracy of Chirikov’s maps is extremely high, it’s impossible to determine the landing site only according to Chirikov’s data.

According to the ship's log, the landing site was at a point with a latitude of 57 ° 50 'and longitude from Cape Vertical (Kamchatka) - 58 ° 54'. At this place there is an exit from the Lisyansky Strait to the Pacific Ocean . The width of the strait at this place is about 0.8 miles, and from the ocean side the strait can really be mistaken for a bay or bay.

According to the data presented to the Admiralty College, the bay is located at a latitude of 58 ° - where is Surge Bay. In addition, approximately at the same points are Lisyansky Strait (57 ° 50 '), Greentop bays (57 ° 51'), Squid, Takanis. For a long time it was believed that the landing site was precisely Takanis Bay.

In the course of research by Elton and Allan Engstrom, two historical sources were discovered. The first source was the sailing magazine of Nathaniel Portlock, a former member of the Third Expedition, James Cook, and since 1785 the captain of the King George merchant ship, which traded furs off the coast of Alaska. On August 6, 1787, Portlock entered the harbor, located five miles south of the Lisyansky Strait (now Portlock Harbor, Chichagova Island), for trade. On August 9, people who sailed in a canoe from the north told the story of the death of the boat with the Europeans: “the wind came in fresh from the sea and lifted big waves ... when the anchor was carried overboard, the boat bent and was filled with water, and five men drowned before rendering assistance” . And during the second visit, one of the Indians was dressed in a faded red jacket or military uniform ^[6] . According to Vladimir Kolychev, a participant in exploration off the coast of Alaska, the red uniform could have belonged to the gunner from St. Paul, since neither Cook, nor Laperuz, nor other sailors lost boats, people and a red uniform in this area, roughly corresponding to the shape of the Russian ship gunner of the early 1730s.

Another testimony discovered by Engstrom was the magazine of Captain William Douglas, who in August 1788 traded with Tlingits in the area of ​​Surge Bay from whom he bought forty sea ​​otter skins . Also in the bay, the navigator of the expedition boat Christopher Howard discovered Native American petroglyphs , which indicates the parking of the Indians in this place. One of the petroglyphs can be correlated with the symbol of a European-type marine ship.

A modern American pilot gives the bay the following characterization: “Surge Cove extends 4.1 miles north of Cape Cross. An open bay with numerous rocks and reefs, suitable only for small vessels with local navigation knowledge ... ” “The ebb flow has a high speed and sometimes reaches 3-4 knots, sometimes even more. Rips and whirlpools are strong in the narrowness and at the headlands, dangerous for small vessels with strong winds ... ” However, bad weather, strong winds and waves prevented underwater exploration in the bay.

Comparing on-site historical documents with descriptions of species, depths, modern large-scale maps of the island and coastal waters, as well as historical evidence found, the expedition members decided that the landing took place in Surge Bay. In 2009, the expedition members identified the place of possible loss of crew of boats "Chirikov". At a meeting of the Russian Geographical Society, they (V. Kolychev, A. Engstrom, K. Howard) presented a report on the next stage of search work and shared plans for their next trips to the “mysterious island” of Jacobi.

In 2007, the American researcher Don Douglas as part of the American crew, which included A. Engstrom, participated in the search ^[7] . His research generally confirmed the conclusions of the previous expedition, in addition, he discovered an old dagger (?) In the bay and several other metal objects of unknown origin. However, judging by his writings, Douglas supported the version of the disappearance of sailors in the southern part of Fr. Jacobi.

Summing up, there is still no reliable information about the fate of the sailors, the discovered objects have not yet been connected with the Chirikov expedition and even tied to a specific historical period. The disappearance is still one of the "unsolvable mysteries of the North."

• Report of A.I. Chirikov to the Admiralty Board on swimming to the shores of America. December 7, 1741. TsGAVMF, f. 216, op. 1, d.44, l. 5-14.
• To the history of the Russian fleet. Letter from A.I. Chirikov D.Ya. Laptev // Russian Bulletin: Journal. - 1888. - No. 5 .
• Gleb Golubev . Adorable Brothers // On Land and At Sea: A Tale. Stories. Essays. Articles: almanac. - M .: Thought, 1986. - S. 182-206 .
• Korsun S. A. Once again on the fate of the Russians in the land of the Tlingits // The discovery of America continues. Vol. 2. - SPb., 1994. - S. 216-224.
• Gleb Golubev. Russian Columbus: East. Chronicle: About the participants of the Great North. Expedition, 1733-1743 . - M .: Soviet writer, 1989 .-- 383 p.
• Markov S. Chronicle of Alaska. M.-L., 1948.S. 26
• Light Ya. M., Fedorova S.G. History of Fifteen. // "Brigantine." M., 1971. S. 48-64.
• Lebedev D. M. Swimming A.I. Chirikov on the packet ship “St. Paul "to the coast of America. M., 1951.