Burial cast of Vitus Bering

Main articles: First Kamchatka Expedition ' , Great Northern Expedition ' , Bering-Chirikov Detachment (Great Northern Expedition) .

Burial place of Vitus Bering

It took considerable time before Bering's merit was fully recognized.

“As you know, James Cook, who visited these waters half a century later, praised the results of the Bering expedition. He wrote: “Paying tribute to Bering’s memory, I can say that he put the shores very well on the map, determining the coordinates with an accuracy that would have been hard to expect with his capabilities.” Companions Cook Forster and King in recognition of Bering’s labors gave his name to the strait between Asia and America. ” ^[one]

“Summing up the results of Bering’s voyages, it must be said that these were exceptionally difficult flights, which cost many victims and claimed the lives of the commander and his assistant. But the geographical results of these two expeditions deserve great respect. During the voyages, the great sea and the strait were discovered, now bearing the name of Bering, a number of Aleutian islands and Diomede islands at the entrance to the Bering Strait, as well as a group of two islands off the coast of Kamchatka, including Bering Island. This group is now named the Commander Islands in honor of Captain-Commander Vitus Bering. The Peter and Paul Bay was found and settled. The beginning of regular shipbuilding at the Okhotsk shipyard has begun. ” ^[2]

“He was the first in the world to sail in the waters of four oceans, and also for the first time brought Russian ships to the open ocean. His name is given to the sea, the strait, the island, the underwater canyon, river, lake, glacier, bay, two capes, as well as the disappeared land (Beringia), which once connected Asia with North America. " ^[3]

The approximate location of the grave of Vitus Bering and members of his team is known from the diaries of George Steller , who also participated in the expedition. He kept a diary and senior officer, Sven Waxel. Their camp, located on Bering Island, was visited from the middle of the 1740s by fur hunters, and then by the Aleutian population of the island. However, in the twentieth century, several undocumented excavations were carried out in the camp, because of which many objects were lost. A major expedition took place in 1981, during which seven cast-iron cannons from a packet boat were found, and it was also possible to establish in which dugouts Bering and Steller lived.

Ten years later, in July-August 1991, an international complex historical-cultural expedition was organized under the leadership of Andrei Kirillovich Stanyukovich, Doctor of Historical Sciences. During the expedition, one of the cemeteries of the crew “St. Petra. " For the search, the express method of phosphate soil analysis was used: the largest amount of phosphate contains the remains of animals and humans. As a result of the analysis, a burial ground was discovered and an excavation site was created to extract six burials.

The remains of one of the crew members were in a wooden coffin - probably it was a box with a trellised bottom, which was on board the "St. Petra "for some needs. Sven Waxel, describing Bering's death, indicates that “his body was tied to a board and buried in the ground; all the rest of our dead were buried without planks. ” Thanks to this, the skull was preserved, it was the only one suitable for restoring appearance.

Georg Steller pointed out in his diary that Bering was buried “between his adjutant, commissioner and grenadiers” - this information also helped to pre-identify the remains. In addition, in two of six graves, objects were found that indicate the Christian faith of the dead: two crosses typical of Western Europe and Russia.

All burials were subjected to medical and anthropological research. But first, the remains were impregnated with special glue, after which they managed to make plaster casts. The remains, presumably belonging to Bering, were seized in a single block together with soil and in a special container with other remains sent to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. The final preservation, reconstruction and radiography of skeletons took place there. From October 1991 to June 1992, the skeletons were studied at the Research Institute of Forensic Medicine of the Ministry of Health of Russia. After the restoration of Vitus Bering's appearance, an analysis of the signs of the intrafamily similarity of his descendants was also carried out. It was possible to establish a possible cause of death of the commander: chronic cardiovascular failure.

The found remains were identified as the burial places of commander Vitus Bering, navigator Andreas Hesselberg, undercoat Nikita Althoughyintsov, naval commissioner, warrant officer Ivan Lagunov, naval soldier Fedor Panov and naval grenadier Ivan Tretyakov. The graves of the rest of the crew members buried on the island were not found and may not be anymore. Since the 1940s, local descent of land has been taking place in the Commander Bay area. Soil is destroyed by the advancing riverbed and the surf.

L. S. Berg, Essays on the History of Russian Geographical Discoveries, from the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1949,

Senkevich Yu. A., Shumilov A.V., The horizon called them, Magadan, 2011

G.V. Steller, A diary of sailing with Bering to the shores of America. 1741-1742., Publishing house PAN 1995

V. M. Pasecki, Vitus Bering (1681-1741), M: Nauka, 1982

V.N Zvyagin, Sh. M. Musaev, A.K. Stanyukovich. Vitus Jonassen Bering. Forensic portrait. Azerbaijan State Publishing House, 1995

Leonid Pasenyuk. Walking the Commanders, Soviet Russia, 1974

Saint Peter (packet boat)

http://www.vokrugsveta.ru/vs/article/1830/ VISIT TO THE COMMANDOR

http://www.vokrugsveta.ru/vs/article/1831/ WHAT WAS VITUS BERING?

http://www.vokrugsveta.ru/vs/article/1397/ LIVING OF SEAFARERS FROM PACKET BOAT “SV.PETR”

Vitus Bering. Secrets of the great commander. TV channel "Culture":

https://tvkultura.ru/video/show/brand_id/21985/episode_id/379818/video_id/379818/