Spanberg, Martyn Petrovich

Born in the Danish village of Erne near the city of Esbjerg ^[3] . Admitted to the Russian service in 1720 with the rank of lieutenant ^[2] . In May 1724, Spanberg was appointed commander of the St. Jacob packet boat , which was intended for the transport of goods, passengers and mail between Kronstadt and Lübeck . Since 1725, he took an active part in two Kamchatka expeditions under the command of Vitus Bering . According to the list of naval officers ^[2] it is known that Martyn Spanberg was promoted to lieutenant commander, in 1730 he was promoted to captain of the 3rd rank and in 1733 he was promoted to captain of the colonel rank.

First Kamchatka Expedition

During the first expedition, researchers reached 65 ° 30 'north latitude. At the same time, Spanberg had to additionally engage in the construction of ships on the Lena for the transport of goods and the investigation of the waterway from the Bolsheretsky prison to Nizhnekamchatsk. On his return from the first expedition, Vitus Bering presented the Empress Anna Ioannovna with a note in which he suggested exploring the paths to America and Japan, for trade with these countries, and the northern coast of Russia between the Ob and Lena .

Second Kamchatka Expedition

The Admiralty Board equipped a new expedition, and Spanberg was placed at the head of an independent detachment sent to inspect the coast of Japan and the inventory of the Kuril Islands and the Amur River. In 1737, he was present at the construction of the Archangel Michael brigantines and the Nadezhda dinghy, which were built by the ship foreman of the flipper vessels M. Rugachev and the boat and boat master A. I. Kuzmin , in the construction of Okhotsk . In the summer of 1738, a detachment of built ships — the Archangel Michael under the command of Spanberg and the Nadezhda under the command of Lieutenant Walton — sailed along the western coast of the Kuril ridge ^[4] . Spanberg counted 31 more unknown islands, gave them names and put on the map.

In particular, he discovered and put on the map the islands of Iturup (named it Citron), Shikotan (under the name of Figure) and Green . The next year he repeated the journey, adhering this time to the eastern side of the islands. Reaching 39 ° C. n., Spanberg saw the coast of Japan, and, following further to the south, on May 22, dropped anchor. Here he entered into communication with the local population and exchanged goods with them. Then the expedition headed north-east. Dear Spanberg saw many islands, but due to the fact that his people were sick, he did not hit the beach and returned to Bolsheretsk on July 14.

Arriving in Okhotsk and catching Bering there, Spanberg set out to him his further plan for the expedition: to go with a large detachment to the newly discovered islands and bring their inhabitants to Russian citizenship. Bering invited the captain to personally go to Petersburg to present his project. Spanberg drove off, but, due to the ban of the admiralty collegium, was forced to stop in Yakutsk, since the investigation began over him in view of the suspicion that he was not in Japan at all, but was sailing along the coast of Korea. The investigation showed, however, that the trip was not a fiction, and that only the information he collected was not accurate enough, so on April 15, 1740, Spanberg received orders to resume the expedition.

In the summer of the following year, he set off on his third trip to the Kuril Islands, having previously detached the Nadezhda dinghy boat under the command of warrant officer Shelting with the surveyor Gvozdev to describe the western coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk to the mouth of the Amur River ^[5] . This time Spanberg failed to finish the job. He intended to resume the voyage when, on September 23, 1743, the expedition was ordered to suspend by the Highest Decree.

Return to St. Petersburg, court and last years of life

In 1745, Spanberg arbitrarily returned from Siberia, for which he was put on trial and sentenced to death, however, in 1747, instead of executing the sentence, he was commanded to lower the rank and write in the warranties for the fleet for 3 months ^[2] .

He commanded the sailing battleship Varahail , launched on May 26 (15 according to the old style) on May 1749 and sunk on June 18 (7) the same year at the mouth of the Northern Dvina when transferring from the Solombala Shipyard to St. Petersburg. On charges of the death of the ship and 28 crew members, M.P. Spanberg was threatened with departure for life galley work, but he was acquitted by the highest decree of December 26 (15), 1752 ^[6] .

In 1753 he was promoted to captain of the 1st rank. He died in 1761 in Kronstadt .

The following names were named after Spanberg: originally Shikotan Island, the highest peak of the South Kamyshov Ridge on Sakhalin - Spamberg Peak, one of the capes in the Anadyr Bay , the cape on Hokkaido Island, the strait between Polonsky Island and Shikotan Island and the Kara Sea Islands in the Alexander Archipelago .

• Veselago F.F. General marine list. - St. Petersburg, 1885 .-- T. 1.
• Divin V.A. To the shores of America. - M .: State Publishing House of Geographical Literature, 1956. - 47 p.
• Divin V.A. Russian navigators in the Pacific Ocean in the 18th century. - M.: Thought, 1971. - 374 p.
• Russian Mariners / Ed. V.S. Lupach. - M.: Military Publishing, 1953. - 672 p.
• Russian expeditions to study the North Pacific in the first half of the 18th century: Sat. / Comp. T. S. Fedorova, L. V. Glazunova, G. N. Fedorova and others. - M .: Nauka, Main Edition of Oriental Literature, 1984. - 320 p. [1] .
• Tsiporukha M.I. Pioneers. Russian names on the map of Eurasia. - M .: Enas-Kniga, 2012 .-- 352 p. - A series of "About which the textbooks were silent." - ISBN 978-5-91921-130-3

• Spanberg, Martyn Petrovich // Russian Biographical Dictionary : in 25 volumes. - SPb. - M. , 1896-1918.