Historical Reference.

In 1735 one of the detachments of the Great North Expedition under the guidance of Peter Lassenius stayed for winter in the mouth of the Khara-Ulakh river. The detachment had the task to chart the coastal line of Russia starting from the Lena River to the Bering Strait, dividing Asia and America. According to the historical version all members of the detachment had the scurvy. 36 crewmembers out of 46 died. Their grave was lost.

The Great North Expedition (1733-1743), the official name – the Second Kamchatskaia Expedition, under the leadership of the Captain-Commander Vitus Bering, compiled the chart of the Russian territories. They described all north and east margins of Russia from Arkhangelsk to Okhotsk, enormous interior spaces of the Eastern Siberia, the Kuril and Aleutian Islands, discovered routes to Japan and America. The Expedition collected unique data about the nature and history of Siberia and the Far East. This was the largest exploring expedition in the history of the mankind. As a result of its activities the domains of Russia extended to the three parts of the world: Europe, Asia, and America. In the course of the expedition the Russian ships "St. Peter" and "St. Pavel" under the command of V. Bering and A. Chirikov for the first time in the Russian history carried out the transoceanic voyage and reached the shores of America.

The Great North Expedition required employment of enormous human and material resources. 13 ships built in Arkhangelsk, Tobolsk, Yakutsk and Okhotsk, supported 7 research detachments, which had sufficient amount of equipment and food. The crews of the ships were at full strength.

The number of participants of the main and subsidiary detachments amounted to around 5 000 people. But for the present we have the reliable portraits only of five persons: Stepan Krasheninnikov, Johan Gmelin, Vitus Bering, Vasily and Tatiana Pronchishchev. The portraits of the two first persons, famous Russian scientists, were published as drawings in their transactions.

In 1991 the Russian-Danish expedition, organized by the Club, discovered the burial place of Vitus Bering, Captain-Commander, at the Commander Islands. Then we had restored the genuine portrait of this world famous navigator by the method of plastic reconstruction of his scull.

The other expedition, organized by the Adventure Club in 1999 at the mouth of the Olenek River, the north of Yakutiya, achieved outstanding results: reconstruction of the portraits of Vasily Pronchishchev, the chief of one of the detachments, and his wife Tatiana Pronchishchev, who was the first in history woman – Arctic explorer.