Toponymy Examples

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In May 1712 the waywode Yakov Yelchin sent the Cossack Mercury Vagin to explore Lyakhov Island , seen before by the Cossack Yakov Permyakov (the sailor I. Rebrov grandson). Having failed on the sea, Vagin went on ice to Big Lyakhov Island . Soon the Cossacks in rebellion killed Vagin and Permyakov. In memory of Mercury Vagin the place of his murder – the long spit, dividing Omullyakh Bay from the East Siberian Sea – was called Merkushina Strelka (Arrow).

The Lyakhov Islands are officially considered to be discovered by Ivan Lyakhov , the Ust-Yan stapler of the XVIII century, during his polar fox hunting (though the Atarikaan inhabitant had been there before), who opened the rich fossil deposits on the Near Island. Ekaterina II, having received the Yakut waywode secretariat information, ordered to call these islands Bolshoi and Maly Lyakhov's and let Lyakhov to hunt there. And in honour to the discovery of Eterikeen the bay was named in honour to him.

One of the manufacturers during the fossil ivory researches left the pot (kotelok) on the biggest one of the Novosibirskye islands. Thus the island was called Kotelny .

P.I. Strizhev (1875-1938), the native of Kazachye village, is the only Yakut, in whose name two islands in the different seas were called . One is in the Arctic Ocean; another is in the Kara Sea .

Russian manufacturer, the Novosibirskye islands explorer , Yakov Sannikov was born in Ust-Yan. In 1800 he discovered Stolbovoi Island , in 1805- Fadeevsky Island , in 1806- New Siberia Island, in 1811- the Bungee Land . In spring 1811 from the northern coast of the New Siberia Sannikov saw the unknown “…land with big mountains”.

The first who marked the Sannikov Land on the map was the Russian explorer Matvey Gedenshtrom in 1810.

The well-known explorer of the Siberian polar regions A.V. Toll firstly described the Pronchischev range , skirt the Laptev Sea coast between the Olenyok river mouth and the Anabar river, and called one of the ranges between Lena river and Olenyok river lowlands in the name of the explorer A.P. Chekanovsky.

In the beginning of the XXth century Toll headed the Russian polar expedition by the schooner “Zarya”, going to the researches of the enigmatic Sannikov Land . During this expedition he, his collaborators and two Yakut guides died in the unknown circumstances.

Three Toll's polar researches formed seven toms, published by Academy of Sciences . In his name 7 geographical objects on the Yakutia map were called. The memorial desk with the bas-relief was put in his honour on Kotelny island.

The Sannikov Land researches inspired the Siberia explorer, geologist, writer V.A. Obrutchev to write the fantastic novel. Firstly the novel “ Sannikov Land ” was published in 1926 . In 1937-1938 the soviet sailors and pilots finally proved that the Sannikov Land is not existed.

The Laptev Sea had the largest quantity of names . Till the beginning of the XXth century it was called Tatarskoye, Lenskoye, Siberian, Nordensheld. Only in 1913 on suppose of the Russian Geographical Society, well-known oceanographer Y.M. Shokalsky, the sea was called in honour of two cousins, stripers Dmitry and Khariton Laptev, who explored and firstly described in 1739-1741 the big part of the Arctic eastern coast.

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