Fedot Alekseyevich Popov
Bank of Russia
2001 coinFedot Alekseyevich Popov (
explorer who organized the first European expedition through the Bering Strait
.
He was normally known as Fedot Alekseyev. Only a few sources call him the son of Popov. He was from
Kolyma River
.
When he arrived at
Anadyr Estuary
.
Dezhnev is usually called the first European to reach the Bering Strait since he was the formal leader and left most of the documents, but Fedot Alexeyev organized the expedition and may have been more important than the few surviving documents indicate.
The Fedotov Legend: When, in 1697,
Kamchatka River, and had married local women. The ruins of their huts could still be seen. The natives thought they were gods or demons and left them alone, but when they saw one Russian kill another, they changed their minds. The Russians were attacked and fled, some going west to the sea of Okhotsk. All were killed, some by the Kamchadals, some by the Koryaks
.
There have been four answers as to the identity of Fedotov:
- Gerhardt Friedrich Müllerthought he was probably Fedot's son, but offered no evidence.
- Stepan Krasheninnikov thought he was Fedot himself and tried to reconcile this with the Yakut woman's story. Other versions of Fedotov=Fedot have been tried.
- He may have been one of the lost men from the Dezhnev or some other expedition. In Siberia at this time there was a Vas'ka Fedotov, a few people who used Fedotov as a patronymic and various Fedors and so on whose names could have been garbled.
- He was some other Russian who does not appear in the surviving records. All that's known is that some Russians reached Kamchatka in the second half of the 17th century and died there. Who they were is a matter of speculation.
References
- ^ Basil Dymytryshyn, 'Russia's Conquest of Siberia, 1985, volume one, document 82
- Raymond H Fisher, The Voyage of Semen Dezhnev in 1648, The Hakluyt Society, 1981.
- 1761 translation of Mueller with the Fedotov story on page ix: [1] - Gerhard Friedrich Müller - translated by Thomas Jefferys.