The beginning of the 19th century opens a glorious era in the history of Russian navigation. In 1803-1806, the first round-the-world expedition under the Russian flag, headed by I. F. Kruzenshtern, took place. It was followed by new expeditions. They were led by V. M. Golovnin, F. F. Bellingshausen, M. P. Lazarev, and others. Otto Evstafievich (Avgustovich) Kotzeb holds a place of honor in this brilliant constellation of navigators around the world. This famous Russian sailor and scientist was born on December 19, 1788 in Reval.
The father of the future navigator, August Kotzebue, was a famous writer-playwright at one time. In 1796, Otto entered the Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg. He had no intention of being a sailor. However, the early widowed August Kotzebue married I. Krusenstern's sister, and this determined the fate of his son. In 1803 Kruzenshtern took Otto to the sloop "Nadezhda".
At the end of his circumnavigation, Otto Avgustovich Kotzebue was promoted to warrant officer, and in 1811 he became a lieutenant. At this time, Kruzenshtern was developing a project for a scientific round-the-world expedition with the task of opening the Northwest Passage - a sea route around the northern shores of America. Looking for a passage from the Pacific Ocean would also help answer the question: Is Asia connecting with America? In 1648 S. Dezhnev, following from the mouth of the Kolyma to the Anadyr Bay around the Chukchi Peninsula, proved that Asia and America are separated by a strait. However, this strait was not at stake. Also, Kruzenshtern was going to clarify the position of many islands in the Pacific Ocean and, if possible, discover new islands.
Carried away by the plans of Kruzenshtern, Count N. Rumyantsev, who served as chancellor, offered his money for the construction of a small (180 tons) brig for the expedition. Kotsebue was appointed commander of the "Rurik" still under construction in Abo on the recommendation of Krusenstern. The brig was armed with 8 cannons and raised the naval flag on it.
In addition to Lieutenant Kotzebue, Lieutenants G. Shishmarev and I. Zakharyin, doctor I. Eshsholts, artist L. Horis, navigational students, sailors and non-commissioned officers went on a round-the-world voyage. Later in Copenhagen the naturalists M. Wormskiold and A. Chamisso boarded the ship.
In the early morning of July 30, 1815, the brig "Rurik" set sail and left Kronstadt. After a short stop in Copenhagen, on September 7, I arrived in Plymouth. After checking the chronometers, Kotzebue hurried out into the ocean, but the storms forced him to return twice. Only on October 6 the brig managed to leave the English Channel. On the island of Tenerife, Russian sailors replenished supplies. Then the brig, without much adventure, crossed the Atlantic Ocean and on September 12 anchored off the island of Santa Catarina (Brazil).
Preparing for the difficult voyage around Cape Horn, the travelers traveled further south on December 28, and a few days later were caught in a storm. On January 10, 1816, a large wave hit the stern of the brig, breaking the railings on the quarterdecks, the hatches that closed the cannon ports, threw the cannon from one side to the other, broke through the deck above Kotzebue's cabin, and threw the lieutenant himself from the quarterdecks and would inevitably be washed overboard if would not have grabbed the rope.
Finally, Cape Horn was left behind, and the brig went north along the coast of Chile. On February 12, 1816, the Chileans were surprised to see the first Russian ship that appeared in the Gulf of Concepcion.
On March 8 "Rurik" left the bay and after 20 days approached Easter Island. The residents greeted the sailors with hostility. As it turned out later, the distrust of the islanders was explained by the actions of one American captain, who in 1805 captured and took away about 20 inhabitants of the island on his ship.
From Easter Island, the brig headed northwest, and on April 20, in the Tuamotu archipelago, Russian sailors saw a coral island that had not yet been marked on maps. This first island, discovered by the expedition, Kotzebue named after the organizer of the voyage, Count N. Rumyantsev (now Tiksi). On April 23 and 25, two more groups were discovered, which received the names of the Rurik Islands (now Arutua and Tikehau). Moving westward, the travelers on May 21-22, 1816 discovered two more groups and named them the Kutuzov and Suvorov Islands. They were in the eastern chain of the Marshall Islands. On this, research in the South Pacific had to be stopped, it was necessary to rush north, to the Bering Strait.
On June 19 "Rurik" entered Avachinskaya Bay. Preparations for the polar voyage began. Lieutenant Zakharyin fell ill, and had to go north with only one officer - Lieutenant Shishmarev. The naturalist Vormskiold, who decided to study the nature of Kamchatka, also remained in Petropavlovsk.
On July 15, 1816 "Rurik" left Petropavlovsk. On July 30, the brig passed the Bering Strait between the Cape of the Prince of Wales and the Diomede Islands. Kotzebue decided that he had discovered the fourth island in this group and gave him the name of one of the participants in the first Russian circumnavigation M. Ratmanov. Although this time the discovery turned out to be sham, the name stuck to the largest western island.
From the Cape of the Prince of Wales, the brig headed along the coast, hoping to find a way to the Atlantic. On July 13, Russian sailors discovered the bay and a small island. They were named Shishmarev Bay, in honor of one of the officers of the Rurik, and Sarychev Island, after the famous Russian navigator and hydrograph.
After the Shishmareva Bay, the coast began to turn to the east, and then sharply turned south. It seemed that the long-awaited strait had been found. On August 2, the Russian sailors no longer doubted that they were in a wide passage that leads to an unknown sea. Continuing to the east and southeast, the travelers several times landed on the coast of Alaska and the island, and discovered fossil ice, in which the bones and tusks of mammoths came across.
However, hopes of opening the passage in a few days had to say goodbye. On August 7 and 8, sailors explored the extreme eastern part of the imaginary strait and found that the coast was closed here. "Rurik" was not in the strait, but in a huge bay. Its eastern part, from which the mariners had to turn back, Kotzebue called the Eschsholz lip, and the island located at the entrance to the lip, the Chamisso island. The entire bay stretching for 300 km, the study of which Russian sailors were engaged from August 1 to 14, all members of the expedition decided to name it by the name of Kotzebue. The cape on the northern shore of the bay at the entrance to it was given the name Kruzenshtern.
On the way back, the navigator examined the western, Asian, coast of the Bering Strait and was one of the first to conclude that "Asia in the old days was one with America: the Diomede Islands are the remnants of a connection that existed before."
In the Bering Strait, Kotzebue discovered a fairly strong current. Measurements showed that in the deepest part of the fairway it has a speed of up to 3 miles per hour and has a direction to the north-east. Otto Avgustovich considered the current as proof that there was a passage around the northern shores of America.
On November 21, the Rurik arrived in the Hawaiian Islands. He first stopped off the island of Hawaii, where Kotzebue met King Kamehamea, and then went to Honolulu. Kotzebue became familiar with Hawaiian customs and made the first survey of Honolulu Harbor.
On December 14, 1816, the brig went to the islands of Kutuzov and Suvorov, discovered in May, in order to continue research from them in the area of the Marshall Islands. On January 4, the ship approached a new group of unknown coral islands. For a more detailed study of them, Kotzebue led the brig into the lagoon. "Rurik" slowly moved along the lagoon from one island to another and finally stopped at the largest one, which bore the name of Otdia.
On February 7, "Rurik" moved south. Within three weeks, new groups of islands were discovered, which received, in honor of the former naval minister, the name of the Chichagov Islands. February 10 - the Arakcheev Islands, and February 23 - the islands, which were named after the Marquis de Traversay. From these islands "Rurik" headed north to return to the Bering Strait by summer. On the night of April 12, 1817, the travelers were caught in a storm. At 4 am a huge wave hit the brig, breaking the bowsprit and steering wheel. One of the sailors injured his leg; the non-commissioned officer was nearly washed into the sea. The wave hit Kotzebue himself against some sharp corner, and he lost consciousness.
On April 24 "Rurik" entered the harbor of Unalashki. The sailors repaired the damage, almost completely changed the spars and rigging, strengthened the lagging copper sheathing, and on June 29 entered the Bering Strait. Approaching St. Lawrence Island, the ship's crew saw that the entire Bering Strait was still covered with ice. It became clear that even if the strait cleared after a while, the Rurik would not be able to penetrate far to the north this year. And Otto Avgustovich himself has not yet recovered from the blow during the storm. Kotzebue hesitated for a long time. He wanted, "despising the danger of death, to complete his enterprise." However, as the commander of the ship, he was obliged to think about the safety of the ship and the crew. Therefore, the head of the expedition decided to stop trying to break into the Bering Strait.
On July 22, "Rurik" returned to Unalashka and on August 18 set off on a return voyage to the shores of Europe. Having repaired the brig in Manila, the sailors on January 29, 1818 headed south to reach the Indian Ocean by the Sunda Strait. Kotzebue was warned that there were many pirates in these places. Indeed, as soon as the Rurik crossed the equator, the Russian sailors noticed that they were being pursued by a Malay pirate ship. Kotzebue ordered to prepare for battle. The pirate ship overtook the brig and blocked its path at night. But on "Rurik" the enemy was spotted in time. The captain ordered to turn to the enemy's starboard side and fire a volley from the cannons. The pirates, accustomed to dealing with merchant ships and not expecting such a rebuff, turned and quickly retreated. The brig safely passed the Sunda Strait, crossed the Indian Ocean and bypassed the Cape of Good Hope. On August 3, 1818, the Rurik entered the Neva and anchored in front of the house of the expedition organizer, Chancellor N. Rumyantsev. The circumnavigation was completed.
Despite the fact that the Northwest Passage could not be found, the voyage on the Rurik became one of the most scientifically important expeditions of the 19th century. Kotzebue made many important geographical discoveries in the Bering Strait region and in the South Pacific, clarified the position of the islands discovered by other sailors.
The expedition members have collected large ethnographic collections. The meteorological and oceanographic observations made during the voyage were also of great importance.
Three years after the end of the expedition, a two-volume essay by Kotzebue "A Journey to the Southern Ocean and the Bering Strait" was published in St. Petersburg, and a couple of years later the third volume was published, which collected articles by other members of the expedition, as well as records of scientific observations. Already in 1821, Kotzebue's notes were translated and published in English, German and Dutch.
Upon returning from sailing on the "Rurik" Lieutenant-Commander Kotsebue served as an officer for special assignments under the chief commander of the Revel port, Admiral A. Spiridov, and from 1823 to 1826. made a new voyage around the world aboard the 24-gun sloop "Enterprise". During this voyage, he discovered the Enterprise (Fangahina) island in the Tuamotu archipelago, Bellingshausen island (Mato One - 450 km from the island of Tahiti) and the northern islands of the Ralik chain - the atolls of Rimsky-Korsakov (Rongelap) and Eshsholz (Bikini).
The oceanographic results of the expedition on the "Enterprise" were even more significant than the results of the voyage on the "Rurik". Particularly noteworthy are the works of the physicist E. Lenz, who sailed on the sloop, who used the bathometer, designed by him together with Professor E. Parrot, to take water samples from various depths and an instrument for measuring depths.
At the end of the expedition, Captain 2nd Rank Otto Avgustovich Kotzebue was again assigned to the head of the Revel port, then appointed commander of the 23rd naval crew, in 1828 he was transferred to the Guards naval crew. In 1830 he retired with the rank of captain of the 1st rank "due to poor health". The navigator who left the fleet settled on his estate near Reval, where he died in 1846.
