Rarely does anyone have a life that is as measured as it is saturated, in which everything happens at the right time: in his youth - the sea, long voyage and captivating only at this time, the romance of war, in his youth - a thorough and long journey to exotic lands on the opposite side of the globe, upon its successful completion - fame, awards, in maturity - a leadership position, respect for colleagues and love of students, in old age - honor, and even later - immortality in the memory of descendants.
Ivan Kruzenshtern
This is the kind of life that Russian sailor Ivan Fyodorovich Kruzenshtern, who comes from a family of Russified Ostsee Germans, lived. An eighteen-year-old midshipman, early released from the Naval Cadet Corps, on the 74-gun battleship Mstislav, he took part in the main battles of large sailing ships from the very beginning of the Russian-Swedish war of 1788-1790. He distinguished himself at Gogland, Revel, Krasnaya Gorka, Vyborg and in 1790 became a lieutenant.
A year earlier, he had also fought in a battle near the island of Öland, in which the commander of the Mstislav, Captain Grigory Mulovsky, died. This name was then on the lips of all Russian Baltic sailors. Still would! For several years, under his leadership, the first Russian round the world voyage was being prepared. We have already prepared and equipped the flotilla with almost everything necessary (600-ton Kholmogor, 530-ton Solovki, 450-ton Sokol and Turukhan, as well as the transport ship Brave), made crews, invited some - one of the participants in the unhappy last voyage of James Cook, including his navigator and namesake Trevenin, who was rushing about with plans for a sea communication between Kamchatka, Japan and China. Already in Copenhagen, the British pilots were waiting, when the Russo-Turkish war that broke out in 1787 forced, as the order of Empress Catherine II said, people assigned for this squadron, as well as ships and various supplies prepared for it, should be converted to the number of that part of our fleet, which, according to our decree of the 20th of this month of the Admiralty Board, should be sent to the Mediterranean Sea."
As you know, the Mediterranean expedition of the Russian fleet did not take place that time: the extravagant Swedish king Gustav, who decided to fish for a political fish in the muddy Baltic water, suddenly and with nothing but his own unhealthy imagination, unprovokedly announced a cheeky ultimatum to Russia and immediately opened military action.
Medal "UNION RUSSIA". Obverse
If the first war only postponed, then the second finally upset the broadly conceived plans of the Russian around the world. In addition to Mulovsky, death stole from the battlefield many of those who were supposed to go to conquer distant seas. Near Vyborg, James Trevenin, who served the golden sword, the most honorable order of St. George of the IV degree and the rank of captain of the 1st rank "for hard work in keeping the post at Gangut with the entrusted squadron," fell and was buried with honors in Kronstadt.
Remained unclaimed in the St. Petersburg Mint Department, pre-mass produced in gold, silver and even cast ironwhere mainly cannons were cast from this metal) medal "Glory to Russia" with Catherine's profile on the front side and a sailboat on the back. The medal was intended for the leaders of the Pacific natives at the solemn ceremonies of the adoption of their tribes and islands into Russian citizenship.
Medal "UNION RUSSIA". Reverse
But, as they rightly say, a holy place is never empty. Almost ten years passed - and one of Mulovsky's subordinates submitted to the government a new plan for a round-the-world voyage of Russian ships. This person turned out to be Ivan Kruzenshtern, who returned after "advanced training" in England and off the eastern shores of both Americas.
True, then, in 1799, under Emperor Paul, his project did not receive immediate approval. However, three years later, the Russian-American trading company made the same proposal, and they remembered the submitter of the project: Ivan Fedorovich was appointed head of the expedition on two sloops purchased from the British - the 450-ton Nadezhda (formerly Leander) and the 370-ton " Neve "(former" Thames ").
Both ships sailed from Kronstadt on July 26 (August 7) 1803. At first, the voyage went calmly: after a stop in English Falmouth, the sloops went out into the Atlantic and were the first to cross the equator under the Russian flag, which was celebrated with a solemn ceremony on board.
Then the difficulties began. And it turned out not only that in the holds packed to capacity, all living creatures grunt, bellow and, to put it mildly, did not ozonize the air. (By the way, one, forgive me for the expression, a pig, having escaped from the pen, jumped out onto the deck and threw herself overboard with fright..)
Although more troubles were delivered to each other by people. So, from the very beginning, Kruzenshtern had to share a six-meter cabin with Nikolai Rezanov, who went to Japan as the Tsar's envoy. Somewhere near the Brazilian shores, Rezanov unexpectedly declared himself the head of the expedition and began, as they say, to pump rights. Kruzenstern's indignation is easy to understand. Further communication between the neighbors in the tiny cabin (Ivan Fedorovich also managed to pull the weights captured from Petersburg there) came down to the exchange of notes.
Having rounded the dangerous Cape Horn, Russian ships in the spring of the next 1804 reached Polynesia. Here, in a tropical paradise, there is finally an opportunity to relax a little. However, only a little, because everyone remembered the tragic example of Cook, eaten by the Hawaiian savages. The local natives were cannibalized a little too. But against them the "Nadezhda" had sixteen guns. It turned out to be more difficult to resist the peculiar charm and ancestral spontaneity of young cannibals who used only tattoos instead of clothes.
Medal "FOR TRAVELING AROUND THE SVETA". Obverse
The Petrovsky Naval Charter of 1720, which was in effect until the end of the 18th century, limited Russian sailors in their amorous affairs. You get scared when you read some of his paragraphs. "If someone of the female sex rapes and is examined, then let that belly be deprived, or forever sent to the galley, according to the force of the case." Although by mutual agreement it was even possible. After sailing from the paradise islands to the north, many sailors carried such tattoos on their shoulders and other parts of the body that they would instantly give them out with the giblets, if they happened to be "examined" one day.
They say that a certain languid nymph tried to seduce the white commander as well. But Kruzenshtern did not give in, he only allowed himself to be persuaded to make a tattoo - an inscription, it is not known exactly in what language - a few warm words about his beloved wife.
Then the detachment split up: "Neva" went to Alaska, and "Nadezhda" moved first to Kamchatka, and then to Japan.
In Kamchatka, one of the crew members, the violent prankster Count Fyodor Tolstoy, had to be put down. At one time, he was the most famous person. Brether, a gambler, Tolstoy fled around the world, fearing serious punishment for his next trick. On board, he behaved so impudently that in the end he caused the dislike of the entire crew. So, once, having drunk the ship's priest to death, the hooligan sealed his beard to the deck with sealing wax, so much so that he then had to cut it. Of course, he also made himself native tattoos, which he later showed with pleasure to his friends in St. Petersburg. It is not known whether he was interested in savages, but one thing is certain: he left the islands with an orangutan. But whether Tolstoy cohabited with the monkey in reality and whether he ate it later is already from the realm of legends, deliberately spread by the rascal himself.
Medals for distant wanderings-5 Reverse
Perhaps his story about how he sailed from Kamchatka to the Aleutian Islands and lived there for some time in the Tlingit Indian tribe, who fought with the Russians at that time, is also a fiction. Be that as it may, upon his return to the European part of Russia, Tolstoy received an unofficial addition to his surname in society - American.
His later life was full of ups and downs. He fought bravely in Finland, was demoted for a duel, in 1812 he volunteered for the infantry, was wounded on the Borodino field, was awarded "George" IV degree. After the war, he lived in Moscow, played uncleanly at cards. He married a gypsy mistress. Eleven of his twelve children from this marriage died in infancy (one, however, Sarah, died at the age of 17, from consumption) - the same number of people, Tolstoy admitted, he killed in duels.
Pushkin could well have been among the victims of this desperate man. During the Bessarabian exile of the poet, Tolstoy, out of mischief, spread a rumor throughout Moscow that the disgraced poet had been flogged in the security department.
Enraged Pushkin replied with an epigram and began to prepare for a duel. Here is Pushkin's text:
In a dark and despicable life
He was immersed for a long time, Long all ends of the universe
He defiled with debauchery.
But, improving little by little, He made amends for his shame
And now he - thank God -
Just a gambling thief.
However, mutual acquaintances managed to reconcile these extraordinary people. And now in "Onegin" is given a quite friendly portrait of Tolstoy in the image of the duelist Zaretsky:
Five miles from Redridge Mountains, Lensky village, lives
And it is still alive
In the philosophical desert
Zaretsky, once a brawler, Ataman of the gambling gang, The head of the rake, the tavern tribune, Now kind and simple
The father of the family is single, Reliable friend, peaceful landowner
And even an honest man:
This is how our century is being corrected!
But - enough about him.
We mentioned above about the warlike Aleutian tribe of the Tlingit. In 1802-1805, they launched a series of armed attacks on Russian settlements. The sloop "Neva" under the command of Captain Yuri Lisyansky, who had just arrived in time here from Hawaii, also took part in pacifying the Indians.
An interesting fact: the Russian-Indian war did not formally end either in 1805, or even in 1867, when Alaska was sold to the United States. It was only in 2004 that a peace ceremony was held, at which, along with the local Indians, a distant descendant of the head of the Russian colonies in America was present from the Russian side.
Of course, there were also those among the Alaskan Chingachgooks who participated in that war on the side of the aliens. For rewarding their leaders in 1806 and established the medal "Allied Russia" (another name - "For the elders of the North American wild tribes"). Its obverse depicts a double-headed eagle under the imperial crown and a shield with the monogram of Alexander I. On the reverse there is an inscription: "UNION RUSSIA". The medal was to be worn on the ribbon of the Vladimir Order.
While the "Neva" showered cannonballs on the unbroken Tlingits, the "Nadezhda", which was not allowed to land on the Japanese coast, stood at anchor for several months in the bay near the Nagasaki port of Dejima. Rezanov's embassy ended in complete failure: the gifts were returned to the Russians and they were advised to get out, pick up, hello. Returning to Petropavlovsk, Kruzenshtern received the Order of St. Anna of the II degree for the first part of the campaign, and the hapless Rezanov received only a precious snuffbox. He left Nadezhda not without shame, and then went with an inspection to Alaska and further to California to establish trade relations with the Spaniards there. The story of his passion for 15-year-old Maria Concepcion Arguello is described in sufficient detail, albeit with romantic exaggerations, by the poet Andrei Voznesensky. Set to music by the talented composer Alexei Rybnikov, it still remains a kind of teary-poppy theatrical hit. So we will not dwell on it.
Medal minted on the occasion of the expedition of Mikhail Lazarev and Thaddeus Bellingshausen
In August 1806, through Southeast Asia, having safely passed the African Cape of Good Hope, both Kruzenshtern ships returned to the waters of the northern latitudes and to the Kronstadt harbor. Ivan Fedorovich was added to "Anna" "Vladimir" III degree, his officers were awarded, according to rank and merit, orders and titles. And ordinary participants in the first Russian circumnavigation were given three dozen commemorative octagonal silver medals of the following type: on the obverse - a portrait of Alexander I in the uniform of the Preobrazhensky regiment, on the reverse, in an oval, a ship sailing on the sea. Around the ship there is an inscription: "FOR TRAVELING CIRCLE SVѢTA". Top and bottom dates: "1803" and "1806". In addition, every seafarer - from a simple sailor to both captains - received a lifetime pension.
In the future, Kruzenshtern devoted himself to scientific and teaching activities: in 1811 he was appointed inspector of classes, and from 1827 - director of his native Naval Cadet Corps. Meanwhile, a new generation, fostered by Ivan Fedorovich, entered the historical scene. Guided by his instructions, in 1815 the former 15-year-old cabin boy from the "Nadezhda" Otto Kotzebue set off on the next three-year round-the-world voyage in the brig "Rurik". And in 1819, an expedition of another "Nadezhdinets" - Thaddeus Bellingshausen (like Kruzenshtern, he was an Eastsee German) moved to the unexplored south polar regions. There, in January next year, the crews of the sloops "Vostok" and "Mirny" (Mikhail Lazarev) discovered a new continent - Antarctica.
The last expedition carried with it a solid supply of silver and copper medals with the profile of the emperor on the obverse and the inscription around the circumference: "ALEXANDER THE FIRST BM EMPEROR AND THE AUTOCHETS ALL RUSSIAN." On the reverse side, in four lines: "BOATS - EAST - AND - PEACE". And the date of minting. These medals were generously distributed to the natives of the newly discovered islands of Oceania, and what was left was given to the sailors upon their return "as a keepsake."
Another Russian round-the-world expedition of the same year, on the sloops "Otkrytie" and "Blagonamerenny", was supplied with medals of the same design, but with a correspondingly changed inscription.
Since our narrow task does not include a detailed description of travels, then, limiting ourselves to the first and fundamental ones, for detailed information about the rest, we refer the reader to other sources, incomparably more complete. And let's finish the story about the "medals of distant wanderings" of the Alexander era with a curious episode.
In 1815, the Hawaiian, or Sandwich (Sandwich) Islands, as the discoverer James Cook called them in 1778 (not because the main one, Hawaii itself, looks like a fast food dish, but in honor of the then first Lord of the Admiralty, Earl of Sandwich, the inventor of this dish), the German naturalist-adventurer Georg Schaeffer arrived from Russian Alaska. He intervened in local squabbles and built forts of the Russian-American Company on the shore presented to him by the natives, planning to further annex Hawaii to Russia. Having promised the Hawaiian king the protection of the Russian tsar, the dodger, who had no official authority to do so, even persuaded him to sign a petition for protectorate of the Russian Empire. However, the adventure soon ended in failure, since those who then made them their 50th state were already looking at the islands from the east. Soon, armed Americans, with the support of the aborigines, destroyed the settlements, and their inhabitants were forced to board a Russian ship and sail away.
Medal "TO THE OWNER OF SANDVICHOVYH ISLANDS TAMARI IN THE SIGN OF HIS FRIENDSHIP TO RUSSIANAM"
The memory of this failure was a medal on the Anninskaya ribbon "To the Owner of the Sandwich Islands" (it is not known whether it was awarded) with the profile of Alexander I and the inscription on the reverse in five lines: "TO THE OWNER - SANDVICHEV - ISLAND TAMARI - IN ZNAK OF HIS FRIENDS - KJ ROOM."
Returning to St. Petersburg, Schaeffer for some time continued to besiege the tsarist government with his Hawaiian projects, until the final verdict was conveyed to him through the manager of the foreign collegium Karl Nesselrode:
“The Emperor will deign to believe that the acquisition of these islands and their voluntary entry into his patronage not only cannot bring Russia any significant benefit, but, on the contrary, in many respects is associated with very important inconveniences. And therefore, His Majesty wishes that King Tomari, expressing all possible friendliness and a desire to maintain friendly relations with him, should not accept the aforementioned act from him, but only limit himself to deciding the aforementioned favorable relations with him and act to spread the trade turnover of the American company with the Sandwich Islands, to generation these will be in accordance with this order of affairs."
The order of affairs turned out to be inconsistent.
