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The Russian Empire began its interest of the Pacific Northwest in the 18th century, initially curious if there was a land connection between the Eurasian and North American Continents. Two expeditions were led by Vitus Bering, with the findings proving the separation of two continents through the Bering Sea.
Beginning in 1743, small associations of fur-traders began to sail from the shores of the Russian Pacific coast to the Aleutian islands. [9] The Bering Strait, where Russia's east coast lies closest to Alaska's west coast. Early Russian colonization occurred well south of the strait, in the Aleutian Islands.
Explorers such as Pyanda, Pyotr Beketov, Kurbat Ivanov, Ivan Moskvitin, Vasily Poyarkov and Yerofey Khabarov pushed eastward mostly along the Siberian River Routes, and by the mid-17th century there were Russian settlements in Eastern Siberia, on the Chukchi Peninsula, along the Amur River, and on the Pacific coast.
The central goals in Bering's vision for the new expedition was the survey of the northern coast of the Russian Empire; the expansion of the port of Okhotsk as the gateway to the Pacific Ocean; the search for a sea route to North America and Japan; the opening of access to Siberian natural resources; and finally, the securing of Russian ...
The First Kamchatka Expedition was the first Russian expedition to explore the Asian Pacific coast. It was commissioned by Peter the Great in 1724 and was led by Vitus Bering. Afield from 1725 to 1731, it was Russia's first naval scientific expedition. [1]
Cook set a high standard of scientific exploration, showed that there was no large land mass in the southern ocean, mapped the two largest island groups in the Pacific, and by following the east coast of Australia and the west coast of North America closed the last gaps in European knowledge of the Pacific coasts.
Russian maritime fur trading in the northern Pacific began after the exploration voyages of Vitus Bering and Aleksei Chirikov in 1741 and 1742. Their voyages demonstrated that Asia and North America were not connected but that sea voyages were feasible, and that the region was rich in furs. [ 66 ]
The Pacific Fleet (Russian: Тихоокеанский флот, romanized: Tikhookeansky flot [1]) is the Russian Navy fleet in the Pacific Ocean.Established in 1731 as part of the Imperial Russian Navy, the fleet was known as the Okhotsk Military Flotilla (1731–1856) and Siberian Military Flotilla (1856–1918), formed to defend Russian interests in the Russian Far East region along the ...