The Russian Rurik Expedition ("Rurick Expedition") was a circumnavigation of the world that took place from July 30, 1815 to August 3, 1818 under the command of Otto von Kotzebue and was intended to discover and explore the Northwest Passage. The expedition of the warship Rurik (Russian Рюрик) was equipped and financed by the Russian Count Nikolai Petrovich Rumyantsev (Russian Никола́й Румянцев). It took place with the support of Tsar Alexander I. Due to adverse weather conditions, however, it did not reach its destination and returned earlier than planned. The historical significance of the expedition lies in the number of new discoveries along the entire route as well as the human and cultural experiences that the crew brought back from this three-year journey.
Aim of the expedition The Russian desire to find the Northwest Passage was primarily for economic reasons. It was difficult and expensive to maintain supplies to the trading bases on the east coast of Russia and in the colony of Russian America, which stretched along the American west coast from Alaska to San Francisco, by land across the Asian continent. The search for a sea route to the north of the European and Asian continents (Northeast Passage) had not yet brought the desired success. The sea routes around the southern tip of Africa (Cape of Good Hope) or America (Cape Horn), on the other hand, proved to be time-consuming and dangerous due to a variety of threats, including adverse weather and piracy. Russia therefore hoped to discover a passage to the north of the American continent, which would have been much shorter and probably easier to navigate. As all attempts to discover this sea route from the east had so far failed, this time the passage was to be found from the west and explored and sailed through in the opposite direction. It was hoped that the expedition's starting position could be improved by the fact that Russia had numerous trading bases on the west coast of the North American continent, which could serve as starting points for supplying the crew and providing other logistical support for the campaign. The voyage included two summer campaigns (1816 and 1817): The first was intended to explore suitable anchorages north of the Bering Strait. With the second, they hoped to advance further north and east from there the following summer. Like many before and after it, the expedition did not achieve its goal. However, Otto von Kotzebue was able to demonstrate a continuous ocean current, which was the first scientific proof of the existence of the Northwest Passage. In addition, von Kotzebue mapped over 400 islands in Polynesia and large parts of the west coast of Alaska. The naturalists documented a large number of unknown animal and plant species.
Members of the expedition In addition to the three coxswains Khramchenko, Petrov and Koniev, two non-commissioned officers, a cook and 20 sailors, the following people took part in the expedition:
Otto von Kotzebue (1787–1846), lieutenant in the Imperial Russian Navy, captain of the Rurik and leader of the expedition. Johann Friedrich Eschscholtz (1793–1831), ship's doctor and naturalist Adelbert von Chamisso (1781–1838), naturalist (titular scholar), author of the diary Reise um die Welt in den Jahren 1815-1818 Louis Choris (1795–1828), draughtsman (was also available to the naturalists for documentation purposes) Morten Wormskjold (1783–1845), volunteer naturalist (disembarked in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky) Gleb Semyonovich Shishmaryov, first lieutenant Ivan Yakovlevich Sakharin, second lieutenant Vasily Stepanovich Khromchenko, assistant coxswain The following people were on board temporarily during the voyage:
August 17, 1815: A pilot for the voyage in the Channel and to Plymouth. October 1, 1816: Two Russian sailors and one passenger: Elliot de Castro, personal physician to the King of Hawaii (from San Francisco to Hawaii) February 23, 1817: The South Sea islander Kadu (during the entire summer campaign of 1817) May 27, 1817: Two interpreters for the dialects of the more northern coastal peoples. August 1817: Four Aleuts to strengthen the crew
The ship The Rurik, named after the Varangian prince and founder of Russia Rurik (ca. 830 to ca. 879), was a small brig of 180 tons. For the duration of the expedition, it was authorized to fly the imperial Russian battle flag. It was therefore considered a warship. As the primary goal of the voyage was the discovery of the Northwest Passage, the ship was equipped only secondarily as a research vessel. The accompanying explorers therefore had to follow the military customs on board. Kotzebue's words to Adelbert von Chamisso, "that [he] as a passenger on a warship, where one was not accustomed to having any demands, had no right to make any." The explorers had little space available for collecting plants and artifacts. Most of the collections were immediately stowed away in sealed boxes below deck. As Adelbert von Chamisso describes, collections that were openly displayed were often thrown overboard (even on the captain's orders), as they interfered with the sailors' daily tasks on board. The ship was only lightly armed and the eight cannons were used almost exclusively for firing salutes when entering and leaving foreign ports. Towards the end of the voyage, the Rurik encountered alleged pirate ships near the Sunda Strait, which were kept at a distance by firing warning shots. Before the second summer campaign in 1817, the Rurik ran into a storm off Kamchatka and was badly damaged. The hastily carried out repair work in Unalaska was more of a damage limitation exercise than a complete restoration. The condition of the Rurik was officially regarded as one of the reasons why von Kotzebue did not want to continue north and abandoned the expedition's goal. During the return journey, the Rurik underwent a general overhaul at the shipyard in Cavite in the Philippines.
Course of the expedition
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