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Pyotr Chikhachev is the founder of the Kuzbass. Biography Traveler Chikhachev Petr Alexandrovich brief historical background

Moscow

Russian travelers and scientists - brothers Chikhachev

Platon Alexandrovich Chikhachev
(1812, Gatchina - 1892, Versailles) The name Chikhachev has been known for a long time and means a lot in the history of Russia. The brothers Peter and Platon Chikhachev played a special role in this at one time:
- Petr Alexandrovich Chikhachev is a geographer, geologist and traveler, who has made serious discoveries and achievements in science. He went down in history as one of the first explorers of Altai and the largest explorer of the mountains of Asia Minor. In Altai there is a mountain range named after Chikhachev.
- Platon Alexandrovich Chikhachev - Russian traveler and climber, one of the founding members of the Russian Geographical Society, an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Mineralogical Society.
The brothers Peter and Platon Chikhachev wrote many interesting pages in the history of not only geographical, but also historical, political and philosophical sciences. The study of Europe, Asia, Africa and America is associated with their names. The Chikhachev brothers were born into a well-born family of the real state councilor Alexander Petrovich Chikhachev, who was a colonel of the Life Guards of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. After his retirement, he was appointed commandant of the palace in Gatchina. Anna Fedorovna Chikhacheva (nee Bestuzheva - Ryumina), the mother of the Chikhachevs' sons, was a cousin of the Decembrist Bestuzhev. She was a highly cultured woman who spent a lot of time raising and educating her sons. The outbreak of the war with Turkey carried away the ardent 16-year-old young man, and Plato was enlisted as a cadet in the St. Petersburg Army Lancers Regiment. While still a very young man, he quite successfully participated in three wars (1828,1829,1831) against Turkey and Poland. He served zealously and honestly, and already in 1929 he was promoted to officer. He retired in 1833, and in 1835-1837 he made his first great journey through North and South America - from Canada to Tierra del Fuego.

Torres del Paine, Argentina. This is what Platon Chikhachev discovered for the Russian people.

And as soon as he had free time, he was engaged in self-education. Passion for travel, passion for geography and geology prevailed over the life of an ordinary young officer. At the slightest opportunity, he entered everything that was interesting and useful in his travel diaries. Chikhachev did not write much, and there were even fewer of his printed works, devoting all his attention to diary entries.
During his, one might say, almost semi-circumnavigation, P.A. Chikhachev collected a huge collection of diary entries, but he failed to translate them into a literary heritage - the diaries were stolen.
It so happened that at the beginning of the Turkish campaign, the work of Alexander Humboldt, already famous then, fell into the hands of P. Chikhachev, and under his impression Plato had a desire to see the wonders of the New World for himself. After reading Humboldt's book, a long chain of his travels began. Chikhachev was then 24 years old, but he had already managed to experience many events in his life and see many countries. As he himself wrote about himself, "the unknown had an inexplicable charm for me, and obstacles only irritated my curiosity." His dream was to cross the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean. He attempted to do so at the beginning of the journey, on the way through Santa Fe de Bogota in Colombia, but political turmoil in that country prevented the journey. He made a second such attempt in Peru - from Callao and Lima via Cuzco, but again unsuccessfully. The plans included a trip to Europe - through Scotland and England to France and Italy, from where in 1835 (from Palermo) he went to the USA - to Philadelphia. Then he visited Canada (to Lake Superior), the plains along the Mississippi and Ohio and returned to New York. Further, his path went by sea to Vera Cruz in Mexico and from Acapulco again by sea - to Guayaquil in Ecuador. From there, on horseback, Chikhachev reached the capital of this country - Quito. The same failure befell him in Peru, and only in Chile did he succeed in fulfilling his plan, crossing the Andes across the pampas, he reached Buenos Aires. During his journey across the continent of America from Canada to Tierra del Fuego, Platon Chikhachev crossed the Andes, giving attention and time to make ascents. In particular, he climbed the peaks of the Andes: Pichinchu, Pasco and others.

Volcano Pichinchu (4787)

In this campaign, Chikhachev passed through the Kumbre pass (3965 m). The name of the pass is given by the name of an old small mining village (there used to be a silver mine). Through this pass many years later, a cogwheel railway was laid, and now a three-kilometer tunnel has been cut under it for the railway line and highway connecting Santiago and Buenos Aires. Having finished his campaign, Chikhachev became the first Russian traveler to cross the Andes.
In Buenos Aires, he suggested that it was quite possible to get into Central Asia from the north. He drew up a plan, which was approved by A. Humboldt. With the assistance of the latter, this plan was presented to the Sovereign himself during his stay in Berlin in 1838. Despite the sympathy and approval of the plan by the Sovereign, Chikhachev could not carry it out, as he met with strong opposition from Count Nesselrode, who was famous for constantly hindering any movement of Russians in Asia. With great difficulty, Chikhachev managed to achieve only a secondment to the detachment that was going to Khiva, so that, having reached Khiva with him, he could continue the further path himself, at his own expense and personal responsibility (!). Khiva expedition failed. Platon Chikhachev was still only thinking about activities for the study of Central Asia, when the very same Humboldt gave a new impetus in this direction. If we take into account that by this time Humboldt had already become a venerable and world-renowned scientist, then even he did not foresee any visible prerequisites for negative answers. Chikhachev made a very good impression on him with his ideas and enthusiasm. Humboldt's letter dated April 11, 1839 to the Russian Minister of Finance E.F. has been preserved and published. Kankrin, where he recommends to the latter “a young man who, having courage and the happiest natural talents, has the desire to devote his life to something wonderful, for example, a trip to Central Asia. He needs your patronage, and he deserves it ... His desire for knowledge is not an empty appearance. This is an excellent young man, in whose face a lot can perish if he is not supported at home. We have received information that Humboldt addressed Tsar Nicholas I with a similar recommendation. But in vain. Chikhachev "was not supported at home," as the perspicacious Humboldt foresaw. As Chikhachev's contemporaries later claimed, Nicholas I was hostile to both Chikhachev brothers for their progressive views and sympathy for the Decembrists. Returning to his homeland, in 1845 Chikhachev took part in a very important undertaking - the organization of the Russian Geographical Society (RGO). He signed a call for its creation together with many other prominent scientists of that era - Academician P.I. Koeppen, G.P. Gelmersen, V.Ya. Struve, Rear Admiral F.P. Wrangel, V.F. Odoevsky, V.A. Perovsky and others. The Charter of the Society was approved in August 1845 and indicated that the purpose of the Russian Geographical Society would be “arrangement and direction of research and research on the geography of Russia”, “collection and dissemination of geographical information in Russia”, as well as verification and refutation of “unfounded information” in order to warn “ spreading false notions about Russia”. In the very near future, in the Geographical Society, he made a survey of studies of the peaks (as the upper reaches of the rivers were called at that time) of the Syr-Darya and Amu-Darya. This did not save the situation - he was in trouble. Continuing to prepare for his journey, he actively sought to obtain the necessary scientific knowledge, listened to lectures and worked under the guidance of first-class European scientists. Only the Crimean War took away his last hope of organizing a new expedition, and instead, in 1855, Chikhachev went as a volunteer to Sevastopol, where he remained under the commander-in-chief, Prince Gorchakov, until the armistice. In 1856, Chikhachev married and since then, due to family circumstances and poor health, he lived mostly abroad, devoting most of his time to geographical research and science in general. In his many travels, Chikhachev spent a lot of time hiking in mountainous areas, climbing in order to acquire new knowledge in new areas of the Earth. So, in the Pyrenees, he made an interesting ascent to the highest mountain of the Pyrenees - the peak of Aneto (Anneto, Neto, and in Spanish - Aneto). This third highest mountain in Spain is also known by the French name Pic de N&233thou. This mountain is considered a masterpiece of the Pyrenees and soon became a constant subject of mandatory climbing to its summit. The naturalist writer Louis Ramon de Carbonnière (1755-1827) described Anetho as a heap of needles of ice. It is possible that the current name is related to the small town of Aneto, located on the eastern slope. Local shepherds and hunters called the peak simply a peak, a prong (Spanish for "punta") or "Mala (x) ita" (can be translated as: "broken / bad pin / nail (without a hat)". The interest of researchers and climbers in Aneto woke up as early as the beginning of the 18th century, but until the middle of the 19th, attempts to climb the mountain ended tragically (dared men died in the cracks of the glacier), which is why Aneto began to be accompanied by notoriety.

Aneto Peak. (3404). Pyrenees. Spain. Province of Huesca.

The active Russian officer Chikhachev surprised the locals quite a bit when he began to collect information about this peak and receive the necessary consultations, wanting to climb the Aneto peak. Local residents strongly dissuaded Chikhachev from attempting to climb this mountain. The peak was notorious among local shepherds and hunters. The dangerous peaks of the Pyrenees, where the Anetou peak is located, have obviously not caused much tenderness among the locals for a long time, who gave this mountain range the name Maladetta (Spanish - “cursed”). But in reality, this peak was not the most difficult to climb. In July 1842, he submitted on the first attempt to a group of climbers led by a Russian officer, Platon Chikhachev. On the ascent he was accompanied by local guides Pierre Sanio de Luz, Luchonnet Bernard Arrazo and Pierre Redone. This group included the botanist Albert de Francville with his guide Jean Sur. They undertook an assault on the summit from the "Renklus refuge" - a natural cave at an altitude of 2140 meters, which for a long time served as a refuge for smugglers.
At the top of the mountain, they built a cairn and left a bottle with a note containing the names of all the expedition members.
To commemorate such an unusual event, the Toulouse Academy published Chikhachev's reported barometric measurements of Maladette Peak and honored his work with its silver medal. He was the first traveler to reach the highest point of the mountain, and barometrically determined its height at 3414 meters. After this ascent, one of his French acquaintances (de Joinville) expressed doubts about the accuracy of Chikhachev's determination of the height of this peak, and perhaps even about the very fact of the ascent. Chikhachev on a bet repeated this ascent with de Joinville himself. At the top they, of course, found Chikhachev's calling card. Yes, and the secondary measurement of the height of the peak gave the same result as the first. A member of several Academies and Geographical Societies in a number of countries, at home, in Russia (especially in its government circles), Chikhachev was not popular. This attitude was explained by the progressive views of both Chikhachevs, their sympathy for the Decembrists. This attitude manifested itself especially clearly in the idea expressed by Chikhachev of conducting an expedition to Central Asia to explore the upper basin of the Syrdarya and Amudarya rivers (in those days, it was, as they say, a “pioneer project” of science). Even the energetic support of the Geographical Society organized in Russia, the implementation of such a project, as they later wrote: “... met insurmountable obstacles from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Society was not able to equip an expedition to Central Asia in the initial period of its activity. As a result of cabinet intrigues, the talented and courageous, moreover, perfectly scientifically trained Platon Aleksandrovich Chikhachev, who could become a pioneer of Russian geographical science in the study of Central Asia, had to abandon his cherished dream and, having gone abroad for a long time, “cross himself out” , if I may say so, out of order Russian explorers of Inner Asia.
The pages of the biography of Peter and Platon Chikhachev are filled with information about ancient times, when Russian geographical science, which already had considerable fame for research on the seas, entered the continent and turned its attention to the study of distant and inaccessible countries, including the mountainous countries of the world. The tireless traveler Platon Chikhachev, being an expert on mountain paths, passes and climbing a number of peaks in Western Europe, Africa and America, later turned his perseverance, his experience and erudition to prepare expeditions to Central Asia, which was a "blank spot" on the maps of those times. Alas, through no fault of his own, these plans did not reach their goal, and he left behind only an interesting survey of geographical data about Central Asia.
After his marriage to E.F. Offenberg in 1856, Platon Alexandrovich Chikhachev moved abroad almost forever. He devoted himself there to the care of his family. Until 1874, he lived mainly in Paris, in the years 1874-1880. - in Wiesbaden, Germany, and spent his last years in Cannes, in the south of France. During this time, he wrote several interesting articles about "California and the Ussuri Territory" and about the "Canadian Pacific Railway" (1890-1891). In them, he combined the analysis of the physical-geographical and economic conditions of the countries of Asia and America.
The life of Platono Alexandrovich Chikhachev abroad was very secluded, alien to any kind of wide social connections and honors that corresponded to a scientist of his rank. He tried to give his children the same good education that he himself received: his son Fyodor Platonovich became a famous mineralogist. Petr Alexandrovich Chikhachev- the elder brother of Platon Chikhachev is a Russian geographer and geologist. In 1876 he was elected an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Since 1890 he became an honorary member of the Russian Geographical Society. One of the majestic ridges of Altai, where he once conducted his research, is called the Chikhachev ridge. He visited all the mountain ranges of the Anatolian Peninsula and made many ascents for purely research purposes. As a result of his travels in Italy and Southern France (1839-1841), he compiled a geological map of the Apennine Peninsula based on materials from his travels in Altai and Northwestern China (1842), compiled a geographical and geological description of these territories in 1845, and in Russia he wrote a description of Kuznetsky coal basin. One of the oldest coal quarries in Kubass.

In 1847-1863 undertook a number of expeditions to Asia Minor in 1877-1878 traveled to Spain, Algeria and Tunisia.
Pyotr Chikhachev collected for his interesting and brilliantly written article about the Pamirs a lot of little-known information, starting with the descriptions of the Buddhist monk-traveler of the 7th century Giun-Tsang and the diaries of Marco Polo in the 13th century, and ending with the reports of English agents Moorcroft, Wood and others. To the text of his work, which included both physical and geographical information and data on communication routes, passes, etc., Chikhachev also attached the “Hypothetical map of the Pamirs and the peaks of the Syr Darya and Amu Darya” (Hypothetical map).
On Chikhachev’s map, the river system of both mentioned rivers (as well as the Tarim River in the east), the position of the Mustag, or Than-Shan ridges (as the name Tien Shan was written at that time), and the Himalayas, which the author combined with the Karakoram . But the Pamir mountain systems - they were depicted only in the form of one meridional ridge, called the Bolorsky - there was still so little information about them. It connected three mountain nodes on this map, the first of which was located northwest of Kashmir (Srinagar), where the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush converge. The second node was located in the upper reaches of the Amu Darya, where Khun-Lun-Shan (Kuen-Lun) adjoins Bolor from the east, and the third one was not far from Margelan, where, as Chikhachev thought, Tkhan-Shan branches off to the east.
The main works on geography and geology left by Petr Aleksandrovich refer to Asia Minor, the countries of the Mediterranean (Italy and Southern France, Spain, Algeria, Tunisia) and Altai. P.P. Zakharov (Based on materials: dic.Akademic.RU, Wikiznanie.RU, Club - crystal. RU, Rilex.RU. Books by V.V. Tsybulsky "The Likhachevs". Photo from Internet publications, photogallerys.ru/en , Ocenil.RU, Kristur,Usoz.UA, http://dlyakota.ru/21198-ugled, Images/yandex.RU)

CHIKHACHEV PETER ALEXANDROVICH

Chikhachev (Peter Alexandrovich, 1808 - 1890) - geographer-traveler and geologist, known for his studies of Altai and Asia Minor. Having received his home education in Tsarskoye Selo, under the guidance of lyceum professors, Chikhachev completed it abroad, listening to lectures by Naumann, Breithaupt, Liebig, L. von Buch, G. Rose and other famous geologists and mineralogists of that time, and then worked in Paris with Elie de Beaumont. Not preparing for a scientific career and not being a professional scientist, Chikhachev, having good money and excellent scientific training, could completely devote himself to his early attraction to scientific travel and research, which yielded very important scientific results, thanks to the observation of their author and excellent thorough processing scientific material collected during his travels, to which Chikhachev had the opportunity to attract outstanding specialists in various branches of knowledge. Having received a scientific education abroad, publishing all his scientific works in French or German, and having spent most of his life abroad (mainly in Paris), Chikhachev cannot be considered a Russian scientist, but Russian science owes him a very important work on geology and geography. Altai, which has not lost its significance to the present, although more than half a century has passed since its appearance. Chikhachev's independent scientific activity began in 1841, when he published a geological description of the Monte Gargano mountain in southern Italy and the vicinity of the city of Nice. In 1842 he published a geological description of the southern provinces of the Kingdom of Naples, and in the same year he undertook a great journey to the Altai. Already in 1845, he published a voluminous work about Altai, entitled: "Voyage scientifique dans l" Altai Oriental et les parties adjiointes de la frontiere de Chine "and representing a travel report and the results of the development of the collected material, in which Elie de Beaumont took part , Verneuil, Geppert, which gave the work a special value. Having finished this enormous work, Chikhachev soon began a comprehensive study of Asia Minor, to which he devoted the next 20 years of his life. there to study the Turkish language, and then, leaving the service, undertook a series of travels in Asia Minor during 1847 - 1863, during which he made versatile scientific observations and collected rich collections: geological, botanical, zoological, paleontological and archaeological. The results of the journey were published by Chikhachev in a huge 8-volume work: "Asie Mineur", published from 1853 to 1869. This work, embracing the geography, geology, climatology, zoology, botany and paleontology of Asia Minor, is a classic work performed by Chikhachev with the collaboration of numerous specialists in various branches of natural science. After the end of this work, Chikhachev did not undertake great travels, having already reached the limits of old age, but did not stop his scientific studies. Back in 1878, at the age of 71, he visited Inner Algiers and Tunisia and in 1880 published a description of his journey under the title: "Espagne, Algerie et Tunisie". In 1890, a collection of his popular scientific articles of diverse content was published in Paris, under the title: "Etudes de Geographie et d" Histoire naturelle ". These articles represent excerpts from the major scientific work conceived by Chikhachev "On the deserts of the globe", which he did not managed to finish, having died of pneumonia in 1890. In addition to geographical and natural history works, Chikhachev published a number of political articles on the Eastern question.In order to encourage travelers to Asia, Chikhachev left, by will, a capital of 100 thousand francs to the Paris Academy of Sciences. Chikhachev, compiled by Stebnitsky, and a list of his scientific works are placed in the XXVII volume of "Proceedings of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society".

Brief biographical encyclopedia. 2012

Through Kuznetsk, Zenkovo and Afonino

Petr Alexandrovich Chikhachev (1808-1890): geographer, geologist and cartographer, honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, whose main achievement is the discovery of one of the world's largest coal basins - the Kuznetsk. P.A. Chikhachev compiled the first geological map of the basin and determined its size.

August 1842. A horse caravan of fifty riders, guarded by two mounted Cossacks, entered the current Kemerovo region from the side of Achinsk. The travelers stopped at the Itat postal station - it was a village of three hundred yards with inns, taverns, a hay bazaar, and in general everything that was needed to serve those passing along the busy Moscow-Siberian Highway.

The group, even at first glance, differed from the usual trade carts, and, as it immediately became known from the travel papers, it really had to be different. It was a scientific expedition. According to the documents, it was said that it included a topographer N. Boyarsky, an artist E.E. Meyer, a mining candidate V. Serkov, a washer Kalinin, a medical student Anufriev, an interpreter (translator) Khabarov ... The team was headed by P. A. Chikhachev.

The same Petr Alexandrovich Chikhachev, geographer and geologist, future honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Now his name appears in all reference books, including the Brockhaus and Efron dictionary. It is known that this man spent most of his life in France. Based on the materials of his travels, he gave a geographical and geological description of entire geographical regions and even entire countries.

We will dwell on his biography not only because it was he who named our places, which make up a significant part of the Kemerovo region, the Kuznetsk coal basin. The second reason for this is new and unexpected circumstances. Research in recent years has added to his biography such details, which are not even hinted at in the biographies of previous years. We see the same in the heritage of other travelers. For example, a book about the Far Eastern researcher V.K. Arsenyev, the author of the most popular Dersu Uzala, has recently been published. It shows another, "parallel" career of Vladimir Klavdievich. Career of an intelligence officer of the Russian army. But first things first.

Pyotr Alexandrovich Chikhachev was born on August 16 (28), 1808 in the Grand Gatchina Palace, the summer residence of the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. His father, Alexander Petrovich, a retired colonel of the Life Guards of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, was appointed director of the city of Gatchina in 1804 - it turns out that there were such positions then. He "headed the city settlement and exercised the main supervision over the palace and its accessories."

Turning to the civil service, Alexander Petrovich received the rank of real state councilor. Mother, Anna Fedorovna, nee Bestuzheva-Ryumina, cousin of the future Decembrist. A woman of high culture, energetic and very knowledgeable in court etiquette, she devoted all her time to raising her sons - Peter's younger brother Platon was born in 1812.

Peter and Plato received an extremely thorough and versatile home education. At the age of twelve, Petya was fluent in German and French, and then in Tsarskoe Selo he studied Greek and Latin. Soon the family moved to Tsarskoye Selo, where a house was bought near the lyceum, the same one in which Alexander Pushkin studied a little earlier. However, the parents decided to continue raising their sons at home, but with the invitation of the lyceum professors. In 1823, Peter became a student at the department of the State Collegium of Foreign Affairs. In 1827 his father died. The sons sold the estates belonging to the Chikhachevs in the Tambov and Saratov provinces, as well as the house in Tsarskoe Selo, and moved to St. Petersburg. For both began an independent period of life.

In 1829, the term of Pyotr Alexandrovich's internship at the Collegium of Foreign Affairs ended, and in March of the following year he entered the university as a free student, where he mastered for 10 months, with laudable behavior, the science of the Faculty of Law. The natural sciences fascinated Petr Alexandrovich so much that in 1829-1830 he repeatedly traveled to Western European countries to listen to lectures by leading scientists.

Returning to St. Petersburg to work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pyotr Alexandrovich quickly began to move up the career ladder. On April 5, 1830, the actuary Pyotr Chikhachev was granted the position of translator at the State Collegium of Foreign Affairs and on April 30 was sent to the Asiatic Department. And then we need to read slowly.

In the Asian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Chikhachev, as indicated in his biographies, dealt mainly with the Eastern question. He visited Egypt, traveled through Palestine, the Libyan Desert, Sinai and Syria, and soon got a place at the Russian embassy in Constantinople. Along with his official duties as an assistant secretary, he studied the history and ethnography of the peoples of Asia. And before fate brought him to an inn in the very middle of Siberia, he visited the cities of the Ottoman Empire, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France and other European states. But in 1836 he left the service and decided to devote himself to scientific research.

In 1839, on the recommendation of the great Alexander Humboldt, a world-famous German scientist, Peter Alexandrovich began to study the Apennine Peninsula. And in two years he compiled its geological map. It turns out that the enlightened state in the center of Europe did not have one at all until then! But for this, the young scientist had to go around it all. In detailed biographical sketches, this period of his life is replete with such romantic names that have remained in our memory from school childhood, from novels about the liberation wars of Spartacus and Garibaldi. How they sound! The Castel Sarracino area, the peaks of Monte Vulture, the Garigliano river, the volcanic zone of the Neapolitan area. It turns out that for four months he studied the environs of Naples, the Rocca Monfine area, the Phlegraine fields, the volcano Vesuvius, the islands of Ischia, Capri, and so on.

And after all this romantic splendor, he returns to Russia. On the proposal of the headquarters of the Corps of Mining Engineers, by order of Nicholas I, Petr Alexandrovich receives the state position of an official for special assignments under the Minister of Finance, and is sent to the Altai mining district.

Before this, the headquarters of the Headquarters of the Corps of Mining Engineers, signed by the General of Infantry Kankrin, sends the following request to the emperor: "... recognizing it is useful to start detailed searches, preliminarily examine this region, appoint a court adviser, chamber junker Chikhachev, who had already traveled before this in many countries, and about the abilities and knowledge of which several European scientists testify with special praise, and especially Baron Humboldt ... ".

Having received the order of Nicholas I, the Headquarters issues an "Order to carry out a scientific expedition" with all the instructions. In particular, it says: “For assistance, you will be given in Barnaul from the mining chief a mining surveyor familiar with eye survey, a mining candidate or foreman familiar with gold-sand production and an efficient washer, and in Biysk, by order of the Tomsk civil governor, you will receive for your escort of two city Cossacks and an interpreter, or interpreter ... ".

In response, Chikhachev wrote to General Kankrin: “I am ready to fall under your banner as soon as possible ... I am sure that although many of the soldiers of the Motherland surpass me in abilities and knowledge, on the battlefield I will not yield to any of them in perseverance and zeal.”

It is appropriate to say that by that time quite a few scientists from Russia and Europe had visited Altai, and we will also return to this.

In March 1842, Peter Alexandrovich left Petersburg with his companions. The expedition on carriages arrived in Biysk on May 5, and from there, in a caravan, a total of 52 riding and pack horses, including removable ones, went to the Altai Mountains.

The next task was to get to the mouth of the Chuya River. Today, along the mountain serpentine of the Chuisky tract by car, it takes almost a day to do this - a distance of more than 600 kilometers. They arrived in almost a month. Every curious person can trace the path of the expedition according to the notes of Pyotr Alexandrovich himself - they are detailed and interesting. They will help us too.

We read the entry: “June 1. The wind has died down and the weather is fine. Since we entered the Kurai steppe, every time the sun went down, the temperature usually dropped below zero.

Familiar names, familiar places, especially for travelers. Today it is from the village of Kurai that hiking mountain routes through the Aktru glacier start. As early as the 1960s, a climbing camp was preserved at the foot of Aktru, and the annual camp of glaciologists from Tomsk State University also worked there. Students and teachers led by the permanent professor Tronov spent summers in tents and houses under the glacier. There are talks about the restoration of the camp - maybe this will happen ...

And here is the place, which in our time is the regional center of Kosh-Agach. “We crossed the Chuya a little higher than Chagan-Burgazy. Following in a western direction, in about half an hour we reached what in this region is called "Russian huts." These are three or four small sheds built by merchants from Biysk, from where they come here twice a year for barter with advanced posts located at a short distance from these places. When you think that this trade, which I have already mentioned, is not supported by any government by any guarantee capable of giving a trading enterprise a wide scope and stability, one cannot help but wonder how these bold speculators voluntarily expose themselves to the hardships of a risky path and trust their lives to the waves of the Katun. , often with no other means of transportation other than a few deerskins sewn together. And all this is being done to transport a small amount of goods that any minute one of the states can declare smuggling. That's how strong the greed is, that's the attraction of speculation! Although these miserable huts without windows and doors, littered with boards and earth, could not provide us with any comforts, we did not disdain a modest shelter. And somehow they settled in it.

By the way, here, in the Kosh-Agachsky district, the famous earthquake of 2003 occurred, when the governor A.G. Tuleev from the Kemerovo region sent three caravans with building materials, metal, coal, blankets from Leninsk-Kuznetsky, iron stoves with Zapsiba, etc.

And here is the border. “All border guard posts are occupied only by miserable, ragged Mongol soldiers, as backward as their Altai neighbors. The only weapons of the border guards are bows and arrows, and only some have rough-made guns in which the flint is replaced by a wick "...

The border is still in the same place today, in the Kosh-Agach region, in the Jazator region, Mongolia and China come close to us, and a border crossing to the Mongolian Republic has been opened in Tashant.

Here is another entry by Chikhachev. It is about topographic survey of the area. “I set out to go in search of the origins of Abakan. I had to cross a real "terra incognita", the dimensions of which I could not yet determine and on which not only a European, but also a person in general, had not set foot until now. We came across a vast plateau divided by Chuya. Wanting to take advantage of the horizontal surface of the plain, I sent my topographer to accurately measure its width in order to obtain a new basis for triangulations ... ". The entry was made where the detachment met guardsmen with bows and arrows. That is, on the very frontier, before the planned transition to "terra incognita", in other words, to the lands of China. We ask the reader for forgiveness for such details, but these are not trifles, these quotes will be useful to us further.

And at the Chikhachev group, the path lies to the east through hilly and swampy terrain with many lakes. And she soon reached the Alash River in the Yenisei system. Then we went to the Uryankhai region - the Chinese province, our current Tuva, and also carefully described it. Then they turned to the north and discovered the mountain lake Kara-Khol, "hidden in the masses of huge mountains." Continuing to move north, we went to the upper reaches of the Ona, a tributary of the Abakan, descended into the Kantegir valley - the left tributary of the Yenisei (Kantegir wheat, it is sown by half of our region, but this is by the way). From the pass we saw "a whole ocean of mountains with slightly rounded contours, covered with forest" and gradually descending. Having crossed this mountain range, they reached the Abakan River ... So Chikhachev became the first European to cross the Western Sayan. And the first who visited the territory of the then China from this side. He collected the first geographical materials and the first geological data about this mountainous country.

Then the expedition descended along the Yenisei to Krasnoyarsk and from there turned back to our places. From Itat - to the south, to Tisul. “The area located between Itat and Tisul serves as a watershed between the Yenisei and the Ob…. We spent two whole days to overcome 75 miles from Itat to Tisul ... Tisul stands on the very border of the large gold-bearing region of Western Siberia.

Then there was a way to the Voskresensky (Komsomolsky) mine, to the Berikulsky mine, there was a transition to the banks of the Kiya, a bypass of the mines of the Kuznetsk Alatau and a descent down to the village of Bannovo. And this is already the middle of our region - the village of Borisovo, the villages of Sartakovo, Karakem and the Karakem mountains (Karkan, in the present). But the Unga River - it turns out that even then they called it exactly as we do today ... At each stop - detailed notes, each sometimes several pages, and therefore, where it will be said about our places, we will linger only on the coal topic . All our excerpts will be only about coal.

The first entry. “Not reaching about four versts to Kuznetsk, near the village of Monastery, the right bank of the Tom reaches a considerable height, layered layers of bluish-gray merkel are visible. On the left side, we saw obvious outcrops of deposits. We gladly welcomed the approach of the city. Unfortunately, heavy rains did not allow us to usefully spend those two days (August 23 and 24) that we were forced to spend in Kuznetsk. This sacrifice was all the more painful because I learned about powerful outcrops of coal seams located along the Tom, six kilometers southeast of the city. Meanwhile, in the vicinity of Ilyinsky, where we crossed the day before, about 12 versts north of this village, there are similar, but more significant exits.

Second entry. “Despite the pouring rain, on August 24 we left Kuznetsk to inspect the Tomsk factories, located 90 miles from the city. In the village of Monastery, we boarded boats and swam across to the other side of the Tom. We went up the Aba, which flows into the Tom almost opposite the village of Monastyr. Approximately seven kilometers from the mouth, on the left bank of the Aba (this is the current mining village of Bungur in Novokuznetsk), gray coarse-grained sandstone is visible. It looks like white clay. Obviously, this is coal sandstone.

Further. “About one verst south of Berezov, located 24 versts from the Tomsk factories, masses of coal protrude. By the way, the same phenomenon takes place on the left bank of the small stream Gorny Log, which flows into Berezovo. Larger masses of coal lie closer to the tops of rounded heights, which almost approach Chumysh. Seams of coal here are half a meter thick, develop as they rise in the southeast direction, where the mine is dug. Other similarly thin strata sometimes alternate with sandstone strata. Sometimes the coal seams are up to five meters thick.”

“As we approach the factories of Tomsk (so in the text), the area rises noticeably and Siberian cedar begins to predominate. Tomsk is located in a picturesque area, it is surrounded by mountains, completely overgrown with dense forests. We were very pleased when we took refuge under a hospitable roof ... ".

“Steam engines are not yet used at any Altai plant, because the use of exclusively charcoal in all metallurgical operations makes it possible to be content with very simple and low-power blowers. The use of hard coal would complicate the work, especially since the coal of the Kuznetsk basin by its nature approaches anthracite and would require a significant amount of oxygen, the supply of which could only be carried out with the help of more powerful machines. Due to the abundance and cheapness of forests, charcoal will be more profitable to use than coke for a very long time. A very large reservoir is equipped to supply water to the factories. An ingeniously constructed dam retains the water of the Tom-Chumysh and forms a large pond. At some distance, the water flows through a huge wooden pipeline.

“In order to go to Afonino, 125 versts from Kuznetsk, we moved along the Aba. The first *CensureBlock* of Carboniferous sandstone appear in the vicinity of Zenkovo, on the left bank of the Kinya, which flows into the Abu.

“Having passed the village of Uzatka (Usyaty?), we soon arrived in Afonino. I was impatient to visit the surroundings of this village, since those excellent samples of plant fossils, which I had the opportunity to get acquainted with at the Imperial Mining Institute in St. Petersburg, were collected precisely in this area ... All the surroundings of the village are formed from rather loose sandstone containing small fragments of coal. Sedimentary layers of coal have been found in several places where wells and mines were drilled for exploration.

“On August 26, I left these interesting regions and headed for the village of Bochat, 93 versts from Afonin. We covered this distance with great speed, as our tarantasses traveled along magnificent natural highways. At the foot of the chain of hills. Under a mass of clay four decimeters thick, directly covered with a soil layer, lie layers of coal, very reminiscent of Afonin. But here the coal is much more loose and earthy. It is divided into tiles or leaflets, either completely vertical or lying with an inclination of h.7 from the northeast to the southwest. The coal is deposited very symmetrically, in thin seams or layers, and the hill looks striated. The formations are vertical or have an inclination of h.15 from the northeast to the southwest.”

“On August 27, we reached the Salair mines. With a perfectly clear sky, the thermometer shows +27 at noon in the sun, and +16 in the shade. The Salair mountains are very reminiscent of Alatau, but their scale is smaller. The highest point is known by the Russian name Mokhnataya Sopka. The spurs of these mountains extend to the southwest. It is for this reason that the shortest road to Barnaul runs along the ridge.”

Further, the path of the expedition went exactly there, to Barnaul. The work in our area is over. September was coming, ahead of cold, snow, winter: “The sad brevity of the summer season in these places, on the one hand, and the extremely extensive scope of my activity, on the other, did not allow me to lose a minute and give the tired caravan more than four days of rest.”

Only in the magnificent valley of Chulyshman in the Altai Mountains did they rest for four days, and then again, in Krasnoyarsk, he gave people and animals a week of rest before setting off on their way back. By the way, the professional interest of a scientist in the book is often interspersed with simple human curiosity. We have already mentioned the “cunning” device of the Tomsk ironworks, and here’s another one: “I admired the completeness and accuracy with which saws, shovels, axes, screws, etc. were made. It was hard to believe that all these polished surfaces, as I was assured, were made by hand, without the help of auxiliary machines. But soon I myself was convinced, examining the workshops and being present personally at work.

Or here's a post. “The trail goes first along the banks of the Katun - the most beautiful river, crosses it and goes further - through the mountains, valleys, passes, and further, further. Having traveled 15 versts from Shebalin, we found ourselves at the beginning of the Sema valley. Zaisan Nikolai, accompanied by the elders of the tribe, came out to meet me. According to local customs, I gave him trinkets, adding a few glasses of vodka, to which these gentlemen are great hunters. Altaians' addiction to alcoholic beverages is expressed in huge doses that they are able to drink. Not wanting to waste a lot of vodka, I gave them a taste of some alcohol diluted with water. To my surprise, they not only found this drink tolerable, but also insistently asked me to increase the portions, begging me not to spoil the precious nectar by adding water. In order to personally ascertain how much alcohol an Altaian is able to absorb, I ordered one of them, who showed the most perseverance, to give a large glass of pure, undiluted alcohol. He convulsively grabbed it and drank it in one gulp, and none of his friends were surprised, but only envied him.

But this entry was made at the very beginning of the journey, and now Chikhachev's expedition, we repeat, went from us to Barnaul. She will also visit the Zmeinogorsk-Riddersk region, that is, Rudny Altai, again on the Chinese border, make the transition to Ablaikit and return to Russia through Semipalatinsk. And to the end, he will fulfill the order of General Kankrin: which also provided for the following: “... upon the delivery of the command and state property in Barnaul, which you will have, you will return to St. Petersburg next winter and submit a proper report on your assignment with your travel journal and collected collections.

And we, following the departing caravan, will note: the book “Journey to the Eastern Altai ...”, excerpts from which were quoted, is not a complete translation. It contains twelve chapters out of twenty. And the translator V.V. Tsybulsky explains his approach: “The second part of the monograph (Ch. XIII-XX) devoted to the geological structure of Altai is of interest only to a narrow circle of scientists, mainly specialists in the history of geological science in general and the geology of Altai in particular ". The case, as they say, of the author, in this case, the translator ...

Now let's look at events from another angle.

As already mentioned, a lot is known about Petr Alexandrovich Chikhachev. His biography, written by the famous scientist I.I. Stebnitsky, even entered the famous dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, and we also talked about this. V.V. Tsybulsky wrote a lot about him, one of his books “Chikhachev - an outstanding researcher of Altai” was published in 1959 in Kemerovo. There is an article about Chikhachev in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. A lot and willingly write about him in the Altai Territory. A tribute to the memory of the great researcher was given by our local historian S.P. Tiviakov - now a professor at the Novokuznetsk Pedagogical Academy. The journalist Vasily Popok constantly refers to the personality of the scientist. An article by Viktor Kladchikhin dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the scientist was published in Miner's Glory, an appendix to the Kuzbass newspaper.

But what is especially interesting, on the eve of the 200th anniversary, which took place in August 2008, one very interesting study was published. Its authors are geologist, senior researcher at the Faculty of Geology of Moscow State University, laureate of the Lenin Prize Efim Burshtein and head of the department of the Federal Agency for Special Economic Zones Pavel Kotov. They relate to the hitherto unexplored side of the scientist's activity. This is where those very excerpts from Chikhachev's notes about his stay at the border, about geodetic surveys, and so on, will come in handy.

Pyotr Chikhachev is a paradox, they write. We have almost two hundred of his works, but we know almost nothing about his life!

And they develop their ideas.

What we know is essentially a myth, consciously created by Chikhachev, naively accepted by his relatives and replicated by biographers. In this legend, Chikhachev is a sybarite who is in the diplomatic service solely because of his passion for the exotic of Constantinople and Asia Minor. He is a free man, unencumbered by obligations, with sufficient means to study the sciences of his choice and travel at his pleasure. What is just fiction here, and what are the cherished dreams of our hero - we do not know. We only know that, in fact, Chikhachev was not at all what he claimed to be.

When Peter was fifteen, the emperor, by his personal decree, sent him to a very prestigious and not very open educational institution - the diplomatic school at the Collegium of Foreign Affairs. It must be said that this was not “blat” at all: little Peter had a clear talent for foreign languages. And so he would have been a guards officer - no more. In 1829, Peter finished his studies, fluent in five languages: English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. He was promoted to collegiate registrar (lowest, 14th rank of the Table of Ranks). At the same time, he secretly received the army rank of cornet (the first officer rank). At that time, this was not the case in any other civilian educational institution; a little later, military ranks were also given to mining engineers, but openly. This testifies to the special nature of the training and future activities of graduates of the diplomatic school. It is on the basis of this "feature" that the entire subsequent biography of Pyotr Chikhachev becomes clear.

From 1829 to 1833, he first served as an interpreter at the office of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs, and then was transferred to the Asiatic Department. But all this time, Peter was not so much engaged in his direct duties as he continued his studies. According to him, he did this "yielding to his desire" to comprehend the sciences.

For ten months Chikhachev studied law at St. Petersburg University, for about two years he studied at the Freiberg Mining Academy, from where he was expelled for a duel, for a year in Munich he listened to the chemist Justus Liebig, in Berlin to the geographer Alexander Humboldt, and also attended lectures at the Paris Higher Mining School. Fundamentally. The Chikhachevs were rich, and Peter, indeed, could afford to freely choose educational institutions as a "self-student" student.

However, do not forget that all this time he was in the public service and even moved up the career ladder. It is clear that further education was encouraged by his superiors, as were his travels to the Middle East and North Africa at the same time. In essence, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, taking into account the craving of a young employee for the natural sciences and travel, quite consciously prepared him for the activity of an agent, under the guise of a traveler-researcher, collecting the necessary information in the countries of the East.

From 1834 to 1836 Chikhachev served as second assistant to the secretary of the Russian embassy in Constantinople. He was already a grade 9 official at that time - a titular adviser, in a military way, a captain. According to the official version, Chikhachev during this period "was engaged in the study of the history and ethnography of the peoples who inhabited Asia Minor, improved his knowledge of the modern Greek language, studied Turkish and Spanish."

But here's what makes researchers look at his life in a slightly different way. One of the private collections in Italy has his portrait. The author is the famous Karl Bryullov. A handsome gentleman is reclining in a luxurious oriental costume. As the younger brother Plato recalled, in this suit, Peter "usually traveled with various official assignments in Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt and other countries of North Africa." Plato also knew that the costume was given to his brother by Muhammad Ali himself, the governor of Egypt, then part of the Ottoman Empire. Platon said that when meeting with Peter, the governor "was pleasantly surprised that he could communicate with the Russian envoy without an interpreter." They allegedly talked for a long time. Then our hero was shown Egyptian beauties - in general, everything was as it should be. Only one circumstance did not pay attention to either Chikhachev's relatives or his biographers: the very fact of Pyotr Chikhachev's meeting with Muhammad Ali contradicts the elementary norms of diplomatic protocol - the ruler of Egypt receives a petty employee from the embassy in Constantinople! This means that the meeting could only be purely unofficial, in other words, secret. And yes, it happened at the right time. The date on the portrait is 1835. That is, the meeting took place between the two Turkish-Egyptian wars. During the first Turkish-Egyptian war, the army of Muhammad Ali defeated the Turks, who had no choice but to ask for military assistance from Russia, and Russian troops even landed on the Bosphorus. But England and France, not wanting to strengthen Russian positions in the Middle East, sent their military squadrons and forced Muhammad Ali to sign peace. Under the peace treaty, Egypt remained part of Turkey, but received wide autonomy and new lands.

The 27-year-old Pyotr Chikhachev was drawn into the labyrinth of these geopolitical entanglements, which indicates the highest confidence in his abilities. Chikhachev returned to his homeland with an excellent performance and with the rank of collegiate assessor, and in the military, major.

And suddenly, for no apparent reason, in 1838 Chikhachev left the service and plunged into science. Again universities, courses, lectures, etc. Soon he leaves Russia altogether and moves to Florence. Now he is an immigrant who publishes his scientific work exclusively in Western journals. In Europe, no one was surprised by this: how an enlightened person can live in Nikolaev Russia has always been a mystery to Europe. However, it is hard to believe that an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, initiated into state secrets, in the epoch of Nicholas I could be released from service and simply let go abroad. As will be seen from what follows, Chikhachev's contacts with the Foreign Ministry secretly continued. Therefore, the period from 1839 to 1856 in the life of Pyotr Chikhachev can be called "imaginary emigration."

From 1839 to 1841 he published many works that brought him fame. And at the end of 1841, the Corps of Mining Engineers of Russia invited him to study Altai and the Western Sayan. But even a simple comparison of the external and actual aspects of this event sheds some light on Chikhachev's real status.

From the outside, everything looked as if a famous Russian naturalist in the West, who lived outside of Russia, was invited to study a number of mountainous regions of southern Siberia. Indeed, having completed his journey, Chikhachev returned to Paris with a large collection of minerals and data for compiling a map of the places he had visited. In 1845, his fundamental work, dedicated to the Altai and the Sayans, was published in Paris (it has not yet been fully translated into Russian).

But there is other information as well. Arriving in Russia, Chikhachev was appointed an official for special assignments under the Ministry of Finance, to which the Corps of Mining Engineers was subordinate, with the rank of court adviser of the 7th class (lieutenant colonel). He was entrusted with a special task, for which 4,000 silver rubles were allocated from the treasury (about 200,000 dollars in modern money).

What was this masquerade for? What prevented entrusting the expedition, for example, to Grigory Gelmersen? He was a highly respected scientist, in 1829 he accompanied Alexander Humboldt on a trip to the Urals, in 1834, at the expense of the Ministry of Finance, he made a trip to Altai: he walked along the Biya valley to Lake Teletskoye, studied its basin in detail, examined a number of river valleys. He outlined the general scheme of the orographic structure of Altai, correctly pointing out the system of divergent ridges, their general direction, and the highest points of intersection. He studied the origin of ribbon pine forests, proved that the Salair Ridge, the Kuznetsk Alatau and adjacent mountains are the oldest (against Altai) and do not constitute the system of the Altai Mountains. And in 1838 he also studied the Eastern Altai. Why wasn't he assigned?

The explanation can be found in the geopolitical situation. In 1840, the Anglo-Chinese "First Opium War" began. China was defeated and forced to sign the humiliating Treaty of Nanjing in 1842, under which England received Hong Kong. With the weakening of China, the prospect of resolving disputed Russian-Chinese border issues in favor of Russia appeared. This necessitated a comprehensive study of the most inaccessible part of the strip adjacent to the Russian-Chinese border in the regions of Eastern Altai and Western Sayan. An expedition specially equipped by the Russian government, and even entering the territory of China, could cause unnecessary suspicion. The journey of a Western European naturalist of Russian origin looked more preferable.

The situation called for haste. Chikhachev had to cross and explore the ridges between the Katun and the Yenisei, he visited China near Khara-Khol in modern Tuva, descended to Krasnoyarsk, visited the gold placers of the Mariinsky taiga and the coal-bearing Kuznetsk depression. In a season, in just four months, he was able to collect material to describe an area the size of France. Chikhachev was the first whose map of the Kuznetsk coal basin was published in Europe, although its contours were known to Russian geologists.

For some reason, out of all these cases, we appreciate only that he gave this name to the deposit. But after all, the main merit of Chikhachev is that he proved that the territory of Kuzbass was at times a dry bay. And this means that along its shores - in shallow water and in coastal marshes - the remains of plants accumulated, later turned into coal seams at a depth that preserved the imprints of those plants and petrified tree trunks. And it can be argued that Chikhachev's assumption about the presence in the Kuzbass of extended seams with large reserves of coal stimulated further geological research in this area, which confirmed the correctness of our hero's point of view.

But at that time, Russia failed to fully benefit from the defeat of the Middle Empire. But after the “second opium war”, in 1860 St. Petersburg signed the Beijing Treaty with China, according to which the disputed lands on the South Altai section of the Russian-Chinese border went to Russia. Probably, the results of Chikhachev's expedition were not in vain.

It cannot be said that Chikhachev's activities have never aroused suspicion among foreign competent services. At least it is known that in 1846 our traveler tried to penetrate into the mountainous part of Algiers, but was not let through by the colonial administration. “The French governor-general of Algeria,” Chikhachev wrote, “refused me to visit these places, arguing that it was very suspicious and mysterious to see a Russian wearing oriental clothes of the same gender and speaking with the Arabs easily in their language. He stubbornly considered me a dangerous agent of Russian diplomacy. And he did the right thing.

During his eight expeditions, the fundamental study "Asia Minor" was prepared in eight volumes - a comprehensive description of Turkey, including the regions of Kurdistan and Western Armenia, unsurpassed in its completeness. The Turkish authorities turned out to be less vigilant: the emigrant Chikhachev did not raise any questions from them, and he more or less freely worked on the territory of Russia's strategic adversary. The nature of Pyotr Chikhachev's activity, apparently, has not changed. This is evidenced by his articles published in the "Military Journal" and the anthology "Caucasus" with an analysis of the Turkish armed forces. One can only be surprised at the unjustified risk of Chikhachev, who openly published materials of this nature on the eve of the Crimean War of 1853-1856. But the Turks again did not notice anything. Can it be argued that Chikhachev did not send any other information to the Russian departments? Let's leave the question open, let's just say that it was after these Turkish expeditions that Chikhachev received the rank of major general (actual privy councilor).

In 1854, our hero tries himself in journalism. He writes a work devoted to the Anglo-French policy in the Eastern Question and the underlying causes of the Crimean War. In 1856, his pamphlet “Is the Peace of Paris Durable?” was published, and in it there was a sharp criticism of the regime of Nicholas I. Because of it or not, but from that moment on, Chikhachev’s contacts with Russian state structures almost completely cease. In Russia, they stop publishing it. “My works,” wrote P.A. Chikhachev in 1865 to the Moscow Society of Naturalists, are quite common abroad, but, unfortunately, almost completely unknown in my own homeland.

Turning to the scientific secretary of the Moscow Society of Naturalists Renard with a request for assistance in publishing his works in Russia, P.A. Chikhachev wrote in 1868: “I consider the publication of my works all the more deserved because it is about a Russian who, throughout his long scientific and literary activity, never forgot (for which he was subjected to many attacks) to use every opportunity to ardently defend the interests of Russia, which, incidentally, is evidenced by my numerous political pamphlets... A cursory glance at my present work will be enough to make sure that this time too my national feeling and patriotism manifested themselves in it with due force.

Indeed, in his works P.A. Chikhachev emphasized his Russian origin. In 1867, referring to his correspondence, he noted: “Of all the letters and parcels that I receive, the most important for me are those that I receive from Russia. They bring me double joy, namely the connection with the Russians and the Motherland, so dear to my heart.

And in 1876, the period of silence was abruptly interrupted: Chikhachev was elected an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, and a journal of his travels in Asia Minor was published in Tiflis. The reason for the new interest in Chikhachev is indirectly indicated by the fact that in 1876 Russian-Turkish relations escalated again, and unrest began in Turkish possessions in the Balkans. All this resulted in a new Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1978. The battles were fought, including on the territory of Western Armenia, where Chikhachev traveled a lot. There are reasons to see a certain connection between the listed events.

We have no data on his further cooperation with the Russian government. He will write several more books, among which one will be devoted to Russia's oil reserves. Chikhachev was the first to believe that an abundance of black gold could provide Russia with a comfortable existence for many years.

And in conclusion, it is worth emphasizing once again that Pyotr Chikhachev, from a young age, was aimed at participating in unofficial foreign policy, received special training, gained experience in this and showed outstanding abilities. But in spite of everything, he strove to conduct scientific research and freely express his thoughts. The result of this difficult and unsafe journey - a printed report entitled "Journey to the Eastern Altai and Border Places with China" - was published in Paris in 1845 at the expense of the Russian government. However, the correct title of this book is "Voyage scientifique dans l" Altai oriental et les parties adjacentes de la frontiere de Chine par Pierre de Tchihatcheff..." Because, like all his other works, Pyotr Aleksandrovich published it in French. He repeatedly appealed to the Russian departments with complaints that the Russian public did not know him, that he was not published in his homeland. And he always emphasized his belonging to Russia, repeated that he was a Russian person. Although, we note, in Russia he no longer does any research conducted, however, like his brother Plato.

Speaking of brother. Platon Alexandrovich also lived an eventful life. He was four years younger, the war with Turkey that began in 1828 carried away the ardent young man, and he was enlisted in the uhlan regiment. Distinguished. He contracted the plague, miraculously recovered, participated in the Polish campaign, and retired in 1833. Even at the beginning of the Turkish campaign, I read Alexander Humboldt, the book turned my soul, and in 1835 he went to America. He began his journey from Canada, went down to the south, to Mexico, moved to South America, to Buenos Aires, from where he returned to Europe through Brazil. He planned to go through Central Asia, made a plan that was approved by A. Humboldt. With great difficulty, he secured a secondment to a detachment sent to Khiva, but unsuccessfully. He replenished his knowledge, worked under the guidance of European scientists, and only the Crimean War took away his last hope of organizing a new expedition. In 1855 he went to Sevastopol, remained with the commander-in-chief, Prince Gorchakov, until the armistice. In 1856 he married and since then, due to family circumstances and health problems, he lived mostly abroad. He died at Versailles on May 13, 1892. But for all that, Platon Alexandrovich "brought to fruition the idea of establishing the Russian Geographical Society." I printed very little. The huge trip to America yielded nothing but a short story, since all his diaries were stolen.

But back to Peter Alexandrovich. His “Voyage…” was still translated into Russian. In 1974, the Nauka publishing house (the main editorial office of Eastern literature) published the book Journey to the Eastern Altai. Translation from French, foreword and comments by V.V. Tsybulsky, already mentioned by us. The first section of the book is travel notes with notes that are very interesting for today's reader. “Whole flocks of partridges, white as snow, frolicked for a long time at the very sleigh before rushing up. The common partridge, for which in Paris they pay up to 4 francs, is here offered everywhere for 20 centimes…”. And so on. But then, in the businesslike, so to speak, second part, there are detailed special texts, descriptions of rocks, carefully recorded minerals, plants - everything that could give a hint to any researcher who comes to these places after him.

“The presence of coal is confirmed in several places, starting from the vicinity of Kuznetsk to the area adjacent to the river. Ine, i.e. on a space encompassing part of the axis of a region which I have tried to conclude under the general name of the "Kuznetsk coal basin" and the entire extent of which could, therefore, be considered as forming the same sedimentary layer. In this case, the Northern Altai is one of the largest reservoirs of coal in the world, which is still only known, occupying an average space of 250 kilometers in length and 100 kilometers in width. someday play an even more significant role if it were possible to find sedimentary layers of iron there, similar to those whose presence was established, although not on a large scale, in the coal of Afonin, where layers of spherosiderate were wedged either into the very coal, or between this latter and the sandstone that served as its roof. From a practical point of view, the association of iron ore and coal is extremely important. But this excerpt is not from the second, but from the first part.

The book is accompanied by an atlas of routes, drawings, plans, among which is the first geological map of Kuzbass. And it's all beautifully illustrated. The book is full of expressive sketches by a student of the Imperial Academy of Arts E.E. Meyer, as well as the great painter I.K. Aivazovsky. But if Aivazovsky completed his work, undoubtedly, according to the sketches of Pyotr Alexandrovich and according to his tips, then Yegor Yegorovich, as we already know, went through the entire route as part of the expedition. Moreover, a section of more than 300 kilometers from the Koshagach steppe through the Kurai ridge to the Bashkaus river, then through the Chulyshman pass to Lake Teletskoye, he went independently, separately.

In his works, for the first time in Russian painting, portraits of Altaians and Tuvans are given. Two paintings by Meyer, representing views of mountains, gorges, were exhibited at the Academic Exhibition (October 1843), several drawings and a painting "depicting the snowy mountains of the banks of the Katun" were left for his collection by Emperor Nicholas I. In general, Yegor Meyer is considered the first professional painter who chose of his work the theme of Siberia.

He brought back from his travels documentary accurate images of the geological outcrops of rocks and coal seams described by the author. That is, the artist was busy with what photographers later began to do on field expeditions. By the way, Yegor Yegorovich Meyer also created a series of works of art - drawings and presented two large paintings for the exhibition "The chain of the Shabarine-Ola mountains with the valley and the Olash river in the Chinese province of Ulo-Tai" (by the way, indisputable evidence that they visited directly on Chinese territory) and another painting - "Karasu Gorge near the Chinese border". Both were awarded the Silver medal of the 1st degree. And only then, years later, for the painting "Mountain Gorges" he will receive the title of academician.

After graduating from the Academy, Meyer will become the first recognized singer in Siberia and especially the Far East. He will be invited to the position of a staff artist of the Siberian expedition of the Siberian Branch of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. He settled in Nikolaevsk, having received a cozy house for housing and a workshop. He meets and works with well-known explorers of the Far East, illustrates the books of the explorer Maak about his travels to the Amur and Ussuri, decorating them with beautiful drawings of ethnographic types, landscapes of the Amur region, utensils, weapons, dwellings, vehicles of the indigenous peoples inhabiting these lands. As a member of the expedition, he was constantly traveling throughout the Far East, except for Kamchatka and the Kuriles.

As contemporaries note, Yegor Yegorovich captured with academic authenticity the construction of the first Russian cities in the Far East - Nikolaevsk, Blagoveshchensk, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Chinese Aigun, Siberian Irkutsk, Cossack villages and resettlement villages. He was the only artist who depicted the legendary frigate Pallada in the Imperial Harbor before its sinking. Residents of St. Petersburg and Moscow could get acquainted with the Far East from Meyer's drawings, which are constantly published in Academician Timm's Russian Art Sheet. He was engaged in state and public activities, was a regional land surveyor, governor of the Nikolaevsky district and the Uda region, took part in expeditions of the General Staff and in negotiations on the state border with China. In the spring of 1863 he left for treatment, hoping to return, but died in St. Petersburg and was buried there at the Smolensk Orthodox cemetery.

By the way, his “Mountain Lake” can still be bought on the Internet today, however, a reduced photocopy on canvas, at a price of 1000 rubles.

Unfortunately, no traces of N. Boyarsky, V. Serkov, the doctor Anufriev and the washer Kalinin could be found. But the trace of the expedition itself was found even on such a completely “non-profile” field. Here is the response in the great literature - right in hot pursuit. In the article of the great critic V. G. Belinsky "Russian literature in 1845", studied in Soviet times in high school, there is such a paragraph - we will quote it in full.

“In the Notes of the Fatherland, in the department of sciences and arts, articles were placed: “English India in. 1843”, from the book of Warren; "Letters on the Study of Nature" by Iskander; the end of the article "Reformation", begun and continued in 1844; "Consulate and Empire" Thiers; "Altai" (its natural history, mines and inhabitants), an article by Catrfage, written about the work of Mr. Chikhachev: "Voyage scientifique dans 1" Altai oriental et les parties adjacentes de la frontiere de Chine "(" A scientific journey to the eastern Altai and to places adjacent to the Chinese border "(fr.)" ... By the way, this source is one of the few where the title of the book is given in full. Almost all other researchers are content with, for some reason, a short, somehow even colloquial, version Journey to the Eastern Altai". Why? ...

As for the extraordinary capacity for work of P. Chikhachev, the following can be learned from the notes of scientists of past years. Here is what I.I. Stebnitsky wrote, for example. “Not preparing for a scientific career and not being a professional scientist, Chikhachev, having good money and ... careful processing of the scientific material collected during his travels, to which Chikhachev had the opportunity to attract outstanding specialists in various branches of knowledge.” It is known, for example, that he gave samples of coal taken in Bungur and on the Berezovaya River for research in Paris - neither more nor less - to the great chemist Berthier. The samples proved to be suitable for coking. In other words, a wealthy traveler simply hired specialists to summarize and classify the collected collections and other analytical work, which explains the amazing speed of publishing his reports.

But further, more. We honor the same I. Stebnitsky: “Having received a scientific education abroad, printing all his scientific works in French or German, and having spent most of his life abroad (mainly in Paris), Chikhachev cannot be considered a Russian scientist, but Russian science is obliged to him a very important work on the geology and geography of Altai, which has not lost its significance to the present, although more than half a century has passed since its appearance. Tough, of course, but - where you can go - fair. And, no words, respectfully. And the author ends the biography of P.A. Chikhachev as follows: “In order to encourage travelers to Asia, Chikhachev left, by will, a capital of 100 thousand francs to the Paris Academy of Sciences.” And this, apparently, could not but serve as a reason, although, of course, indirectly, not to consider Chikhachev a Russian scientist.

And in fact, Pyotr Aleksandrovich lived almost all his life in Paris, and died in Florence on October 13, 1890, at the age of 82, from pneumonia. There is a worthy tombstone at the Alori cemetery, but this is not a sign of recognition of enlightened Europe, in the foundation of whose scientific greatness is also laid the stone of Peter Alexandrovich. No. A white marble slab is attached to the granite tombstone: "The Motherland honors you, dear Pyotr Alexandrovich." It appeared in 1958, on the days of the 150th anniversary of the birth of the scientist, through the efforts of the famous Soviet astronomer and explorer of Asia, the same V.V. Tsybulsky.

A bay in the Sea of Japan is named after Chikhachev. About two dozen of his works have been translated into Russian. In Tuva there is a coal deposit named after him. In memory of him, the northwestern spur of the Saylyugem Ridge in the Kosh-Agachsky District of the Altai Republic was renamed. If you look from Kosh-Agach towards Tashanta, the border crossing to Mongolia, the Chikhachev ridge is left. A chapter is devoted to the great traveler in the book "Explorers of Kuzbass" published by the Kemerovo book publishing house under the editorship of N. P. Zakharchuk and A. M. Titova in 1983. And in 2008, a wreath with a ribbon was laid on the grave of the scientist: "To the outstanding Russian geologist P.A. Chikhachev from the grateful descendants of the Kuznetsk Land." This was done by the envoys of our region, the participants of the student's local history trip to Italy.

Viktor Kladchikhin

Chikhachev Petr Alexandrovich

H Ikhachev (Peter Alexandrovich, 1808 - 1890) - geographer-traveler and geologist, known for his studies of Altai and Asia Minor. Having received his home education in Tsarskoye Selo, under the guidance of lyceum professors, Chikhachev completed it abroad, listening to lectures by Naumann, Breithaupt, Liebig, L. von Buch, G. Rose and other famous geologists and mineralogists of that time, and then worked in Paris with Elie de Beaumont. Not preparing for a scientific career and not being a professional scientist, Chikhachev, having good money and excellent scientific training, could completely devote himself to his early attraction to scientific travel and research, which yielded very important scientific results, thanks to the observation of their author and excellent thorough processing scientific material collected during his travels, to which Chikhachev had the opportunity to attract outstanding specialists in various branches of knowledge. Having received a scientific education abroad, publishing all his scientific works in French or German, and having spent most of his life abroad (mainly in Paris), Chikhachev cannot be considered a Russian scientist, but Russian science owes him a very important work on geology and geography. Altai, which has not lost its significance to the present, although more than half a century has passed since its appearance. Chikhachev's independent scientific activity began in 1841, when he published a geological description of the Monte Gargano mountain in southern Italy and the vicinity of the city of Nice. In 1842 he published a geological description of the southern provinces of the Kingdom of Naples, and in the same year he undertook a great journey to the Altai. Already in 1845, he published a voluminous work about Altai, entitled: "Voyage scientifique dans l" Altai Oriental et les parties adjiointes de la frontiere de Chine "and representing a travel report and the results of the development of the collected material, in which Elie de Beaumont took part , Verneuil, Geppert, which gave the work a special value. Having finished this enormous work, Chikhachev soon began a comprehensive study of Asia Minor, to which he devoted the next 20 years of his life. there to study the Turkish language, and then, leaving the service, undertook a series of travels in Asia Minor during 1847 - 1863, during which he made versatile scientific observations and collected rich collections: geological, botanical, zoological, paleontological and archaeological. The results of the journey were published by Chikhachev in a huge 8-volume work: "Asie Mineur", published from 1853 to 1869. This work, embracing the geography, geology, climatology, zoology, botany and paleontology of Asia Minor, is a classic work performed by Chikhachev with the collaboration of numerous specialists in various branches of natural science. After the end of this work, Chikhachev did not undertake great travels, having already reached the limits of old age, but did not stop his scientific studies. Back in 1878, at the age of 71, he visited Inner Algiers and Tunisia and in 1880 published a description of his journey under the title: "Espagne, Algerie et Tunisie". In 1890, a collection of his popular scientific articles of diverse content was published in Paris, under the title: "Etudes de Geographie et d" Histoire naturelle ". These articles represent excerpts from the major scientific work conceived by Chikhachev "On the deserts of the globe", which he did not managed to finish, having died of pneumonia in 1890. In addition to geographical and natural history works, Chikhachev published a number of political articles on the Eastern question.In order to encourage travelers to Asia, Chikhachev left, by will, a capital of 100 thousand francs to the Paris Academy of Sciences. Chikhachev, compiled by Stebnitsky, and a list of his scientific works are placed in the XXVII volume of "Proceedings of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society".

Other interesting biographies.

Chikhachev Petr Alexandrovich

Geographer and geologist, honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1876). He spent most of his life in France. Based on the materials of his travels, he compiled a geological map of the Apennine Peninsula, gave a geographical and geological description of Altai, North-Western China (1845), a comprehensive description of Asia Minor (1853-1869).

Pyotr Alexandrovich Chikhachev was born on August 16 (28), 1808 in the Grand Gatchina Palace - the summer residence of the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. His father, Alexander Petrovich Chikhachev, a retired colonel of the Life Guards of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, in 1804 was appointed director of the city of Gatchina, where he headed "city settlement" and carried out "the main lookout over the palace and its accessories". Turning to the civil service, Alexander Petrovich received the rank of real state councilor.

Chikhachev's mother, Anna Fedorovna, nee Bestuzheva-Ryumina (cousin of the future Decembrist), a woman of high culture, energetic and very knowledgeable in court etiquette, devoted a lot of time to raising her sons (Peter's brother Platon was born in 1812).

In childhood and youth, Peter received an extremely thorough and versatile home education. At the age of twelve, he was fluent in German and French, and then in Tsarskoe Selo he studied Greek and Latin.

Soon the Chikhachev family moved to Tsarskoye Selo, where a house was bought near the Lyceum. However, Peter's parents decided to continue home education with the invitation of the lyceum professors.

In 1823, Peter became a student at the department of the State Collegium of Foreign Affairs.

On November 18, 1827, my father died. The Chikhachev brothers sold the estates belonging to the Chikhachevs in the Tambov and Saratov provinces, as well as the house in Tsarskoe Selo, and moved to St. Petersburg. For both brothers, an independent period of life began.

In March 1829, the term of Pyotr Alexandrovich's internship at the College of Foreign Affairs ended, and in March of the following year he entered the university as a free student, "where he listened for 10 months, with commendable behavior, to the sciences of the Faculty of Law".

The natural sciences fascinated Petr Alexandrovich so much that in 1829-1830 he repeatedly traveled to Western European countries to listen to lectures by leading scientists.

Returning to St. Petersburg to work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pyotr Alexandrovich quickly began to move up the career ladder. On April 5, 1830, the actuary Pyotr Chikhachev was "granted to be an interpreter of the State Collegium of Foreign Affairs" and on April 30 he was sent to the Asiatic Department. A year later, he was granted the rank of chamber junker, and in September 1832 - a collegiate assessor.

In the Asian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Chikhachev dealt mainly with the Eastern Question. Wanting to personally get acquainted with the countries of the Near and Middle East, as well as North Africa, he visited Egypt, traveled through Palestine, the Libyan Desert, Sinai and the Syrian Desert, visited Constantinople.

The capital of the Ottoman Empire so captivated Chikhachev with its oriental flavor, the enchanting beauty of the straits and complex international military-political contradictions, that he decided to secure a place at the Russian embassy.

In Constantinople, Pyotr Alexandrovich, along with his official duties as assistant secretary at the Russian embassy, studied the history and ethnography of the peoples who inhabited Asia Minor, improved his knowledge of the modern Greek language, and began to study Turkish and Spanish. Here, fate brought him together with the famous translator Mikhail Vronchenko, "an excellent surveyor who at that time studied the geography of Asia Minor and subsequently published valuable books about his journey through this country".

In 1835, while the artist Bryullov was in Constantinople, Chikhachev accompanied him on trips to the most picturesque places of the Bosporus and the Sea of Marmara. Bryullov painted Chikhachev in an oriental costume, in which the latter usually traveled with various official assignments in Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt and other countries of North Africa.

In 1834-1836 he visited not only various cities of the vast Ottoman Empire, but also Spain, Portugal, Italy, France and other European states.

Yielding to his vocation, Platon Alexandrovich began to study physical and historical-economic geography. In 1836, he left the service and decided to devote himself entirely to scientific research.

In 1839, Peter Alexandrovich, on the recommendation of Alexander Humboldt, began to study natural resources, and, above all, the geology of the Apennine Peninsula. "Impossible without recreating the historical past, he wrote, understand the appearance of the present, for the distant past and the present are connected by an uninterrupted thread".

At the end of February 1839, Pyotr Chikhachev arrived at the largest island of the Tyrrhenian Sea - Sicily and headed for the Nebrodi mountains. Having passed the northern coast of Sicily from Palermo to Messina, he moved to Reggio di Calabria, already on the Apennine Peninsula.

In a vast area extending northeast and northwest from Rocca Imperiale, Chikhachev, during July 1840, studied mainly alluvial rocks formed here from "gradual destruction under the influence of the flowing waters of the Apennine mountain system".

Chikhachev explored the mountainous region of Castel Sarracino, which before him had not been studied by either geologists or botanists. Here he replenished his herbarium with rare plant species.

Chikhachev climbs the peaks of Monte Vulture itself and a number of adjacent mountains, explores groups of freshwater lakes located in the upper regions of the region. The history of the formation of Lake Lesine, located in the northwestern part of Monte Gargano, deserves special attention.

In March 1840, Pyotr Alexandrovich went down the valley of the Garigliano River to the vast volcanic zone of the Neapolitan region. For four months he studied the environs of Naples, especially the area of Rocca Montfine, the fields of Phlegraine, the volcano Vesuvius, the islands of Ischia, Capri, and others.

In August 1840 he completed his journey through the southern provinces of the Kingdom of Naples.

In 1842, Pyotr Alexandrovich was sent by the headquarters of the corps of mining engineers to the Altai and the Sayan Mountains, then still little explored. At the head of a large detachment, he went on a journey.

Soon the expedition reached the Katun - the most beautiful river of Altai. It is crossed by the only path leading from Biysk to the Chuya River. Chikhachev describes in detail the difficult crossing of such a huge caravan, numbering more than 50 horses, many of which were loaded to capacity. These semi-wild horses "with wandering eyes, with swollen nostrils, with a mane rising on end, shy away from stormy waves."

The next task of the expedition after crossing the Katun was to reach the mouth of the Chui River, and then along the Chui Valley to get to its sources. For two weeks, starting from May 21, the caravan hardly passed this way. Traveling along the lower reaches of the Chui was a great danger, since there were no roads here, and mountains in places "pressed" river so that it was impossible to travel in the valley itself. Then it was necessary to climb the mountain slopes with great risk.

On June 2 (14) Chikhachev crossed the Seilyugen mountain range. Some of its peaks were covered with "eternal" snow. Moving along the massif in the direction of the stream, on June 4 (16) the expedition reached the sources of the Chui - "... the Builogom stream turned into a thin trickle of water seeping through the swamps and snows bordering the northwestern edge of Burultaig, and finally we saw that the stream completely disappeared under the damp porous bark covering the soil. This served as a definite proof for us- writes Chikhachev, - that we were at the source of the Chui".

The next task of the expedition was to reach and explore the sources of the Chulyshmana River. To this end, Chikhachev headed for Lake Dzhulukul through a rather swampy place that stretched between the sources of the Chui and Chulyshman. “When I looked at the surface, trembling with every movement of our horses, the following comparison occurred to me: it seemed that we were moving on a huge bubble filled with compressed water, which, at the slightest pressure, threatened to break through the shell holding it and swallow the body supported by on her."

Having explored the source of the Chulyshman and rounded the mountains from the south, Chikhachev headed along the valley of the Dzhaldu River to the Bashkaus River. Here he was particularly struck by the beauty of the area.

Climbing up the Chulcha River, on July 1, Chikhachev reached the lake of the same name, near which he discovered the source of the Bolshoi Abakan, one of the largest tributaries of the Yenisei. In order to study the source of Abakan, Chikhachev headed along the western shore of the lake. "I was fully rewarded- writes Chikhachev, - for all the fatigue and labor I endured, when the old Kazakh hunter, who accompanied me, pointed his finger at the source of Abakan, which is one of the main objects of the difficult task that was entrusted to me ... In an effort to exhaustively complete my difficult journey by exploring the origins of this beautiful river, the modest cradle of which I had just discovered, I now had to complete my plan - to study its gradual development, advancing over 350 km to its mouth in the Yenisei.

Behind the source of the river, Chikhachev saw the southwestern part of the Abakan Range, which "Hides Lake Teletskoye from the eyes", and in the north discovered the origins of the Small Abakan, separated from the Big one by a short Karlygan ridge. So Chikhachev became the first scientific researcher of the Western Sayan.

Dreaming of tracing the course of Abakan to the Yenisei, Chikhachev passed from the headwaters of the Chulcha River to the east through hilly and swampy terrain with many lakes and reached the Alash River (the Yenisei system). He penetrated the Uryankhai region (Tuva) and carried out his first exploration. After giving a five-day rest to people and horses and replenishing food supplies, Chikhachev turned north and unexpectedly discovered the mountain lake Kara-Khol, "hidden in the masses of huge mountains". Continuing to move north, he went to the headwaters of the Ona (a tributary of the Abakan). On the night of July 17, a heavy downpour broke out, turning into a thick snowfall. In the morning Chikhachev saw that "the branches of coniferous trees were bent under the weight of snow masses..."

Chikhachev descended into the valley of the Kantegir flowing to the northeast (the left tributary of the Yenisei). From the pass he saw "a whole ocean of mountains with slightly rounded contours, covered with forest" and gradually decreasing. Having crossed this mountain range, he reached the Abakan River along the valley of a small river.

So Chikhachev crossed the Western Sayan. He collected not only important geographical materials, but also the first geological data on this entire mountainous country, which had not been visited by any of the naturalists before.

Chikhachev also left a number of interesting observations. When the expedition reached the Russian houses, the Kirghiz accompanying it were amazed.

"It took some time before my highlanders,- writes Chikhachev, - got used to so many objects, hitherto completely unfamiliar to them, and understood the way of their use and purpose. For example, they were explained in detail that houses are the same yurts, but motionless and built of wood. However, they found the entrance to these houses very inconvenient, because they imagined that windows served this purpose; they began to crawl through them and tumbled heavily into the rooms ... The stoves seemed to them a completely unusual structure. Wanting to inspect them thoroughly, they stuck their heads into the mouth of the furnace and crawled out with their faces smeared with soot and ashes, which always caused an attack of merry laughter from the audience.

Chikhachev was the first to draw up orographic and geological maps of the Altai and the Western Sayan on the basis of the materials of his journey and significantly advanced the study of the hydrography of these mountainous countries.

From 1848 to 1863, Pyotr Chikhachev conducted eight scientific expeditions in Asia Minor, Armenia, Kurdistan, and partly in Eastern Thrace.

As a result of many years of expeditions to these countries, Chikhachev repeatedly crossed the main mountain ranges and ridges, climbed the peaks of the mountains, among which were such as Erciyes and Bingel, on which no man had set foot before him. He explored and gave a description of numerous rivers, lakes, bays, measured the depths of the Marmara and Aegean Seas, as well as the Bosporus and Dardanelles. Chikhachev published interesting materials on the currents of water in the straits and the Sea of Marmara. He published over 20 papers on the geology and paleontology of Asia Minor.

Chikhachev was the first to manage to collect numerous fossil flora and fauna, which made it possible for the first time to publish a monumental work on the paleontology of Asia Minor. "The total number of organic fossils given in my Paleontology of Asia Minor, he wrote, contains at least 575 species, of which 57 are completely new". A number of paleontological fossils, as well as minerals, first discovered and described by Chikhachev, were named after him.

Having studied the botanical treasures of Asia Minor, Chikhachev noted their extraordinary diversity of species, which was a natural consequence of the extremely diverse topography, climatic and soil conditions.

In Chikhachev's herbarium, there were up to 3500 plant species of Asia Minor. To give an idea of the real value of this figure, it is enough to note that it is more than that which in Linnaeus's time represented the number of known plants on the whole globe, and amounted to two-thirds of the total number of species of all Europe known at that time.

On September 25, 1877, Chikhachev set off from Paris on a new journey to explore North Africa.

He first visited Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt and other places in North Africa back in 1835, while working at the Russian embassy in Constantinople. His new journey began with Spain. From the port city of Cartagena, he went by steamer to the shores of North Africa.

On November 17, 1877, Chikhachev landed in the Mediterranean port of Oran, and on December 1, arrived in the vast port city of Algiers. For seven months he traveled around Algiers, after which on May 25, 1878 he went by steamer to Tunisia.

Arriving in Tunisia, Chikhachev was afraid that he would not be allowed to conduct any research of the area, and perhaps even arrested, as had already happened on previous trips to the countries of the East. This fear was justified by the fact that during this period there was a Russian-Turkish war.

After a 10-day acquaintance with the city of Tunisia, Chikhachev began to explore its environs. First of all, he went to the Zaghuan region, located 40 kilometers south of Tunisia. A magnificent aqueduct has been preserved here, built 18 centuries ago by Emperor Andrian in order to bring water to Carthage from springs gushing from the Zaghuan massif, located 130 kilometers from the city.

After completing the tour of the mountain range Zagkhuan Chikhachev went to the ruins of the ancient city of Utica, located halfway from Tunisia to Bizerte.

On June 4, Chikhachev visited the healing springs of Hammam-El-Ener, flowing from the Jebel Bu-Kurnein mountain range. The next day, the scientist began to explore the area where the ancient city of Carthage once stood.

"The almost complete disappearance of Carthage from the face of the Earth, he wrote, is a unique phenomenon, for none of the cities famous in antiquity, such as Nineveh, Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, did not disappear without a trace like Carthage ... " Archaeological data say almost nothing about the Phoenician, Greek and Roman eras that made this ancient city so famous.

Chikhachev gives a detailed description of the history of ancient cities - Jerusalem, Rome and especially Carthage. Moreover, this description is partly based on the manuscripts of ancient authors and therefore is of great scientific value.

On June 9, 1878, after almost a year's stay in North Africa, Chikhachev set off by steamer from Tunis to Naples, and from there returned to Florence a few days later.

Chikhachev is the founder of field research by Russian scientists, mainly in the geology and botany of this part of Africa. He has priority in geological research and in the identification of many plant species in a number of areas of North Africa, including the Jur-Jur, Aures, Zagkhuan mountain ranges. He was the first to give a description of North Africa in a popular form, showing both man and nature in their most diverse manifestations.

Pyotr Alexandrovich Chikhachev died in Florence on October 13, 1890, at the age of 82. He was buried in the Allori cemetery. A white marble slab with the inscription was placed on a tombstone made of gray granite for the 150th anniversary of his birth: "The motherland honors you, dear Pyotr Alexandrovich."

His younger brother, Platon Alexandrovich, died at Versailles two years later, in 1892, and was buried in Nice.

One of the ridges of Altai, where Pyotr Aleksandrovich once conducted his research, is called the Chikhachev ridge. About twenty of his works have been translated and published in Russian.

From the book Encyclopedic Dictionary (P) author Brockhaus F. A.

Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky Pyotr Alexandrovich Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky (Peter Alexandrovich) - Count, Field Marshal (1725-96). His teacher, when he lived with his father in Little Russia, was a local teacher Timofey Mikhailovich Senyutovich, who first took a course in the Chernigov "collegium", and the author From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (RU) of the author TSB

From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (RE) of the author TSB

From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (TO) of the author TSB

From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (CHI) of the author TSB

From the book of 100 great Russian emigrants author Bondarenko Vyacheslav Vasilievich

Pyotr Chikhachev (1808–1890) Pyotr Alexandrovich Chikhachev was born in Gatchina on August 28, 1808 in the family of the “first person” of the city - the “director” of Gatchina and the palace administration, retired colonel Alexander Petrovich Chikhachev and his wife Anna Fedorovna, nee Bestuzheva-Ryumina.

From the book 100 great travelers [with illustrations] author Muromov Igor

Pyotr Aleksandrovich Chikhachev (1808–1890) Geographer and geologist, honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1876). He spent most of his life in France. Based on the materials of his travels, he compiled a geological map of the Apennine Peninsula, gave a geographical and geological description of Altai,

From the book Big Dictionary of Quotes and Popular Expressions author Dushenko Konstantin Vasilievich

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