New episode of "8 Steps Across the Map of Russia" to explore the golden age of Russian maritime discoveries

A new episode of the educational video project "8 Steps Across the Map of Russia" is available on the website of the National Centre RUSSIA. The fifth episode in the series, "Sails and Latitudes: The Golden Age of Russian Discoveries", focuses on a turning point in the country’s history. Russia, accustomed to ruling the land, entered the ocean and became a maritime power. The episode can be watched via the link on the website of the National Centre RUSSIA.

Viewers will see how the initially pragmatic task of supplying the colonies of Russian America grew into a major objective: the first Russian round-the-world expedition. The story centres on the voyage of the sloops "Nadezhda" and "Neva" under the command of Ivan Krusenstern and Yuri Lisyansky, as well as the people behind this breakthrough: Chancellor Rumyantsev, who placed his bet on the eastern vector, and Krusenstern himself, who spent many years seeking permission for a sea route to America.

A separate section of the episode is devoted to the formation of the Russian school of maritime cartography. Viewers will learn how strict discipline turned Russian sailors into some of Europe’s finest navigators, and what role precise astronomical calculations played in the round-the-world voyage. The episode shows how Krusenstern later, already on land, created the Southern Atlas, checking old maps against the starry sky.

The episode also explores an error in the understanding of Sakhalin’s geography, which Gennady Nevelskoy corrected half a century later by proving that Sakhalin was an island and that the Amur was navigable. Using the expeditions of Bering and Krusenstern as examples, it shows the invisible enemies sailors faced, from scurvy to icy storms, and how attention to provisions and diet helped save crew members’ lives.

The final focus of the episode is the discovery of Antarctica. Viewers will learn how, despite the scepticism of European navigators after James Cook, Russia sent an expedition led by Thaddeus Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev to the southern latitudes on the sloops "Vostok" and "Mirny", reached the continental shore of Antarctica and effectively confirmed the existence of the sixth continent.

The project "8 Steps Across the Map of Russia" continues to tell the country’s history through space, routes and the people who changed the map of the world. The new episode helps viewers see the golden age of Russian discoveries not only as a series of expeditions, but also as a time when Russia came to see itself as a maritime and scientific power.