Nevelskoy Gennady Ivanovich

Year of birth: 1813

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Year of death: 1876

The researcher of the Far East, the admiral. He was born in the family of a naval officer. He graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps and officers' classes. In 1848-1849, as the commander of the “Baikal” transport, he passed from Kronstadt to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, carried out research and compiled a description of the northern part of Sakhalin Island, the Sakhalinski bay, the creek of the Amur river, proved that Sakhalin is an island, not a peninsula and made the Amur accessible for marine vessels. In 1850-1855 he led the Amur expedition, which carried out the research in the lower courses of the Amur river and in the Tatar Strait.

In the summer of 1850, he raised the Russian flag in the post of Nikolaevskiy (now the city of Nikolaevsk-on-Amur), and in 1853 - in the Gulf of Emperor Nicholas (now Sovetskaya Gavan) and in the southern part of Sakhalin.

In his works, Nevelskoy was the first to report on the peoples of the region: the Giliaks (the Nivkhs), the Manguns (the Ulchis), the Golds, the Samagirs (the Nanaian) and the Neidaltses (the Negidaltses). The works of Nevelskoy and his supporters were not only of scientific but also of great political significance, since Sakhalin, the territory of Primorye and the Amur basin were finally entrenched in Russia.

In his reports, G. Nevelskoy made a number of remarks to the government bodies responsible for the development of the Far East. For this criticism in 1856, he was removed from further research, withdrawn to St. Petersburg and enlisted in the fleet reserve. The strait (the narrowest part of the Tatar Strait), the bay, the mountain and the city on Sakhalin were named after Nevelskoy. In the honour of Nevelskoy, there were established monuments in Vladivostok, Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, Khabarovsk, and Soligalich.