Vocabulary:

Bеличественный- majestic, устанавливать - to install, экспонироваться - to be exhibited, юбилей- anniversary (jubilee), бетон-concrete, гранитная крошка-granite crumb, постамент – pedestal, вагон – carriage (car), в торжественно – ceremonially, собирательный- collective, подниматься - to rise, всматриваться- to peer into (look narrowly at), даль – expanse, свиток - roll , пола шубы - flap of a fur coat, соскальзывать- to slide off.

18. Write an essay on the following theme: “The city of Khabarovsk was named so because …”.

Lesson 3. Expeditions of Vladimir Atlasov and Semen Dezhnev

Part I

1. Study the key vocabulary:

in search of fortune – в поисках счастья

walrus tusk and whale bone – моржовый бивень и китовая кость

final destination of the voyage –конечный пункт плавания

to lead (led-led) the party – вести отряд

to double the Chukotka peninsula – огибать Чукотский полуостров

ethnographic data – сведения/данные по этнографии

to undermine health – подрывать здоровье

easternmost cape – самый крайний мыс на востоке

2. Replace the following words and word-combinations by the synonyms:

To search, final, to lead, a party, data, promontory;

3. Make up the sentences with the key vocabulary.

4. Scan the text and translate into Russian the sentences with the key vocabulary. Semеn Ivanovich Dezhnev

Semеn Dezhnev was born in Veliki Ustug in 1605. Like many of enterprising Russian northmen of the time, he went to Siberia in search of his fortune, and served in Tobolsk and Yeniseisk. He became well-known for his experience and bravery.

In 1647 Semen Ivanovich was invited to join the expedition to the Low Kolyma River. The purpose of this expedition was to sail by sea from the Kolyma River towards the east in search of precious walrus tusks, whale bones and fur animals. The final destination of the voyage was supposed to be the river Anadyr.

The ice conditions on the sea forced the expedition to stop their mission. But that did not stop Dezhnev from trying it again next year.

In 1648 Dezhnev, Popov, and Fedot Alekseev led the party of 100 men in seven small Arctic-worthy ships called Koches to the river Anadyr. In its estuary they founded Anadyrsky stockaded town.

The same year Dezhnev sailed along the northern shores of Asia and discovered the mythical Anian Strait between Asia and Alaska, thus proving that Eurasian and American continents were not connected. He followed the shoreline and doubled the Chukotka peninsula. Dezhnev also described two islands of the Chukchi people now known as the Diomede Islands consisting of Ratmanov Island and Kruzenstern Island, located between Asia and Alaska in what is now the Bering Strait.

He collected interesting ethnographic data about Chukchi people ("zubatiye") who lived on those islands. They decorated their faces and bodies with tattooes and lower lips with pieces of walrus tusk, stone or bone.

In 1670 Dezhnev went to Moscow. He delivered there sable skins, maps and official documents.

When he was over 60 years old, the old wounds, which he had received during his service at the borders of Russia, and toil undermined his health. After severe illness Semen Dezhnev died in Moscow in 1673. During his life he twice married Yakut women and had several children.

The easternmost cape of Eurasia was named after Dezhnev. On maps one can also find an island, a peninsula, a village, and a bay, which were named after him. A crater on Mars was named after him too.