All these memoranda, copies of memoranda, answers to memoranda, reminders, letters, and so on were of course handwritten, and each document painstakingly first repeated the contents of the document in response to which it was generated. And all that writing had to be done in cramped, occasionally sooty quarters, on board a boat amid chunks of ice, or by a campfire at night. In conjunction with the instructions, Steller was given 161 sheets of copied materials (document 26, Quellen 3:94–95). No wonder he needed an extra podvoda just to transport the books, papers, and instruments for his work (instruction 3). Since Steller’s Russian was limited, the student Gorlanov served as his translator and scribe of the various memoranda to various local government offices as well as the official reports to the Academy of Sciences and the High Governing Senate, but Steller of course first had to generate them.
These logistical challenges were on a par with those posed by the environment and the people. But because he was most in his element in nature, he seems not to have resented her challenges. Though a rudimentary system of trails and way stations, zimovia, had been established even on that most challenging section between Yakutsk and Okhotsk, horses still got irretrievably stuck in bogs, and at least twice Steller found himself lost in the forest. In the face of rivers choked with ice, seemingly bottomless bogs, steep mountains, bloodthirsty insects, incompetent helpers, and extreme weather, he almost always kept his cool and his good spirits. Although suffering diarrhea after another dunking in a raging river, he could still appreciate his good stomach and observe that he remained diligent and merry (143).
It should be clear from the wealth of information Steller gathered about the country and its people that he more than fulfilled his obligations to the state as outlined in the instructions he was given. While the state that employed him may not have benefited fully from his findings, these findings established a baseline for the research of later academicians and scholars, and they should still be of considerable interest to present-day scholars and to lay readers as well. It is our hope that you who read this find it so.
Notes
1. Cossacks, term applied to a great variety of men—adventurers, outcasts, restless misfits, homeless men—all of whom served either on horse or foot to supplement the streltsy. Pushkarev.
2. Originally a small fort in Russia and Siberia, encircled by twelve- to fifteen-foot-high palisades made from sharpened tree trunks, with a garrison. Later many of these forts developed into towns and cities.
3. Established in 1637 as a prikaz. In 1711 Peter the Great transferred many of its functions to the Office of the Guberniya of Siberia, in 1730 Empress Anna reestablished some of its powers, and in 1763 Catherine II abolished this office for good. Dmytryshyn, Crownhart-Vaughan, and Vaughan, 18–19.
4. All native men of Siberia and northern Asia between the ages of eighteen and fifty except the crippled, the blind, and converts to Russian Orthodox Christianity were required to take the oath of allegiance to the czar and to pay an annual yasak in furs. The amount varied depending on availability. Early in the seventeenth century, when sables were still abundant, the assessed quota was twenty-two sables per man per year. Dmytryshyn in Wood, 31. As the supply of fur became exhausted, yasak began to be paid in cash. Collection was often taken by force and marked by violence. “In 1695, the Siberian Office [again] instructed officials not to ‘execute or torture natives’ and noted that many had been killed, whipped to death or tortured, that bribes had been demanded from them and livestock stolen, leading to the ‘ruin of many tribute-paying people.’” Hartley, 38–39. Before Cossacks and hunters began to colonize Siberia, it was the form of levy the Mongol Tartars imposed on subject people. Czars were simply following the practice that existed in lands under Mongol rule. Hartley, 37–39.
5. Chief administrator of a district with far-reaching legal, economic, administrative, and police powers; term is old Slavic, originally meaning military commander, leader of warriors.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR GEORG WILHELM STELLER FROM FEBRUARY 18, 1739, FROM YENISEYSK
Johann Georg Gmelin and Gerhard Friedrich Müller
IN THE HANDWRITING OF ALEKSEI GORLANOV, SIGNED BY Johann Georg Gmelin and Gerhard Friedrich Müller; in Quellen 3:71–93 (translated from the Russian)
Instructions
Provided by the professors of the Academy of Sciences, Gerhard Friedrich Müller and Johann Georg Gmelin, to the adjunct of the Academy of Sciences, Georg Wilhelm Steller:
In accordance with Her Imperial Majesty’s ukase from the High Governing Senate and the decision of the Academy of Sciences, you were assigned to the Kamchatka Expedition. By that Academy of Sciences, you were issued instructions signed by Her Imperial Majesty’s Kammerherr1 and president of the Academy of Sciences, Baron von Korff, in which you were ordered to describe all things pertaining to natural history, to assist us in all matters after you arrived here, and to be guided by our determinations in everything. For these reasons we have decided to send you to Okhotsk and to Kamchatka and to issue you these instructions you are to follow unconditionally.
1.From here you will travel with your present party via Irkutsk, Yakutsk, and Okhotsk to Kamchatka and will investigate and describe—en route as well as on Kamchatka—everything concerning natural as well as political history, and in all places where it seems appropriate you will carry out meteorological observations and those concerning the nature of the earth. All this is recorded in our instructions, copies of which were provided to you on your departure from St. Petersburg. You will always act as befits a faithful servant of Her Imperial Majesty.
2.To your party will be assigned the painter Johann Christian Berckhan to draw and paint everything noteworthy in natural and political history; the student Aleksei Gorlanov to assist you with your observations, especially with those concerning geography and political history, and with the correspondence with the government offices; the prospector Grigorei Samoilov to look for ores; the huntsman Dmitrei Giliashev to shoot animals and birds [for the scientific collections]; and the Yakutsk sluzhiv Fedot Klimovskoi to interpret in the Yakut language and communicate with other native peoples and interview them about their faith, customs, and way of life, for which Klimovskoi has the necessary skills, having gained several years’ experience. He is also to pay the progon money [Russian (R), money collected per kilometer traveled].
3.You will receive from the Yeniseysk Provincial Administration the progon money—from here to Irkutsk via Taseevskoi Ostrog, Kanskoi Ostrog, and Udinskoi Ostrog—for eleven podvodi [R, for-hire, government-sponsored wagons with horses or, in winter, sleds pulled by horses or dogs], namely, four podvodi for you, three for the painter, one for the student, one for the prospector and his instruments, one for the huntsman and the Yakutsk sluzhiv, and one for the books, instruments, and materials belonging to the Crown. The Yakutsk sluzhiv Fedot Klimovskoi shall enter the progon money into the Schnurbuch [literally, string book, a ledger with a registered number of pages through which a string has been drawn and its ends sealed, issued by government offices to travelers on official business to record expenses and receipts; WH, Glossar; Quellen 1:331], which the Yeniseysk Provincial Administration will hand over together with the progon money. The book and what is left of the money shall be delivered to the Irkutsk Provincial Administration when you arrive in Irkutsk.
4.You shall make great haste traveling to Irkutsk so that you can still use the winter route. You shall order the student Gorlanov to describe the geography along the route you are traveling.
5.Once