Boris Andreyevich Vilkitsky (22 March (3 April N.S.

Old Style and New Style dates

Old Style and New Style are used in English language historical studies either to indicate that the start of the Julian year has been adjusted to start on 1 January even though documents written at the time use a different start of year ; or to indicate that a date conforms to the Julian...

) 1885 — 6 March 1961) was a Russian hydrographer and surveyor. He was the son of Andrey Ippolitovich Vilkitsky.

Vilkitsky graduated from the Naval Academy

Naval Academy

-Institutions:* The United States Naval Academy* The Indian Naval Academy of India* The Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy of Bulgaria* The Imperial Japanese Naval Academy* The École Navale of France* The Britannia Royal Naval College of the United Kingdom...

 in Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

 in 1908. He participated in the Russo-Japanese War

Russo-Japanese War

The Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...

 of 1904-1905. In 1913—1915 he led the Arctic

Arctic

The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...

 hydrographic expedition on the ships "Taimyr"

Icebreaker Taymyr

Icebreaker Taymyr was an icebreaking steamer of 1200 tons built for the Russian Imperial Navy at St. Petersburg in 1909. It was named after the Taymyr Peninsula....

 and "Vaigach"

Icebreaker Vaygach

Icebreaker Vaygach was an icebreaking steamer of moderate size built for the Russian Imperial Navy at St. Petersburg in 1909. It was named after Vaygach Island in the Russian Arctic....

 with the purpose of further exploration of the Northern Sea Route

Northern Sea Route

The Northern Sea Route is a shipping lane officially defined by Russian legislation from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean specifically running along the Russian Arctic coast from Murmansk on the Barents Sea, along Siberia, to the Bering Strait and Far East. The entire route lies in Arctic...

.

In 1913, Vilkitsky's expedition discovered Severnaya Zemlya

Severnaya Zemlya

Severnaya Zemlya is an archipelago in the Russian high Arctic at around . It is located off mainland Siberia's Taymyr Peninsula across the Vilkitsky Strait...

, perhaps one of the most important Russian discoveries in the Arctic at the time. Other discoveries were an island that now bears his name (Vilkitsky Island), as well as the islands of Maly Taymyr and neighboring Starokadomsky

Starokadomsky Island

Starokadomsky Island is an hourglass-shaped island in the Laptev Sea, Russian Arctic.It is located off the southeastern end of the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago and northeast of the Taymyr Peninsula. Maly Taymyr Island lies on its southeastern side, separated by a 6 km wide sound.The maximum...

. In 1914—1915, Vilkitsky's expedition made the first through voyage from Vladivostok

Vladivostok

The city is located in the southern extremity of Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula, which is about 30 km long and approximately 12 km wide.The highest point is Mount Kholodilnik, the height of which is 257 m...

 to Arkhangelsk

Arkhangelsk

Arkhangelsk , formerly known as Archangel in English, is a city and the administrative center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. It lies on both banks of the Northern Dvina River near its exit into the White Sea in the north of European Russia. The city spreads for over along the banks of the river...

, discovered Novopashenniy Island (now Zhokhova Island), and described the southern coastline of Severnaya Zemlya.

In 1918, Vilkitsky was appointed head of the first Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 hydrographic expedition, which never took place due to its seizure by the interventionists in Arkhangelsk. In 1920, Vilkitsky emigrate

Emigrate

Emigrate is a heavy metal band based in New York, led by Richard Z. Kruspe, the lead guitarist of the German band Rammstein.-History:Kruspe started the band in 2005, when Rammstein decided to take a year off from touring and recording...

d to Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. In 1923 and 1924, Vilkitsky led commercial

Commerce

While business refers to the value-creating activities of an organization for profit, commerce means the whole system of an economy that constitutes an environment for business. The system includes legal, economic, political, social, cultural, and technological systems that are in operation in any...

 expeditions in the Kara Sea

Kara Sea

The Kara Sea is part of the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia. It is separated from the Barents Sea to the west by the Kara Strait and Novaya Zemlya, and the Laptev Sea to the east by the Severnaya Zemlya....

 at the invitation of the Soviet foreign trade organizations.

Later in his life, Vilkitsky was employed as a hydrographer in the Belgian Congo

Belgian Congo

The Belgian Congo was the formal title of present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo between King Leopold II's formal relinquishment of his personal control over the state to Belgium on 15 November 1908, and Congolese independence on 30 June 1960.-Congo Free State, 1884–1908:Until the latter...

.
Boris Vilkitsky died in Brussels

Brussels

Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

 in 1961.

Memory

Many geographical features in Russia bear Vilkitsky's name:

• The most well-known one is Vilkitsky Strait, the strait
  Vilkitsky Strait
  Vilkitsky Strait is a strait between the Taimyr Peninsula and Bolshevik Island in the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago. The strait connects the Kara and Laptev Seas. The length of the Vilkitsky Strait is 104 km, the width – approx. 55 km, and the depth – between 32 and 210 m. It is...
  
   between Severnaya Zemlya and Taimyr Peninsula, an important landmark of the Northern Sea Route
  Northern Sea Route
  The Northern Sea Route is a shipping lane officially defined by Russian legislation from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean specifically running along the Russian Arctic coast from Murmansk on the Barents Sea, along Siberia, to the Bering Strait and Far East. The entire route lies in Arctic...
  
  .
• Zaliv Vil'kitskogo, a bay in the NW shores of Novaya Zemlya
  Novaya Zemlya
  Novaya Zemlya , also known in Dutch as Nova Zembla and in Norwegian as , is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean in the north of Russia and the extreme northeast of Europe, the easternmost point of Europe lying at Cape Flissingsky on the northern island...
  
  .
• Vilkitsky Island
  Vilkitsky Island (Kara Sea)
  Vilkitsky Island, is an island in the Kara Sea. It is located 40 km northeast of Shokalskogo Island, off the tip of the Gydan Peninsula in North Siberia. This island is bleak and windswept and is covered with tundra. Vilkitsky Island is crescent-shaped and it is divided in two by a narrow...
  
   in the Kara Sea
  Kara Sea
  The Kara Sea is part of the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia. It is separated from the Barents Sea to the west by the Kara Strait and Novaya Zemlya, and the Laptev Sea to the east by the Severnaya Zemlya....
  
  .
• The Vilkitsky Islands, a division of the Nordenskjold Archipelago.
• The Vilkitsky Islands subgroup of the Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands
  Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands
  The Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands are a group of islands covered with tundra vegetation, shingle and ice. They were known as Ostrova Samuila before the 1917 Russian Revolution and then they were renamed after Komsomolskaya Pravda, being for a while the only island group in the world named after a...
  
   in the Laptev sea
  Laptev Sea
  The Laptev Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is located between the northern coast of Siberia, the Taimyr Peninsula, Severnaya Zemlya and the New Siberian Islands. Its northern boundary passes from the Arctic Cape to a point with co-ordinates of 79°N and 139°E, and ends at the Anisiy...
  
   off the eastern shores of the Taymyr Peninsula
  Taymyr Peninsula
  The Taymyr Peninsula is a peninsula in the Far North of Russia, in the Siberian Federal District, that forms the northernmost part of mainland Eurasia and Asia...
  
  .
• Vilkitsky Island in the De Long Group in the Eastern Siberian Sea.

Sources

• Russian exploration at northpolevoyages.com