Vladimir Vasilyevich Atlasov

Vladimir Vasilyevich Atlasov was born in Veliki Ustug between 1661 and 1664. Later he became a Siberian Cossack. Before public service he traded sables in Yakutsk district. That Cossack was in good health, strong, enduring, resourceful, brave, energetic, and will-powered. These qualities, literacy and remarkable organizing abilities distinguished Atlasov from his associates. Vladimir Vasilyevich took part in the trips to Yakutsk lands, the coast of the Okhotsk Sea, and the Maya River.

In 1695 he was appointed head of a settlement, located in Anadyr territory.

In 1697–1699 Atlasov led a group of 65 Cossacks and 60 Yukaghir natives to investigate the Kamchatka Peninsula. As a result, he made the local Koryak and Itelmen population to pay a tribute to the Tzar. He also established the first permanent Russian settlement in the Kamchatka Peninsula and built two forts along the Kamchatka River which became trading posts for Russian fur trappers. Thanks to his expedition the Kamchatka Peninsula was annexed to Russia.

At the beginning of 1701, Vladimir Atlasov went to Moscow, where he was appointed Kamchatka governor and granted a large sum of money. He was the first to present a detailed description of the region's nature and people, about the islands and lands near Kamchatka, Chukotka, and Japan. Then he returned back to Kamchatka.

To keep discipline in Kamchatka, Vladimir Atlasov was very cruel with the natives and career subordinates. So in 1711 he was killed during the uprising of Cossacks.

Vladimir Vasilyevich Atlasov had completed the Russian epoch of great geographic discoveries in Siberia and the Far East.

There is a bay, a volcano and an island in Kamchatka, several settlements in Kamchatka and Sakhalin, and one of glaciers in the north of the Far East named after him.