Yakov Permyakov (; died 1712) was a Russian seafarer, explorer,

merchant A merchant is a person who trades in goods produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Merchants have been known for as long as humans have engaged in trade and commerce. Merchants and merchant networks operated i ...

, and

Cossack The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic Eastern Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Cossacks played an important role in defending the southern borders of Ukraine and Rus ...

. In 1710, while sailing from the

Lena River The Lena is a river in the Russian Far East and is the easternmost river of the three great rivers of Siberia which flow into the Arctic Ocean, the others being Ob (river), Ob and Yenisey. The Lena River is long and has a capacious drainage basi ...

to the

Kolyma River The Kolyma (, ; ) is a river in northeastern Siberia, whose basin covers parts of the Sakha Republic, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, and Magadan Oblast of Russia. The Kolyma is frozen to depths of several metres for about 250 days each year, b ...

, Permyakov observed the silhouette of two unknown island groups in the sea. Those islands would later be named Bolshoy Lyakhovsky and the Medvyezhi Islands. In 1712, Permyakov and his companion Merkury Vagin crossed Yana Bay from the mouth of the

Yana River The Yana ( rus, Я́на, p=ˈjanə; ) is a river in Sakha in Russia, located between the Lena to the west and the Indigirka to the east. Course It is long, and its drainage basin covers . Including its longest source river, the Sartang, i ...

to Bolshoy Lyakhovsky over the ice and explored the then-unknown island. Permyakov and Vagin were murdered on the way back from their exploration by mutineering expedition members. The Cossacks took Permyakov's deceased body down to the ice and set it on fire. No one knows what the rebellious Cossacks did with the ashes, but Yakov Permyakov's remains were never found.Н. Исанин. ''Морской энциклопедический справочник,'' Том 2. Ленинград 1986, стр. 76.

References

1712 deaths Explorers from the Tsardom of Russia Russian murder victims Explorers of Asia Explorers of the Arctic New Siberian Islands Laptev Sea East Siberian Sea Year of birth unknown Russian merchants 18th-century businesspeople from the Russian Empire {{explorer-stub