Unfortunately, West-European scientists threw their weight behind the famous sea-farer's opinion, thereby delaying the discovery of the Antarctic exploration by 50 years. It was not until half a century later that Russian sailors could point out Cook's error and disprove his belief.
The first Russian expedition to explore the Arctic and Antarctic was launched in 1819 by order of the Russian Emperor Alexander I. It was led by the seasoned sailor, Captain Second Rank, Faddey Bellingshausen. The expedition, which included four military sloops, left Russia's Baltic Sea port of Kronstadt in June 1819 and headed for Rio de Janeiro. Upon reaching that destination the expedition split in two: two sloops headed for Alaska, while the other two, "Mirny" and "Vostok", under the command of Bellingshausen and Lieutenant Lazarev, for the Antarctic. The latter expedition sought to collect all possible information about the Globe and discover the "Antarctic Pole".
Having weathered powerful storms in the "roaring forties" the vessels crossed the boundary of the South Polar Circle on January 15th 1820 and saw the rugged strip of sparkling ice on the horizon. That was it, the Antarctic! The Russian sailors peered at the enigmatic mountains but failed to approach them because of drifting ice. They felt they had discovered a mainland, but to make sure they did, the sloops twice approached the icy seacoast the closest they could. A later aerial photography proved that the Russian ships were 20 kilometres (12,5 miles) off the coast, while the rugged ice was the rim of the Antarctic.
Meanwhile, the Antarctic autumn set in, a time of severe storms, so Bellingshausen took the decision to head for the Indian Ocean. The ship crews endured untold suffering before reaching Australia and casting anchor at Port-Jackson (Sydney). Thence Bellingshausen sent a message home to report the Coordinates of the discovered mainland. But that was not the end of the expedition.
In December the expedition again set out for the Antarctic, but this time the enigmatic ice-bound continent, as if bowing to the Russian seafarers' courage, had revealed its secret. When the commander of the sloop "Mirny", Lieutenant Mikhail Lazarev was studying the surface of an ice field through a telescope on January 17th, 1821, he suddenly caught sight of a rocky coast and a ridge, going deeper southwards. The sailors went into raptures, since they were the first to discover the Antarctic! They immediately took the decision to call the coast they saw after Emperor Alexander I, by whose order the expedition had been sent to the Antarctic.
The discovery had far-reaching repercussions throughout the world. The German geographer August Petermann wrote in 1887 that Bellingshausen's discovery was equal to those of Columbus and Magellan, the people who had never bowed to imaginary difficulties and followed their own paths, which helped destroy barriers in the way to their landmark discoveries.
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