Welcome to Cosmographia — a newsletter dedicated to exploring the world and our place in it. This post is part of our Atlas’ Notebook series, featuring art, poetry, literature, cartography, and photography, all centred on a particular place. For the full map of Cosmographia posts, see here.
The Kamchatka Peninsula extends southwards from the furthest eastern edge of Siberia into the northern Pacific Ocean. Despite having a larger area than the island of Great Britain, its population is smaller than that of Buffalo, New York. Its cold Siberian winds keep the peninsula covered in snow most of the year, even though it’s no further north than Scotland.
Forming a spine down the length of the great spit, the Sredinny Mountains form a spine containing many of the 160 volcanoes found on Kamchatka — 29 of which are still active. The indigenous Itelmen believe the volcanoes are inhabited by gomuls. As legend tells it, these spirits take to the ocean skies at night to hunt whales, bringing their leviathan-catch back to the erupting peaks, to roast over the fire.
I. In Art
Adam Johann von Krusenstern was a Baltic-German descended from a Swedish aristocrat, but born in the Russian Governorate of Estonia. An admiral and explorer in the Russian Navy, he made a name for himself when he completed the first ever Russian circumnavigation of the globe. After writing a paper about the benefits of a direct sea route to China, Krusenstern was appointed by Tsar Alexander I as the leader of an expedition to develop trade in Russian America (Alaska), China, Japan, South America, and to examine the coast of California for a site of a possible colony.
Setting sail from Kronstadt in 1803, the two ships successfully rounded both Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope on their journey, arriving back to Kronstadt three years later with enough scientific data to make a significant contribution to the progress of geographical science.
Among their many stops was Avacha Bay on the Kamchatka Peninsula. Already part of the Russian Empire for over a hundred years, it had been little explored since the conquest. In the background of the painting above you can see Koryaksky volcano, which remains active to this day.
II. In Verse
North and west, receding far, From the evening’s downward star, Now I mount Aurora’s car: Pale Siberia’s deserts shun, From Kamschatka’s storm-cliffs run, South and east to meet the sun.— James Montgomery, from “A Voyage Around the World” (c. 1820s)
James Montgomery was a Scottish poet, hymn-writer, and editor who spent much of career in Sheffield. He was a dedicated and theologically trained Moravian, which informed his campaigning on humanitarian issues, such as the abolition of slavery and child chimney sweeps, in both his art and the newspaper he edited.
