Nagaev, Aleksei

Nagaev, Aleksei Ivanovich 

Born Mar. 17, 1704, in the village of Sertiakino, in present-day Moscow Oblast; died Jan. 8, 1781, in St. Petersburg. Russian hydrographer and cartographer; admiral (1769).

After graduating from the Naval Academy in St. Petersburg in 1721, Nagaev went to work for the academy. Between 1730 and 1734 he prepared a description of part of the Caspian Sea, and in 1739 he did the same for the Gulf of Finland. In 1745, using material collected by expeditions to Kamchatka, he compiled the first maps of the Bering Sea. In 1752, Nagaev compiled the first atlas of and sailing directions for the Baltic Sea. These materials played a large part in the development of hydrography in Russia. In 1752 the first station for regular observations of the sea and weather in Russia was established in Kronstadt at Nagaev’s initiative. He also compiled maps of Lake Ladoga, the Caspian Sea, the Oka and Moskva rivers, the Medvezh’i Islands, and the mouth of the Kolyma River. A bay in the northern part of the Sea of Okhotsk is named after Nagaev.

REFERENCES

Goncharov, V. G. “Admiral Aleksei Ivanovich Nagaev—vydaiushchiisia russkii gidrograf XVIII v.” Izv. Vsesoiuznogo geograficheskogo ob-va, 1956, vol. 88, no. 2.
Alekseev, A. I. Admiral Nagaev. Magadan, 1959.