Dmitry Yakovlevich Laptev () (1701 – ) was a Russian Arctic explorer and Vice Admiral (1762). The Dmitry Laptev Strait is named in his honor and the Laptev Sea is named in honor of him and his cousin, and fellow Arctic explorer, Khariton Laptev.
Early life
Dmitry Laptev was born in the village of Bolotovo, near
Velikie Luki, in 1701. A year earlier his cousin
Khariton Laptev was born in nearby Bolotovo.
He and his cousin were some of the first students at the School of Mathematics and Navigational Sciences in
Saint Petersburg, established by Peter the Great. After graduation, he quickly moved up naval ranks and became a ranking naval officer on a number of different vessels.
Arctic exploration
Dmitry Laptev was a lieutenant in the Navy assigned to the Second Kamchatka Expedition in 1735 under
Vitus Bering. With the death of the head of the
Yakutsk captain Vasili Pronchishchev in 1736, Bering appointed Laptev to be the head of the
Yakutsk crew and chart the coast of the
Arctic Ocean from the
Lena River eastward.
With permission from Bering, Laptev returned to Saint Petersburg for the winter. A second attempt the next year similarly failed to reach the eastern fleets of the expedition.
In 1739, Laptev was the commander of an expedition to chart the Anadyr region in the far east of the continent. The expedition went poorly at first and the Yakutsk became trapped by ice very quickly. That winter the crew, led by Laptev, were the first Russians to live amongst the indigenous population of the lower Indigirka River.
After the expedition, he continued his military service in the Baltic Fleet. Laptev was promoted to Vice Admiral rank in 1762, and retired the same year.
Legacy
A cape in the
river delta of the Lena River and a
strait between the Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island and Asian mainland bear his name. The
Laptev Sea is also named after Dmitry Laptev and his cousin, and arctic explorer,
Khariton Laptev.
