P with Pallas study of the Taman Peninsula. Contribution to the study of the Taman Peninsula P.S. Pallas. Columbus of the natural resources of Tauris

Note : Peter Simon (Peter-Simon) Pallas(German) Peter Simon Pallas; 1741-1811) - famous German ( originally from the Prussians) and Russian encyclopedist scientist, naturalist, geographer and traveler of the 18th-19th centuries. He became famous for his scientific expeditions across Russia in the second half of the 18th century, and made a significant contribution to world and Russian science - biology, geography, geology, philology and ethnography.

In 1999, the Nauka publishing house, in the Scientific Heritage series, published a book by the world-famous encyclopedist and traveler, academician of the Berlin and St. Petersburg Academies of Sciences Peter Simon Pallas (1741-1811) “Observations made during a trip to the southern governorships of the Russian state in 1793-1794." Labor P.S. Pallas is devoted to issues of geological structure, flora, fauna, history, ethnography, economic activities of peoples and the administrative structure of the Crimean Peninsula (Tavrida) at the end of the 18th century. But studying the eastern part of the Crimean Peninsula, P.S. Pallas also traveled to the island of Taman. At that time, the Taman Peninsula was considered an island, because. Kuban River, southeast of the village. The Dzhiginka River was divided into two branches through a system of estuaries flowing into the Black and Azov Seas. Thus, Taman was a part of land surrounded by water on all sides.

And so, picking up Palas’ book, armed with maps and a camera, in October 2009 I set off along the described route to explore “Taman Island”.

The Palace began its journey to the island of Taman from the Yenikale fortress on the Crimean coast. At that time, the Yenikale fortress was located 11 versts from Kerch (1 travel verst = 1067 m). The fortress was built by the Turks in 1699-1706. The name of the Yeni-Kale fortress translated from Turkish means New Fortress. Nowadays, Yeni-Kale is one of the attractions of Crimea. Currently this is the territory of the city of Kerch.

From Yenikale (Kerch) to the Northern Spit (now Chushka Spit) there are only 4 versts (about 4.5 km), but at that time it was a completely deserted and deserted place. Having landed on the spit, one could not expect to find shelter and horses to continue the journey. Therefore, Palace went to Taman, located 18 versts from Yenikale.

Palace describes Taman in detail. The old and new fortress, just built by Suvorov. Describes the surrounding area in detail, noting geological, archaeological and paleontological features. The descriptions are very accurate and relevant today.

Next, the traveler gives a general description, structure and boundaries of Taman Island. Describes bays, estuaries, rivers and channels that “... form the real island of Taman, which in ancient times had no name; the present one probably comes from the Tatar and Russian word - fog, which the island deserves due to the thick fumes mentioned above.”

From Taman, the Palace travels to the southeast of Taman, along the road leading to the Bugaz picket, located in the place where the Kuban River flows through the Kiziltash and Bugaz estuaries into the Black Sea, forming the Bugaz arm. On the way, he describes the salt lakes located to the west of the Kiziltash estuary. True, first Palace describes a small salt lake and then a large one. Apparently this is due to the fact that the road leading to the Bugaz picket goes around Lake Solenoye (indicated by Palas as large) from the north and passed slightly below the level of the slope from which a view of Lake Solenoye opens. Palace simply did not notice him when approaching and, upon arriving at the picket, she first described a small lake and then a large one.

The size of Salt Lake has remained approximately the same. The length of the lake is 1.5 km, width 1 km. And the depth of the lake is only 10 cm! The lake is fed by scanty precipitation and sea water, which rolls over the embankment during storms. The concentration of salts in it reaches 300 - 400 g of salt per liter of water. In summer, the lake dries up and becomes covered with a crust of white crystals of sea salt.

In the past there were salt mines here. Before the revolution, the average annual salt production was 1000 tons, and in 1950-1951 - 20 thousand tons. The production technology was simple. Sea water was released into the lake through a canal, and when the water evaporated. the fallen salt was collected. Since 1952, salt development has ceased.

In 1968, the Geominvod expedition (Moscow) conducted laboratory studies of a layer of mud located under the salt crust. It turned out that the mud solution has high healing qualities, the content of hydrogen sulfide (up to 200 mlg per 100 g of mud), the presence of iodine and bromine, and the almost complete absence of clogging impurities. According to hydrogeologists, the thickness of the deposit is 0.6 m, and the estimated reserves are 200 thousand m3. Salt Lake is one of the largest and most valuable deposits of medicinal mud.

On the western bank of the Bugaz Spit there was a Bugaz cordon. Earthen supports can still be seen today southwest of the village of Veselovka. They are located on a hill to the right of the road. To the left of the road, on a small spur, there is a monument to Soviet soldiers who died during the Great Patriotic War.

There is no Bugaz girl now. The estuary is separated from the sea by a low sandy Buga spit along which you can drive (by SUV) all the way to Anapa. And during the journey S.P. Palasa, on the opposite bank of the river, Turkish territory began. The Turks, during Palas's journey, built a stone fort near the village of Dzhemetri, which lies at a steep altitude at the beginning of the Tuzla Spit. Apparently we are talking about Art. Blagoveshchenskaya near which, on the seashore, today is the Jamutai tract.

The spit separating the Buga estuary from the Kiziltash estuary is perfectly preserved. It is called Golenkaya Spit and starts from a sandy hill near the village of Blagoveshchenka, goes to the northwest and, half a kilometer short of the opposite shore, ends with the island of Katorzhny to the east of the village. Veselovka. But the Golenkaya Spit cannot always be seen in full because of the foggy haze over the estuary. S.P. Palace pointed out this natural and climatic feature of the Taman Peninsula in his book. “When moving across the Bosphorus to Taman, I noticed strong steam constantly standing over the island of Taman in calm weather. These vapors, resembling a thick fog, together with mud and oil springs, provide indisputable proof that under this island at a considerable depth there is a layer of burning substance, which is why this phenomenon occurs, as well as the extreme heat and dampness of the soil on its surface.”

The true reason for the foggy haze and frequent fogs on the Taman Peninsula is, of course, the abundance of water, both sea and estuary. The air is oversaturated with water vapor.

Further, Palas describes the ruins of the city in a sandy hill located 6 versts on a narrow isthmus between the Kiziltash and Kuban (Vityazevsky) estuaries and suggests that this could be either Strabo’s Phanagoria or the city of Coro-Kondame. Here an inaccuracy creeps into the description. The described place (the modern village of Blagoveshchenskaya) is approximately 18 km from the Bugaz picket. Sandy hills still rise on the isthmus today. And in the vicinity of the station. Blagoveshchenskaya, several ancient settlements were discovered. One is quite large (recorded by archaeologists under the code name “Blagoveshchenskoe-4”), located 4.5 km west of the station. Blagoveshchenskaya. Perhaps this is what Palace had in mind in his description. Today, in the terrain, traces of the settlement are practically invisible. The area of ​​distribution of the lifting material is about 25 hectares. In the vicinity of the station. Blagoveshchenskaya discovered several smaller settlements such as agricultural estates and fishing villages.

Palas briefly describes the middle part of Tamn Island, located between the Kuban (Vityazevsky) and Temryuk (Akhtanizovsky) estuaries, mentioning the Nekrasov Cossacks, descended from the Don Cossacks who rebelled and went over to the Turks. Apparently, Palace did not go beyond the Buga picket for the reason that at that time it was territory controlled by the Turks under the Treaty of Iasi in 1792. And the Nekrasov Cossacks were very hostile towards the tsarist troops.

He himself wrote about this obstacle with obvious regret: “...A lot of worthy notes could be said about this central part of the island, but lack of time and the danger of travel did not allow me to travel through it.”

Returning to Taman Palace, he continued his journey along the Taman Bay and between it and the Temryuk (Akhtanizovsky) estuary, as well as to the northern corner of the island, lying opposite the Northern Spit (Chushka Spit).

Setting out from Taman on the road leading to Temryuk, Palace describes a very important landmark of this area - this is a house built at the behest of the highly blessed monarch between the sandy hills near the fountain for storing wonderful marble with an ancient Russian inscription. We are talking about the stone of the Tmutarakan principality. Palace describes the history of the discovery of this stone and its significance for the history of Russia. Currently, this stone is kept in the Hermitage and a copy of it can be viewed in the Taman Archaeological Museum.

Next, S. Palace went to the north of Taman Island. Moving from Taman along the road to Temryuk, just outside the city to the right of the road, Palace mentions the New Fortress. This is the “Phanagoria” fortress, built according to Suvorov’s plan in 1794. Those. At the time when the Palace was passing through, the fortress had just been built. Today, all that remains of this fortress is a moat and an earthen rampart, which very accurately correspond to the location and structure of the fortress. Near the fortress today there is a memorial stone in honor of this fortification.

To the right of the road, the Palace describes a series of heights and hills. This is Mount Karabetova (159 m), followed by Mount Komendantskaya (164 m), Mount Chirkova (159 m) and Mount Boyur-Gora (113 m). These are all mud volcanoes. Palace especially dwells on the writing of one hill called Kirkkaya (Karabetova). Everything that Palace described on this mountain, salt lakes, mud volcanic cones, oil and gas seeps, deep ravines can still be observed today on Karabetova Mountain. Palace mentions the eruption of this volcano in 1782, and later adds about the eruption that became known to him in 1799. K.R. Begichev gave a detailed report on the eruption of the Karabetova Sopka mud volcano that occurred in 1856. Dr. F.F. Land described the eruption of 1868. Professor K. Hertz, from the words of eyewitnesses, described the eruption in 1876. In the twentieth century, Karabetova Sopka exploded 4 times. And already in the 21st century, the last eruption occurred in May 2001. Karabetova Sopka is one of the most active and interesting mud volcanoes of the Taman Peninsula.

There has been no mud volcanic activity on the Komendanskaya, Chirkova and Boyur Gora mountains for a long time.

Returning to the road leading to Temryuk along the Taman Bay, Palace mentions a well-built stone bridge over a deep ravine. Now this bridge does not exist. The road embankment crosses the said ravine, leaving a passage for water through three concrete pipes laid under the embankment. But apparently the bridge was actually good and on the map this place is designated as the Kamenny Bridge tract.

Continuing his journey along the Taman Bay, Palace notes the peculiarity of this area.

“Along the Taman Bay the area is very sandy and especially in one place it has beautiful white sand. Further on there are many burial mounds, occupying a significant space between the road and the sea, and some are located on the steep seashore; the soil of this bank consists of debris and sand associated with clay. Further on, traces of the Tatar village of Shemardan are visible by the sea; ..."

In fact, between the thickets of sparse bushes and stunted grass there are sandy gaps with wind-blown dunes. Along the road, sometimes on the right, sometimes on the left, mounds are visible. Of course, many of them have been razed today and vineyards are located in their place. Most likely, on the site of the Tatar village of Shemardan, today stands the village of Primorsky, and further along the road on the right behind Mount Shapurskaya (only 60 m) there is an area called the Archaeological tract due to the large number of burial mounds located there from the times of the Meotians and Scythians. The rich archaeological finds of that era can be found in the Taman Archaeological Museum.

It is interesting to observe how the contours and sizes of the mountains located to the right of the road change as you move along them. Inconspicuous hillocks imperceptibly grow into mountain ranges, and very impressive mountains are lost from sight, as if plunging into the boundless steppe.

Further, the path of Palas passed through the spurs of Mount Tsymbaly, stretching from west to east to the village of Akhtanizovskaya. The old road to Temryuk from the southeastern corner of the Taman Bay went northeast to the area of ​​the station. Akhtanizovskaya along the southern spurs of Mount Tsymbaly. Palas indicates the Tatar name for these mountains - Shumukaya. On the western spur of the mountain there is an active mud volcano, Tsymbaly. Its mud flows directed to the south in two places blocked the field road leading from the village of Sennoy to the sand quarry. But this volcano is not described by Palas. Perhaps he was not active at that time, or perhaps he went unnoticed by the traveler because... There is a mud flow on the northern side of the mountain.

But he described Mount Kul-obo in detail. This is the Akhtanizovskaya hill located on the eastern edge of the Tsymbaly mountain range near the village of Akhtanizovsky. Even today we can completely agree with the description of Palace: “... it resembles a small volcano, the whitish-gray peak of which is devoid of vegetation and looks like it is of recent origin.” In fact, it is a pointed cone mountain. True, again, not from all sides. On the eastern slope of the Akhtanizovskaya hill, the correct conical shape of the volcano is changed by a side crater.

“Since, due to the wind from the sea, which raised the level of the Temryuk estuary, it was impossible to get to this city, which has little remarkable, I returned from here to visit the mud hill that had formed again in the northwestern corner of the island and from there through the Northern Spit to return back in Yenikal."

It’s a pity, it would be very interesting to know what Temryuk, Mount Miska, Art. Golubitskaya, mud lake, fortresses and fortifications, channels of the Kuban. True, later Palace added a marine eruption of a mud volcano in the vicinity of old Temryuk (apparently opposite the Golubitskaya station) that occurred in 1799.

From Peresyp, the Palace headed west, skirting the Taman Bay from the north. In the corner of the inner bay, the traveler described a very old shaft, more than ten fathoms wide at the base, running at a distance of a mile from west to east. This shaft is known in literature as the Kemerisky shaft. If you come from the station. Sennaya towards Port Caucasus, then beyond the village the highway crosses the railway and descends into the lowland. To the right of the road there begins a swampy lowland along the northern edge of which this shaft can be seen perpendicular to the road. The Chimerian shaft with a total length of 1.60-1.80 km is a chain of oblong embankments separated by gaps 3 m, 3.5 m and 15 m wide in cross section. The shaft is an irregular trapezoid with a width at the top of 3-4 m, a height of about 5 m. The westernmost segment of this shaft has been destroyed by a modern road. Its remains can be seen to the left of the road (to the west). Palace described this rampart as an ancient fortification. Later, a number of scientists (K.K. Goertz, S.F. Voitsekhovsky, S.F. Voitsekhovsky, V.V. Veselov) studied this ancient structure, but still have not come to a consensus. Who, when and why created this grandiose, by the standards of that time, structure.

In ancient times, the Akhtanizovsky estuary was connected to the Taman Bay through Subbotin Erik (Paramonov Ya.M.). The Fantalovsky Peninsula at that time was an island and was called Chimerian. The Kimeriysky Shaft itself is located on the northern shore of the Subbotin Erik near the Taman Bay. These are probably the same Cimmerian fortifications that were mentioned in passing by Herodotus and in more detail by Strabo: “In former times, Cimmeric was a city on a peninsula and closed the isthmus with a ditch and embankment...”. It is possible that the Chimerian Wall is the remains of an ancient port located on the marshy shores of Subbotin Erik.

Further, Palas's path led to flat heights, rich in pastures, on which there is a farm built on the remains of the village of Chokrak-Koy with an excellent source of cold water flowing to the north along a clay ditch. This farm was later called Fontan, and even later Art. Fontanovskaya, and then Art. Fontalovskaya. In the center of the village, near the monument to those killed during the war, there are the remains of a dam that once formed a pond. On the southern side of the pond, near the hill, reeds grow wildly, and to the north, through the vegetable gardens, there is a barely noticeable ditch. Perhaps this is the same source that Palace described and which gave the village its name. After the installation of water supply from the Kuban River, all the wells in the village were abandoned.

“Then continues the high plain, along which irregularly scattered graves stretch from E to W, then from N to S, not of Tatar, but probably of Circassian origin; they are surrounded by large flat slabs of calcareous and sandy shale standing on edge. I also measured several grave pillars a fathom high, similar to those found on the graves in Tokluk that I described.”

This is what makes this post so interesting. It is believed that it was in this place of the Taman Peninsula that S. Palace first described the unique megalithic monuments of the Caucasus - dolmens.

It is this description that Corresponding Member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and Honorary Member of the Kuban Regional Statistical Committee F.A. refers to. Shcherbina in his book “History of the Kuban Cossack Army” - 1910 (reprint edition of 1992, “Soviet Kuban” edition, p. 177).

“Inquisitive and serious people have long paid attention to the Caucasian dolmens. Even P.S. Pallas, who traveled in 1793 and 1794 around the Crimea and the Taman Peninsula, noted the presence of megalithic structures in the latter. “Not much further from the village. Chokrak-koy, he says, on a high platform there are many tombs, consisting of large lime-schist and sandstone-schist slabs, placed on edge and forming an oblong quadrangle. These randomly scattered tombs are not Tatar, but perhaps of Circassian origin. Narrow gravestone pillars, more than a fathom in height, were also placed here.” These are undoubtedly dolmens and menhirs.”

F. Shcherbina was provided with materials on dolmens by E.D. Felicin. Apparently, E.D. Felitsina was the first to suggest that S. Pallas discovered and described dolmens near the village of Chokrak-Koy.

Let's try to figure out what S. Pallas saw on the outskirts of the Chokrak-Koy settlement, now Art. Fontalovskaya.

The description of the burials by S. Pallas is very general and meager: “...irregularly scattered graves... they are surrounded by large flat slabs of calcareous and sandy shale, standing on edge...”. The dolmens cannot be recognized in this description. We are talking about graves surrounded by stone slabs placed on edge. Compare the description of S. Pallas with the same brief description of the dolmen.

Dolmens are rectangular structures made of four stone slabs and covered with a roof slab, with an opening on a pronounced portal.

But in the description of S. Pallas there is one important clarification: “...I also measured several grave pillars a fathom high, similar to those found on the graves in Tokluk, described by me.” Tokluk is a village in the vicinity of which the traveler described while traveling in Crimea. Today it is the Crimean village of Bogatovka.

This is how S. Pallas describes the ancient burial site he saw near the village of Tokluk (p. 105, orig. L 81 vol. and L 82):

“...A few hundred steps from it to the southeast, on a barren plain surrounding the hill, I found a remarkable burial place, probably very ancient, the like of which I have not found in the Crimea, except, as in the Kooz valley, it is not Tatar . First of all, one can see on a straight Line almost in the direction from O to W and along the length of thirty-two steps about ten graves, outlined on the surface by flat stones dug into the ground and as if separated by partitions. Four of these graves measured have four arshins on each side, while the five others have only two arshins and are therefore oblong. The distances between them are irregular and varied, since in two places this distance is only one arshin between them. Here is the order and distances in which these graves are located from one another, from east to west: 2, 1.4, 1, 2, 2, 4, 33/4.4, 2, 2, arshin. Apparently some of these graves formerly had a taller stone at their southern ends. From the south, at a distance of almost two fathoms, in front of this row, three more single graves of another row are also noticed, and to the eastern edge - a flat mound surrounded by stones and two rectangles, edged along the edges with flat stones, which have longer ones standing on the southern sides stones. The Tatars think that these are Jewish graves, but without a doubt, they seem to be the work of a different, more ancient and smaller nationality.” (arshin – 71.12 cm).

As you can see, dolmens are not visible in the description either. Even if we do not take into account the absence of a floor slab, the description does not contain a round hole or a pronounced portal. These signs were not described by S. Pallas and they were not discovered by modern archaeologists who examined similar burials in the Crimea (Maslennikov A.A., 1981, p. 24). But in both Tokluk and Chokrak-Koy, the researcher noted another characteristic feature of the burials: stone steles - menhirs. Menhirs are not typical for dolmens. The burials described by S. Pallas are more suitable to the description of the so-called “stone boxes”, widely represented in Taman and Crimea.

Stone boxes are funeral structures that form a closed rectangular space intended for placing the body of the deceased and performing the burial ritual (Olkhovsky V.S., 1991, p. 43). This type of burials is widely represented on the Black Sea coast Novichikhin A.M., 2006 p. 20). Often, stone boxes were surrounded by stone cromlechs and menhirs were installed near them. Similar burial structures have also been discovered in Crimea (Tavria boxes).

The descriptions of burials given by S. Pallas in the area of ​​​​the village of Tokluk and in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe village of Chokrak-Koy are in fact very similar. At the same time, in the description of the structures of these burials, the characteristic features of burials of the “stone box” type are recognized. These are graves with rectangular outlines, “outlined on the surface by flat stones,” cromlechs surrounding the graves and menhirs.

S. Palace is very accurate in his narration and near the village of Chokrak-Koy he described exactly what he saw.

For comparison, let us turn to the description of dolmens made in 1818 in the area of ​​the Pshada River by a member of the Odessa Society of History and Antiquities Tetbu de Marigny, given by V.I. Marokvin in the book “Dolmen Monuments of the Kuban and Black Sea Region” (M. 1997): “... each of them is built from five stone slabs, four of which are made in the shape of a parallelogram, and the fifth on top, in the form of an overlap protruding above the vertical edges. These original structures are 12 feet long, 9 feet wide; since they were rooted into the ground, their true height could not be determined. The stones are 14 inches thick; the slab representing the façade recedes a yard deep, forming something like an open vestibule. In the same stone, in its lower part, there is a round hole, at most three feet in diameter.”

“...Isn’t it true how simply and clearly it is written” - these are the words of V.I. Markovin regarding this description.

Probably E.D. Felitsin hastened to give priority to the discoverer of dolmens to S. Palace. Palas described burials of the stone box type. And the first description of dolmens in the Caucasus, apparently, was given by Tetbu de Marigny, a member of the Odessa Society of History and Antiquities, in 1818.

S. Pallas continued his journey along the Fontalovsky Peninsula to the west.

He describes a mountain that the Tatars call Kuuk-obo, and the Black Sea Cossacks, after a fiery and mud eruption, consider it a pipe from hell and call it Prekla. It rises in the middle of a wide cape that forms the inner corner of the Taman Bay northeast of the city of Taman, opposite Yenikale - to the east and slightly to the south.

This is Mount Gorelaya, only 103.5 m high, of a regular conical shape with a pronounced crater at the top. The last eruption of this volcano occurred on February 27, 1794. S. Palace gives a detailed description of this grandiose eruption. Since then the volcano has been dormant. A field road leads to its top and a triangulation point is installed near the crater. The view from Mount Gorelaya is magnificent both on the Taman Peninsula and on the Kerch Peninsula.

At the conclusion of his narrative, S. Palace gives detailed information about the origin of the Kuban Black Sea Cossacks, a long list of the vegetation of Taman Island in Latin, noting the quality of the land and its internal dampness.

On June 17, S. Pallas went to the Northern Spit (Chushka Spit), where a longboat was waiting for him, sent in advance for him to move to Yenikale. On June 20, 1794 he was already in Kerch.

Here is one of S. Palace's latest entries about Taman Island.

“...Former villages, previously inhabited by Circassians, Tatars and also Nekrasov Cossacks, were destroyed and almost razed to the ground. There are few traces left of the ancient Greek cities, if we exclude Taman, and a few inscriptions on stones found in different places.”

There were years and years of war ahead, the destructive waves of which would sweep across the island of Taman more than once. Then there will be a new development and settlement of Kuban. Taman Island will turn into a peninsula. Revolutionary whirlwinds will sweep over the region. A new way of life will emerge and will again be destroyed by the most terrible war of the 20th century. Cities and villages will be rebuilt. Enormous changes will occur in the region since the time of S. Palace’s journey. But even today, traveling along the route of the famous traveler, you can mentally travel back thousands of years, imagining how Scythians jump between ancient mounds, kicking up dust, how Kemerians fish in the floodplains, and the legendary Argonauts sail into the sea for the Golden Fleece to Kokhida.

Have a fun time travel along the S. Palace route.

Yu.N. Sharikov

September 22, 2016 marks the 275th anniversary of the birth of the remarkable scientist and traveler, member of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Peter Simon Pallas (1741–1811). Already during his lifetime, he gained enormous international fame thanks to his scientific works in various fields of science, as well as two large travels across the vast expanses of the Russian Empire.

Nevertheless, there is one sad paradox associated with Pallas. On the one hand, his name can be easily found in many encyclopedias or reference books, and many articles and even books have been written about the scientist. However, on the other hand, even in scientific circles little is known about him, and often they have not heard anything. Meanwhile, historians of science sometimes compare Pallas with Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov, a symbol of our science in the second half of the 18th century, not without reason believing that Peter Pallas was an iconic figure of our Academy of Sciences in the last third of the Enlightenment century.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, many prominent scientists in Russia and abroad spoke enthusiastically about Pallas’s contribution to science. I will only mention the names of the French zoologist and historian of science Georges Cuvier, the German traveler and naturalist Alexander Humboldt, one of the founders of Russian ecology and zoogeography Nikolai Alekseevich Severtsov. However, today many members of the Russian Academy of Sciences have (if they have) a very vague idea of ​​their great predecessor. A whole series of works by Pallas are considered fundamental, and what is written in them is now practically unknown to most, since they have not been translated into Russian.

The path to science

The future “academicus” was born in Berlin into a wealthy family of a military surgeon-professor. The mother came from the French Huguenot diaspora. Germany did not yet exist as a single country. Berlin was the capital of the ambitious and warlike Kingdom of Prussia, dominated by the Brandenburg Hohenzollern dynasty.

Peter was the third and last child. He received a good education at home, which consisted of learning languages. As a result, the boy mastered, in addition to his native German and French (his mother’s language), Latin, as well as ancient Greek and English, which were not in fashion at that time. At the age of 13, the father sent the child to the Berlin Medical-Surgical College, which was distinguished by its advanced views on medicine and natural science. In its likeness, the Medical-Surgical Academy was later created in Russia in St. Petersburg and Moscow (now the Military Medical Academy).

In the 1760s, Pallas lived in England and the Netherlands, where he met many famous collectors and naturalists. He visited famous botanical gardens and studied the richest collections of “naturalia,” as natural objects were then called. At the same time, Peter decided to abandon his medical career and take up the natural sciences, which did not find support from his father.

Thanks to useful contacts with influential people, as well as his own knowledge, Pallas was elected a member of the Royal Society of London in June 1764, and in November of the same year - a member of the Kaiser's Leopoldino-Carolina Academy of Naturalists ("Leopoldina" for short). The selection of such a young naturalist, who was not even 23 years old, was, of course, an unheard of honor, especially considering his lack of published work (not counting his dissertation).

Nevertheless, such a generous advance turned out to be justified. In 1766, in The Hague, Pallas published two monographs at once. In the first of them ( Elenchus Zoophytorum) he gave a description of the then mysterious zoophytes(“animal-plants”), that is, creatures attached to the ground (sponges, coral polyps, bryozoans), confirming their belonging to animals. The young naturalist, having shown that there is no such fundamental boundary between plants and animals as the majority thought then, contrasted the kingdom of living organisms with minerals. This idea was highly appreciated by V.I. Vernadsky in his book on living matter in the 1920s.

Another book ( Miscellanea Zoologica) contained descriptions of a wide variety of animals, from antelopes to lower creatures. In it, by the way, Pallas was the first to identify guinea pigs as a separate genus Cavia. In the Netherlands, a novice but already famous naturalist dreamed of a distant expedition to one of the Dutch colonies: to the very south of Africa or to the east to Asia. However, his dreams were interrupted by his father, who called his son home.

A conflict was brewing in the family. Peter was completely financially dependent on his father, but did not want to become a doctor. An unexpected offer came from Russia. On behalf of Catherine II, Pallas Jr. was invited to work in St. Petersburg, the capital of a huge empire. He was promised a position as a full member and professor of natural sciences at the Imperial Academy of Sciences, as well as leadership of a large expedition to Siberia. After hesitating, Pallas accepted the invitation and already in the summer of 1767 he sat at the Academy of Sciences. Pallas came to St. Petersburg not alone, but with a young woman, whose name remains unknown. She later became his wife and they had a daughter.

Travel around Russia

In the summer of 1768, Pallas, at the head of a detachment of seven people, left St. Petersburg, setting off on a long journey deep into a vast unknown country. He passed through the Volga region, the Urals, the Northern Caspian region, Western Siberia and reached Transbaikalia (Dauria) in the east. His detachment was part of the so-called “physical” expeditions, which became one of the most glorious pages in the history of Russian science. According to the official instructions, in addition to “natural history,” it was necessary to describe the geography of the region being visited, its natural resources, economy, history and customs of local peoples. In fact, these were complex expeditions with an unusually wide range of tasks, from physical and economic geography to traditional medicine and beliefs.

The expedition was not easy. On July 30 (August 10), 1774, having endured many trials, tribulations and hardships of a difficult nomadic life, having suffered losses among his subordinates, the 33-year-old naturalist returned to the banks of the Neva. He looked like a half-old man, emaciated by illness, with graying hair.

During his long travels, Palace kept a detailed diary, which he sent in parts to the Academy of Sciences. This diary was published under the title "Travel through the Various Provinces of the Russian Empire" in St. Petersburg in German (1771–1776) and then in Russian (1773–1788) in three parts and five books. This work, amazing in its breadth, was reprinted in different languages ​​more than 20 times, putting its author among the outstanding European scientists.

In fact, Pallas created a grandiose panorama of a huge, diverse and then little-studied country, outlining its diverse nature and numerous peoples from the Baltic to Transbaikalia and from the polar tundra to the Caspian desert. “Journey” became a real encyclopedia of Russia in the second half of the 18th century. It attracted the attention not only of various scientists (from botanists to orientalists), but also of such wonderful writers and poets as Nikolai Gogol (during his preparation of “Dead Souls”) and Osip Mandelstam. Over the years, the scientific and historical value of this extensive work of Pallas only increases, since the information he obtained about nature and population allows, when compared with modern data, to evaluate the changes that have occurred over the past centuries.

Empress's Grace

After the expedition, Pallas lived in St. Petersburg for almost twenty years, leading the measured life of a scientist and carrying out various assignments for the Imperial Academy of Sciences and other departments of the Russian Empire. He wrote numerous articles and books, edited the works of his colleagues, attended academic and other meetings, conducted extensive correspondence with Russian and foreign scientists, published Neue Nordische Beyträge(1781–1796), etc.

It should be noted his numerous voluminous books on ethnography, zoology, botany, entomology, “Comparative dictionaries of all languages ​​and dialects,” etc. In 1777, the academician put forward his concept of the structure and formation of mountains and changes on the globe. In 1780, he gave a public speech at the Imperial Academy of Sciences on the variability of animals, refuting the concept of Carl Linnaeus about the hybridization of species and the views of the no less famous Georges Buffon on the influence of climate.

Gradually Pallas became an increasingly important figure, whose influence extended beyond the boundaries of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Thanks to the patronage of Catherine II, he was received at court, taught natural sciences to her grandchildren Alexander (the future Emperor Alexander I) and Constantine, and was appointed historiographer of the Admiralty College.

However, the empress’s mercy did not last forever, and Pallas’s court ill-wishers did not sleep. In the fall of 1792, he was released from business by the Admiralty Board and received the highest permission to travel to Crimea, annexed to Russia in 1783. In fact, he was sent into distant exile with honor. Although various reasons for disgrace are given, its real reason is unknown.

Pallas made his second great journey in 1793–1794 at his own expense. The winter route passed through Moscow and the Volga to the south of Russia through the Caspian Sea to the Crimea. He was traveling in a wagon with his third wife, Karolina Ivanovna, and his daughter, Albertina, from his first marriage.

In 1795, in St. Petersburg, a brief description of the Crimean Peninsula appeared in French and Russian, compiled by Pallas on behalf of the young favorite of the Empress, Count Platon Zubov. In one decade (1796–1806), 11 reprints of Taurida followed in German and French. This was probably explained not just by curiosity, but also by geopolitical interests. Soon, a two-volume description of Pallas’s own journey “through the southern governorates of the Russian state” appeared in German in Leipzig (1799–1801), which was also reprinted several times in Europe.

Catherine II generously endowed the academician with lands and a house in Crimea near Simferopol. Here Pallas lived for about 15 years (1795–1810), successfully combining the life of a landowner and a scientist. In addition to gardening and viticulture, he compiled another botanical monograph and completed the main scientific work of his life Zoographia Rosso-Asiatica(“Russian-Asian Zoography”). Its three volumes, printed in Latin in St. Petersburg (1811 and 1814), contained descriptions of 874 species of vertebrate animals.

In April 1810, the aged scientist returned to Berlin with his widowed daughter and grandson. The wife remained in Crimea. On September 8, 1811, the great naturalist died of chronic enteritis, which he suffered all his life (just two weeks short of his 70th birthday). He was buried in the Jerusalem Cemetery in Berlin.

Pallas's legacy

Pallas's scientific heritage is enormous. If we do not take into account reprints, then in 51 years (1760–1811) he wrote 20 books and 131 articles, edited many manuscripts, and also translated 1 book and 7 articles. The scientist was most productive in St. Petersburg from 1776 to 1789.

If we sort his works by area, it turns out that the researcher made contributions to at least 14 sciences. In addition to zoology and botany, these are geography, geology, paleontology, ethnography, oriental studies, religious studies (Buddhology), history and archaeology. The scientist also owns published works on linguistics, numismatics, archeology, meteorology, medicine, agriculture and forestry, mining, various crafts and technologies.

A large block of ironstone (687 kg) brought by Pallas from Siberia, known as Pallas iron, turned out to be the first celestial body identified by science. The beginning of scientific meteoritics is associated with the study of this “aerolith” (then term), and meteorites of this type were called pallasites.

In 1895, naturalist and bibliographer Fyodor Petrovich Koeppen (1833–1908), who compiled a detailed list of Pallas’s works and outlined his biography, proposed staging monument to this wonderful scientist, and also publish it at the Academy of Sciences complete collection of his works. In 1904, a railway station in the steppe Lower Volga region on the line leading to Astrakhan was given the name Pallasovka(city since 1967). In Soviet times, the only monument in the world to a scientist and traveler appeared there.

It would seem that the country should be proud of such a great researcher. However, the 275th anniversary of the birth of Pallas in Russia is unlikely to be celebrated at a high official level; at least, the decisions of the Russian Academy of Sciences on this topic are unknown to me and my colleagues. Despite the obvious lack of interest at the top, enthusiasts will, of course, hold a series of Pallas meetings in the regions. On September 22 in Berlin, German and Russian colleagues living in Germany plan to lay flowers at the grave of the outstanding scientist who unites both our countries.

Of course, the lack of interest and understanding of the importance of Pallas in the leadership of science, as well as in government bodies, is very disappointing. I am glad that his name is remembered and proud of by scientists, local historians and teachers in various cities and villages of our vast homeland, especially in those areas where the expeditions of Pyotr Semyonovich Pallas took place. It is also encouraging that, thanks to the modest provincial intelligentsia, his legacy is being studied in schools and local museums.

The wise Vernadsky spoke of Pallas’s works in the following way: “They still lie at the basis of our knowledge about the nature and people of Russia. Geologist and ethnographer, zoologist and botanist, geologist and mineralogist, statistician, archaeologist and linguist inevitably turn to them as a living source.<...>. Pallas has not yet occupied in our consciousness the historical place that corresponds to his real significance.”

I would like both the leaders of science and the authorities at its various levels to understand this.

Borkin L. Ya., Hannibal B. K., Golubev A. V. The roads of Peter Simon Pallas (in the west of Kazakhstan). St. Petersburg; Uralsk: Eurasian Union of Scientists, 2014; Sytin A.K. Botanist Peter Simon Pallas. M.: T-vo scientific publications KMK, 2014; Wendland F. Peter Simon Pallas (1741–1811). Materialien einer Biographie. Teil I. Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1992. XVIII. 1176 S. (Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Komission zu Berlin, Bd. 80/I-II); Borkin L. Ya. Additions to the bibliography of Peter Simon Pallas // Historical and biological studies. SPb., 2011. T. 3, No. 3. P. 130–157.

Sytin A.K. Living geography of Russia: N.V. Gogol studies the natural history works of P.S. Pallas // Nature. 2000. No. 6. P. 93–96; Borkin L. Ya. Osip Mandelstam and P. S. Pallas (afterword) // Spring of knowledge. SPb. 2013. No. 1 (8). pp. 31–33.

P. S. Pallas (1741 - 1811) - naturalist and traveler-encyclopedist, who glorified his name with major contributions to geography, zoology, botany, paleontology, mineralogy, geology, ethnography, history and linguistics. Pallas explored the vast spaces of the Volga region, the Caspian region, Bashkiria, the Urals, Siberia, Ciscaucasia and Crimea. In many respects, this was a real discovery of the vast territories of Russia for science.

Pallas's geographical merits are enormous, not only in terms of inventorying a colossal amount of facts, but also in his ability to systematize and explain them. Pallas was a pioneer in deciphering the orohydrography of large parts of the Urals, Altai, Sayan and Crimea, and in judging their geological structure, and in the scientific description of mineral wealth, as well as the flora and fauna of Russia. He collected a lot of information about its mining industry, agriculture and forestry, ethnography, languages ​​and history.

N.A. Severtsov emphasized that Pallas, studying “the connections of all three kingdoms of nature,” established “strong views” on the importance of meteorological, soil and climatic influences... There is no branch of the natural sciences in which Pallas would not pave a new path, would not leave a brilliant model for the researchers who followed him... He set an example of unprecedented accuracy in the scientific processing of the materials he collected. In his versatility, Pallas is reminiscent of the encyclopedic scientists of antiquity and the Middle Ages; in terms of accuracy and positivity, this is a modern scientist, not an 18th century one.”

The theory about the origin of mountains expressed by Pallas in 1777 marked a whole stage in the development of Earth science. Like Saussure, who outlined the first patterns in the structure of the subsoil of the Alps, Pallas, who was called the Russian Saussure, was able to grasp the first signs of a regular (zonal) structure in such complex mountain systems as the Urals and the mountains of southern Siberia, and made general theoretical conclusions from these observations. It is important that, not yet being able to overcome the worldview of the catastrophists, Pallas sought to reflect and decipher all the complexity and diversity of the causes of geological processes. He wrote: “To find reasonable causes of changes on our Earth, it is necessary to combine many new hypotheses, and not take just one, as other authors of the Earth theory do.” Pallas spoke about “floods” and volcanic eruptions, and about “catastrophic failures of the bottom”, as one of the reasons for the decrease in sea level, and concluded: “Obviously, nature uses very diverse methods for the formation and movement of mountains and for the creation of other phenomena that have changed the surface of the Earth." Pallas's ideas had, as Cuvier admitted, a great influence on the development of general geological concepts even of such recognized founders of geology as Werner and Saussure.

However, in attributing to Pallas the foundation of “the beginning of all modern geology,” Cuvier committed an obvious exaggeration and demonstrated his unfamiliarity with Lomonosov’s ideas. A. V. Khabakov emphasizes that Pallas’s reasoning about worldwide upheavals and catastrophes was “an outwardly spectacular, but poorly thought-out and false concept, a step back, in comparison, for example, with Lomonosov’s views “about changes insensitive to the passage of time” of the boundaries of land and sea.” . By the way, in his later writings Pallas does not rely on his catastrophist hypothesis and, describing the nature of the Crimea in 1794, speaks of mountain uplifts as “phenomena that cannot be explained.”

According to V.V. Belousov, “the name of Pallas stands first in the history of our regional geological research... For almost a century, Pallas’s books lay on the tables of geologists as reference books, and, leafing through these thick volumes, one could always find something new in them, a previously unnoticed indication of the presence here or there of a valuable mineral, and such dry and brief messages later more than once became the cause of major geological discoveries... Geologists joke that the historical outline of research in any geological report should begin with the words: “More Pallas...”

Pallas, as if foreseeing this, kept detailed notes, not neglecting any little things, and explained it this way: “Many things that may now seem insignificant, in time, may become of great importance to our descendants.” Pallas's comparison of the Earth's layers with a book of ancient chronicles, from which one can read its history, has now become a part of any textbook on geology and physical geography. Pallas far-sightedly predicted that these archives of nature, “preceding the alphabet and the most distant legends, we have only just begun to read, but the material contained in them will not be exhausted for several centuries after us.” The attention that Pallas paid to the study of connections between phenomena led him to many important physical and geographical conclusions. N.A. Severtsov wrote about this: “...Climatology and physical geography did not exist before Pallas. He dealt with them more than all his contemporaries and was in this respect a worthy predecessor of Humboldt... Pallas was the first to observe periodic phenomena in the life of animals. In 1769, he drew up a plan for these observations for the members of the expedition...” According to this plan, it was necessary to record the course of temperature, the opening of rivers, the timing of the arrival of birds, the flowering of plants, the awakening of animals from hibernation, etc. This also depicts Pallas as one of the first organizers of phenological studies in Russia observations.

Pallas described hundreds of species of animals, expressed many interesting thoughts about their connections with the environment and outlined their habitats, which allows us to speak of him as one of the founders of zoogeography. Pallas's fundamental contribution to paleontology was his studies of the fossil remains of the mammoth, buffalo and hairy rhinoceros, first from museum collections and then from his own collections. Pallas tried to explain the finding of elephant bones mixed “with sea shells and bones of sea fish,” as well as the discovery of the corpse of a hairy rhinoceros with surviving hair in the permafrost on the Vilyue River. The scientist could not yet admit that rhinoceroses and elephants lived so far in the north, and invoked a sudden catastrophic invasion of the ocean to explain their introduction from the south. And yet, the very attempt at paleogeographical interpretation of the finds of fossil remains was valuable.

In 1793, Pallas described leaf imprints from the tertiary deposits of Kamchatka - this was the first information about fossil plants from the territory of Russia. Pallas's fame as a botanist is associated with the major "Flora of Russia" he began.

Pallas proved that the level of the Caspian Sea lies below the level of the World Ocean, but that before the Caspian Sea reached General Syrt and Ergeni. Having established the relationship of fish and shellfish of the Caspian and the Black Sea, Pallas created a hypothesis about the existence in the past of a single Ponto-Aral-Caspian basin and its separation when waters broke through the Bosphorus Strait.

In his early works, Pallas acted as a forerunner of evolutionists, defending the variability of organisms, and even drew a family tree of animal development, but later moved to a metaphysical position of denying the variability of species. In understanding nature as a whole, an evolutionary and spontaneously materialistic worldview was characteristic of Pallas until the end of his life.

Contemporaries were amazed by Pallas' ability to work. He published 170 papers, including dozens of major studies. His mind seemed designed to collect and organize the chaos of countless facts and to reduce them into clear systems of classifications. Pallas combined acute observation, phenomenal memory, great discipline of thought, which ensured timely recording of everything observed, and the highest scientific honesty. One can vouch for the reliability of the facts recorded by Pallas, the measurement data he provides, descriptions of forms, etc. “How zealously I observe justice in my science (and perhaps, to my misfortune, too much), so in all this description of my journey I did not step out of it,” and in the least: for according to my concept, to take a thing for another and respect it more than what it is It really is, where to add, and where to hide, I defended for punishment a worthy offense against a scientist in the world, especially among naturalists...”

Descriptions made by scientists of many localities, tracts, settlements, features of the economy and way of life will never lose value precisely because of their detail and reliability: these are standards for measuring the changes that have occurred in nature and people over subsequent eras.

Pallas was born on September 22, 1741 in Berlin in the family of a German professor-surgeon. The boy's mother was French. Studying with home teachers until the age of 13, Pallas became proficient in languages ​​(Latin and modern European), which later greatly facilitated his scientific work, especially when compiling dictionaries and developing scientific terminology.

In 1761 - 1762 Pallas studied the collections of naturalists in England, and also toured its shores, collecting sea animals.

The 22-year-old young man was such a recognized authority that he was already elected as a member of the Academy of London and Rome. In 1766, Pallas published the zoological work “Study of Zoophytes,” which marked a revolution in taxonomy: corals and sponges, which had just been transferred by zoologists from the plant world to the animal world, were classified in detail by Pallas. At the same time, he began to develop a family tree of animals, thus acting as a forerunner of evolutionists.

Returning to Berlin in 1767, Pallas published a number of monographs and collections on zoology. But it was at this time that a sharp turn awaited him, as a result of which the scientist ended up in Russia for 42 years, in a country that literally became his second homeland.

Kruger, Franz – Portrait of Peter Simon Pallas

In 1767, Pallas was recommended to Catherine II as a brilliant scientist capable of carrying out the comprehensive studies of its nature and economy planned in Russia. The 26-year-old scientist came to St. Petersburg both as a professor of “natural history” and then as an ordinary academician with a salary of 800 rubles. a year began to study a new country for him. Among his official duties, he was assigned to “invent something new in his science,” teach students and “multiply with worthy things” the academic “natural cabinet.”

Pallas was entrusted with leading the first detachment of the so-called Orenburg physical expeditions. Young geographers who later grew into major scientists took part in the expedition. Among them were Lepekhin, Zuev, Rychkov, Georgi and others. Some of them (for example, Lepekhin) made independent routes under the leadership of Pallas; others (Georgi) accompanied him at certain stages of the journey. But there were companions who went with Pallas the whole way (students Zuev and chemist Nikita Sokolov, scarecrow Shuisky, draftsman Dmitriev, etc.). Russian satellites provided enormous assistance to Pallas, who was just beginning to study the Russian language, participating in the collection of collections, making additional excursions to the side, conducting questioning work, organizing transportation and household arrangements. The inseparable companion who carried this difficult expedition was Pallas’s young wife (he married in 1767).

The instructions given to Pallas by the Academy might seem overwhelming for a modern large complex expedition. Pallas was instructed to “investigate the properties of waters, soils, methods of cultivating the land, the state of agriculture, common diseases of people and animals and find means for their treatment and prevention, research beekeeping, sericulture, cattle breeding, especially sheep breeding.” Further, among the objects of study, mineral wealth and waters, arts, crafts, trades, plants, animals, “the shape and interior of mountains”, geographical, meteorological and astronomical observations and definitions, morals, customs, legends, monuments and “various antiquities” were listed. . And yet this enormous amount of work was indeed largely accomplished by Pallas during six years of travel.

The expedition, in which the scientist considered his participation a great happiness, began in June 1768 and lasted six years. All this time, Pallas worked tirelessly, keeping detailed diaries, collecting abundant collections on geology, biology and ethnography. This required continuous exertion of strength, eternal haste, and grueling long-distance travel off-road. Constant deprivation, colds, and frequent malnutrition undermined the scientist’s health.

Pallas spent the winter periods editing diaries, which he immediately sent to St. Petersburg for printing, which ensured that his reports began to be published (from 1771) even before returning from the expedition.

In 1768 he reached Simbirsk, in 1769 he visited Zhiguli, the Southern Urals (Orsk region), the Caspian lowland and lake. Inder reached Guryev, after which he returned to Ufa. Pallas spent 1770 in the Urals, studying its numerous mines, and visited Bogoslovsk [Karpinsk], Mount Grace, Nizhny Tagil, Yekaterinburg [Sverdlovsk], Troitsk, Tyumen, Tobolsk and wintered in Chelyabinsk. Having completed the given program, Pallas himself turned to the Academy for permission to extend the expedition to the regions of Siberia. Having received this permission, Pallas in 1771 traveled through Kurgan, Ishim and Tara to Omsk and Semipalatinsk. Based on questioning data, Pallas highlighted the issue of fluctuations in the level of lakes in the Trans-Urals and Western Siberia and associated changes in the productivity of meadows, in fisheries and salt industries. Pallas examined the Kolyvan silver “mines” in Rudny Altai, visited Tomsk, Barnaul, the Minusinsk Basin and spent the winter in Krasnoyarsk.

In 1772, he passed Irkutsk and Baikal (he entrusted the study of Lake Pallas to Georgi, who joined him), traveled to Transbaikalia, and reached Chita and Kyakhta. At this time, Nikita Sokolov traveled on his instructions to the Argun prison. On the way back, Pallas continued Georgi's work on the inventory of Lake Baikal, as a result of which almost the entire lake was described. Returning to Krasnoyarsk, in the same 1772, Pallas made a trip to the Western Sayan Mountains and the Minusinsk Basin.

The return from the expedition took a year and a half. On the way back through Tomsk, Tara, Yalutorovsk, Chelyabinsk, Sarapul (with a stop in Kazan), Yaitsky Gorodok [Uralsk], Astrakhan, Tsaritsyn, lake. Elton and Saratov, having spent the winter in Tsaritsyn, the scientist made excursions down the Volga to Akhtuba, to Mount B. Bogdo and to the salt lake Baskunchak. Having passed Tambov and Moscow, in July 1774, thirty-three-year-old Pallas ended his unprecedented journey, returning to St. Petersburg as a gray-haired and sick man. Stomach diseases and inflammation of the eyes haunted him throughout his life.

However, he considered even the loss of health to be rewarded by the impressions received and said:

“...The very bliss of seeing nature in its very being in a noble part of the world, where a person has deviated very little from it, and learning from it, served me as a hefty reward for the lost youth and health, which no envy can take away from me.”

Pallas's five-volume work "Travel through Various Provinces", first published in German in 1771 - 1776, represented the first comprehensive and thorough description of a huge country, almost unknown at that time scientifically. It is no wonder that this work was quickly translated not only into Russian (1773 - 1788), but also into English and French with notes by prominent scientists, for example Lamarck.

Pallas did a great job of editing and publishing the works of a number of researchers. In 1776 - 1781 he published “Historical News of the Mongolian People”, reporting in them, along with historical information, a lot of ethnographic information about the Kalmyks, Buryats and, according to questioning data, about Tibet. In his materials about the Kalmyks, Pallas included, in addition to his observations, data from the geographer Gmelin, who died in the Caucasus.

Upon returning from the expedition, Pallas was surrounded with honor, made a historiographer of the Admiralty and a teacher of his august grandchildren - the future Emperor Alexander I and his brother Constantine.

The “Cabinet of Natural Monuments” collected by Pallas was acquired for the Hermitage in 1786.

Twice (in 1776 and 1779) in response to requests from the Academy of Sciences, Pallas came up with bold projects for new expeditions to the north and east of Siberia (he was attracted by the Yenisei and Lena, Kolyma and Kamchatka, the Kuril and Aleutian Islands). Pallas promoted the myriad natural resources of Siberia and argued against the prejudice that “the northern climate is not favorable for the formation of precious stones.” However, none of these expeditions came to fruition.

Pallas's life in the capital was connected with his participation in resolving a number of government issues and with receiving many foreign guests. Catherine II invited Pallas to compile a dictionary of “all languages ​​and dialects.”

On June 23, 1777, the scientist gave a speech at the Academy of Sciences and spoke warmly about the plains of Russia as the fatherland of a powerful people, as a “nursery of heroes” and “the best refuge of sciences and arts,” about “the arena of the wonderful activity of the enormous creative spirit of Peter the Great.” .

Developing the already mentioned theory of mountain formation, he noticed the confinement of granites and the ancient “primary” shales surrounding them, devoid of fossils, to the axial zones of the mountains. Pallas found that towards the periphery (“on the sides of the masses of previous mountains”) they are covered with rocks of “secondary” formation - limestones and clays, and also that these rocks from bottom to top along the section lie more and more shallowly and contain more and more fossils. Pallas also noted the presence of steep ravines and caves with stalactites in limestone.

Finally, on the periphery of mountainous countries, he noted the presence of sedimentary rocks of the “Tertiary” formation (later in the Cis-Urals their age turned out to be Permian).

Pallas explained this structure by a certain sequence of ancient volcanic processes and sedimentation and made the bold conclusion that the entire territory of Russia was once the seabed, and only islands of “primary granites” rose above the sea. Although Pallas himself believed that volcanism was the reason for the tilting of strata and the raising of mountains, he reproached the one-sidedness of the Italian naturalists, who, “seeing fire-breathing volcanoes constantly before their eyes, attributed everything to internal fire.” Noting that often “the highest mountains are composed of granite,” Pallas made the astonishingly profound conclusion that granite “forms the foundation of the continents” and that “it contains no fossils, therefore it predates organic life.”

In 1777, on behalf of the Academy of Sciences, Pallas completed and in 1781 published an important historical and geographical study “On Russian discoveries on the seas between Asia and America.” Also in 1777, Pallas published a large monograph on rodents, then a number of works on various mammals and insects. Pallas described animals not only as a taxonomist, but also illuminated their connections with the environment, thus acting as one of the founders of ecology.

In his Memoir of the Varieties of Animals (1780), Pallas moved to an anti-evolutionary point of view on the question of the variability of species, declaring their diversity and relatedness to be the influence of a “creative force.” But in the same “Memoir” the scientist anticipates a number of modern views on artificial hybridization, speaking “about the inconstancy of some breeds of domestic animals.”

Since 1781, Pallas, having received the herbariums of his predecessors at his disposal, worked on the “Flora of Russia”. The first two volumes of “Flora” (1784 - 1788) were officially distributed to the provinces of Russia. Also distributed throughout the country was the “Resolution on Afforestation”, written by Pallas on behalf of the government, consisting of 66 points. During 1781 - 1806 Pallas created a monumental summary of insects (mainly beetles). In 1781, Pallas founded the magazine “New Northern Notes”, publishing in it a lot of materials about the nature of Russia and voyages to Russian America.

With all the honor of the position, metropolitan life could not help but weigh heavily on the born researcher and traveler. He obtained permission to go on a new expedition at his own expense, this time in the south of Russia. On February 1, 1793, Pallas and his family left St. Petersburg through Moscow and Saratov to Astrakhan. An unfortunate incident - a fall into icy water while crossing the Klyazma - led to a further deterioration in his health. In the Caspian region, Pallas visited a number of lakes and hills, then climbed up the Kuma to Stavropol, examined the sources of the Mineralovodsk group and traveled through Novocherkassk to Simferopol.

In the early spring of 1794, the scientist began studying Crimea. In the fall, Pallas returned to St. Petersburg via Kherson, Poltava and Moscow and presented Catherine II with a description of Crimea, along with a request to allow him to move there to live. Along with permission, Pallas received from the empress a house in Simferopol, two villages with plots of land in the Aytodor and Sudak valleys, and 10 thousand rubles for the establishment of gardening and winemaking schools in Crimea. At the same time, his academic salary was retained.

Pallas enthusiastically devoted himself to exploring the nature of Crimea and promoting its agricultural development. He went to the most inaccessible places of the Crimean mountains, planted orchards and vineyards in the Sudak and Koz valleys, and wrote a number of articles on agricultural technology of southern crops in the conditions of the Crimea.

Pallas's house in Simferopol was a place of pilgrimage for all honored guests of the city, although Pallas lived modestly and was burdened by the external splendor of his fame. Eyewitnesses describe him as already close to old age, but still fresh and vigorous. Memories of his travels brought him, in his words, more pleasure than his glory itself.

Pallas continued to process the observations he had made earlier in the Crimea. In 1799 - 1801 he published a description of his second journey, which included, in particular, a thorough description of the Crimea. Pallas's works about the Crimea are the pinnacle of his achievements as a geographer-naturalist. And pages with characteristics of the geological structure of Crimea, as A. V. Khabakov writes (p. 187), “would do honor to the field notes of a geologist even in our time.”

Pallas's considerations regarding the border between Europe and Asia are interesting. Trying to find a more suitable natural boundary for this essentially conventional cultural-historical border, Pallas disputed the drawing of this border along the Don and proposed moving it to General Syrt and Ergeni.

Pallas considered the main goal of his life to be the creation of “Russian-Asian Zoography”. He worked hardest on it in the Crimea, and with the publication of this particular book he was most unlucky: its publication was completed only in 1841, that is, 30 years after his death.

In the preface to this work, Pallas wrote, not without bitterness: “Zoography, which had been in papers for so long, collected over the course of 30 years, is finally being published. It contains one-eighth of the animals of the entire inhabited world.”

In contrast to the “thin” systematic summaries of faunas, containing “dry skeletons of names and synonyms,” Pallas aimed to create a faunal summary, “complete, rich and so compiled that it could be suitable for covering the whole of zoology.” In the same preface, Pallas emphasized that zoology remained his main passion throughout his life: “... And although the love of plants and works of underground nature, as well as the position and customs of peoples and agriculture constantly entertained me, from a young age I was especially interested in zoology preferably before the rest of the physiography.” In fact, “Zoography” contains such abundant materials on the ecology, distribution and economic significance of animals that it could be called “Zoogeography”.

Shortly before his death, Pallas’ life took another, unexpected turn for many. Dissatisfied with the increasing frequency of land disputes with neighbors, complaining of malaria, and also trying to see his older brother and hoping to speed up the publication of his Zoography, Pallas sold his Crimean estates for next to nothing and “with the highest permission” moved to Berlin, where he had not been for more than 42 years. The official reason for leaving was: “To put our affairs in order...” Naturalists in Germany greeted the seventy-year-old man with honor as the recognized patriarch of natural science. Pallas plunged into scientific news and dreamed of a trip to the natural history museums of France and Italy. But her poor health made itself felt. Realizing the approach of death, Pallas did a lot of work to put the manuscripts in order and distribute the remaining collections to friends. On September 8, 1811 he died.

Pallas's merits already during his lifetime received worldwide recognition. He was elected, in addition to those already mentioned, a member of the scientific societies: Berlin, Vienna, Bohemian, Montpelier, Patriotic Swedish, Hesse-Hamburg, Utrecht, Lund, St. Petersburg Free Economic, as well as the Paris National Institute and the academies of Stockholm, Naples, Göttingen and Copenhagen. In Russia he held the rank of full state councilor.

Many plants and animals were named in honor of Pallas, including the plant genus Pallasia (the name was given by Linnaeus himself, who deeply appreciated the merits of Pallas), the Crimean pine Pinus Pallasiana, etc.

Crimean pine Pinus Pallasiana

Pallas' saffron – Crocus pallasii

A special type of iron-stone meteorites is called pallasites after the “Pallas Iron” meteorite, which the scientist brought to St. Petersburg from Siberia in 1772.

Monument to Peter Simon Pallas

Off the coast of New Guinea there is Pallas Reef. In 1947, an active volcano on the island of Ketoi in the Kuril ridge was named in honor of Pallas. In Berlin, one of the streets bears the name of Pallas. Moreover, the station village of Pallasovka (a city since 1967), founded in 1907, received its interesting name also thanks to the merits of the German traveler and naturalist Peter Simon Pallas, who conducted an expedition in this region in the 18th century. It is curious that Pallas himself at one time noted that “this is a land on which it is impossible to live,” focusing on the hot climate in summer (temperatures in summer can reach +45).

Based on materials from the Internet.

Natural scientist, geographer and tireless traveler, doctor of medicine, member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, actual state councilor Pyotr Semyonovich (Peter-Simon) Pallas, whose 270th birthday was celebrated by the public, is one of the most iconic figures in the history of our peninsula, where he lived for fifteen years. It is probably difficult to find a Crimean who has not heard this name, a Simferopol resident who has never passed by the building with turrets in the Salgirka park, which is called the “house of Pallas”. But hardly anyone will say that they know well about the merits of this man, about the legacy that he left us.

Passion for travel

It was this feeling that led the son of Berlin College surgery professor Simon Pallas and Frenchwoman Susanna Leonard, MD, to research work in Russia. Arriving at the invitation of Catherine II to carry out a comprehensive study of the nature and prospects of the Russian economy, as a professor of natural history at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, he led an expedition to the central regions, areas of the Lower Volga region, the Caspian lowland, the Middle and Southern Urals, and Southern Siberia. The result of his work was the enormous work “Travel to Various Provinces of the Russian State,” which was a comprehensive thorough study, later translated into several European languages. The collections collected by Pallas replenished the academic Kunstkamera and the University of Berlin. Among the most significant works of those years are the “Comparative Dictionaries of All Languages ​​and Adverbs,” compiled on behalf of the empress.

In 1793, Pallas undertook a trip at his own expense to study the climate of southern Russia and Crimea. Returning to St. Petersburg in 1794, he presented Catherine II with a “Brief Physical and Topographic Description of the Tauride Region” and asked permission to settle in Crimea, wanting to complete his scientific works. The Empress granted him two villages with plots of land in the Aytodor and Sudak valleys, a house in Simferopol and 10 thousand rubles for the establishment of horticulture and winemaking schools in Crimea, retaining his academic salary. In August 1795, Pallas moved to Crimea.

Columbus of the natural resources of Tauris

This is rightfully called the great Russian naturalist, about whom the poet Osip Mandelstam said:

No one, like Pallas, managed to remove the gray veil of coachman boredom from the Russian landscape.

And the famous Russian natural scientist Nikolai Severtsev wrote:

No matter how great Pallas's fame is, it still cannot compare with his achievements in science.

Pallas called our peninsula “wonderful”, falling in love with it from the first visit. As the authors of the book “Discoverers of the Crimean Land” Vasily, Alexander and Andrey Eny note, Crimea became the last discovery of the great Pallas. “The presence of a glorious man,” one of the scientist’s contemporaries wrote prophetically about his stay in Simferopol, “who settled within the walls of this city, seems to herald the dawn of his future enlightenment.”

In his house on the banks of the Salgir River, Pallas collected a rich collection of minerals, hundreds of samples of flora and fauna of the peninsula. Not a single eminent guest of the city, famous scientists of that time, including the author of the first monograph on the nature of Taurida, academician Karl Gablitz, and the founder and first director of the Nikitsky Botanical Garden Christian Steven, passed by his abode.

Having settled in his Simferopol estate, named “Karolinovka” after his wife, the scientist often went on foot not only to nearby but also to remote corners of the foothills, the Southern Coast, the Main Crimean Ridge, the Kerch hills and the plain Crimea.

“An analysis of Pallas’s Crimean works allowed us to establish that over the years of his Crimean travels, the scientist traveled and walked a total of more than nine thousand kilometers,” notes Vasily Yena. — He described about a hundred in his writings, and mentioned 908 geographical objects in total: mountain peaks, valleys, capes, bays, rivers, settlements. He characterized, including for the first time in science, many hundreds of species of plants and animals living on the peninsula. Even today, one is struck by the author’s special insight, multi-layeredness and accuracy of the panorama of the life of nature and the peoples of the Russian south drawn by him. He not only explored the natural resources of the peninsula, but also enthusiastically promoted its rational economic development. Pallas wrote:

The Crimean Peninsula, by its geographical position, climate and the nature of its soil, is the only region of the Russian Empire into which all the products of Greece and Italy can be introduced and domesticated... It would be possible to profitably introduce the cultivation of silkworms, the culture of grapes, sesame, olives, cotton , crappa, saffron... These crops will eventually enrich the state with their products...

Not only a theorist, but also a practitioner

The scientist not only gave recommendations, but also actively participated in the economic development of Crimea: in 1798 he founded the oldest arboretum in Crimea “Salgirka” in Simferopol - on the territory of the current botanical garden of the Taurida National University. V. Vernadsky. He also planted extensive vineyards in the Sudak Valley, on the South Coast and in the foothills. To justify the use of local resources, Pallas described twenty-four native grape varieties and many varieties of southern fruit crops.

“The main thing that this tireless researcher did was a fairly clear scientific description of natural components and many territorial complexes, primarily the mountainous Crimea,” says Vasily Yena. — Pallas revealed the origin and current state of the objects he studied, thanks to which those reading his works looked at nature through the eyes of discoverers. The scientist first put forward the idea of ​​a hypothetical landmass, later called Pontida, which could extend south of the Main Ridge into the Black Sea depression. Disputes among scientists about this continue to this day.

— This is not the only Pallasian hypothesis, is it?

— The second concerns the island past of ancient Taurida:

Since the entire Crimean peninsula is connected to the mainland only through the narrow, unchanged Perekop Isthmus, it is more than likely that Crimea was once separated from the mainland and, with its southern, more elevated part, formed a real island, precisely at the time when the level of the Black Sea The sea stood even higher, as some passages from ancient writers testify to this.

In his works, Pallas often refers to such ancient scientists as Strabo, Pliny, and to the works and maps of medieval Arab geographers - Masudi, Ibn Battuta and others.

In his research, Pallas provides original information about rocks and minerals, karst formations, landslides, rock chaos and sea terraces, for the first time in science he mentions the mountain-valley amphitheaters of the South Coast and carries out the first zoning of the salt lakes of the peninsula, identifying five groups: Perekop, Arabat, Evpatoria, Feodosia and Kerch. The scientist’s conclusions were preceded by long journeys, during which he did not avoid the most risky routes. It is no coincidence that the academician’s courage was admired by his contemporary traveler Vladimir Izmailov:

I traveled around... the chain of the Crimean mountains, where there is no other road except one narrow path hanging along the ridges of rocks over terrible abysses, over the abyss of the Black Sea, and where one must make his way over the stones on foot or riding on a Tatar horse, which alone is familiar with these fears... The foothills of the mountains, covered with fragments of stones and boulders, are so steep that in many places a horse can barely climb up with its convolutions.

“The fearlessness of the pioneer allowed him to be the first to convey to science the message about the famous catastrophe associated with the occurrence of the Kuchuk-Koy landslide,” testifies Vasily Yena. — A reliable, detailed description of the natural disaster that occurred more than two centuries ago on the peninsula remains unsurpassed to this day. From the monstrous catastrophe that he depicted, a trace has been preserved to this day - a huge stone chaos in the west of the Crimean South Coast.

Experts note a characteristic feature of Pallas's texts: the researcher always provides the results of geographical measurements. He was the first to give some of the most important spatial parameters of the natural regions of Crimea, spoke in detail about the various mountain formations, and described the Yaylin landscapes. On Yaila Demerdzhi, Pallas, in addition to limestones, discovered conglomerates, among which “many quartz pebbles, very little transferred granite,” that is, “new” to the Crimea. On Karadag, the scientist finds something that even now delights vacationers in Koktebel and Kurortny - semi-precious sea pebbles:

On the seashore there are a lot of pebbles... made of jasper and chalcedony. This is the only rock in all of Taurida that can serve as evidence of volcanic activity in the most distant antiquity.

And in the foothills, Pallas discovered that “in the chalk they find a lot of blackish gun flint with white bark.” It was this discovery that served as the impetus for the search for finds of flint tools in the Ak-Kai area for sites of primitive man. In the 70-80s of the last century, more than twenty Paleolithic sites were discovered here.

Naturalist of an encyclopedic warehouse

And in this incarnation Pallas established himself and remained in world science. His botanical research is no less impressive than his geographical one. He was the second after Gablitz to compile an extensive list of plants of the peninsula. He significantly expanded the research of his predecessor, listing 969 rather than 542 known species of flora. A prominent botanist of the twentieth century, Sergei Stankov, believes that it is from Pallas that the history of the study of Crimean vegetation should be counted. In addition, the academician was the first to describe a number of Crimean animal species and laid the foundation for climatic and phenological observations.

“His works contain answers to many questions about the development of the flora of the peninsula, aimed at solving current economic problems, in particular afforestation and conservation of the nature of the village,” recalls Vasily Yena. — The scientist’s priority is that he was the first to point out the altitudinal differentiation of the vegetation of the mountainous Crimea. The researcher’s works about Crimea became the pinnacle of his scientific creativity; they are widely known throughout the world. And thanks to these works, Tavrida itself found a worthy place in the ideas of naturalists in many countries.

No less important are descriptions of the historical places of Taurida. His books “On the Residents of the Peninsula” are still read with interest, which gives the population size, national composition, types of occupations, “On the current state of Crimea and possible economic improvements in it” with an overview of economic sectors and ways to improve them. His studies “On Crimean viticulture” and “On the fruit gardens of Crimea” are also of practical importance in our time. Pallas established himself not only as a versatile scientist, but also as a zealous, knowledgeable business executive, expressing scientifically based plans for the development of Taurida.

A year before his death, Pallas returned to his homeland, Germany. The role it played in the development of European natural science and the nature of the ideas of the then European luminaries about Crimea can be judged from the words of the scientist Georges Cuvier:

...For a man who lived 15 years in Little Tataria, this meant almost returning from the other world...

Pallas's travel notes and diaries still read like a fascinating novel. Even the master of elegant style Osip Mandelstam admitted:

I read Pallas breathlessly, slowly. I slowly leaf through the watercolor versts. I am sitting in a mail carriage with a reasonable and affectionate traveler... Reading this naturalist has a wonderful effect on the alignment of the senses, straightens the eye and imparts mineral quartz calm to the soul...

By the way

The name of Pallas is immortalized in nine names of plants growing on the peninsula. A memorial plaque was installed on the preserved building of the Pallas estate in the Simferopol protected landscape park "Salgirka". The name of the scientist appears among the names of prominent citizens on a memorial tablet installed in the center of Simferopol in honor of the 200th anniversary of the city.

An active volcano in the Kuril Islands ridge, a mountain in the southern part of the Northern Urals, a peninsula on the Khariton Laptev coast in the Kara Sea, a reef off the coast of New Guinea, a street in Berlin, a city and a railway station in the Volgograd region, streets in Novosibirsk, Volgograd are named after Pallas. Pallas was the first scientist to have a Russian ship named after him.

Pallas was a member of the London, Rome, Neapolitan, Göttingen, Stockholm, Copenhagen Academies of Sciences, the Patriotic Swedish Society, the Royal Societies of London and Montpellier, the St. Petersburg Free Economic Society, and the Paris National Institute. Knight of the Order of St. Vladimir IV degree and St. Anna II degree.

On the initiative of Pallas, the Sudak School of Viticulture and Winemaking was opened in 1804.

Cambridge University Professor Edward Daniel Clarke wrote:

Crimea will long remain famous as the seat of Professor Pallas, a researcher famous in the scientific world for his numerous works.

Lyudmila Obukhovskaya, "

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