Merkury Vagin
Encyclopedia
In 1712, together with Yakov Permyakov
Yakov Permyakov
Yakov Permyakov was a Russian seafarer, explorer, merchant, and Cossack.In 1710, while sailing from the Lena River to the Kolyma River, Permyakov observed the silhouette of two unknown island groups in the sea...
, Merkury Vagin explored the region of the eastern Laptev Sea
Laptev Sea
The Laptev Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is located between the northern coast of Siberia, the Taimyr Peninsula, Severnaya Zemlya and the New Siberian Islands. Its northern boundary passes from the Arctic Cape to a point with co-ordinates of 79°N and 139°E, and ends at the Anisiy...
coast, including Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island, the southermost of the New Siberian Archipelago
New Siberian Islands
The New Siberian Islands are an archipelago, located to the North of the East Siberian coast between the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea north of the Sakha Republic....
. With a group of Cossacks they crossed the Yana Bay
Yana Bay
The Yana Bay is the most important gulf of the Laptev Sea. It is located between Cape Buor-Khaya on its western side and the Ebelyakh Bay at its eastern end....
over the ice from the mouth of the Yana
Yana River
The Yana River , is a river in Sakha in Russia, located between the Lena to the west and the Indigirka to the east.It is 872 km in length. The area of its basin is 238,000 km², whilst its annual discharge totals approximately . Most of this discharge occurs in May and June as the ice on the...
; after reaching Bolshoy Lyakhovsky, they explored the then unknown island that had been reported by Permyakov two years earlier.
Vagin and Permyakov were murdered on the way back from their exploration by mutineering expedition members. The cossacks took the dead bodies down to the ice and set them on fire. No one knows what the rebellious cossacks did with the ashes, but Merkury Vagin's remains were never found.
Merkuriya Island was named after this pioneering Russian explorer.