Participants of the expedition "Pole of Cold Connects the Oceans", the main goal of which is to find a river path uniting the Arctic and Pacific Oceans, explored the region of Yakutia, where the city of Zashiversk once existed, left by people 135 years ago as a result of a smallpox epidemic.
A settlement called Zashiversk was founded in 1639 and was located beyond the Arctic Circle in Yakutia, on the Indigirka River. The name comes from the word Shivera - stone rapids on the river, below which the city arose downstream.
Zashiversk was located at the crossroads of important land and water routes of the Yakutsk-Kolyma tract and was once a prosperous settlement, but after a large-scale smallpox epidemic in 1880, it was left without a single inhabitant.
“The members of the expedition carried out a survey of the area, as well as carried out the topological survey necessary for the registration of Zashiversk as an archaeological monument. The expedition included an Orthodox priest who specially came to the disappeared settlement in order to hold a prayer service for the people who lived here, indicated in the parish books of the second half of the nineteenth century,”the leaders of the expedition say.
Kolesnikov Andrey