Mikhail Ivanovich Veniukov

Born June 23 (July 5), 1832, in the village of Nikitinskoe, Riazan Province; died July 4 (17), 1901, in Paris. Russian geographer, traveler, and ethnographer. Major general. Graduated from the Academy of the General Staff (1856).

Veniukov traveled through the Far East (1857-59), Tien-Shan, the Pamirs, Semirech’e (1859-60), and the Caucasus (1861-63). He studied the Amur River and gave a scientific description of Lake Issyk Kul’ and the upper reaches of the Chu River; he compiled a geographic and ethnographic description of the northwestern Caucasus. He made a trip around the world in 1868; he also traveled through Japan and China (1869-71) and Turkey (1874). In 1877, Veniukov emigrated from Russia. Between 1880 and 1900 he made scientific journeys to Indochina, North Africa, South and Central America, and so on. He wrote a manual on physical geography. A pass through the Sikhote-Alin Mountains and a cape in the Kuril Islands bear his name.