Martyn Petrovich Shpanberg
Shpanberg, Martyn Petrovich
Date of birth unknown; died 1761. Russian navigator; captain first class.
An immigrant from Denmark, Shpanberg took part in the First Kamchatka Expedition, from 1725 to 1730, aboard the vessel Sv. Gavriil. Sailing aboard the Arkhangel Mikhail he commanded a detachment of ships in the Second Kamchatka Expedition and, after Bering’s death, became the leader of the expedition. An island in the Lesser Kuril Chain, mountains in the Chukchi region and on Sakhalin, a strait in the Kuril Islands, and capes on the island of Hokkaido and in the Anadyr’ Gulf are named for Shpanberg.