Dmitrii Iakovlevich Laptev

Years of birth and death unknown. Russian arctic explorer; vice admiral (1762).

Laptev began his naval career as a garde marine in 1718. Beginning in 1736 he headed one of the northern detachments of the Second Kamchatka Expedition. As a result of sea and land voyages between 1739 and 1742, descriptions were compiled of the seacoast from the mouth of the Lena River to Cape Bol’shoi Baranov (east of the mouth of the Kolyma River) as well as of the mouth and basin of the Anadyr’ River and the land routes from the Anadyr’ Fortress to Penzhina Bay. In 1741–42, Laptev conducted a survey of the Bol’shoi Aniui and Anadyr’ rivers. After the completion of the expedition, he continued to serve in the Baltic Fleet, retiring in 1762. A cape in the Lena delta and a strait between Bol’shoi Liakhovskii Island and the Asian continent have been named after him. One of the seas of the Arctic Ocean has been named in honor of D. Ia. Laptev and Kh. P. Laptev.