Laptevs

The Laptevs refer to two prominent figures in Russian exploration, Dmitry Laptev and his cousin Khariton Laptev, who were 18th-century naval officers and Arctic explorers. Their names are immortalized in the Laptev Sea, a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia.

Dmitry Laptev began his naval career in the Baltic Fleet. In the 1730s, as part of the Great Northern Expedition, he was tasked with mapping the Arctic coast from the Lena River eastward to the Kolyma River. Despite immense challenges from ice and weather, his party successfully charted significant portions of the coastline and the mouths of major rivers.

His cousin, Khariton Laptev, led a complementary detachment of the same expedition. His mission was to explore and chart the vast coastline west of the Lena River, towards the Taymyr Peninsula. Khariton's expedition faced extreme hardship, including the loss of their ship to pack ice. His team continued on foot and by dog sled, producing the first reliable maps of the northernmost part of the Asian continent.

The collective efforts of the Laptev cousins resulted in a comprehensive survey of over 2,500 kilometers of previously unexplored Siberian Arctic coastline. Their detailed accounts and maps provided invaluable geographical knowledge. In recognition of their contributions, a large section of the Arctic Ocean was later named the Laptev Sea, ensuring their legacy is tied to the region they helped to define.