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Vladimir Vasilyevich Atlasov (1661–1711) was a Russian Siberian (Yakut) Cossack explorer. He provided the first information about Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands. The great Russian poet and writer A.S. Pushkin called Vladimir Atlasov "Kamchatka Yermak", and the Russian geographer Stepan Krasheninnikov-- "the master of Kamchatka". In 1672 Atlas was taken in Yakutsk to the royal service to collect yasak and search for new lands. In 1695 he was sent as a clerk to the most remote region of Russia, Anadyr. In 1697, led by a detachment of 120 people. moved to Kamchatka with the aim of joining it to Russia. In the summer of 1697, Atlasov managed to get to the headwaters of the Kamchatka River, where he built the Upper Kamchatka cabin. Thus, most of the peninsula came under the authority of the Atlasov detachment, and then the expedition leader decided to perpetuate the annexation of the peninsula to Russia. On July 23, 1697, a cross was erected on the left tributary of Kamchatka, the Krestova River (Kanuch), which had stood there for almost forty years (see the picture on the envelope). He built the city of Verkhne-Kamchatsk. In 1701 he received the rank of Cossack commander. Atlas made the first description of the nature and population of Kamchatka, outlined information about Alaska, the islands near Kamchatka, the Chukotka Peninsula, the Kuril Islands and Japan. Atlasov’s extensive and reliable records of the value and completeness of geographical and ethnographic information far exceed the reports of other explorers. The name of Atlasov is an island in the Sea of Okhotsk, a village on Sakhalin Island.
Russia1990; 5k.Postal envelope. Source: http: //discover-history.com/explorers/Atlasov-Vladimir-Vasilyevich.htm