Kamchatka: Pacific Adventures

Kamchatka is an adventurous place, and it was such for centuries. This story has another, inside one, so to say, “story in a story.” The primary story is mainly about fascinating but sometimes arduous seagoing expeditions, the routine life on the small ship, sleepless watches, conflicts, funny and tragic events at sea, beautiful Kamchatka nature, and a vulnerable Pacific environment. The second, inside story is about war adventures that happened in Kamchatka in the mid of 19th century during the Crimean War of Anglo-French allies against Russia. In reality, the war was not only in Sebastopol and beside Crimea but around the whole of Russia. The allies won most of the battles in the Black Sea area, fought with some success in the Baltic Sea, without any success in the White Sea; they won this war as a whole, but their fleet failed in the Pacific. Indeed, it was a sudden event, and many people asked – why? Telling shortly about the naval siege of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, I try to answer this question from the position of the artilleryman, the 122 mm howitzer battery commander who I was just before sailing, and show that the right or wrong use of artillery had a decisive effect on the result of the attack on Petropavlovsk.
Now there are monuments over the bed of honor of both the defenders and attackers who died here in 1854. It was a Russian woman who wrote 150 years ago in her memorials about the dead English Royal Marines Commander, Captain Parker, and others killed during the siege: "Next year, they told us that Parker left behind a wife and five children ... A cruel fate! The other two officers were almost children. Their poor mothers are not destined to hug them; they sleep forever in a strange land!” Despite the very strained relationship between Britain and Russia, people in Kamchatka honor the fallen of both sides equally and are not going to revise anything. I sincerely feel sorry for the victims of both sides as well. So, this story also addresses the problem of memorials and how they should be treated. Unfortunately, it has remained an issue and recently affected even the USA.
So, depending on your interests, you may read any of these stories. Both are illustrated by pictures including my black-and-white pictures of marine investigations, sea creatures, salmon spawning details, beautiful landscapes, and historical monuments. Of course, I could not take pictures of how deadly drunk boatswain was attempting to raise an anchor at night when we were leaving Petropavlovsk, or the mine explosion at the board of the trawler, or how much especially valuable local herring people saw in Kamchatka gulfs of the Bering sea before overfishing of the 1960s comparable with famous American bison killing but I hope you will appreciate my descriptions. Reading this story, you will visit many remarkable places of Kamchatka: "Inside the Kamchatka peninsula, there are beautiful landscapes: a chain of shining mountains passing through the entire peninsula, luxurious greenery, rich flora, large beautiful lakes among the green valleys, covered with flowers, furiously roaring, fast foaming rivers, cliffs to which the rosebay and other lovely flowers cling. All this amazes with its splendor and presents completely unexpected panoramas." This picture, described 150 years ago, is still the same, and I would add to it only numerous volcanoes and geysers.