Sidorov M. K. (1823-1887), explorer of the Russian North, public figure

Categories / Science. Education/Personalia
Categories / Economy/Personalia
SIDOROV Mikhail Konstantinovich (1823-1887), entrepreneur, public figure, first-guild merchant. He was a student at Arkhangelskaya Gymnasium but failed to finish the course of studies. Serving for the Latkin merchants from 1845, he explored and developed natural resources of Eastern Siberia and the Russian North from the late 1840s. He was the first to supply larch timber from Pechora to Kronstadt by sea. He founded the Society of the Northern Russian Merchant Marine and Arkhangelskaya Russian Company to hunt for whales, sharks, white whales, dolphins, and other sea animals. Living in St. Petersburg from the early 1850s, Sidorov moved from place to place. In his last flat at 16 Gagarinskaya Embankment (today, Kutuzova Embankment), he often held the so-called “northern meetings.” Sidorov donated considerable sums to science and charity and filed a number of petitions for establishing a university in Siberia. Sidorov was a member of the Liberal Economic Society, the Entomological Society, the Technical Society, the Mineralogical Society, societies for assistance to shipwreck victims and for assistance to students of St. Petersburg University, as well as a member of a number of foreign scientific societies. He took part in 16 world and international fairs to exhibit sample rocks and materials he had collected in the area spanning from Yakutsk to Norway. He was buried at Lazarevskoe Cemetery of Alexander Nevsky Lavra (the grave has not been preserved to this day). Sidorov's voluminous archives are stored in the Archival Depository of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg.

Reference: Богданов И. А. Латкины. СПб., 2002. С. 50-104.

I. A. Bogdanov. Sidorov Mikhail Konstantinovich
the Latkins
Богданов И. А. Латкины. СПб., 2002 Free Economic Society
Russian Entomological Society
Russian Technical Society
Mineralogical Society
State University, St. Petersburg
Lazarevskaya Burial Vault
Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences