Nikita Shalaurov

Nikita Shalaurov (Russian: Никита Шалауров) (? - 1764) was a merchant from Veliky Ustyug, Russia and an Arctic explorer.[1]

Nikita Shalurov took part in the Arctic expedition of Afanasy Bakhov (1748-1749) as Bakhov's assistant. Then he took part in another polar expedition of Bakhov (1757-1760) as the leader's chief assistant. Later he organized his own expedition to discover new islands and the full passage to the Pacific Ocean (Northeast Passage).[1][2] The expedition was the only Russian expedition in the few decades after the Great Northern Expedition by Vitus Bering. It was carried out by Nikita Shalaurov, a trader without government support.[3]

Nikita Shalaurov's ship was named "Vera, Nadezhda i Lubov'" translating into Russian as Faith, Hope and Love. Shalaurov sailed from the Lena River,[4] tried to sail east from the Kolyma River to the Bering Strait in 1762 but was foiled by ice; trying again in 1764, he and his party disappeared. The Chukchi later told of finding the expedition's wintering site littered with skeletons.[5] Apparently Nikita Shalaurov together with his ship and the whole crew died in 1764.[1]

An island in the East Siberian Sea, recently explored in 2005, is named Mys Shalaurova translating as Cliff of Shalaurov after Nikita Sharaulov.