Napalkov Petr Yakovlevich
(01.25.1874 - 1940)

Russian military topographer. Born in the Simsk district of the Ufa province, in a peasant family. Grandfather and father were serf owners of the Balashevs.

Napalkov received his primary education at a factory school, then after home schooling he entered the Ufa land surveying school and then to the Practical Oriental Academy.
In 1907-1909, he took part in the expedition of Peter Kozlov to Central Asia, where he had to deal not only with topographic surveys, but also with compiling entomological, geological, ethnographic and botanical collections, take part in archaeological excavations of the city of Haro-Hoto buried under the sands with a library from 2000 books and manuscripts written in the then unknown language of the ancient people of si-xi. In the recall of the expedition leader there are such words: "... Napalkov contributed to the success of the Mongol-Sichuan expedition, for which, in my opinion, he was awarded the title of full member of the Geographical Society, the Semenov-Tyanshan gold medal and three hundred rubles a year of a life pension".
The report of Peter Napalkov on this expedition was published in "Notes of the Russian Geographical Society". It is distinguished from a dry expeditionary report by its excellent literary language and lively observations, interesting not only to specialists, but also to a simple reader: “Near the village of Juedejondo, the steep slope of the valley is composed of red coarse-grained sandstones, loess deposits of which ...” and further “To Lan “Zhou Fu, we arrived on August 3 at 7 pm and stayed in a very dirty hotel, which in its design resembled a darkened corridor with a dozen dirty rooms ...”.
For many years of expedition to Central Asia and service for the good of the Fatherland, Peter Napalkov was awarded the orders of St. Vladimir IV degree, St. Stanislav II degree, St. Anna II degree, medal "In memory of the war with Japan" and others.
In the First World War, already with the rank of Colonel Napalkov, he directed the shooting of military maps. When in 1918 Petrograd was in the ring of the German blockade, topographic archives were evacuated to Omsk. So, Pyotr Napalkov with his wife and five children ended up in Siberia.
With the establishment of Soviet power in Omsk, Napalkov was appointed head of the cartographic department of the Ob-Yenisei hydrographic unit. For many years he himself conducted field observations along the shores of the Gulf of Ob, usually leading a topographic party of 7-8 Red Army men. They traveled along the coast with a survey on a six-boat with the Archimedes outboard engine, rare in those years. To land on the shore, a flat-bottomed two-row boat was used, and sometimes a tiny Nenets cloud, lifting no more than 2 people.
Since 1933, Napalkov worked in Polar Hydrography - the West Siberian Hydrographic Directorate of the Glavsevmorput.
In the late 1930s. he was remembered for a short retreat with Kolchak’s troops. He was repressed and died. Date of death and burial place unknown.
Village at Cape Hasreux on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Ob.