Laptev Dmitry Yakovlevich 
(1701–20(31).01.1771)

Navy sailor, Rear Admiral, member of the All-Union Military Cooperation. H.P.Laptev 's cousin. 
Laptev came from an old noble family, whose representatives faithfully served the Fatherland. One of his ancestors was granted a patrimony near the Great Onions. The estates of Father Laptev and his brother Prokofy — Father Kh.P. Laptev — were located next door. 
Rural childhood tempered the boy both physically and spiritually, which was very useful to him in the profession of a sailor and a polar explorer.The first literacy training, he, like all children of petty nobles of the Peter the Great epoch, passed from a priest, and in 1715 entered the Naval Academy, which, by decree of Peter I, recruited noblemen from the northern provinces. This institution gave the initial theoretical marine education to future navigators and military officers. 
He began service in the navy in 1718 as a midshipman. The service he was given better than his brother. Two years later he received the first officer rank of midshipman, five years later he commanded the ship with the rank of non-lieutenant, in 1731 became a lieutenant. Such a quick promotion at the time testified to his high professional qualities. He served on the ships of the Kronstadt flotilla, sailing to the German ports of Lubeck, Danzig, in 1730 on the frigate “Russia” sailed in the Barents Sea. 
Laptev's professional and human qualities made him worthy of being included in the participants of the Great Northern Expedition, where they selected experienced and ready for severe tests of seamen. Initially it was supposed to appoint him to the Bering-Chirikov or Shpanberg detachment, but when in 1735 the plight of the East Lena detachment P. Lacinius became clear, Bering decided to return the remnants of the detachment to Yakutsk and create a new detachment under D.Ya. Laptev. 
The section of the coast that was to be described by this detachment had a much greater extent than the sections of the other detachments of the All-Union Expedient. He stretched from the mouth of the Lena to Kamchatka. It should be noted that at that time, despite the well-known swimming S.I. Dezhnev, still did not remove the question of a possible connection between Asia and America. The clarification of this was one of the tasks of Laptev. In addition, he had to check the rumors about the existence of "great land" to the north of Siberia. All the work had to be done in two years. At the disposal of the detachment was the bot "Irkutsk", transferred from the detachment of Lacinius. 
Even before the opening of Lena, Laptev sent 14 people for the wintering of Lacinius, led by navigator M. Shcherbinin, to help the detachment’s remnants and prepare the Irkutsk bot. In the summer of 1736, a detachment descended along the Lena through the Bykovskaya channel to the sea on three planks with a load. Lip Buor-Khaya was filled with ice, and Laptev, leaving the plaques with a cargo in Neelova Bay, reached the wintering of Lacinius at the mouth of the Kharauli River, which flows into the Buor-Khai lip, on foot. Here was the "Irkutsk". On the boat, Laptev returned for cargo, but an attempt to go to sea because of solid ice was unsuccessful. At a meeting called by Laptev, according to the instructions, a consilium of officers of the detachment decided to stay for the winter, which was held in the lower reaches of the Lena. They built five houses, thanks to a well-organized diet, in particular, the use of decoction from the bark and pine cones, with scurvy was very few.

From wintering Laptev sent Bering to Yakutsk a report and a decision of the council on the impossibility of passing by sea from Lena to Kolyma, since, according to the stories of local residents, the fixed ice stretching to Cape St. Nose is not broken for decades. Focusing on the then available maps, Laptev mistakenly believed that this cape stretches far to the north to about 76° 20' N. Having overtaken the bot to Yakutsk, Laptev went to Petersburg, where the question of continuing the work of the detachments was decided. It was decided to complete the work. It was also stated that there were no insurmountable obstacles from Lena to Kamchatka, since according to historical information Russian vessels in the past had sailed from Lena to Anadyr. In addition, Laptev, as well as the leaders of other detachments, was instructed not to return to the starting points in the case of a meeting with insurmountable ice, but to spend the winter at the place of the stop, making an inventory by land. The Admiralty College ordered the Siberian, Yakut and Irkutsk offices to create warehouses with provisions and necessary equipment along the way of the detachment. 
During the whole of 1739, the sailor Aleksey Loshkin, sent by Laptev before returning from St. Petersburg, described the coast from the mouth of the Yana to St. Nose and from Indigirka to Alazeya. In 1739, Laptev resumed navigation on the Irkutsk boat. The detachment descended along the Lena and left the mouth to the east. The ship managed to go around Cape St. Nose, the true position of which Laptev became known thanks to the land survey of Loshkin, and reached the mouth of the Indigirka. The whole Indigirka, by order of Laptev, has already been described by the surveyor N. Kindyakov, which allowed the bot to enter the estuary without any risk and stand there for the winter. In the winter of 1739–1740 they described the river Chrome. Thus, by 1740 an inventory was made of the entire southeastern coast of the sea, later called the Laptev Sea. Loshkin was sent to Petersburg with a report to the Admiralty College. 
In the summer of 1740, Laptev on the boat passed from the mouth of the Indigirka to the mouth of the Kolyma, from there to the Cape of Big Baranov and, failing to go around it, winterized in Nizhnekolymsk. In 1741, an attempt to go around this cape was also unsuccessful, and Laptev again returned to Nizhnekolymsk. 
In the autumn of 1741, on dogs and deer, through the Kolyma Range, they moved to the Anadyr River, and in the summer of 1742, in two large boats, they described it to the mouth. 
After the completion of the inventory of Anadyr, the work of the detachment could be considered complete. In the autumn of 1742, Laptev returned to Nizhnekolymsk along with the whole detachment and, leaving Irkutsk with the team there, returned to Yakutsk in 1743, and from there, by order of A.I. Chirikov, who led the expedition after the death of V. Bering, to St. Petersburg with a report to the Admiralty Board on the work done. The "Irkutsk" boat was handed over to the local authorities, the entire personnel of the detachment was placed at the disposal of Chirikov. 
Laptev was not limited to a survey report. He wrote a memo on the state of the ethnic groups living in the extreme North-East of Russia. 
Even during the expedition Laptev was promoted to captain 3 rank.Upon returning to St. Petersburg, he served in the Admiralty Board, then commanded the ships. In 1757 he was promoted to rear admirals and appointed junior flagship of the Baltic Fleet. In 1762, "for old age and illness", he retired with the rank of vice admiral and lived in a small estate near the Great Onions. 
Buried at the local cemetery. 
Cape at the mouth of the Kolyma River. Called by Soviet polar explorers. 
Cape in Tumatsky Bay of the Lena Delta. 
The sea Title suggested by Yu.M. Shokalsky and approved in 1913 by the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. It was enshrined on Soviet maps by a decree of the CEC of the USSR on June 27, 1935.Earlier it was called Tatarskoe, Lenskoe (on the maps of the XVI - XVII centuries), Siberian and Arctic (XVIII – XIX centuries), and in 1893 F. Nansen called the sea Nordenskiöld. 
Strait (Dmitry Laptev) between the mainland and Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island. The name first appeared on the geological map of the Novosibirsk Islands in 1906. The entire circulation of the card died during the flood of 1924 in Leningrad.