Khimkov Alexey

Kormschik from Mezen, repeatedly going to fish in Svalbard. He became famous for his wintering on Edge Island (Russian was called Little Brun), where he lived with three comrades (his son Ivan Khimkov and sailors Stepan Sharapov and Fyodor Verigin) for 6 years (1743-1749), leading the life of a polar robinson. On the island of Edge, the Khimkov’s vessel turned out by chance, being brought to it by unfavorable winds. Having decided to winter on the island, the industrialists sent ashore a party of the above four people in order to find the hut built by the Mezens once, of which they were aware. They really found the hut and, after spending the night there, went back to the ship. But he was no longer on the spot - he was carried away by a violent storm raging at night. The equipment, which Khimkov and his comrades took with them from the ship, consisted of a gun, twelve bullets, a small amount of gunpowder, an ax, a small cauldron, a knife, 20 pounds of flour, flint, tinder and a bottle of tobacco.With this pathetic equipment, Khimkov and his comrades lived on Edge Island for 6 years and 3 months, setting an example of exceptional restraint and ability to fight the polar nature. However, one of the Arctic Robinsons (F. Verigin) did not live to the end of wintering - he died of scurvy in the sixth year of his stay in Svalbard. 
In the summer of 1749, the ship Amos Kornilov from Arkhangelsk approached the island of Edge. Kornilov agreed on his ship to deliver the Spitsbergen prisoners to their homeland. 
The wintering of Khimkov on Svalbard was described according to his words (Khimkov was summoned to Petersburg) by a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Le Roy in the book “The Adventures of Four Russian Matroses, to the island of Ost-Svalbard the storm brought where they lived for six years and three months”. This essay has been translated into many European languages. It was last reprinted by the Arctic Institute in 1933. Two participants of wintering on Edge Island, Stepan Sharapov and Ivan Khimkov, on their return home went to industrial life to Novaya Zemlya, where they died in the first wintering season (according to Vize, V.Yu., 1948).

Mountain in West Svalbard with coordinates 78°30′N and 18°30′E.