Commander Islands mark 270th anniversary of their discovery

PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY (Itar-Tass) - The Commander
Islands have marked the 270th anniversary of their discovery by Russian
seafarer Vitas Bering and the 185th anniversary of the foundation of the
Nikolskoye village on Bering Island.
The festivities in Nikolskoye were attended by representatives of
the regional government, the Legislative Assembly of the Kamchatka region
and the Petropavlovsk and Kamchatka Orthodox Eparchies.
"Today, we are paying tribute to those who sacrificed their lives
for making the Commander Islands part of great Russia, I believe that
Russia's going to revive and the Commander Islands are going to revive
together with it. We have a future. This future is our children who are
living here today and will continue living her tomorrow. They will build
houses here and raise their children," Governor Vladimir Ilyukhin said,
addressing the residents of the Commander Islands.
After that, the people who gathered for the ceremony lay down
wreaths to the monument to Vitas Bering. A memorial to Bering's ship St.
Peter, a symbol of the discovery of the Commander Island, was unveiled in
Nikolskoye.
The Commander Islands are located 175 kilometers east of the
Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East, in the Bering Sea. The
islands consist of two big islands - Bering and Medny - and fifteen
smaller islets.
The Commander Islands were opened by Vitas Bering on November 9, 1741
in the course of the second Kamchatka expedition. Captain Bering and the
crew of his ship St. Peter landed on an island, which was later named
after Bering - the Bering Island. Bering died and was buried on that
island in 1741. Two years later, in 1743, Russian Cossack Yemelyan Basov
discovered a second big island later called Medny because of the copper
nuggets found on it. The Bering and Medny Islands were populated by the
Aleuts in 1826.
At present, the Nikolskoye village on Bering Island is the
administrative centre of the Aleutian district of the Kamchatka territory.
The village has 677 residents.
In his greeting to the residents of the Commander Islands, Boris
Nevzorov, the speaker of the Kamchatka Legislative Assembly, said that the
regional authorities were doing their best to develop remote territories like the Aleutian district.