Among the glorious Russian commanders and military leaders who were awarded the highest military honor of the empire for their victories in the glory of Russian arms, only one sailor was able to wear the ribbon of the Order of St. George the Victorious over his shoulder. Even among the illustrious cohort of admirals of Catherine's Golden Age, Vasily Yakovlevich Chichagov stood out as an extraordinary individual. He successfully combined the skills of a navigator, polar explorer, administrator, and naval commander.

The future Russian navigator Vasily Yakovlevich Chichagov was born on February 28, 1726 (*) near Kostroma in a poor noble family. He began to learn the "sea trick" at the Moscow School of Navigation Sciences, then continued his naval education in England. Chichagov began his service in the Russian Navy in 1742 as a midshipman. Vasily Yakovlevich received his baptism of fire during the Seven Years ' War, which Russia entered in 1757.

Chichagov was entrusted with the command of the ship. He took over the frigate "Archangel Mikhail" and led it from Revel to Kronstadt. The Admiralty Board was pleased with the sailor's service, as evidenced by his promotion to the rank of captain-lieutenant in March 1758. During the naval blockade of the Kolberg fortress in 1761, Chichagov served as an aide-de-camp to Vice Admiral A. P. Polyansky, the commander of the Russian squadron, who highly valued him and described him in two words: "an honest man."

In April 1762, Chichagov was promoted to captain of the 2nd rank, and two years later, when Catherine II ascended the throne, she promoted him to captain of the 1st rank and appointed him commander of the ship "Reval." However, he did not have the opportunity to take command of the ship. On May 4, the Empress signed a decree organizing a secret expedition to explore the Northern Sea Route from the White Sea to the Pacific Ocean. One group of vessels under the command of captain of the 1st rank P. K. Krenitsyn was to go from Okhotsk along the coast of the Far East to the north. A second detachment of three ships was sent to meet him from Arkhangelsk. The final area of navigation was planned to be the Bering Strait. Captain of the 1st rank V. Ya. Chichagov was placed at the head of the Arkhangelsk detachment. This expedition, which took place in 1765 and was repeated in 1766, ended in failure: the Arctic ice proved to be insurmountable for wooden sailing ships.

In 1768, the Admiralty Board appointed Chichagov as the chief commander of the Arkhangelsk port.

Later, as the junior flagship of the Don Flotilla, he participated in the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774. On July 9, 1774, in a battle near the Azov coast of Crimea, Chichagov, leading a squadron of five ships, defeated a Turkish force that was superior in strength and firepower (five battleships, nine frigates, and twenty-six auxiliary vessels). Upon his return to St. Petersburg, he was awarded the Cross of St. George, III degree, promoted to vice admiral, and appointed a member of the Admiralty Board.

Chichagov's talent as a naval commander was fully revealed during the war with Sweden in 1788-1790. With the outbreak of hostilities, he commanded the Revel Flotilla, and from 1789-the entire Baltic Fleet.

King Gustav III's main goal in the war was to capture the northern Russian capital. To achieve this, he increased the number of his naval forces and strengthened the Finnish army on land. On May 2, 1790, the enemy fleet (consisting of 22 battleships and 4 frigates) under the command of Admiral Karl Södermanland, the king's brother, attacked Admiral Chichagov's squadron in the Reval harbor. The forces were clearly unequal: the Swedish fleet was opposed by only 10 Russian battleships and 5 frigates. The lack of manpower in the crews limited the ability to fight on the open sea, so the admiral decided to engage in battle at anchor, turning the ships into floating bastions.

* All dates are given in the old style.

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The first line consisted of 10 battleships and a frigate, with two bombardment ships and four frigates in reserve. The right flank of the naval defense line was supported by sandbanks, while the left flank was protected by the fortress's cannons. The Swedish fleet could only attack the Russian squadron from the front. After a two-hour fierce battle, the Swedish fleet ended its fruitless attack and retreated, losing two battleships. One of the ships, which had run aground, was burned by the Swedish forces. The second ship, the 64-gun Prince Karl, which had been heavily damaged and lost its speed, surrendered. The Russian squadron suffered only 9 killed and 27 wounded.

But this was only the beginning of the naval war in the Baltic. Then came the battles of Friedrichsham, where the Russian galley flotilla of Captain 1st Rank P. Sizov, which was half the size of the Swedish fleet, forced the enemy galleys to retreat, and the Battle of Krasnaya Gorka, which took place on May 23, 1790, where Vice Admiral A. Kruz's squadron inflicted significant damage on the Swedish fleet.

Admiral Chichagov, having received a report of the naval battle at Krasnaya Gorka, immediately set sail and headed for Kruz's aid at full speed. However, the Swedes, having been informed of the significant reinforcement of the Russian fleet, withdrew from the battle and retreated westward to seek refuge in the Gulf of Vyborg.

The Russian squadrons, united under Chichagov's flag, moved towards Vyborg and anchored seventeen miles from the enemy. The blockade of the enemy sailing fleet began.

There is an opinion that Chichagov did not fully use the advantages of the Russians in the first days of the blockade: the lack of a favorable wind for the Swedish ships and the numerical superiority of the Russian fleet (27 Russian battleships against 21 Swedish ships). However, there is an explanation for this. The unfamiliar area of the proposed naval battle was fraught with many dangers, such as underwater rocks and shoals, and the Swedes, who were experienced sailors, would have fought much more actively with their king present.

Chichagov deployed a large force against the enemy, but he was in no hurry to attack for almost a month, even though he was being pressured from the capital. First, the Russian ships pushed the enemy back into the depths of the Vyborg Bay. By gradually tightening the blockade, the admiral adopted a strategy of exhausting the enemy. He planned to launch a decisive attack once the enemy's forces were depleted. According to the commander's plan, Vice Admiral K. Nassau-Siegen's rowing flotilla was to strike the Swedes from the east, while the rowing vessels of T. G. Kozlyaninov's squadron were to attack from behind Vyborg, and the Revel squadron was to attack from the front.

The Swedes repeatedly tried to break the blockade using their galley fleet. The last such attempt was made on June 21 in Björkö Sound, but it was repelled by the Russian rowing squadron of Siegen.

But on the evening of June 21, a fresh easterly wind blew, which the Swedes had been waiting for almost four weeks. The hour of the decisive battle was approaching. Chichagov expected an attack from the Swedes and prepared to fight at anchor. However, the desperation of the situation led the Swedish king to take a desperate measure: he decided to break through near the coast, risking to run aground his large ships.

Early in the morning of June 22, the Swedish rowing vessels launched a demonstrative attack on the Russian right flank. At the same time, the Swedish Royal Fleet, in a line abreast, rushed into the breach on the left flank between the detachments of Rear Admirals I.A. Povalishin (5 frigates and 1 bomb ship) and P.I. Khanykov (3 frigates). The opponents showered each other with volleys at close range. As a result of the artillery duel, both the Russian and enemy ships suffered significant damage. An hour after the Swedish breakthrough, Admiral Chichagov gave the signal for the main fleet forces to come to the aid of the fighting units. Vice Admiral A. Musin-Pushkin's squadron was the first to engage.

The battle was costly for the Swedish fleet: 17 enemy ships were set on fire or ran aground in the general confusion. It wasn't until 11 a.m. that the surviving Swedish fleet reached the open sea. Russian ships pursued them. The chase lasted all day. By evening, near Sveaborg, the Russian battleship Iziaslav and the frigate Venus forced the Swedish battleship Retvizan to surrender. The remaining ships took refuge under the batteries of Finnish Sveaborg. There, they were once again blockaded by the Russian squadron, leaving them with no hope of reaching the Swedish coast. They were only able to do so after the conclusion of the Treaty of Verel in August 1790. Admiral Chichagov managed to neutralize the enemy with almost no losses.

As a result of the Battle of Vyborg, the Swedes lost 64 ships (10 sailing artillery ships and 54 rowing vessels), 200 officers, and about 5,000 sailors. The Russian fleet suffered 281 casualties.

Empress Catherine II highly appreciated the admiral's victory and awarded him the Order of St. George, 1st class. As a sign of her special favor towards the admiral, she personally designed his coat of arms, which included images of a double-headed eagle, a ship with an admiral's flag, a silver whale, and crossed rudders and an anchor with a laurel wreath.

After the Russo-Swedish war, V. Ya. Chichagov's authority in the navy and at court was very high. In the last years of Catherine II's reign, the admiral commanded the Baltic Fleet. Chichagov continued to serve under Paul I, who ascended the throne in 1796. In 1797, Vasily Yakovlevich fell into disgrace and retired. He died on April 4, 1809 and was buried in the Lazarevskoye cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

In recognition of the achievements of the navigator and admiral V.Ya. Chichagov, islands in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, an island off the coast of North America, and a mountain on Spitsbergen Island are named after him.

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