Grigory Karelin

Grigory Silych Karelin (January 1801 – 17 December 1872) was a Russian explorer and naturalist who travelled around Siberia and central Asia.

He wrote some humorous verse on the secretary of war, Count Arakcheev, which led to his being posted in Orenburg on the border of Russia.

In 1834, he established Novo Aleksandrovsk fort in Karasu Bay to keep nomadic raiders away from the Russian station.

Most of those botanical specimens were described by Ivan Petrovich Kirilov, a young man that he raised from near poverty.

[1] With Ivan Petrovich Kirilov he issued and distributed an exsiccata-like specimen series under the title Soc.