He served on board a number of ships before signing on as navigator aboard the Svyataya Anna, under Captain Georgy Brusilov, for an intended expedition to traverse the Northern Sea Route – a feat which only once before had been successfully completed, by explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld.

Albanov, believing that their position was hopeless, requested permission from Captain Brusilov to be relieved from his duties as second-in-command to leave the ship and attempt to return to civilization on foot.

After a long and gruesome ordeal, only Albanov and one crewman, Alexander Konrad, made it to Cape Flora on Northbrook Island, where they knew that Frederick George Jackson had left provisions and a hut in a previous expedition.

Accounts of his death vary, with some having him die of typhoid, and some reporting that he was killed in the explosion of a railway wagon carrying munitions in Achinsk, in the Governorate of Yeniseysk in Siberia.

A Russian expedition in September 2010, following the route of the crew members left behind, found some remainders of them: a human skeleton, a watch, snowshoes, a knife, a spoon with a sailor's initials, and sunglasses made from empty rum bottles' glass in the shores of Franz Josef Land.