Vassili Poyarkov

Having no idea of the proper route, Poyarkov travelled up the rivers Lena, Aldan, Uchur, Gonam.

Leaving 49 men to overwinter, he pushed south over the mountains in December to reach the upper Zeya River in Daur country, where he found a land of farmers with domestic animals, proper houses and Chinese trade goods who paid tribute to the Manchus who were just starting their conquest of China.

His men survived on a diet of pine bark, stolen food, stray forest animals and native captives whom they cannibalized.

That winter they built boats and the next spring worked their way up the Sea of Okhotsk coast to the Ulia River and spent the next winter in the huts that had been built by Ivan Moskvitin six years earlier.

The next spring, they followed Moskvitin's route along the Maya River back to Yakutsk, arriving almost exactly three years after they left.