will inform the Irkutsk Provincial Administration in writing about your plans for carrying out the assigned journey and demand assistance in making it all happen. You are going to demand that pay authorized by Her Imperial Majesty be set aside for you and your party up to the beginning of the coming year, 1740. For this year, 1739, you have received your pay until August 8, so you are to receive it for five more months. The other members of your party received only a third of their pay here in Yeniseysk and thus have yet to receive two-thirds in Irkutsk. The prospector Samoilov was allotted a food allowance equal to a soldier’s ration. He received that until March of this year. The huntsman Giliashev and the Yakutsk sluzhiv were each authorized sluzhivs’ rations. But they have not received theirs for this year 1739, so their rations have to be requisitioned in Irkutsk.
6.From the Irkutsk Provincial Administration, you will requisition three Irkutsk sluzhivs as escorts to assist you with the necessary shipments and with everything else necessary for your assigned observations. You will incorporate these sluzhivs into your party. You will also demand that the Irkutsk Provincial Administration issue a ukase in the name of Her Imperial Majesty authorizing the exchange of these sluzhivs in Yakutsk and Okhotsk for sluzhivs from there.
7.To shoot birds and animals, you will be given nine pounds of the Crown’s gunpowder from the amount we received in Irkutsk in 1735. You will demand eighteen pounds of lead from the Irkutsk Provincial Administration since we do not have any to spare. When you leave for Okhotsk, you may add some of both gunpowder and lead from the supply we left in Yakutsk together with other Crown supplies. But you will not hand over all the gunpowder and lead to your huntsman but will give him what he needs in each instance depending on whether he uses the flintlock musket or the rifle, so that the supply is controlled and he does not use gunpowder or lead unnecessarily.
8.You will demand that the Irkutsk Provincial Administration provide information about the provisions they promised to set aside for us and our retinue in Okhotsk, and that the administration order as many of those provisions as needed to be handed over to you and your party. A ukase of Her Imperial Majesty, issued on February 13, 1733, by the High Governing Senate, states that if our and our retinue’s personal supply of provisions somewhere should not be sufficient and there were none to be purchased, then if foodstuffs belonging to the Crown were available from local warehouses, they should, as long as necessary, be issued at cost. Concerning this we have repeatedly written to the High Governing Senate, requesting that the provisions in Okhotsk and Kamchatka be sold to us at cost and the transportation be paid out of Crown funds. Since we were quite confident that a favorable decision would be forthcoming, we demanded that the Irkutsk Provincial Administration see to it that the provisions required by us and our retinue are made ready for us in Okhotsk and sold to us at cost. In case the Irkutsk Provincial Administration has already begun to transport these provisions, you will see to it that everything is carried out carefully and speedily according to the ukases and decrees. In Okhotsk you will then accept as many provisions as needed by you and your party. If, however, the transport of those provisions has not yet occurred, then you must demand that at least as many provisions as needed by you and your party for two and a half years be transported immediately to Okhotsk; the amount is to be calculated so that each person receives 864 pounds per year. You will receive exact copies of the entire correspondence up to now so that you know what exactly we wrote to the Irkutsk Provincial Administration concerning the transport of provisions and what response we received from that administration.
9.In 1737 the student Stepan Krasheninnikov was dispatched by us to Kamchatka to carry out a variety of investigations and to collect all kinds of oddities. On his departure from Yakutsk, he took with him provisions for two years, 1737 and 1738. Last year, in 1738, according to our request and the decision of the Irkutsk Provincial Administration, the student should have been sent provisions for the current year, 1739. Up until your departure for Kamchatka, you are to make sure that he is annually sent the necessary provisions and that provisions for him for two and a half years are added to those required by you and your party. You will especially see to it that this year, 1739, the student Krasheninnikov is sent provisions for the year 1740, since according to a report sent by him from Kamchatka, a significant part of the provisions he took with him was jettisoned during the voyage. To keep you informed to the fullest extent, exact copies of the relevant request submitted to the Irkutsk Provincial Administration and of the ukases sent to Yakutsk and Okhotsk are attached. [According to document 26, following these instructions in Quellen 3:94–95, Steller received a total of 161 sheets of document copies—no wonder he needed an extra podvoda to transport all the papers, books, and materials.]
10. During your stay in Irkutsk, you will take a look at the instruments for meteorological observations that we left behind to see if they are still in good condition. And you will ascertain if the sluzhiv Nikita Kanaev, who was charged with keeping a written record of those observations, is properly fulfilling his duties. In case those instruments have been damaged in some way, you will restore them to their original condition. In case that sluzhiv is negligent in the performance of his duties, you will inform the Irkutsk Provincial Administration and demand that the administration hold him to fulfilling his duties in every respect.
11. In Irkutsk you will inquire about the health of the assistant miner Michailo Mel’nikov, whom we had to leave behind because of illness. When we left Irkutsk, we demanded that the Irkutsk Provincial Administration return Mel’nikov to our command when he recovered. We received word from the caravan physician who had been staying in town at the time and to whose care we had entrusted Mel’nikov that after our departure he was feeling considerably better and would shortly be fully recovered from this disease. Subsequently we have, however, not received another word from him. For this reason, if you should see that Mel’nikov can be sent on his journey, you will send him to us as quickly as possible and require the Irkutsk Provincial Administration, in accordance with our earlier request, to give Mel’nikov a podvoda and the progon money for it.
12. For the journey from Irkutsk to Yakutsk, you will demand that the Irkutsk Provincial Administration outfit you at the docks of the upper Lena with a doshchenik [R, flat-bottomed, single-decked, one-masted cargo vessel, rowed with up to ten long oars; term retained.] with the necessary rigging, provisions, and crew. But if, contrary to expectations, the Irkutsk Provincial Administration refuses because, they say, there are no doshcheniks at the docks on the upper Lena, then you will travel either on kaiuki [R, cargo boats on Siberian rivers, small doshcheniks; WH, Glossar; Quellen 2:442] or on rafts to Kirenskoi Ostrog. Before leaving Irkutsk, you need to insist that the Irkutsk Provincial Administration send a ukase of Her Imperial Majesty’s to the prikazchik [R, chief administrator of a village or of a district consisting of more widely scattered ostrogs or settlements; WH, Glossar; Quellen 3:444], or whoever is in command in Kirenskoi Ostrog, ordering that the best of the three doshcheniks we left behind in that ostrog be repaired and made ready for your journey.
13. So that in the future you and the members of your party will have no problems receiving Her Imperial Majesty’s pay in Yakutsk, in Okhotsk, or on Kamchatka, you shall demand that the Irkutsk Provincial Administration issue a ukase of Her Imperial Majesty’s to the Yakutsk Administration and the commander of Okhotsk. In that ukase the amount of pay is to be listed separately for you and each member of your party so that orders may be issued to set aside that amount of pay at the beginning of each year. It shall also be indicated from which income the pay is to be taken so that everything is clear. To ensure reliability you should personally receive such a ukase from the Irkutsk Provincial Administration and take it with you unsealed, or you should demand the Irkutsk Provincial Administration give you a duplicate or an exact copy.
14. You will demand that the Irkutsk Provincial Administration issue you a Geleitukase [literally, escort pass; a sample found in Quellen 3:278–79] of Her Imperial Majesty’s to all commanders, ordering that you unconditionally be given everything you demand for carrying out the investigations you have been charged with. In case you need workers or artisans for these investigations, they are to be given you. Promyshlenniks and inozemtsy2 from whom you may need to gather certain information shall likewise be found and sent to you, and wherever you demand it, interpreters of the languages spoken by those people shall be sent to you. In that ukase it shall also be stated that the Yakutsk sluzhiv Fedot Klimovskoi, whom we are assigning to you, is to