Russian exploration ship
In 1802 Yuri Fydorovich Lisyansky purchased Leander and another merchantman, Thames, for his planned voyage of exploration. The two vessels together cost £17,000, with an additional expense of £5,000 for repairs.
The two vessels left England for the Baltic in May 1803, docking at Kronstadt on 5 June.[5] There the Russians renamed Leander to Nadezhda and Thames to Neva. Czar Alexander 1 chose their names, but the two vessels were never part of the Russian navy.
The two ships took part in the first Russian circumnavigation of the world, with Nadezhda serving as Admiral Krusenstern's flagship.[6] The expedition failed, however, to achieve two of its main goals, to establish diplomatic relations with Japan, and to secure trading rights to Canton.
Krusenstern and Captain Yury Nevelskoy of Neva prepared for the voyage by first serving with the British Royal Navy from 1793 to 1799 to build their naval skills. Nadezhda had a 58-member crew and carried 16 guns. She apparently sailed under the auspices of the Russian-American Company (RAC). As part of her circumnavigation she delivered RAC cargo to Kamchatka, and the first Russian embassy under Nikolai Rezanov to Japan. Another passenger was the nobleman and adventurer Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy. He managed so to annoy captain and crew that Krusenstern finally left him at Kamchatka.
Nadezhda and Neva left Kronstadt on 7 August 1803. They sailed down the Baltic Sea, across the Atlantic Ocean, and past the Canary Islands and Brazil. After this they rounded Cape Horn and set across the Pacific Ocean, making stops at the Marquesas, the Aleutian Islands, and the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands, and also at Kamchatka.
They then separated at the Sandwich Islands. Nadezhda sailed to Japan to deliver the Russian ambassador, while Neva went on to visit the Russian settlements on the north-west coast of America. One passenger aboard Nadezhda was Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, who between 1819 and 1821 would lead a second Russian circumnavigation of the world. Another passenger was the Russian explorer Otto von Kotzebue, the stepson of Kruzenstern's sister.
In 1805 the Swiss Johann Caspar Horner and the Prussian Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff, two scientists traveling on Nadezhda, made a hot air balloon out of Japanese paper (washi) to demonstrate the new technology to some 30 Japanese delegates.[7]
After visiting Japan, Nadezhda sailed to China and Macao. Nadezhda and Neva briefly reunited, then Nadezhda rounded Africa and came back across the Baltic Sea to Kronstadt, arriving 19 August 1806.
