ABSTRACT
This chapter aim is to consider the origins of the Russian geographical tradition, or more specifically those aspects of the tradition which bear upon understandings of the physical environment. It also considers some of the key events occurring in Peter's reign and its immediate aftermath before moving on to survey a number of the principal geographical activities which took place through the latter part of the eighteenth century. The chapter considers the development of what we have called the Russian geographical tradition in the two centuries. The post- Petrine period witnessed a continuation and indeed flourishing of the kind of scientifically oriented expedition across Russian territory which had been pioneered by Messerschmidt under Peter. It also stresses the extent to which the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences in the eighteenth century was an international organization, the majority of whose members initially were foreigners, and which maintained many contacts and links with scientists and scientific organizations in other countries.
