It is commonly believed that the Lena derives its name from the original
Even-Evenk name
Elyu-Ene, which means "the Large River". According to folktales related a century later, in the years 1620–1623 a party of Russian fur hunters under the leadership of
Demid Pyanda sailed up
Nizhnyaya Tunguska, discovered the Lena, and either carried their boats there or built new ones. In 1623 Pyanda explored some of the river from its upper reaches to the central
Yakutia. In 1628 Vasily Bugor and 10 men reached the Lena, collected '
yasak' (tribute) from the 'natives' and then founded
Kirinsk in 1632. In 1631 the
voyevoda of
Yeniseysk sent
Pyotr Beketov and 20 men to construct a fortress at
Yakutsk (founded in 1632). From Yakutsk other expeditions spread out to the south and east. The Lena delta was reached in 1655. Two of the three groups of survivors of the ill-fated
Jeannette expedition reached Lena Delta in September, 1881. The one led by engineer
George W. Melville was rescued by native
Tungus huntsmen. Of the group led by
Captain George W. De Long, only two of the men survived; the others died of
starvation.
Baron Eduard Von Toll, accompanied by
Alexander von Bunge, led an expedition that explored the Lena delta and the islands of
New Siberia on behalf of the
Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences in 1885. In 1886 they investigated the New Siberian Islands and the
Yana River and its tributaries. During one year and two days the expedition covered , of which were up rivers, carrying out
geodesic surveys en route. The
Lena massacre was the name given to the 1912 shooting-down of striking goldminers and local citizens who protested at the working conditions in the mine near
Bodaybo in northern Irkutsk. The incident was reported in the Duma (parliament) by
Kerensky and is credited with stimulating revolutionary feeling in Russia.
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, when he was exiled to the
Central Siberian Plateau, may have taken his alias,
Lenin, from the Lena River. ==Delta==