Photo by @gerdludwig. Sometimes the Goddess of Photography has mercy on you and throws you a bone unexpectedly. Following the route of the explorer Vitus Bering, one morning in Tobolsk, Siberia the sun lifted the fog as a lone man crossed the street in the far distance. In 1725, Danish-born navigator, Vitus Jonassen Bering, led two far-reaching naval expeditions devised by Peter The Great to explore the eastern most limits of the Russian Empire, and to establish whether or not America and Asia were separate continents.  During his second expedition, known as The Great Northern Expedition, his vessel reached the Alaskan shore but during his return the ship got stranded on one of the Commander Islands. Several of his men perished of malnutrition or scurvy, and Bering himself died on 19 December 1741 on the island that now bears his name, Bering Island – as do many of his other landmark discoveries: Bering Strait, Bering Sea, Bering Glacier, and Bering Land Bridge. In 1585-1586 during the first Russian advance into Siberia, Tobolsk was founded by Yermak's Cossacks, a famous (and sometimes infamous), resilient and self-reliant culture from which Bering was quick to seek recruits for his arduous expeditions.  When Bering landed in Tobolsk in the 1700s, its population was around 10,000 - today its inhabitants near 100,000 - one of whom is here crossing the street on a foggy morning.  @thephotosociety @natgeocreative #VitusBering #Tobolsk  #Russia #Siberia

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