Cape Dezhnev forms the easternmost point of the Chukchi Peninsula, Russia, and Eurasia. This mountain range cuts straight down to the sea. It has a height of over 700 meters and is located in the Bering Strait between the Arctic and Pacific Oceans.
Cape Dezhnev is located 86 kilometers away from Cape Prince of Wales in Alaska, the westernmost mainland point of North America. It was first visited by a Russian expedition led by Semyon Dezhnev in the fall of 1648. The cape was eventually named after the Russian traveler as well as an island, a bay, a harbor, a peninsula, a glacier, and even an asteroid.
In the fall of 1968, Veniamin Smirnov, accompanied by Moscow artists, Alexander Belashov and German Cheryomushkin, went on a creative trip to Chukotka on behalf of the Artists’ Union of the USSR and the Main Directorate of the Soviet Border Troops. Veniamin Smirnov recalled,
