Gennady Ivanovich Nevelskoy (December 5 1813 in Drakino, Soligalichsky Uyezd, Kostroma Governorate – April 29 1876 in St. Petersburg) was a Russian navigator and naval officer. In 1829 he joined the Naval Cadet Corps and in 1846 was given the rank of Captain lieutenant in the Russian Navy. In 1848 Nevelskoy set out in command of what became the Amur Expedition of 1849-1855 to the area of the present-day Russian Far East, exploring Sakhalin and the outlet of the Amur River. He proved that the Strait of Tartary was not a gulf, but indeed a strait, connected to Amur's estuary by a narrow section (later called Nevelskoy Strait). On 13 August 1850 he founded Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, the first Russian settlement in the region. Not knowing of the work of the Japanese navigator Mamiya Rinzō, who had explored the same area forty years earlier, the Russians took Nevelskoy's report as the first proof that Sakhalin is indeed an island. They renamed the Gulf of Tartary as the Strait of Tartary, and named the northernmost, narrowest section of the strait, the Strait of Nevelskoy, in the captain's honour. It connects the strait's main body (formerly known as the Gulf of Tartary) with the Amur Liman (Amur River estuary).

Memory

The following entities are named after Nevelskoy: Memorials: