According to Fisher Russian Fur Trade 1943 men from Mangazeya reached the Lena by descending its tributary the Vilyuy in 1620 three years before Pyanda allegedly reached the upper Lena via the Lower Tunguska I m very sceptical of such purported discoveries I mean 8 000 kilometers about 5 300 miles is a lot of mileage for only three and a half years I can t think of an expedition that would compare didn t Poyarkov travel a few thousand miles in about the same time period Pyanda reminds me of Juan de Fuca someone who commanded an expedition that supposedly accomplished quite a bit by a person that actually existed but was recorded years after the fact Fuca s three decades to Pyanda s century with little or no primary documents supporting any of the discoveries Shouldn t we be more cautious in reporting his perhaps fictional expedition