For the first time, the full story of the longest and best-funded scientific expedition of all time has been told. The enormous 18th-century scientific voyage from St. Petersburg through Siberia to the coast of North America, known as the Second Kamchatka Expedition, or Great Northern Expedition, involved more than 3000 people. This project cost Peter the Great one-sixth of the annual income of his empire - scientists, artists, marshals, soldiers and workers boarded the ships. The Great Northern Expedition was supposed to demonstrate to Europeans the greatness and progressiveness of the Russian Empire and at the same time expand its borders by annexing Northern Asia and even part of America lying across the Pacific Ocean. Scientific goals, although subordinated to state interests, were shocking in their scale. However, the participants in the voyage themselves faced perhaps the most tragic and terrible fate in the entire history of navigation.