Constantine Possiet

Constantine Possiet (Russian: Константин Николаевич Посьет, Konstantin Nikolayevich Posyet, 21 December 1819 - 26 April 1899) was a Russian statesman and admiral who served as Minister of Transport Communications between 1874 and 1888.

Possiet was a descendant of one Possiet de Rossier, a French noble who was commissioned by Peter the Great to lay out vineyards near Astrakhan. Constantine was born in Pärnu, Estonia, a town of which he later became an honorary freeman. After attending the Naval Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg, he pursued the career of a military author. Artillerie-Exercitium (1847), a comprehensive treatise about modern artillery, won him a Demidov Prize from the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In 1852-54, Possiet followed Admiral Yevfimy Putyatin on the frigate Pallas to Japan. Accompanied by novelist Ivan Goncharov and inventor Alexander Mozhaisky, Possiet explored and mapped the northern coastline of the Sea of Japan, including Possiet Bay, which now bears his name. In 1856 he carried to Japan the news of the ratification of the Treaty of Shimoda. Possiet's journeys and published observations made him something of an expert on Japan. Years later, he negotiated with Enomoto Takeaki the Treaty of Saint Petersburg, which brought entire Sakhalin Island into the Russian fold.

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