Levashov, Mikhail Dmitrievich

Born 1739; died circa 1775. Russian navigator; naval officer.

Levashov graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg. In 1764 he was appointed P. K. Krenitsyn’s mate on an expedition to the Aleutian Islands. In 1768–69, Levashov sailed from Kamchatka along the Aleutian Islands to Alaska and back. In 1770, after Krenitsyn’s death, Levashov took command of the expedition. He compiled a geographic and ethnographic description of the Aleutian Islands. One of the straits of the Kuril Islands and a cape and a volcano on Paramushir Island were named in honor of Levashov.