Petr Malakhov Petr Malakhov was a Russian explorer who travelled up the Yukon River as far as Nulato in 1838-1840. He built a log hut and storeroom there in 1839. This was the furthest north and east of all Russian settlements.((Fedorova 1973: 77, 139-40 in Francois Xavier Mercier, //Recollections of the Youkon: Memoires from the Years 1868-1885.// Edited by Linda Finn Yarborough. Anchorage: The Alaska Historical Society, 1986: ix.))