Okhotsk is ranked just after Barnaul as the neatest, cleanest and most pleasant town in Siberia, according to the observations of the English traveler Captain John Dundas Cochrane in 1822.

An illegitimate son of Scottish adventurer Andrew Cochrane-Johnstone, Cochrane comes from a large and adventurous family—he is a cousin of Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, and nephew of Admiral Sir Alexander Forrester Inglis Cochrane.

John Dundas Cochrane has crossed France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Russia and Asia to Kamchatka on foot, hence his nickname of the "Pedestrian Traveller" ("voyageur pédestre" in France).

He marries Ksenia Ivanovna Loginova (1807-1870) in 1822; she is an adoptive daughter of Admiral Pyotr Rikord, the Russian governor of Kamchatka.