The article analyzes the collections from the ethnographic fund of the Research Institute and Museum of Anthropology of Moscow State University, which characterize the material culture of the indigenous inhabitants of the Marquesas and Hawaiian Islands, as well as the Sitka Island. The archival documents of the Rumyantsev Museum, stored in the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library, and the scientific archives of the Museum of Anthropology (transfer certificates, inventories, and labels) were used for reconstruction of the items’ origin. The collections were also analyzed according to the history of their collecting by Y.F. Lisyansky during his voyage on the Neva ship and compared with the textual and visual information in the published materials of the participants of the first Russian round-the-world expeditions. Results and discussion. The collections entered the Research Institute and Museum of Anthropology in the 30s and 40s of the XX century from the Museum of Peoples of the USSR - the heir of the Department of Foreign Ethnography of the Moscow Public and Rumyantsev Museum. We discovered and introduced into scientific circulation documents from the Rumyantsev Museum archive that allows to conclude that the collections belong to the first national round - the - world voyages and the oldest part of the ethnographic gathering. These documents significantly expand our knowledge on the volume and composition of Count N.P. Rumyantsev ethnographic collection transferred from St. Petersburg to Moscow. They show that this collection includes artefacts of indigenous inhabitants of the islands through which the route of the ship «Neva» under the leadership of Y.F. Lisyansky passed. A comprehensive analysis of the collections and documents confirmed the presence of artifacts received from Y.F. Lisyansky in the ethnographic storage of the Research Institute and Museum of Anthropology of Moscow State University. For the first time, the composition of the collections belonging to the oldest part of our ethnographic collection, originating from the participants of the first Russian circumnavigation, has been published.