Mathias or Matthias Hedenström (Swedish; 1780 – ), also known by his Russian name Matvei Matveyevich Gedenshtrom (), was a Russian explorer of Northern Siberia, writer, and public servant.
Life
Gedenshtrom was born in Riga, then part of the Russian Empire to Mathias Hedenström (1733–1799), a Swedish political refugee from Dalarna. Matvei Gedenshtrom himself was still a Swedish citizen in 1798.
Gedenshtrom attended the University of Tartu. He did not finish his studies and left his alma mater in favor of work at Tallinn customs. Until 1806, he worked in Riga as a translator for Count Friedrich von Buxhoeveden, the Governor-General of the Baltic provinces. During the Finnish War in 1808, while working as secretary to a customs inspector, he was arrested in connection with a bribery affair, tried, and then banished to Siberia.