Unknown facts about Nikolai Przhevalsky (9 photos). Five most interesting discoveries of Przewalski

10/20/1888 (2.11). – Died on the expedition Nikolai Mikhailovich Przhevalsky, explorer of Central Asia

(31.3.1839–20.10.1888) - Russian geographer, general, explorer of the Far East and Central Asia. Born in the village of Kimborovo, Smolensk province (now Pochinkovsky district, Smolensk region) in a noble family. His father, a retired lieutenant, died early. The boy grew up under the supervision of his mother in the Otradnoye estate. I have dreamed of traveling since childhood. In 1855 he graduated from the Smolensk gymnasium. In the same year, he entered the army as a volunteer, but he did not have to fight.

In 1856 he was promoted to officer, served in the Ryazan and Polotsk infantry regiments. In 1863 he graduated from the Academy of the General Staff and went as a volunteer to Poland for suppression. At the academy he prepared a term paper "Military Statistical Review of the Amur Territory", on the basis of which in 1864 he was elected a full member of the Geographical Society. In 1864–1867 served in Warsaw as a teacher of history and geography at the Warsaw Junker School.

Then Przhevalsky was assigned to the General Staff and, at his own request, was appointed to the Siberian Military District. Here began his many years of fruitful activity in research expeditions, actively supported by other scientists. The Siberian Department of the Geographical Society ordered him to study the flora and fauna of the region. Przhevalsky spent two and a half years (1867–1869) in the Far East. 1600 kilometers are covered with route survey: the Ussuri river basin, Khanka lake, the coast of the Sea of ​​Japan... A large article "Foreign population of the Ussuri region" has been prepared for publication. About 300 species of plants were collected, more than 300 stuffed birds were made, and many plants and birds were discovered in Ussuri for the first time.

The main merit of Przhevalsky is the natural-historical study of Central Asia, where he established the direction of the main ranges and discovered a number of new ones, clarified the northern borders of the Tibetan Plateau. The military scientist-geographer Przhevalsky laid all his routes on the map, while the topography and surveys were carried out with exceptional accuracy and were of military importance. Along with this, Przhevalsky conducted meteorological observations, collected the most valuable collections in zoology, botany, geology, and information on ethnography.

Przhevalsky led expeditions to Mongolia, China, Tibet (1870–1873), to Lobnor Lake and Dzungaria (1876–1877), to Central Asia - the first Tibetan (1879–1880) and the second Tibetan (1883–1885). They were unparalleled in terms of spatial scope and routes (during all five expeditions more than 30 thousand km were covered). The researcher told about his travels in books, giving a vivid description of Central Asia: its flora, fauna, climate, peoples who lived in it; collected unique collections, becoming a universally recognized classic of geographical science. These studies marked the beginning of a systematic study of and. In 1878 he became an honorary member, in 1888 a major general.

Nikolai Mikhailovich died of typhoid fever near the lake. Issyk-Kul in Karakol (in 1889 renamed Przhevalsk), preparing to make his fifth expedition to Central Asia.

The scientific works of Przhevalsky gained worldwide fame and were published in many countries. In 1891, in honor of Przhevalsky, the Russian Geographical Society established a silver medal and a prize named after him. In 1946, a gold medal was established to them. H.M. Przhevalsky, awarded by the Geographical Society of the USSR. Named after Przhevalsky: a city, a ridge in the Kunlun system, a glacier in Altai, other geographical objects, as well as a number of animal species (Przhevalsky's horse) and plants discovered by him during his travels.

The outstanding Russian geographer and traveler Nikolai Przhevalsky had an amazing fate, he lived an extraordinary life full of amazing discoveries and adventures. The future naturalist was born on March 31, 1839 in the village of Kimborovo, Smolensk province. Przhevalsky's ancestors on his father's side were Zaporozhye Cossacks. And maternal grandfather - a landless serf - during military service was honored for the exploits of the nobility. After retiring, he acquired an estate in Kimborovo, where Nikolai Mikhailovich was born. His father, also an officer in the Russian army, died when the boy was barely seven years old. Przhevalsky himself said that after the death of his father, their family lived modestly, he grew up as a savage, and his upbringing was Spartan. The first school of an inquisitive guy was the deaf Smolensk forests. With a home-made bow, with a toy gun, and from the age of twelve, with a real hunting one, Nikolai walked for days through the wilds of the forest.

From the age of eight, Przhevalsky mastered the letter, avidly read all the books that fell into his hands. At the age of ten, Nikolai was sent to the Smolensk gymnasium. Studying was easy for him, and soon he became the first student in terms of academic performance. However, the knowledge he received at the Smolensk gymnasium was not enough for him. Przhevalsky later recalled: “Despite the fact that I graduated with honors from the course, I will say, truly, I learned very little from there. Bad teaching methods and a large number of subjects made it absolutely impossible to study anything positively even with a strong desire ... ".

After graduating from the gymnasium, Nikolai Przhevalsky, shocked by the heroic deeds of the defenders of Sevastopol, decided to become a military man. As a non-commissioned officer, he was sent to serve in the Ryazan Infantry Regiment. And on November 24, 1856, a seventeen-year-old boy was transferred to the twenty-eighth Polotsk infantry regiment, stationed in the county town of Bely, Smolensk province. In his spare time, Nikolai was engaged in the study of nature, made long trips through the local swamps and forests. During his stay in the Polotsk regiment, he collected the herbarium of most of the plants that grew in the district of the city of Bely. Soon he had obsessive thoughts about traveling to distant lands. They pursued him day and night. Przhevalsky repeatedly told his colleagues: "I must certainly go on an expedition." To this end, he began to scrupulously study the works of famous scientists in geography, zoology, and botany.

Finally, Nicholas filed a petition to transfer him to the Amur. The answer of the authorities was peculiar - arrest for three days. After the incident, the young man chose a different path. He decided to enroll in the school of the General Staff, deciding that upon graduation he could easily achieve an assignment to Siberia. An amazing memory, dedication and preparation, sometimes taking up to eighteen hours a day, allowed the village boy to easily pass the entrance exams. He was among the students of the Academy of the General Staff in St. Petersburg.

While studying at the academy, Nikolai wrote his first literary work. Under the title "Memories of a hunter" it got on the pages of the magazine "Hunting and Horse Breeding". In parallel with the military sciences, Nikolai Mikhailovich continued to study history, zoology, botany and geography. During the transition to the second year, the theme of the composition was chosen by the Amur Territory. In his work, he used both the works of famous researchers of the Amur region and books on general geography. At the end of the report, Przhevalsky expressed curious thoughts about the geographical position and features of this region. Vladimir Bezobrazov, a well-known academician, economist and publicist at that time, presented Przhevalsky's "Military Statistical Review of the Primorsky Territory" to the Russian Geographical Society. After studying this work, on February 5, 1864, Nikolai Mikhailovich was enrolled as a full member of the society.

After graduating from the Academy, Przhevalsky was appointed adjutant to the commander of the Polotsk Infantry Regiment. Soon he, among the volunteers, went to Poland to suppress the uprising. And at the end of 1864 he was transferred to teach geography at the cadet school in Warsaw. Here the military officer met the famous ornithologist Vladislav Kazimirovich Tachanovsky, who taught him how to fill stuffed animals and dissect birds. And especially for the junkers, Nikolai Przhevalsky wrote a textbook on general geography, which for a long time served as a guide not only for domestic educational institutions, but also for many foreign countries.

In 1866, Przhevalsky filed a report on the transfer to Siberia. While waiting, he carefully prepared for the future journey. Finally, a positive response was received. At the end of January 1867, Przhevalsky drove to St. Petersburg and addressed the Council of the Geographical Society with a request to help organize the expedition. However, he was refused. Petr Petrovich Semenov-Tyan-Shansky, who at that time was the chairman of the Department of Physical Geography, explained the reason for this as follows: “Nikolai Przhevalsky was still a little-known figure in the scientific world. We did not dare to give him an allowance for the enterprise, moreover, we did not dare to organize an entire expedition under his leadership. Nevertheless, the traveler was promised that if he manages to make any research or discoveries in Siberia at his own expense, then upon his return he can hope for the support of the Society and even the organization of an expedition to Central Asia under his leadership.

In May 1867, Nikolai Mikhailovich Przhevalsky was sent on his first trip to the Ussuri. As an assistant, he took the topographer of Yagunov's headquarters, the sixteen-year-old son of an exiled villager. He taught the young man to dry plants, remove and dissect animal skins, and perform all the many duties of travelers. On May 26, they left Irkutsk and went to the Amur through Transbaikalia. Przhevalsky set himself the task of exploring and describing the Ussuri region as fully as possible. Along with this, he also had specific instructions from the headquarters of the troops, according to which he had to collect information about the natives living along the Ussuri River and study the paths leading to the borders of Korea and Manchuria.

Nikolai Mikhailovich Przhevalsky. 1876

The road to Blagoveshchensk took about two months. In Khabarovsk, Przhevalsky bought a boat and took rowers in shifts in every Cossack village that came across on the way. He himself, together with Yagunov, moved along the river bank, collecting plants, shooting birds. He visited the camps of the natives of this region, watched how they fish with a spear, hunt wild goats when they cross the rivers. The traveler diligently described all the necessary notes in the travel diary. The industriousness of the "master" officer surprised the Cossacks. The distance from Khabarovsk to the village of Busse Przhevalsky covered on foot in twenty-three days. From Busse, Nikolai Mikhailovich moved to Lake Khanka, whose expanses of water made a great impression on him. Throughout August, the researcher lived on the banks of the reservoir: he hunted, collected plants, and made meteorological observations three times a day. In mid-September, he went south to the shores of the Sea of ​​Japan. On the shores of Posyet Bay, he met Koreans who had fled from their masters and found refuge in neighboring Russia. In order to get to know the life of this people better, Przhevalsky, together with an interpreter and three rowers, arrived at the Korean border settlement of Kygen-Pu. However, the head of the town refused to talk about his country and ordered the travelers to return back to Russia. Seeing the futility of further conversations, the detachment returned to the Novgorod post in Posyet Bay.

After that, Przhevalsky decided to explore the deep regions of the Ussuri region. Taking two soldiers and the faithful Yagunov, he set off on a path that no European had ever walked before. By then, the cold had begun. Often had to sleep right on the snow. In order to make entries in the diary, it was necessary to heat the ink over a fire. The detachment met the New Year among deep snowdrifts in the taiga. On that day, Przhevalsky wrote: “In many places they will remember me today. But, no fortune-telling will tell where I am now. The places where I wandered, perhaps the devil himself does not know. The winter crossing ended on January 7, 1868. The expedition, passing along the coast of the Sea of ​​Japan and along the Tadush River, crossed the Sikhote-Alin and reached the Ussuri River near the village of Busse. The path traveled along the pack trail was about 1100 kilometers. In the spring of 1868, Nikolai Przhevalsky spent on Lake Khanka, where he observed mass flights of birds, lotus blossoms and love games of Japanese cranes. However, Przhevalsky's research was interrupted by an attack on the southern Primorye by a band of hunghuz. They killed civilians, burned down three Russian villages and two posts. Przhevalsky, a military officer and a skilled shooter, took an active part in the destruction of the bandits, for which he was promoted to the rank of captain. And soon he was transferred to Nikolaevsk-on-Amur and was appointed senior adjutant of the headquarters of the troops of the Amur Region. Here, in his free time, the naturalist processed the materials collected by the expedition. Only in February 1869 did he receive permission to return to his studies. He again spent spring and summer on Lake Khanka, which he loved, studying the rivers flowing into it. And at the end of the year he went to the Northern capital.

In the Russian Geographical Society, Nikolai Mikhailovich was greeted as a research scientist who made a significant contribution to the study of nature, climate, flora and fauna of the Ussuri Territory, as well as the activities and life of the local population. For two years, as a passionate hunter, he collected a collection of 310 stuffed birds. In total, Przhevalsky counted 224 species of birds, of which 36 were not previously noted in these parts, and some are completely unknown to science. On Ussuri, Nikolai Mikhailovich was the first to see and describe a black hare and a rare plant - dimorphant or white walnut. Together with him, he brought to Petreburg more than 300 species of plants (two thousand specimens), 42 species of bird eggs (550 in total), 83 species of various seeds and more than a dozen skins of mammals. Przhevalsky brilliantly passed two years of campaigns, a kind of “exam for a traveler”. His lectures usually ended with applause. And for the report on the population of Primorye, the naturalist was awarded the Small Silver Medal. In August 1870, his first book, Journey to the Ussuri Territory, was published, which brought Przhevalsky fame outside a narrow circle of geographers.

In 1870, with the support of the Russian Geographical Society, the traveler set off on his first expedition to Central Asia. On November 17, his detachment on camels left the city of Kyakhta. Przhevalsky's first assistant was Lieutenant Pyltsoy, in addition to him, the Buryats Dondok Irinchinov and the Cossack Panfil Chebaev participated in the campaign. Their path passed through the city of Urga (now Ulaanbaatar) and the endless Gobi desert to distant Beijing. And from there, through Alashan, Gobi and the heights of the Nan Shan, the expedition went to the upper reaches of the Yellow River and the Yangtze and ended up near Tibet. Then the travelers again crossed the Gobi, the central part of Mongolia, and returned to Kyakhta. When crossing the desert, travelers did not have enough water and food, they ran out of money. Polltsov fell ill with typhus, but continued the campaign. Meeting the year 1373, Nikolai Mikhailovich wrote in his diary: “We are experiencing terrible hardships that must be endured in the name of a great goal. Do we have the will and strength to finish this glorious deed?
All members of the expedition had the skills and strength. The campaign lasted almost three years, during which time twelve thousand kilometers were covered, and the travelers walked most of the way. Przhevalsky left a note about his comrades: “Far from our homeland, we lived like brothers. They shared work and danger, sorrow and joy together. I will keep grateful memories of my companions to the grave, whose boundless courage and devotion to the cause determined the entire success of the enterprise. As a result of this campaign, significant changes took place on the map of Central Asia - 23 new ridges, 7 large and 17 small lakes appeared. In addition, the heights of many passes were clarified, the exact locations of the villages were determined, collections of mammals, birds, fish, insects (more than 3,000 specimens), plants (about 4,000 specimens), and rock samples were collected. The friendly attitude of researchers towards the local population should be especially emphasized. Travelers won the hearts of the inhabitants with a responsive attitude and help with medicines. For the successful cure of malaria patients, the Dungans called Przhevalsky the "Great Doctor". The Russian Geographical Society awarded Nikolai Mikhailovich a gold medal. He outlined the results of his first expedition in the essay “Mongolia and the country of the Tanguts”. The book was translated into different languages ​​of the world, and many foreign geographical societies sent Przhevalsky their medals and certificates, recognizing the merits of the Russian naturalist.

Meanwhile, the scientist himself was preparing for the second campaign in Central Asia. On August 12, 1876, together with nine companions, he set off. Their route ran from the city of Gulja up the banks of the Ili River, and then through the Tien Shan to the mysterious lake Lob-nor. This expedition was also very difficult, the health of Nikolai Mikhailovich was shaken. Travelers planned to get to Tibet in Lhasa. However, the scientist's illness, lack of water, and, most importantly, complications in Russian-Chinese relations, led to the fact that the participants of the campaign jointly decided to return to Ghulja. Despite the failure, the expedition still did a great job. 1200 kilometers of the way were filmed by visual survey, the most valuable collections of birds and animals were collected. Skins were brought from four camels, previously known only from the records of Marco Polo. Information about the inhabitants of this area was of great importance. Przhevalsky described the details of the journey in the book “From Kulja beyond the Tien Shan and to Lob-nor”. Nikolai Mikhailovich was elected an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The London Geographical Society awarded the naturalist the King's Medal, and the Berlin Geographical Society the Humboldt Grand Gold Medal. All this meant his worldwide recognition as an outstanding scientist and traveler.

Illness forced Nikolai Mikhailovich to stay in Russia until the spring of 1879. He devoted this time to preparing for a trip to Tibet. The detachment, consisting of thirteen people, left the Zaisan post on March 21. This time, 35 camels, loaded with food and water, went with the people. The expedition moved through the deserts and steppes of Dzungaria. Here the scientist discovered a wild horse, which would later be called the Przewalski's horse. Further, the path of the detachment passed through Nan Shan. In its western part, two high snow-covered ridges were discovered, which were given the name of the Ritter and Humboldt ridges. The difficulties of this campaign were expressed in the fact that the Chinese authorities refused to sell provisions to the wanderers, did not allow them to take guides. Nevertheless, the expedition successfully reached the big Tibetan road leading to Lhasa. Along the way, travelers discovered another hitherto unknown ridge, named after Marco Polo. The detachment climbed the icy paths to the pass of the Tangla Ridge. Here they were suddenly attacked by the nomadic north-Tibetan tribe of Agrai, who were robbing passing caravans. However, Russian travelers were too tough for the local highlanders. And this, and all subsequent raids were repulsed. It seemed that the way to the heart of Tibet was open. But 250 kilometers from Lhasa, the detachment was met by the ambassadors of the Dalai Lama, who handed over a written order forbidding them to visit the city, since they belonged to a different faith. “At that moment, when all the hardships of the long journey were overcome, and the probability of achieving the goal of the expedition turned into the certainty of success,” Nikolai Przhevalsky wrote with chagrin, “we could not get to Lhasa: human barbarism and ignorance put up insurmountable obstacles!”. The caravan moved in the opposite direction. However, now the people were discouraged and tired, the horses and camels were also exhausted and exhausted. On January 31, 1880, the detachment returned to Dzun, out of 35 camels, only 13 completed the transition.

Having rested, Przhevalsky moved to the Yellow River and explored it for three months. Then he got to Lake Kukunor and mapped its shape and size, determined that twenty-five rivers flow into it. Then the travelers returned to Kyakhta through Alashan and Gobi. In total, they traveled about 7200 kilometers, found the way to Lhasa, determined the location of twenty-three geographical points, discovered 5 lakes, and discovered new species of animals and plants. In St. Petersburg, the participants of the expedition were waiting for a solemn meeting. Moscow University elected Przhevalsky an honorary doctor of zoology, the Russian Geographical Society - an honorary member, the cities of St. Petersburg and Smolensk - an honorary citizen. He was also elected an honorary member of the Dresden, Italian and Vienna Geographical Societies. Having received a huge number of grateful reviews and degrees after the trip, Nikolai Mikhailovich, due to his natural modesty, retired to the village, where he processed the collected material. He outlined the results of the campaign in his next book "From Zaisan through Hami to Tibet and to the upper reaches of the Yellow River."
However, uncharted lands still attracted the famous traveler and his companions. On October 21, 1883, Przhevalsky set off from Kyakhta on his fourth trip to Asia. His goal was the unknown Tibet. This time the path ran through the steppes of Mongolia, the Gobi and Alashan deserts, the North Tetung Range. Again, despite the obstacles of Chinese bureaucrats, Przhevalsky reached the sources of the Huang He, discovered two lakes: Dzharin-Nur and Orin-Nur. Then the travelers turned to the Lob-Nor lake, the path to which was blocked by the Altyntag ridge. After a long search, the participants of the campaign found a passage through the mountains. The inhabitants of Lob-nor greeted the expedition very warmly. From here, Przhevalsky turned to the southwest and discovered unknown ridges, which received the names Russian and Keri. Two years later, in 1885, the work was completed. The expedition covered about eight thousand kilometers. In honor of Przhevalsky, by decision of the Academy of Sciences, a gold medal was knocked out with the inscription: "To the first researcher of the nature of Central Asia." Nikolai Mikhailovich by this period was already in the rank of major general, was the owner of 8 gold medals, an honorary member of 24 scientific communities. After his expeditions, white spots on the maps of Central Asia disappeared one after another.

The infirmary in which Nikolai Mikhailovich Przhevalsky died. 1890

Przhevalsky's grave on the shore of the Karakol Bay Przhevalsk. 1890

For those who personally knew the outstanding scientist, there was nothing strange in the fact that at the age of less than 50 he began to prepare for the fifth campaign in Central Asia. The purpose of this expedition was the "promised" city of Lhasa. This time, an official pass was obtained for his visit. At the end of 1888, preparations were finally completed. Karakol was chosen as the gathering place for the participants. However, the trip was not destined to take place. On the way to this Kyrgyz city in the valley of the Kara-Balta river, Nikolai Mikhailovich decided to go hunting. Slightly with a cold, he drank river water and caught typhoid fever. Upon arrival in Karakol, the traveler fell ill. Suffering from illness, he did not lose heart, he held himself courageously, consciously saying that he was not afraid of death, since he had repeatedly been face to face with her. On October 20, 1888, the great scientist, patriot and traveler died in the arms of his friends.

Before his death, Przhevalsky asked to be buried on the banks of Issyk-Kul in his marching clothes. The will of the deceased was carried out. On the eastern shore of the lake, twelve kilometers from the city, a grave was dug out in two days (due to the hardness of the soil). The coffin with the body was delivered on a gun carriage. The mourners walked around on foot, and the soldiers were lined up at the very grave. A large black cross with a plaque was erected over the grave, on which, at the request of Nikolai Mikhailovich himself, a simple inscription was made: "Traveler Przhevalsky." A few years later, a monument was erected on this site. A bronze eagle, ready to break loose, rises on a granite block, holding an olive branch in its beak, as a symbol of the greatness and glory of a brave explorer, always inexorably moving forward towards his dream.

Nikolai Przhevalsky became an example for many generations of travelers and scientists around the world. Until now, it is very difficult to explain how this man, with very serious, time-consuming and labor-intensive official duties, with all the difficulties that he met in Asia at every turn, could so brilliantly fulfill the tasks of a naturalist. In any conditions, every day Przhevalsky kept a diary, which formed the basis of all his books. In adulthood, Nikolai Mikhailovich was absolutely indifferent to titles, ranks and awards, preferring the lonely life of a wanderer to all the benefits of civilization. He owns the wonderful words: "The world is beautiful because you can travel."

Based on the materials of the book by M.A. Engelhardt "Nikolai Przhevalsky. His life and travels
Author Olga Zelenko-Zhdanova

Russian traveler, explorer of Central Asia; honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1878), major general (1886). He led an expedition to the Ussuri region (1867-1869) and four expeditions to Central Asia (1870-1885). For the first time he described the nature of many regions of Central Asia; discovered a number of ridges, basins and lakes in Kunlun, Nanshan and the Tibetan Plateau. Gathered valuable collections of plants and animals; first described a wild camel, a wild horse (Przewalski's horse), a bear-pischooter and other species of vertebrates.

Nikolai was born in the village of Kimbory, Smolensk province, on March 31 (April 12), 1839. His father, a retired lieutenant, died early, only forty-two years old, leaving in the arms of a young widow, in addition to seven-year-old Nikolai, two more sons - Vladimir and Eugene. The boy grew up under the supervision of his mother in the Otradnoye estate. “I grew up in the village as a savage, my upbringing was the most Spartan, I could leave the house in any weather and early became addicted to hunting. First I shot acorns from a toy gun, then from a bow, and at the age of twelve I got a real gun.”

In 1855, Przhevalsky graduated from the Smolensk gymnasium as the first student and entered the military service as a volunteer. Later, Nikolai Mikhailovich explained his decision as follows. "The heroic deeds of the defenders of Sevastopol constantly fired the imagination of a 16-year-old boy, as I was then." He dreamed of exploits, but reality disappointed him. Instead of feats - drill, in the evenings - cards. Przhevalsky, evading revelry, spent more and more time hunting, collecting a herbarium, and seriously taking up ornithology. Having become an ensign, he submitted a report to his superiors, in which he asked for a transfer to the Amur. The answer was completely unexpected - three days of arrest.

After five years of service, Przhevalsky enters the Academy of the General Staff. In addition to the main subjects, he studies the works of geographers Ritter, Humboldt, Richthofen and, of course, Semenov. Upon graduation, he serves as an adjutant in the Polotsk Infantry Regiment.

While still at the academy, Przhevalsky prepared a term paper "Military Statistical Review of the Amur Territory". The manuscript, sent by him to the Russian Geographical Society, received a high opinion from the scientist and traveler Semenov: "The work is based on the most efficient and thorough study of sources, and most importantly, on the most subtle understanding of the country." In 1864, Przhevalsky was elected a full member of the Geographical Society.

Soon, Nikolai Mikhailovich began teaching history and geography at the Warsaw cadet school. He was an excellent lecturer. Using his phenomenal memory, he could recite whole pages from the diaries of his favorite travelers by heart. In 1867, "Notes of General Geography for the Junker Schools" prepared by N. M. Przhevalsky were published.

By this time, he had finally secured a transfer to Eastern Siberia. Already in Irkutsk, with the help of Semenov's letters of recommendation, he secured a two-year business trip to the Ussuri Territory. In addition, again, not without the help of Semenov, the Siberian Department of the Geographical Society instructs Przhevalsky to study the flora and fauna of the region, to collect botanical and zoological collections.

With his companion - the young man Yagunov - he went down the Amur, sailed in a boat along the Ussuri, made his way along the paths of an unknown region. “It is somehow strange to see this mixture of forms of the north and south ... In particular, the appearance of a spruce entwined with grapes, or a cork tree and a walnut growing next to a cedar and fir, is striking. A hunting dog looks for a bear or a sable for you, and right next to you can meet a tiger that is not inferior in size and strength to the inhabitant of the jungle of Bengal.

Przhevalsky spent two and a half years in the Far East. Thousands of kilometers have been covered, 1600 kilometers have been covered by route survey. The Ussuri basin, Lake Khanka, the coast of the Sea of ​​Japan... A large article "Foreign population of the Ussuri region" has been prepared for publication. About 300 plant species have been collected; more than 300 stuffed birds were made, and many plants and birds were discovered on the Ussuri for the first time. He begins to write the book "Journey to the Ussuri Territory".

In January 1870, Nikolai Mikhailovich returned to St. Petersburg, in March for the first time he ascended the podium of the Russian Geographical Society. "He was tall, well-built, but thin, handsome in appearance and somewhat nervous. A strand of white hair in the upper part of the temple, with a general swarthy face and black hair, attracted involuntary attention."

He talked about the Ussuri journey and his future plans. His description of the Ussuri Territory revealed such pictures in the life of nature and Russian settlers that those who listened to him were amazed: how was it possible - working alone, except for the dissecting boy, to collect such deep, extensive information ... As a result, he was awarded the Silver medal.

In 1870, the Russian Geographical Society organized an expedition to Central Asia. Przhevalsky, an officer of the General Staff, was appointed its head. "I was assigned to make an expedition to northern China, to those walled possessions of the Heavenly Empire, about which we have incomplete and fragmentary information gleaned from Chinese books, from the descriptions of the famous traveler of the XIII century Marco Polo, or, finally, from those few missionaries who somehow - when and in some places it was possible to penetrate into these countries.

In September 1870, Przhevalsky went on his first expedition to Central Asia. His former student at the Warsaw School, Lieutenant Mikhail Alexandrovich Pyltsov, was traveling with him. Their path lay through Moscow and Irkutsk and further - through Kyakhta to Beijing, where Przhevalsky expected to receive a passport from the Chinese government - official permission to travel to the regions subject to the Heavenly Empire.

Having received a passport, Przhevalsky leaves for Tibet. A small caravan of eight camels carrying expedition equipment has a long way to go.

The Great Gobi Desert met them with 30-degree frosts with winds. They crossed the desert, crossed the mountain range and in December entered the city of Kalgan, where real spring reigned. The travelers replenished their provisions, although they counted mainly on hunting, checked their revolvers and guns. Przhevalsky chose the caravan route, along which, fearing an attack by robber gangs, not a single caravan dared to pass for eleven years.

“Traces of the Dungan extermination were found at every step,” Nikolai Mikhailovich later wrote. “The villages that came across very often were all devastated, human skeletons lay everywhere, and not a single living soul was visible anywhere.”

There were only four people in the detachment, including the chief himself. From food they took with them only a pood of sugar, a sack of rice and a sack of millet. In addition, instruments, herbarium paper, 40 kilograms of gunpowder, 160 kilograms of shot, dozens of boxes of cartridges.

From Beijing, Przhevalsky at the beginning of 1871 moved north, to Lake Dalainor, and made a complete survey of it. Then he headed to the upper reaches of the Yellow River - the Yellow River - by a bypass road, avoiding the villages, the inhabitants of which met travelers with caution, often even hostility. In the summer, he traveled to the city of Baotou and, having crossed the Huang He, entered the Ordos Plateau, which "lies as a peninsula in the knee formed by the bends of the middle reaches of the Huang He." In the northwest of Ordos, he described "bare hills" - the sands of Kuzupcha. "It becomes hard for a person in this ... sandy sea, devoid of any life ... - there is grave silence all around."

Following the course of the Huang He up from Baotou to Dingkouzhen (about 400 kilometers), Przhevalsky moved southwest through the "wild and barren desert" Alashan, covered with "naked loose sands," always ready to "strangle the traveler with their scorching heat," and reached a large, high (up to 1855 meters), but narrow meridional ridge Helanshan, stretched along the Huang He valley. "Having climbed a high peak, from which the distant horizon opens on all sides, you feel freer and for a whole hour you admire the panorama that spreads under your feet. I often stopped in such places, sat on a stone and listened to the silence around me.

But with the onset of winter, I had to turn back. In addition, Poltsov fell seriously ill. He rode with difficulty and often fell from the saddle. Przhevalsky himself froze his fingers on both hands. To the north of the Yellow River, the expedition reached the treeless, but rich in springs, Lanshan ridge, which stands as a "sheer wall, occasionally cut through by narrow gorges," and Przhevalsky traced it along its entire length (300 kilometers), and to the east discovered another ridge, smaller and lower - Sheiten-Ula. Travelers met the New Year in Zhangjiakou.

Przhevalsky walked about 500 kilometers along the valleys along the banks of the Yellow River and found that in these places the great Chinese river has no tributaries and, moreover, the channel itself lies differently than can be seen on the maps. Along the way, he collected plants, mapped the area, made a geological description of rocks, kept a meteorological journal, observed and amazingly accurately recorded the life, customs, customs of the people through whose lands he passed.

But the funds of the expedition were running out, and Przhevalsky was forced to return to Beijing, where he spent a month. In Beijing, he replaced two Cossacks who did not meet his expectations with others sent from Urga (now Ulan Bator), Chebaev and the Buryat Irinchinov, who became faithful companions and reliable friends. In addition, he renovated and strengthened the caravan.

In the spring of 1872, Przhevalsky reached the southern part of the Alashan desert by the same route. "The desert ended ... extremely abruptly ... Behind it rose a majestic chain of mountains." This was eastern Nanshan. Przhevalsky singled out three powerful ranges in the mountain system: Okrainny (Maomaoshan), Malinshan (Lenglonglin) and Qingshilin.

Crossing the deserts of Southern Alashan proved to be especially difficult. Not a drop of water for a hundred miles. Rare wells were often poisoned by the Dungans.

"The hot soil of the desert breathes with heat, like from a stove ... The head hurts and is spinning, sweat pours from the face and from the whole body in streams. Animals suffer no less than us. Camels go with their mouths gaping and doused with sweat, as if with water."

One day it happened that there were only a few glasses of water left. They left at seven in the morning and walked for nine hours, as if on a hot frying pan. "We took one sip into our mouths, so that, at least a little, wetting our almost dried-up tongue. Our whole body was on fire, our head was spinning. Another hour of this situation - and we would have died."

Przhevalsky climbed Mount Gansu, which was considered the highest point of the ridge. “For the first time in my life I was at such a height, for the first time I saw giant mountains under my feet, sometimes furrowed with wild rocks, sometimes tinted with soft green forests, along which mountain streams meandered with shining ribbons. The power of the impression was so great that for a long time I could not tear myself away from a wonderful sight, stood for a long time, as if enchanted, and remembered that day as one of the happiest in a lifetime ... "

After staying there for about two weeks, he went to the endorheic salt lake Kukunor, lying at an altitude of 3200 meters. "The cherished goal of the expedition ... has been achieved. True, success was bought at the cost of ... severe trials, but now all the hardships experienced have been forgotten, and we stood in complete delight ... on the shores of the great lake, admiring its wonderful dark blue waves."

Having finished surveying the northwestern shore of Lake Kukunor, Przhevalsky crossed the powerful Kukunor ridge and went to the village of Dzun, located on the southeastern outskirts of the marshy Tsaidam plain. He established that this is a basin and that its southern border is the Burkhan-Buddha ridge (up to 5200 meters high). To the south and southwest of Burkhan-Buddha, Przhevalsky discovered the Bayan-Khara-Ula mountains and the eastern section of Kukushili, and between them he discovered a "wavy plateau", which is a "terrible desert", raised to a height of more than 4400 meters. So Przhevalsky was the first European to penetrate into the deep region of Northern Tibet, to the upper reaches of the Yellow River and the Yangtze (Ulan Muren). And he correctly determined that Bayan-Khara-Ula is the watershed between the two great river systems.

They went to the Tibetan Plateau in winter and spent two and a half months at an altitude of 3-4 thousand meters. Przhevalsky recalled that the slightest rise seemed very difficult, shortness of breath was felt, the heart beat very strongly, arms and legs shook, dizziness and vomiting began at times.

There were severe frosts, but there was no fuel, and they spent the nights in a yurt without fire. The bed consisted of one felt, laid on the frozen ground. Because of the cold and high altitude, because of the dryness and thinness of the air, it was not possible to fall asleep - only to forget. But even in oblivion, he was tormented by suffocation, which gave rise to severe nightmares. "Our life was, in the fullest sense, a struggle for existence, and only the awareness of the scientific importance of the undertaking gave us the energy and strength to successfully complete our task."

At the end of the winter of 1873, Przhevalsky returned to Dzun. Having met spring on Lake Kukunor, he went the same way without a guide to the southern outskirts of the Alashan desert. "The boundless sea lay ... loose sands before us, and not without timidity we stepped into their grave kingdom." Along the Helanypan ridge (already with a guide), they moved north in a terrible heat and crossed the eastern part of the desert, and almost died of thirst: the guide lost his way. Passing the western foothills of the Lanshan Range, Przhevalsky passed through the most waterless, "wild and deserted" part of the Gobi and discovered the Khurkh-Ula ridge (the extreme southeastern spur of the Gobi Altai). The thermometer in the sun showed 63°C. Not a single lake on the way; in wells located one from another at a distance of 50-60 kilometers, there was not always water. He returned to Kyakhta in September 1873, never reaching the capital of Tibet, Lhasa.

Through the deserts and mountains of Mongolia and China, Przhevalsky traveled more than 11,800 kilometers and at the same time mapped (on a scale of 10 versts in 1 inch) about 5,700 kilometers. The scientific results of this expedition amazed contemporaries. Przhevalsky gave detailed descriptions of the deserts of the Gobi, Ordos and Alashani, the highlands of northern Tibet and the Tsaidam basin (discovered by him), for the first time mapped more than 20 ridges, seven large and a number of small lakes on the map of Central Asia. Przhevalsky's map was not accurate, because due to very difficult travel conditions, he could not make astronomical determinations of longitudes. This significant defect was later corrected by himself and other Russian travelers. He collected collections of plants, insects, reptiles, fish, and mammals. At the same time, new species were discovered that received his name - Przewalski's foot-and-mouth disease, Przewalski's splittail, Przewalski's rhododendron... Mikhail Alexandrovich Pyltsov, his selfless comrade, was awarded the same honor.

The two-volume work "Mongolia and the country of the Tanguts" (1875-1876), in which Przhevalsky gave a description of his journey, brought the author world fame and was fully or partially translated into a number of European languages.

In St. Petersburg, Przhevalsky was greeted as a hero - speeches, banquets, solemn meetings. The Russian Geographical Society awards him its high award - the Big Gold Medal. He receives the Gold Medal of the Paris Geographical Society and the "highest" awards - the rank of lieutenant colonel, a lifetime pension of 600 rubles annually. They call him "the most remarkable traveler of our time", they put him next to Semenov-Tyan-Shansky, with Krusenstern and Bellingshausen, with Livingston and Stanley ...

In January 1876, Przhevalsky submitted a plan for a new expedition to the Russian Geographical Society. He intended to explore the Eastern Tien Shan, reach Lhasa, which so many generations of European geographers dreamed of seeing, and, most importantly, explore the mysterious Lop Nor Lake. In addition, in those parts, as Marco Polo wrote, a wild camel lives. Przhevalsky hoped to find and describe this animal.

It took almost two months to travel from Moscow through the Urals to Semipalatinsk, where Przhevalsky's faithful companions, Chebaev and Irinchinov, were waiting.

Arriving in Gulja in July 1876, Przhevalsky, together with his assistant Fyodor Leontyevich Eklon, moved up the "smooth as a floor" valley of the Ili and its tributary Kunges in mid-August and crossed the main watershed chain of the Eastern Tien Shan. Przhevalsky proved that this mountain system branches in the middle part: between the branches, he discovered two isolated high plateaus - Ikh-Yulduza and Baga-Yulduza in the upper reaches of the Khaidyk-Gola River, which flows into Lake Bagrashkel. To the south of the lake, he crossed the western extremity of the "waterless and barren" Kuruktag ridge and correctly identified it as "the last spur of the Tien Shan to the Lop Nor desert." Further to the south spread "the boundless expanse of the Tarim and Lop Nor deserts. Lob Nor is the wildest and most barren of all ... even worse than Alashan". Having reached the lower reaches of the Tarim, Przhevalsky described them for the first time. On his map, the Konchedarya River received the correct image; a "new", northern branch of the Tarim appeared - the river Inchikedarya. (The Konchedarya, flowing out of Lake Bagrashkel, was then the lower left tributary of the Tarim; now it flows into the northern part of Lake Lobnor during the flood.) The route through the sands of Takla-Makan to the Charklyk oasis in the lower reaches of the Cherchen River (Lobnor basin), also first described by Przhevalsky, allowed him to establish the eastern border of the Takla Makan desert.

Having passed the southern spurs of the Tien Shan, the travelers entered the city of Kurlyu, where the emir was waiting for them, promising to assist the expedition. The emir appointed his faithful man, Zaman-bek, who had once been in the Russian service, to the Russians, and ordered him to be inseparably with the expedition.

Zaman-bek led them to Lobnor by the most difficult road. With the onset of winter, frosts hit about twenty degrees, the rivers had not yet begun, and they had to cross the Tarim River by water. And when the cherished goal seemed very close, before the travelers - where the plain was indicated on the maps, mountains suddenly grew. Even at the crossing over the Tarim, Przhevalsky saw far to the south "a narrow obscure strip, barely noticeable on the horizon." With each passage, the outlines of the mountain range became more and more distinct, and soon it was possible to distinguish not only individual peaks, but also large gorges. When the traveler arrived in Charklyk, the Altyntag ridge, previously unknown to European geographers, appeared before him "an enormous wall, which further to the south-west rose even more and passed beyond the bounds of eternal snow ..." In the deep winter of 1876/77 (December 26 -February 5) Przhevalsky explored the northern slope of Altyntag more than 300 kilometers east of Charklyk. He established that "in all this space, Altyntag serves as the edge of a high plateau to the side of the lower Lop Nor desert." Due to frost and lack of time, he could not cross the ridge, but correctly guessed: the plateau south of Altyntag is probably the northernmost part of the Tibetan Plateau. Przhevalsky "moved" this border more than 300 kilometers to the north. To the south of Lake Lobnor, according to local residents, the southwestern extension of Altyntag stretches without any interruption to Khotan, and to the east the ridge goes very far, but the Lobnor people did not know where exactly it ends.

In February 1877, Przhevalsky reached a huge reed swamp - Lake Lobnor. According to his description, the lake was 100 kilometers long and 20 to 22 kilometers wide. “I myself managed to explore only the southern and western shores of Lop Nor and make my way in a boat along the Tarim to half the length of the entire lake; it was impossible to go further along shallow and dense reeds. These latter cover the entire Lop Nor, leaving only on its southern shore a narrow (1- 3 versts) a strip of clean water. In addition, small, clean areas are located, like stars, everywhere in reeds ... The water is everywhere bright and fresh ... "

On the banks of the mysterious Lop Nor, in the "country of Lop", Przhevalsky was second ... after Marco Polo! Nikolai Mikhailovich wrote with legitimate pride: “Again, what was recently dreamed of turned into a fact of reality ... It has not yet been a year since Professor Kessler ... predicted about Lobnor as a completely mysterious lake - now this area known enough. What could not be done for seven centuries was done in seven months." The mysterious lake, however, became the subject of a lively discussion between Przhevalsky and the German geographer Richthofen.

Judging by the Chinese maps of the early 18th century, Lobnor was not at all where Przhevalsky discovered it. In addition, contrary to historical news and theoretical reasoning of geographers, the lake turned out to be fresh, not salty.

Richthofen believed that the Russian expedition discovered some other lake, and the true Lop Nor lies to the north. Nikolai Mikhailovich responded to the remark of the German scientist with a small note in the Izvestia of the Russian Geographical Society. Then he visited Lop Nor for the second time, after which his student Pyotr Kozlov entered into controversy. And only half a century later, the riddle of Lopnor was finally solved.

Lob in Tibetan means "muddy", nor - in Mongolian "lake". It turned out that this swamp-lake changes its location from time to time. On Chinese maps, it was depicted in the northern part of the desert drainless depression Lob. But then the Tarim and Konchedarya rivers rushed south. The ancient Lobnor gradually disappeared, leaving only salt marshes and saucers of small lakes in its place. And in the south of the depression, a new lake was formed, which was discovered and described by Przhevalsky.

He hunted on Lop Nor, studied birds - millions of birds chose the lake as their refuge on the way to Siberia from India. Observing them, the scientist came to the conclusion that migratory birds do not fly along the shortest path, as was thought until then, but along such a route in order to capture places to rest, with abundant food. The collection of Nikolai Mikhailovich was replenished with specimens of rare birds at Lop Nor.

To the east of Lop Nor, Przhevalsky discovered a wide strip of Kumtag sands.

In early July, the expedition returned to Ghulja. Przhevalsky was pleased: he studied Lobnor, discovered Altyntag, described a wild camel, even got its skins, collected collections of flora and fauna.

Here, in Ghulja, letters and a telegram were waiting for him, in which he was instructed to continue the expedition without fail. In the spring, Russia entered the Russian-Turkish war, and Przhevalsky sent a telegram to St. Petersburg with a request to transfer him to the active army. A refusal came with a response telegram: it was reported that Przhevalsky had been promoted to colonel.

Nikolai Mikhailovich had been ill for a long time and strangely "unbearable itching all over his body tormented him. In the last days of August, when the illness subsided, the expedition set off from Kulja in a caravan of 24 camels and three riding horses. But the disease worsened. I had to return to Zaisan - the Russian border post in the Southern Altai. Przhevalsky spent several months in the hospital. Here, with a relay race from Semipalatinsk, he received a letter from his brother announcing the death of his mother. "Now, in addition to all the hardships, great grief has been added. I loved my mother with all my heart...

And a few days later a telegram arrived from St. Petersburg, in which the Minister of War, in connection with the complicated relations with the Bogdykhan government, ordered to return back.

During the travel of 1876-1877, Przhevalsky traveled a little more than four thousand kilometers in Central Asia - he was prevented by the war in Western China, the aggravation of relations between China and Russia, and, finally, his illness. And yet this journey was marked by two major geographical discoveries - the lower reaches of the Tarim with a group of lakes and the Altyntag ridge.

In St. Petersburg, the best doctors looked at him and came to the conclusion that the patient had a severe nervous breakdown and a complete breakdown. They strongly recommended that Nikolai Mikhailovich leave, at least for a while, business and retire to some quiet place in order to improve his health. Przhevalsky goes to Otradnoye.

In the meantime, the scientific world has celebrated his last journey. Nikolai Mikhailovich became an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences. The Berlin Geographical Society establishes the Great Gold Medal in honor of Alexander Humboldt, and the first to be awarded it, Przhevalsky, the London Geographical Society, presents him with the Royal Medal. Baron Ferdinand Richthofen, one of the pillars of geography, publishes a brochure dedicated to Przhevalsky, where he calls him a brilliant traveler. Glory grows and spreads far beyond the borders of Russia...

Having rested, Przhevalsky equips a new expedition. This time he took as assistants the Cossack Irinchinov, Fyodor Eklon, a man reliable in all respects, and his school friend, the young ensign Vsevolod Roborovsky, who already had to survey the area and collect a herbarium; besides, he was also a good draftsman. In total, 13 people gathered in Zaisan, where the equipment from the previous expedition was stored.

In March 1879, Przhevalsky began the journey, which he called the "First Tibetan". From Zaisan, he headed southeast, past Ulungur Lake and along the Urungu River to its upper reaches, crossed the Dzungarian Gobi - "a vast wavy plain" - and fairly accurately determined its size.

The Dzungarian desert met them with storms. Weak glimpses of the sun barely made their way through the rushing suspension of sand and dust, and so every day from nine or ten in the morning until sunset. Moreover, the wind always appeared in one direction. Przhevalsky was the first of the researchers of Central Asia to give an explanation for this.

But it was not this mystery that attracted the desert of storms. It is here and only here that one can meet a wild horse. The locals call it differently: the Kirghiz - "kertag", the Mongols - "takhi", but not a single scientist has seen her.

For hours, Przhevalsky tracked down a wild horse, but he could not get close to the distance of a shot - sensitive, shy animals ... Only once, together with Eklon, Nikolai Mikhailovich crept close enough, but the leader of the herd, sensing danger, fled, dragging everyone else. With annoyance, Przhevalsky lowered the heavy fitting ...

He observed, studied the habits of the horse, and when he received the skin of a wild horse as a gift from a Kirghiz hunter, he was able to describe the animal. For a whole ten years, this skin remained the only copy in the collection of the Museum of the Academy of Sciences, until Grum-Grzhimailo, and later Roborovsky and Kozlov, students of Nikolai Mikhailovich, got new skins. But before Przhevalsky, science did not know at all about the existence of a wild horse, called the Przhevalsky horse.

Another new year - 1880 - met on the road. Severe frosts with winds, mountain passes, on which horses and camels had to be dragged, made the work of the expedition difficult. Chronometers, hidden at night in furs, froze so much that it was impossible to hold them in hands. It was far from always possible to kindle a fire - only a meager supply of fuel remained, and the water had to be drunk a little warm. Food was used sparingly.

Having passed Lake Barkel, Przhevalsky went to the Hami oasis. He further crossed the eastern outskirts of the Gashun Gobi and reached the lower reaches of the Danhe River (the left tributary of the lower Sulehe), and to the south of it he discovered the "huge ever-snowy" Humboldt Ridge (Ulan-Daban). Through the Danjin pass - at the junction of the Altyntag and Humboldt ridges - Przhevalsky went south to the Sartym plain, crossed it and established the beginning of the Ritter ridge (Daken-Daban). Crossing over two other, smaller ridges, he descended to the southeastern part of Tsaidam, to the village of Dzun.

From Dzun, Przhevalsky moved southwest and found out that Kullun here has a latitudinal direction and consists of two, sometimes three parallel chains, which have different names in their various parts. Przhevalsky identified the following ranges of Sasun-Ula and the western part of Burkhan-Buddha; a little to the south - Bokalyktag, which he called the Marco Polo ridge (with a peak of 6300 meters). To the south of Bokalyktag, passing Kukushili, Przhevalsky discovered the Bungbura-Ula ridge, which stretches along the left bank of the Ulan Muren (upper Yangtze).

Farther south, Tibet itself stretched out before the traveler, representing "a grandiose, nowhere else on the globe in such sizes repeating a foot-shaped mass, raised ... to a terrible height. And on this gigantic pedestal are piled up ... vast mountain ranges ... It is as if these giants are guarding here the hard-to-reach world of sky-high highlands, inhospitable to humans by their nature and climate, and for the most part still completely unknown to science ... "After the 33rd parallel, Przhevalsky discovered the watershed of the Yangtze and Salween - the latitudinal ridge of Tangla. Passing to the south of a gentle, barely noticeable pass at an altitude of about 5000 meters, Przhevalsky saw the eastern part of the Pyenchen-Tangla ridge.

Several times the expedition was attacked by robbers from the Tangut tribe, who usually robbed the caravans of pilgrims heading to Lhasa. In Beijing and St. Petersburg, Przhevalsky was already considered dead. There were reports in the newspapers telling about his tragic death in the deserts of Tibet. One of the Petersburg newspapers announced that Przhevalsky was alive, but languishing in captivity, and demanded that an expedition be equipped to search for and release him.

Meanwhile, the expedition was about 270-280 kilometers from Lhasa. Here Russian travelers met representatives of the Dalai Lama. A rumor spread in Lhasa that a Russian detachment was going to kidnap the Dalai Lama, and travelers were denied entry to the capital of Tibet, however, under the pretext that the Russians were representatives of a different faith.

Przhevalsky went the same way to the upper reaches of the Yangtze and somewhat west of the previous route - to Dzun From there, he turned to Lake Kukunor and bypassed it from the south. This time, Przhevalsky more thoroughly than on his last expedition, studied the lake, mapped the southern shore, studied the flora and fauna of the surroundings, and then headed to Xining, a city lying at the crossroads of trade routes connecting Tibet and China. From there, he intended to move to the upper reaches of the Yellow River - in areas that had not yet been studied at all.

However, local authorities put forward many good reasons for blocking the expedition's upcoming path. And in the end, convinced of Przhevalsky's adamant decision to go to the intended goal, they intimidated him with bloodthirsty robbers and ruthless cannibals. But Przhevalsky cannot be stopped, he is rushing to the Yellow River.

They went straight from Xining, through ridges of mountain ranges, along alpine meadows, bypassing the deepest abysses, making their way through narrow gorges cut in the mountains by the rapid flow of the Yellow River. In this mountainous region, on the eve of the upper reaches of the Yellow River, they managed to collect a new species - Przewalski's poplar. However, it was not possible to move closer to the upper reaches: the path was blocked either by impassable gorges or steep mountain slopes. For four days they were looking for an opportunity to cross to the other side, but the river turned out to be very stormy ...

Returning to Dzun, Przhevalsky reached Kyakhta through the desert of Alashan and the Gobi. During this journey, he traveled about eight thousand kilometers and photographed more than four thousand kilometers of the way through regions of Central Asia completely unexplored by Europeans. For the first time he explored the upper course of the Yellow River (Huang He) for more than 250 kilometers; in this area, he discovered the Semenov and Ugutu-Ula ridges. He found two new species of animals - the Przewalski's horse and the pisci-eating bear. His assistant, Roborovsky, collected a huge botanical collection: about 12 thousand plant specimens - 1,500 species. Przhevalsky outlined his observations and research results in the book "From Zaisan through Hami to Tibet and the Upper Yellow River" (1883). The result of his three expeditions were fundamentally new maps of Central Asia.

In St. Petersburg, he was again met with honors and awards. He was awarded the Order of Vladimir of the 3rd degree, awarded the title of honorary member of the Russian, Vienna, Hungarian geographical societies, honorary doctor of zoology of Moscow University, honorary member of St. Petersburg University, St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists, the Ural Society of Natural Science Lovers and, finally, titles of honorary citizen of St. Petersburg and Smolensk. The British Society awarded him a gold medal, accompanied by an appeal stating that the achievements of the Russian traveler surpassed everything done by other researchers since the time of Marco Polo.

But both in St. Petersburg and in Moscow, Przhevalsky is annoyed by "the eternal turmoil, the hustle and bustle of the human anthill." He began to have severe headaches and insomnia. Back in June 1881, Przhevalsky bought Sloboda, a small estate a hundred miles from Smolensk, on the shores of the fabulously beautiful Sopsha Lake. Having retired to the estate, he confesses in a letter: "Among the forests and wilds of Smolensk, I lived all this time the life of an expedition, rarely even spent the night at home - all in the forest, on the hunt." In Sloboda, he dismantled collections, processed diaries, wrote reports. The result of each new expedition was a new book.

The thought of exploring the origins of the Huang He haunts him. Soon he submits a carefully thought-out project to the Russian Geographical Society. "Despite the success of my three trips to Central Asia ... inside the Asian continent there is still an area of ​​more than twenty thousand square miles, almost completely unexplored. I consider it my moral duty, in addition to my passionate desire, to go there again."

He decided to gather at least twenty people in the detachment - this should have been enough to fend off attacks. As assistants, Przhevalsky chose Vsevolod Roborovsky and 20-year-old volunteer Pyotr Kozlov, a former clerk at a brewery, in whom Przhevalsky guessed a real researcher.

In early August 1883, they all left St. Petersburg for Moscow, where their faithful comrades, Irinchinov and Yusupov, were already waiting for them, as well as five soldiers from the Moscow Grenadier Corps, allocated under the command of Przhevalsky. At the end of September, they reached Kyakhta, and a month later, an expedition of 21 people went on a hike.

In November 1883, the next, already the fourth trip of Przhevalsky began. From Kyakhta, by the already familiar route, the expedition proceeded to Dzun, which it reached by May 1884. In the southeast of Tsaidam, beyond the Burkhan-Buddha ridge, Przhevalsky discovered a barren saline "wavy plateau, often covered with small ... disorderly piled mountains" , continuing far to the southeast. Innumerable herds of wild yaks, kulans, antelopes and other ungulates grazed on the plateau. Having passed this animal kingdom, Przhevalsky went to the eastern part of the Odontala intermountain basin, covered with "many hummocky swamps, springs and small lakes"; along the basin "small rivers wind, partly formed from the same springs, partly running down from the mountains. All these rivers merge into two main streams," connecting to the northeast corner of Odontala. "From here, that is, actually from the confluence of all the waters of Odontala, the famous Yellow River is born" (Huang He). Even the Chinese themselves could not tell anything definite about the origins of their great river. "Our long-standing aspirations were finally crowned with success: we now saw with our own eyes the mysterious cradle of the great Chinese river and drank water from its sources. Our joy knew no end." The good weather, which delighted travelers for several days, "suddenly gave way to a heavy snowstorm, and by morning the temperature dropped to -23 ° C. We had to wait two days until the snow that had fallen so inopportunely melted." Finally, the detachment was able to move further south. Przhevalsky crossed the watershed of the sources of the Huang He and the Yangtze (the Bayan-Khara-Ula ridge), imperceptible from the side of the Tibetan Plateau, and found himself in a mountainous country: "Here the mountains immediately become high, steep and difficult to access." Having examined a small section of the upper reaches of the Yangtze, Przhevalsky decided not to waste time and effort on reaching Lhasa. On the way back, east of Odontala, he discovered two lakes - Dzharin-Nur and Orin-Nur, through which the "newborn Yellow River" flowed. He called the first Russian, the second - the name of the Expedition.

Returning to Tsaidam, Przhevalsky proceeded along its southern outskirts, discovered a narrow but powerful Chimentag ridge in the southwest and, thus, almost completely determined the contours of the vast Tsaidam plain. Having crossed the Chimentag and the northwestern spur of the newly discovered Kayakdygtag, the detachment reached the large, wide plain of Kultala, which went "to the east beyond the horizon." Far to the south, in front of Przhevalsky, a giant ridge of a latitudinal direction opened up, which he called Mysterious; its peak was called Caps of Monomakh. Later Zagadochny was named after the discoverer (the local name is Arkatag).

Turning back and reaching approximately the 38th parallel, Przhevalsky went westward through the vast intermountain Valley of the Winds, which he named so because of the constant winds and storms (the valley of the Yusupalik River). To the north of it stretched Aktag, and to the south - Kayakdygtag and the previously unknown ridge Achchikköltag (Moscow). On the southern slope of Kayakdygtag, at an altitude of 3867 meters, Przhevalsky discovered a salt lake, not covered with ice even at the end of December, and called it Non-freezing (Ayakkumkel). Further movement to the south was impossible because of the approaching winter and the great fatigue of pack animals; the detachment headed north, descended into the basin of Lake Lobnor and met the spring of 1885 on its shore.

In early April, Przhevalsky ascended the valley of the Cherchen River to the Cherchen oasis, and from there moved south, discovered the Russian Range and followed it west along the entire length to the Keriya oasis (about 400 kilometers), discovered a short but powerful Muztag ridge adjacent to the Russian . Then the detachment went to the Khotan oasis, crossed the Takla-Makan, the Central Tien Shan in the northern direction and returned to Issyk-Kul in November 1885.

In two years, a huge path has been covered - 7815 kilometers, almost completely without roads. On the northern border of Tibet, a whole mountainous country with majestic ranges was discovered - nothing was known about them in Europe. The sources of the Huang He have been explored, large lakes — Russkoye and Expeditions — have been discovered and described. New species of birds, mammals and reptiles, as well as fish appeared in the collection, and new species of plants appeared in the herbarium.

Already on the Russian border, the great traveler built his small detachment and read out the last order.

"We set off into the depths of the Asian deserts, having with us only one ally - courage; everything else stood against us: both nature and people ... We lived for two years as savages, in the open air, in tents or yurts, and endured that 40-degree frosts, then even greater heat waves, then terrible desert storms.But neither the difficulties of the wild nature of the desert, nor the obstacles from the hostile population - nothing could stop us.We completed our task to the end - we went through and explored those areas of Central Asia , in most of which the foot of a European has not yet set foot. Honor and glory to you, comrades! I will tell the whole world about your exploits. Now I embrace each of you and thank you for your faithful service on behalf of science, which we served, and on behalf of the motherland, which we glorified...

At the end of January 1885, Nikolai Mikhailovich was promoted to major general and appointed a member of the military scientific committee. Przhevalsky became an honorary member of the Moscow Society of Natural Science, Anthropology and Ethnography, received the famous Vega medal from the Stockholm Geographical Society and the Big Gold Medal from the Italian. The Academy of Sciences of Russia awarded the traveler a gold medal with an inscription. "To the first researcher of the nature of Central Asia". He rewards his assistants himself: some received a promotion in rank and each received a military order and a Roborovsky cash prize Przhevalsky persuaded him to prepare for admission to the General Staff Academy, which he himself had once graduated from, Peter Kozlov sent to study at the cadet school.

Russian newspapers regularly wrote about him and his travels. At exhibitions in St. Petersburg, many thousands of people attended his lectures. And then there was no name in Russia more popular than the name of Przhevalsky. Nikolai Mikhailovich was invariably recognized on trains and on the streets. He was approached with requests for benefits, for a place, for a pension, for an early promotion to the next rank.

Friends especially noted, perhaps, the most important features of his character: "Nikolai Mikhailovich was a completely pure person, truthful to the point of naivety, a frank and faithful friend." He always remained sincere in "the manifestation of feelings - sympathy, love, hatred. And when he happened to be mistaken, disappointed in people, he suffered to tears.

Przhevalsky never started a family. “The speech about the general’s wife will probably remain unfulfilled, my years are not those, and my profession is not such as to marry. -Nor, Kuku-Hop, Tibet, etc. - these are my brainchildren.

In 1888, the last work of Przhevalsky "From Kyakhta to the sources of the Yellow River" was published. In the same year, Przhevalsky organized a new expedition to Central Asia. This time, too, Roborovsky and Kozlov were his assistants. They reached the village of Karakol, near the eastern shore of Issyk-Kul. Here Przhevalsky fell ill with typhoid fever. Kozlov wrote: "For a long time we did not want to believe that Przhevalsky could afford to do what he did not allow us, in this case - never drink unboiled water, but he himself ... drank himself and himself admitted it ..."

He lay with a high fever, delirious, at times fell into oblivion. "By all means bury me in Issyk-Kul, on the beautiful shore..." He died on November 1, 1888.

He was placed in his coffin in expeditionary clothes, with his favorite fast-firing Lancaster. So he asked. The place for the grave was chosen twelve versts from Karakol, on a high steep bank. And a modest inscription is inscribed on the gravestone: "Traveler NM Przhevalsky." So he promised.

In 1889 Karakol was renamed Przhevalsk.

Przhevalsky entered the world history of discoveries as one of the greatest travelers. The total length of its working routes in Central Asia exceeds 31.5 thousand kilometers. Having made a number of major geographical discoveries, he radically changed the idea of ​​the relief and hydrographic network of Central Asia. He initiated the study of its climate and paid much attention to the study of flora: personally, he and his colleagues, mainly Roborovsky, collected about 16 thousand plant specimens belonging to 1,700 species, including more than 200 species and seven genera unknown to botanists. Przhevalsky also made a huge contribution to the study of the Central Asian fauna, having collected collections of vertebrates - about 7.6 thousand specimens, among them several dozen new species. Many dozens of animal species are named after Przhevalsky and his companions ...

Przhevalsky only in very rare cases used his right to discover, almost everywhere retaining local names. As an exception, "Lake Russkoe", "Lake Expeditions", "Mount Monomakh's Hat" appeared on the map.

Grandiose exhibitions were held twice in St. Petersburg. The collections collected by Przhevalsky's expeditions included 702 specimens of mammals, 1200 reptiles and amphibians, 5010 specimens of birds (50 species), 643 specimens of fish (75 species), more than 15,000 specimens of plants (about 1700 species).

Faces of history

Russian traveler, explorer of Central Asia; honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1878), major general (1886). He led an expedition to the Ussuri region (1867-1869) and four expeditions to Central Asia (1870-1885). For the first time he described the nature of many regions of Central Asia; discovered a number of ridges, basins and lakes in Kunlun, Nanshan and the Tibetan Plateau. Gathered valuable collections of plants and animals; first described a wild camel, a wild horse (Przewalski's horse), a bear-pischooter and other species of vertebrates.

Nikolai was born in the village of Kimbory, Smolensk province, on March 31 (April 12), 1839. His father, a retired lieutenant, died early, only forty-two years old, leaving in the arms of a young widow, in addition to seven-year-old Nikolai, two more sons - Vladimir and Eugene. The boy grew up under the supervision of his mother in the Otradnoye estate. “I grew up in the village as a savage, my upbringing was the most Spartan, I could leave the house in any weather and early became addicted to hunting. First I shot acorns from a toy gun, then from a bow, and at the age of twelve I got a real gun.”

In 1855, Przhevalsky graduated from the Smolensk gymnasium as the first student and entered the military service as a volunteer. Later, Nikolai Mikhailovich explained his decision as follows. "The heroic deeds of the defenders of Sevastopol constantly fired the imagination of a 16-year-old boy, as I was then." He dreamed of exploits, but reality disappointed him. Instead of feats - drill, in the evenings - cards. Przhevalsky, evading revelry, spent more and more time hunting, collecting a herbarium, and seriously taking up ornithology. Having become an ensign, he submitted a report to his superiors, in which he asked for a transfer to the Amur. The answer was completely unexpected - three days of arrest.

After five years of service, Przhevalsky enters the Academy of the General Staff. In addition to the main subjects, he studies the works of geographers Ritter, Humboldt, Richthofen and, of course, Semenov. Upon graduation, he serves as an adjutant in the Polotsk Infantry Regiment.

While still at the academy, Przhevalsky prepared a term paper "Military Statistical Review of the Amur Territory". The manuscript, sent by him to the Russian Geographical Society, received a high opinion from the scientist and traveler Semenov: "The work is based on the most efficient and thorough study of sources, and most importantly, on the most subtle understanding of the country." In 1864, Przhevalsky was elected a full member of the Geographical Society.

Soon, Nikolai Mikhailovich began teaching history and geography at the Warsaw cadet school. He was an excellent lecturer. Using his phenomenal memory, he could recite whole pages from the diaries of his favorite travelers by heart. In 1867, "Notes of General Geography for the Junker Schools" prepared by N. M. Przhevalsky were published.

By this time, he had finally secured a transfer to Eastern Siberia. Already in Irkutsk, with the help of Semenov's letters of recommendation, he secured a two-year business trip to the Ussuri Territory. In addition, again, not without the help of Semenov, the Siberian Department of the Geographical Society instructs Przhevalsky to study the flora and fauna of the region, to collect botanical and zoological collections.

With his companion - the young man Yagunov - he went down the Amur, sailed in a boat along the Ussuri, made his way along the paths of an unknown region. “It is somehow strange to see this mixture of forms of the north and south ... In particular, the appearance of a spruce entwined with grapes, or a cork tree and a walnut growing next to a cedar and fir, is striking. A hunting dog looks for a bear or a sable for you, and right next to you can meet a tiger that is not inferior in size and strength to the inhabitant of the jungle of Bengal.

Przhevalsky spent two and a half years in the Far East. Thousands of kilometers have been covered, 1600 kilometers have been covered by route survey. The Ussuri basin, Lake Khanka, the coast of the Sea of ​​Japan... A large article "Foreign population of the Ussuri region" has been prepared for publication. About 300 plant species have been collected; more than 300 stuffed birds were made, and many plants and birds were discovered on the Ussuri for the first time. He begins to write the book "Journey to the Ussuri Territory".

In January 1870, Nikolai Mikhailovich returned to St. Petersburg, in March for the first time he ascended the podium of the Russian Geographical Society. "He was tall, well-built, but thin, handsome in appearance and somewhat nervous. A strand of white hair in the upper part of the temple, with a general swarthy face and black hair, attracted involuntary attention."

He talked about the Ussuri journey and his future plans. His description of the Ussuri Territory revealed such pictures in the life of nature and Russian settlers that those who listened to him were amazed: how was it possible - working alone, except for the dissecting boy, to collect such deep, extensive information ... As a result, he was awarded the Silver medal.

In 1870, the Russian Geographical Society organized an expedition to Central Asia. Przhevalsky, an officer of the General Staff, was appointed its head. "I was assigned to make an expedition to northern China, to those walled possessions of the Heavenly Empire, about which we have incomplete and fragmentary information gleaned from Chinese books, from the descriptions of the famous traveler of the XIII century Marco Polo, or, finally, from those few missionaries who somehow - when and in some places it was possible to penetrate into these countries.

In September 1870, Przhevalsky went on his first expedition to Central Asia. His former student at the Warsaw School, Lieutenant Mikhail Alexandrovich Pyltsov, was traveling with him. Their path lay through Moscow and Irkutsk and further - through Kyakhta to Beijing, where Przhevalsky expected to receive a passport from the Chinese government - official permission to travel to the regions subject to the Heavenly Empire.

Having received a passport, Przhevalsky leaves for Tibet. A small caravan of eight camels carrying expedition equipment has a long way to go.

The Great Gobi Desert met them with 30-degree frosts with winds. They crossed the desert, crossed the mountain range and in December entered the city of Kalgan, where real spring reigned. The travelers replenished their provisions, although they counted mainly on hunting, checked their revolvers and guns. Przhevalsky chose the caravan route, along which, fearing an attack by robber gangs, not a single caravan dared to pass for eleven years.

“Traces of the Dungan extermination were found at every step,” Nikolai Mikhailovich later wrote. “The villages that came across very often were all devastated, human skeletons lay everywhere, and not a single living soul was visible anywhere.”

There were only four people in the detachment, including the chief himself. From food they took with them only a pood of sugar, a sack of rice and a sack of millet. In addition, instruments, herbarium paper, 40 kilograms of gunpowder, 160 kilograms of shot, dozens of boxes of cartridges.

From Beijing, Przhevalsky at the beginning of 1871 moved north, to Lake Dalainor, and made a complete survey of it. Then he headed to the upper reaches of the Yellow River - the Yellow River - by a bypass road, avoiding the villages, the inhabitants of which met travelers with caution, often even hostility. In the summer, he traveled to the city of Baotou and, having crossed the Huang He, entered the Ordos Plateau, which "lies as a peninsula in the knee formed by the bends of the middle reaches of the Huang He." In the northwest of Ordos, he described "bare hills" - the sands of Kuzupcha. "It becomes hard for a person in this ... sandy sea, devoid of any life ... - there is grave silence all around."

Following the course of the Huang He up from Baotou to Dingkouzhen (about 400 kilometers), Przhevalsky moved southwest through the "wild and barren desert" Alashan, covered with "naked loose sands," always ready to "strangle the traveler with their scorching heat," and reached a large, high (up to 1855 meters), but narrow meridional ridge Helanshan, stretched along the Huang He valley. "Having climbed a high peak, from which the distant horizon opens on all sides, you feel freer and for a whole hour you admire the panorama that spreads under your feet. I often stopped in such places, sat on a stone and listened to the silence around me.

But with the onset of winter, I had to turn back. In addition, Poltsov fell seriously ill. He rode with difficulty and often fell from the saddle. Przhevalsky himself froze his fingers on both hands. To the north of the Yellow River, the expedition reached the treeless, but rich in springs, Lanshan ridge, which stands as a "sheer wall, occasionally cut through by narrow gorges," and Przhevalsky traced it along its entire length (300 kilometers), and to the east discovered another ridge, smaller and lower - Sheiten-Ula. Travelers met the New Year in Zhangjiakou.

Przhevalsky walked about 500 kilometers along the valleys along the banks of the Yellow River and found that in these places the great Chinese river has no tributaries and, moreover, the channel itself lies differently than can be seen on the maps. Along the way, he collected plants, mapped the area, made a geological description of rocks, kept a meteorological journal, observed and amazingly accurately recorded the life, customs, customs of the people through whose lands he passed.

But the funds of the expedition were running out, and Przhevalsky was forced to return to Beijing, where he spent a month. In Beijing, he replaced two Cossacks who did not meet his expectations with others sent from Urga (now Ulan Bator), Chebaev and the Buryat Irinchinov, who became faithful companions and reliable friends. In addition, he renovated and strengthened the caravan.

In the spring of 1872, Przhevalsky reached the southern part of the Alashan desert by the same route. "The desert ended ... extremely abruptly ... Behind it rose a majestic chain of mountains." This was eastern Nanshan. Przhevalsky singled out three powerful ranges in the mountain system: Okrainny (Maomaoshan), Malinshan (Lenglonglin) and Qingshilin.

Crossing the deserts of Southern Alashan proved to be especially difficult. Not a drop of water for a hundred miles. Rare wells were often poisoned by the Dungans.

"The hot soil of the desert breathes with heat, like from a stove ... The head hurts and is spinning, sweat pours from the face and from the whole body in streams. Animals suffer no less than us. Camels go with their mouths gaping and doused with sweat, as if with water."

One day it happened that there were only a few glasses of water left. They left at seven in the morning and walked for nine hours, as if on a hot frying pan. "We took one sip into our mouths, so that, at least a little, wetting our almost dried-up tongue. Our whole body was on fire, our head was spinning. Another hour of this situation - and we would have died."

Przhevalsky climbed Mount Gansu, which was considered the highest point of the ridge. “For the first time in my life I was at such a height, for the first time I saw giant mountains under my feet, sometimes furrowed with wild rocks, sometimes tinted with soft green forests, along which mountain streams meandered with shining ribbons. The power of the impression was so great that for a long time I could not tear myself away from a wonderful sight, stood for a long time, as if enchanted, and remembered that day as one of the happiest in a lifetime ... ".

After staying there for about two weeks, he went to the endorheic salt lake Kukunor, lying at an altitude of 3200 meters. "The cherished goal of the expedition ... has been achieved. True, success was bought at the cost of ... severe trials, but now all the hardships experienced have been forgotten, and we stood in complete delight ... on the shores of the great lake, admiring its wonderful dark blue waves."

Having finished surveying the northwestern shore of Lake Kukunor, Przhevalsky crossed the powerful Kukunor ridge and went to the village of Dzun, located on the southeastern outskirts of the marshy Tsaidam plain. He established that this is a basin and that its southern border is the Burkhan-Buddha ridge (up to 5200 meters high). To the south and southwest of Burkhan-Buddha, Przhevalsky discovered the Bayan-Khara-Ula mountains and the eastern section of Kukushili, and between them he discovered a "wavy plateau", which is a "terrible desert", raised to a height of more than 4400 meters. So Przhevalsky was the first European to penetrate into the deep region of Northern Tibet, to the upper reaches of the Yellow River and the Yangtze (Ulan Muren). And he correctly determined that Bayan-Khara-Ula is the watershed between the two great river systems.

They went to the Tibetan Plateau in winter and spent two and a half months at an altitude of 3-4 thousand meters. Przhevalsky recalled that the slightest rise seemed very difficult, shortness of breath was felt, the heart beat very strongly, arms and legs shook, dizziness and vomiting began at times.

There were severe frosts, but there was no fuel, and they spent the nights in a yurt without fire. The bed consisted of a single piece of felt laid on the frozen ground. Because of the cold and high altitude, because of the dryness and thinness of the air, it was impossible to fall asleep - only to forget. But even in oblivion, he was tormented by suffocation, which gave rise to severe nightmares. "Our life was, in the fullest sense, a struggle for existence, and only the awareness of the scientific importance of the undertaking gave us the energy and strength to successfully complete our task."

At the end of the winter of 1873, Przhevalsky returned to Dzun. Having met spring on Lake Kukunor, he went the same way without a guide to the southern outskirts of the Alashan desert. "The boundless sea lay ... loose sands before us, and not without timidity we stepped into their grave kingdom." Along the Helanypan ridge (already with a guide), they moved north in a terrible heat and crossed the eastern part of the desert, and almost died of thirst: the guide lost his way. Passing the western foothills of the Lanshan Range, Przhevalsky passed through the most waterless, "wild and deserted" part of the Gobi and discovered the Khurkh-Ula ridge (the extreme southeastern spur of the Gobi Altai). The thermometer in the sun showed 63°C. Not a single lake on the way; in wells located one from another at a distance of 50-60 kilometers, there was not always water. He returned to Kyakhta in September 1873, never reaching the capital of Tibet, Lhasa.

Through the deserts and mountains of Mongolia and China, Przhevalsky traveled more than 11,800 kilometers and at the same time mapped (on a scale of 10 versts in 1 inch) about 5,700 kilometers. The scientific results of this expedition amazed contemporaries. Przhevalsky gave detailed descriptions of the deserts of the Gobi, Ordos and Alashani, the highlands of northern Tibet and the Tsaidam basin (discovered by him), for the first time mapped more than 20 ridges, seven large and a number of small lakes on the map of Central Asia. Przhevalsky's map was not accurate, because due to very difficult travel conditions, he could not make astronomical determinations of longitudes. This significant defect was later corrected by himself and other Russian travelers. He collected collections of plants, insects, reptiles, fish, and mammals. At the same time, new species were discovered that received his name - Przewalski's foot-and-mouth disease, Przewalski's splittail, Przewalski's rhododendron... Mikhail Alexandrovich Pyltsov, his selfless comrade, was awarded the same honor.

The two-volume work "Mongolia and the country of the Tanguts" (1875-1876), in which Przhevalsky gave a description of his journey, brought the author world fame and was fully or partially translated into a number of European languages.

In St. Petersburg, Przhevalsky was greeted as a hero - speeches, banquets, solemn meetings. The Russian Geographical Society awards him its high award - the Big Gold Medal. He receives the Gold Medal of the Paris Geographical Society and the "highest" awards - the rank of lieutenant colonel, a lifetime pension of 600 rubles annually. They call him "the most remarkable traveler of our time", they put him next to Semenov-Tyan-Shansky, with Krusenstern and Bellingshausen, with Livingston and Stanley ...

In January 1876, Przhevalsky submitted a plan for a new expedition to the Russian Geographical Society. He intended to explore the Eastern Tien Shan, reach Lhasa, which so many generations of European geographers dreamed of seeing, and, most importantly, explore the mysterious Lop Nor Lake. In addition, in those parts, as Marco Polo wrote, a wild camel lives. Przhevalsky hoped to find and describe this animal.

It took almost two months to travel from Moscow through the Urals to Semipalatinsk, where Przhevalsky's faithful companions, Chebaev and Irinchinov, were waiting.

Arriving in Gulja in July 1876, Przhevalsky, together with his assistant Fyodor Leontyevich Eklon, moved up the "smooth as a floor" valley of the Ili and its tributary Kunges in mid-August and crossed the main watershed chain of the Eastern Tien Shan. Przhevalsky proved that this mountain system branches in the middle part: between the branches, he discovered two isolated high plateaus - Ikh-Yulduza and Baga-Yulduza in the upper reaches of the Khaidyk-Gola River, which flows into Lake Bagrashkel. To the south of the lake, he crossed the western extremity of the "waterless and barren" Kuruktag ridge and correctly identified it as "the last spur of the Tien Shan to the Lop Nor desert." Further to the south, "the boundless expanse of the Tarim and Lop Nor deserts spread out. Lop Nor is the wildest and most barren of all ... even worse than Alashan." Having reached the lower reaches of the Tarim, Przhevalsky described them for the first time. On his map, the Konchedarya River received the correct image; a "new", northern branch of the Tarim appeared - the river Inchikedarya. (The Konchedarya, flowing out of Lake Bagrashkel, was then the lower left tributary of the Tarim; now it flows into the northern part of Lake Lobnor during the flood.) The route through the sands of Takla-Makan to the Charklyk oasis in the lower reaches of the Cherchen River (Lobnor basin), also first described by Przhevalsky, allowed him to establish the eastern border of the Takla Makan desert.

Having passed the southern spurs of the Tien Shan, the travelers entered the city of Kurlyu, where the emir was waiting for them, promising to assist the expedition. The emir appointed his faithful man, Zaman-bek, who had once been in the Russian service, to the Russians, and ordered him to be inseparably with the expedition.

Zaman-bek led them to Lobnor by the most difficult road. With the onset of winter, frosts hit about twenty degrees, the rivers had not yet begun, and they had to cross the Tarim River by water. And when the cherished goal seemed very close, before the travelers - where the plain was indicated on the maps, mountains suddenly grew. Even at the crossing over the Tarim, Przhevalsky saw far to the south "a narrow obscure strip, barely noticeable on the horizon." With each passage, the outlines of the mountain range became more and more distinct, and soon it was possible to distinguish not only individual peaks, but also large gorges. When the traveler arrived in Charklyk, the Altyntag ridge, previously unknown to European geographers, appeared before him "an enormous wall, which further to the south-west rose even more and passed beyond the limits of eternal snow ...". In the deep winter of 1876/77 (December 26-February 5), Przhevalsky explored the northern slope of Altyntag more than 300 kilometers east of Charklyk. He established that "in all this space, Altyntag serves as the edge of a high plateau to the side of the lower Lop Nor desert." Due to frost and lack of time, he could not cross the ridge, but correctly guessed: the plateau south of Altyntag is probably the northernmost part of the Tibetan Plateau. Przhevalsky "moved" this border more than 300 kilometers to the north. To the south of Lake Lobnor, according to local residents, the southwestern extension of Altyntag stretches without any interruption to Khotan, and to the east the ridge goes very far, but the Lobnor people did not know where exactly it ends.

In February 1877, Przhevalsky reached a huge reed swamp - Lake Lobnor. According to his description, the lake was 100 kilometers long and 20 to 22 kilometers wide. “I myself managed to explore only the southern and western shores of Lop Nor and make my way in a boat along the Tarim to half the length of the entire lake; it was impossible to go further along shallow and dense reeds. These latter cover the entire Lop Nor, leaving only on its southern shore a narrow (1- 3 versts) a strip of clean water. In addition, small, clean areas are located, like stars, everywhere in reeds ... The water is everywhere bright and fresh ... ".

On the banks of the mysterious Lop Nor, in the "country of Lop", Przhevalsky was second ... after Marco Polo! Nikolai Mikhailovich wrote with legitimate pride: “Again, what was recently dreamed of turned into a fact of reality ... It has not yet been a year since Professor Kessler ... predicted about Lobnor as a completely mysterious lake - now this area known enough. What could not be done for seven centuries was done in seven months." The mysterious lake, however, became the subject of a lively discussion between Przhevalsky and the German geographer Richthofen.

Judging by the Chinese maps of the early 18th century, Lobnor was not at all where Przhevalsky discovered it. In addition, contrary to historical news and theoretical reasoning of geographers, the lake turned out to be fresh, not salty.

Richthofen believed that the Russian expedition discovered some other lake, and the true Lop Nor lies to the north. Nikolai Mikhailovich responded to the remark of the German scientist with a small note in the Izvestia of the Russian Geographical Society. Then he visited Lop Nor for the second time, after which his student Pyotr Kozlov entered into controversy. And only half a century later, the riddle of Lopnor was finally solved.

Lob in Tibetan means "muddy", nor - in Mongolian "lake". It turned out that this swamp-lake changes its location from time to time. On Chinese maps, it was depicted in the northern part of the desert drainless depression Lob. But then the Tarim and Konchedarya rivers rushed south. The ancient Lobnor gradually disappeared, leaving only salt marshes and saucers of small lakes in its place. And in the south of the depression, a new lake was formed, which was discovered and described by Przhevalsky.

He hunted on Lop Nor, studied birds - millions of birds chose the lake as their refuge on the way to Siberia from India. Observing them, the scientist came to the conclusion that migratory birds do not fly along the shortest path, as was thought until then, but along such a route in order to capture places to rest, with abundant food. The collection of Nikolai Mikhailovich was replenished with specimens of rare birds at Lop Nor.

To the east of Lop Nor, Przhevalsky discovered a wide strip of Kumtag sands.

In early July, the expedition returned to Ghulja. Przhevalsky was pleased: he studied Lobnor, discovered Altyntag, described a wild camel, even got its skins, collected collections of flora and fauna.

Here, in Ghulja, letters and a telegram were waiting for him, in which he was instructed to continue the expedition without fail. In the spring, Russia entered the Russian-Turkish war, and Przhevalsky sent a telegram to St. Petersburg with a request to transfer him to the active army. A refusal came with a response telegram: it was reported that Przhevalsky had been promoted to colonel.

Nikolai Mikhailovich had been ill for a long time and strangely, unbearable itching all over his body tormented him. In the last days of August, when the disease subsided, the expedition set off from Kulja in a caravan of 24 camels and three riding horses. But the disease worsened. I had to return to Zaisan, a Russian border post in Southern Altai. Przhevalsky spent several months in the hospital. Here, with the relay from Semipalatinsk, he received a letter from his brother, which reported the death of his mother. "Now, to the series of all adversities, great grief has been added. I loved my mother with all my soul ...".

And a few days later a telegram arrived from St. Petersburg, in which the Minister of War, in connection with the complicated relations with the Bogdykhan government, ordered to return back.

During the travel of 1876-1877, Przhevalsky traveled a little more than four thousand kilometers in Central Asia - he was prevented by the war in Western China, the aggravation of relations between China and Russia, and, finally, his illness. And yet this journey was marked by two major geographical discoveries - the lower reaches of the Tarim with a group of lakes and the Altyntag ridge.

In St. Petersburg, the best doctors looked at him and came to the conclusion that the patient had a severe nervous breakdown and a complete breakdown. They strongly recommended that Nikolai Mikhailovich leave, at least for a while, business and retire to some quiet place in order to improve his health. Przhevalsky goes to Otradnoye.

In the meantime, the scientific world has celebrated his last journey. Nikolai Mikhailovich became an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences. The Berlin Geographical Society establishes the Great Gold Medal in honor of Alexander Humboldt, and the first to be awarded it, Przhevalsky, the London Geographical Society, presents him with the Royal Medal. Baron Ferdinand Richthofen, one of the pillars of geography, publishes a brochure dedicated to Przhevalsky, where he calls him a brilliant traveler. Glory grows and spreads far beyond the borders of Russia...

Having rested, Przhevalsky equips a new expedition. This time he took as assistants the Cossack Irinchinov, Fyodor Eklon, a man reliable in all respects, and his school friend, the young ensign Vsevolod Roborovsky, who already had to survey the area and collect a herbarium; besides, he was also a good draftsman. In total, 13 people gathered in Zaisan, where the equipment from the previous expedition was stored.

In March 1879, Przhevalsky began the journey, which he called the "First Tibetan". From Zaisan, he headed southeast, past Ulungur Lake and along the Urungu River to its upper reaches, crossed the Dzungarian Gobi - "a vast wavy plain" - and fairly accurately determined its size.

The Dzungarian desert met them with storms. Weak glimpses of the sun barely made their way through the rushing suspension of sand and dust, and so every day from nine or ten in the morning until sunset. Moreover, the wind always appeared in one direction. Przhevalsky was the first of the researchers of Central Asia to give an explanation for this.

But it was not this mystery that attracted the desert of storms. It is here and only here that one can meet a wild horse. The locals call it differently: the Kirghiz - "kertag", the Mongols - "takhi", but not a single scientist has seen her.

For hours, Przhevalsky tracked down a wild horse, but he could not get close to the distance of a shot - sensitive, shy animals ... Only once, together with Eklon, Nikolai Mikhailovich crept close enough, but the leader of the herd, sensing danger, fled, dragging everyone else. With annoyance, Przhevalsky lowered the heavy fitting ...

He observed, studied the habits of the horse, and when he received the skin of a wild horse as a gift from a Kirghiz hunter, he was able to describe the animal. For a whole ten years, this skin remained the only copy in the collection of the Museum of the Academy of Sciences, until Grum-Grzhimailo, and later Roborovsky and Kozlov, students of Nikolai Mikhailovich, got new skins. But before Przhevalsky, science did not know at all about the existence of a wild horse, called the Przhevalsky horse.

Another new year - 1880 - met on the road. Severe frosts with winds, mountain passes, on which horses and camels had to be dragged, made the work of the expedition difficult. Chronometers, hidden at night in furs, froze so much that it was impossible to hold them in hands. It was far from always possible to kindle a fire - only a meager supply of fuel remained, and the water had to be drunk a little warm. Food was used sparingly.

Having passed Lake Barkel, Przhevalsky went to the Hami oasis. He further crossed the eastern outskirts of the Gashun Gobi and reached the lower reaches of the Danhe River (the left tributary of the lower Sulehe), and to the south of it he discovered the "huge ever-snowy" Humboldt Ridge (Ulan-Daban). Through the Danjin pass - at the junction of the Altyntag and Humboldt ridges - Przhevalsky went south to the Sartym plain, crossed it and established the beginning of the Ritter ridge (Daken-Daban). Crossing over two other, smaller ridges, he descended to the southeastern part of Tsaidam, to the village of Dzun.

From Dzun, Przhevalsky moved southwest and found out that Kullun here has a latitudinal direction and consists of two, sometimes three parallel chains, which have different names in their various parts. Przhevalsky identified the following ranges of Sasun-Ula and the western part of Burkhan-Buddha; a little to the south - Bokalyktag, which he called the Marco Polo ridge (with a peak of 6300 meters). To the south of Bokalyktag, passing Kukushili, Przhevalsky discovered the Bungbura-Ula ridge, which stretches along the left bank of the Ulan Muren (upper Yangtze).

Farther south, Tibet itself stretched out before the traveler, representing "a grandiose, nowhere else on the globe in such sizes repeating a foot-shaped mass, raised ... to a terrible height. And on this gigantic pedestal are piled up ... vast mountain ranges ... It is as if these giants guard here the hard-to-reach world of sky-high highlands, inhospitable to humans by their nature and climate, and for the most part still completely unknown to science ... ". Beyond the 33rd parallel, Przhevalsky discovered the watershed of the Yangtze and Salween - the latitudinal ridge of Tangla. Passing to the south of a gentle, barely noticeable pass at an altitude of about 5000 meters, Przhevalsky saw the eastern part of the Pyenchen-Tangla ridge.

Several times the expedition was attacked by robbers from the Tangut tribe, who usually robbed the caravans of pilgrims heading to Lhasa. In Beijing and St. Petersburg, Przhevalsky was already considered dead. There were reports in the newspapers telling about his tragic death in the deserts of Tibet. One of the Petersburg newspapers announced that Przhevalsky was alive, but languishing in captivity, and demanded that an expedition be equipped to search for and release him.

Meanwhile, the expedition was about 270-280 kilometers from Lhasa. Here Russian travelers met representatives of the Dalai Lama. A rumor spread in Lhasa that a Russian detachment was going to kidnap the Dalai Lama, and travelers were denied entry to the capital of Tibet, however, under the pretext that the Russians were representatives of a different faith.

Przhevalsky went the same way to the upper reaches of the Yangtze and somewhat west of the previous route - to Dzun From there, he turned to Lake Kukunor and bypassed it from the south. This time, Przhevalsky more thoroughly than on his last expedition, studied the lake, mapped the southern shore, studied the flora and fauna of the surroundings, and then headed to Xining, a city lying at the crossroads of trade routes connecting Tibet and China. From there, he intended to move to the upper reaches of the Yellow River - in areas that had not yet been studied at all.

However, local authorities put forward many good reasons for blocking the expedition's upcoming path. And in the end, convinced of Przhevalsky's adamant decision to go to the intended goal, they intimidated him with bloodthirsty robbers and ruthless cannibals. But Przhevalsky cannot be stopped, he is rushing to the Yellow River.

They went straight from Xining, through ridges of mountain ranges, along alpine meadows, bypassing the deepest abysses, making their way through narrow gorges cut in the mountains by the rapid flow of the Yellow River. In this mountainous region, on the eve of the upper reaches of the Yellow River, they managed to collect a new species - Przewalski's poplar. However, it was not possible to move closer to the upper reaches: the path was blocked either by impassable gorges or steep mountain slopes. For four days they were looking for an opportunity to cross to the other side, but the river turned out to be very stormy ...

Returning to Dzun, Przhevalsky reached Kyakhta through the desert of Alashan and the Gobi. During this journey, he traveled about eight thousand kilometers and photographed more than four thousand kilometers of the way through regions of Central Asia completely unexplored by Europeans. For the first time he explored the upper course of the Yellow River (Huang He) for more than 250 kilometers; in this area, he discovered the Semenov and Ugutu-Ula ridges. He found two new species of animals - the Przewalski's horse and the pisci-eating bear. His assistant, Roborovsky, collected a huge botanical collection: about 12 thousand plant specimens - 1,500 species. Przhevalsky outlined his observations and research results in the book "From Zaisan through Hami to Tibet and the Upper Yellow River" (1883). The result of his three expeditions were fundamentally new maps of Central Asia.

In St. Petersburg, he was again met with honors and awards. He was awarded the Order of Vladimir of the 3rd degree, awarded the title of an honorary member of the Russian, Vienna, Hungarian geographical societies, an honorary doctor of zoology from Moscow University, an honorary member of St. Petersburg University, the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists, the Ural Society of Natural Science Lovers and, finally, titles of honorary citizen of St. Petersburg and Smolensk. The British Society awarded him a gold medal, accompanied by an appeal stating that the achievements of the Russian traveler surpassed everything done by other researchers since the time of Marco Polo.

But both in St. Petersburg and in Moscow, Przhevalsky is annoyed by "the eternal turmoil, the hustle and bustle of the human anthill." He began to have severe headaches and insomnia. Back in June 1881, Przhevalsky bought Sloboda, a small estate a hundred miles from Smolensk, on the shores of the fabulously beautiful Sopsha Lake. Having retired to the estate, he confesses in a letter: "Among the forests and wilds of Smolensk, I lived all this time the life of an expedition, rarely even spent the night at home - all in the forest, on the hunt." In Sloboda, he dismantled collections, processed diaries, wrote reports. The result of each new expedition was a new book.

The thought of exploring the origins of the Huang He haunts him. Soon he submits a carefully thought-out project to the Russian Geographical Society. "Despite the success of my three trips to Central Asia ... inside the Asian continent there is still an area of ​​more than twenty thousand square miles, almost completely unexplored. I consider it my moral duty, in addition to my passionate desire, to go there again."

He decided to gather at least twenty people in the detachment - this should have been enough to fend off attacks. As assistants, Przhevalsky chose Vsevolod Roborovsky and 20-year-old volunteer Pyotr Kozlov, a former clerk at a brewery, in whom Przhevalsky guessed a real researcher.

In early August 1883, they all left St. Petersburg for Moscow, where their faithful comrades, Irinchinov and Yusupov, were already waiting for them, as well as five soldiers from the Moscow Grenadier Corps, allocated under the command of Przhevalsky. At the end of September, they reached Kyakhta, and a month later, an expedition of 21 people went on a hike.

In November 1883, the next, already the fourth trip of Przhevalsky began. From Kyakhta, by the already familiar route, the expedition proceeded to Dzun, which it reached by May 1884. In the southeast of Tsaidam, behind the Burkhan-Buddha ridge, Przhevalsky discovered a barren saline "wavy plateau, often covered with small ... disorderly heaped mountains", continuing far to the southeast. Innumerable herds of wild yaks, kulans, antelopes and other ungulates grazed on the plateau. Having passed this animal kingdom, Przhevalsky went to the eastern part of the Odontala intermountain basin, covered with "many hummocky swamps, springs and small lakes"; along the basin "small rivers wind, partly formed from the same springs, partly running down from the mountains. All these rivers merge into two main streams," connecting to the northeast corner of Odontala. "From here, that is, actually from the confluence of all the waters of Odontala, the famous Yellow River is born" (Huang He). Even the Chinese themselves could not tell anything definite about the origins of their great river. "Our long-standing aspirations were finally crowned with success: we now saw with our own eyes the mysterious cradle of the great Chinese river and drank water from its sources. Our joy knew no end." The good weather, which delighted travelers for several days, "suddenly gave way to a heavy snowstorm, and by morning the temperature dropped to -23 ° C. We had to wait two days until the snow that had fallen so inopportunely melted." Finally, the detachment was able to move further south. Przhevalsky crossed the watershed of the sources of the Huang He and the Yangtze (the Bayan-Khara-Ula ridge), imperceptible from the side of the Tibetan Plateau, and found himself in a mountainous country: "Here the mountains immediately become high, steep and difficult to access." Having examined a small section of the upper reaches of the Yangtze, Przhevalsky decided not to waste time and effort on reaching Lhasa. On the way back, east of Odontala, he discovered two lakes - Djarin-Nur and Orin-Nur, through which the "newborn Yellow River" flowed. He called the first Russian, the second - the name of the Expedition.

Returning to Tsaidam, Przhevalsky proceeded along its southern outskirts, discovered a narrow but powerful Chimentag ridge in the southwest and, thus, almost completely determined the contours of the vast Tsaidam plain. Having crossed the Chimentag and the northwestern spur of the newly discovered Kayakdygtag, the detachment reached the large, wide plain of Kultala, which went "to the east beyond the horizon." Far to the south, in front of Przhevalsky, a giant ridge of a latitudinal direction opened up, which he called Mysterious; its peak was called Caps of Monomakh. Later Zagadochny was named after the discoverer (the local name is Arkatag).

Turning back and reaching approximately the 38th parallel, Przhevalsky went westward through the vast intermountain Valley of the Winds, which he named so because of the constant winds and storms (the valley of the Yusupalik River). To the north of it stretched Aktag, and to the south - Kayakdygtag and the previously unknown ridge Achchikköltag (Moscow). On the southern slope of Kayakdygtag, at an altitude of 3867 meters, Przhevalsky discovered a salt lake, not covered with ice even at the end of December, and called it Non-freezing (Ayakkumkel). Further movement to the south was impossible because of the approaching winter and the great fatigue of pack animals; the detachment headed north, descended into the basin of Lake Lobnor and met the spring of 1885 on its shore.

In early April, Przhevalsky ascended the valley of the Cherchen River to the Cherchen oasis, and from there moved south, discovered the Russian Range and followed it west along the entire length to the Keriya oasis (about 400 kilometers), discovered a short but powerful Muztag ridge adjacent to the Russian . Then the detachment went to the Khotan oasis, crossed the Takla-Makan, the Central Tien Shan in the northern direction and returned to Issyk-Kul in November 1885.

In two years, a huge path has been covered - 7815 kilometers, almost completely without roads. On the northern border of Tibet, a whole mountainous country with majestic ranges was discovered - nothing was known about them in Europe. The sources of the Huang He have been explored, large lakes — Russkoye and Expeditions — have been discovered and described. New species of birds, mammals and reptiles, as well as fish appeared in the collection, and new species of plants appeared in the herbarium.

Already on the Russian border, the great traveler built his small detachment and read out the last order.

"We set off into the depths of the Asian deserts, having with us only one ally - courage; everything else stood against us: both nature and people ... We lived for two years as savages, in the open air, in tents or yurts, and endured that 40-degree frosts, then even greater heat waves, then terrible desert storms.But neither the difficulties of the wild nature of the desert, nor the obstacles from the hostile population - nothing could stop us.We completed our task to the end - we went through and explored those areas of Central Asia , in most of which the foot of a European has not yet set foot. Honor and glory to you, comrades! I will tell the whole world about your exploits. Now I embrace each of you and thank you for your faithful service on behalf of science, which we served, and on behalf of the motherland, which we glorified...

At the end of January 1885, Nikolai Mikhailovich was promoted to major general and appointed a member of the military scientific committee. Przhevalsky became an honorary member of the Moscow Society of Natural Science, Anthropology and Ethnography, received the famous Vega medal from the Stockholm Geographical Society and the Big Gold Medal from the Italian. The Academy of Sciences of Russia awarded the traveler a gold medal with an inscription. "To the first researcher of the nature of Central Asia". He rewards his assistants himself: some received a promotion in rank and each received a military order and a Roborovsky cash prize Przhevalsky persuaded him to prepare for admission to the General Staff Academy, which he himself had once graduated from, Peter Kozlov sent to study at the cadet school.

Russian newspapers regularly wrote about him and his travels. At exhibitions in St. Petersburg, many thousands of people attended his lectures. And then there was no name in Russia more popular than the name of Przhevalsky. Nikolai Mikhailovich was invariably recognized on trains and on the streets. He was approached with requests for benefits, for a place, for a pension, for an early promotion to the next rank.

Friends especially noted, perhaps, the most important features of his character: "Nikolai Mikhailovich was a completely pure person, truthful to the point of naivety, a frank and faithful friend." He always remained sincere in "the manifestation of feelings - sympathy, love, hatred. And when he happened to be mistaken, disappointed in people, he suffered to tears.

Przhevalsky never started a family. “The speech about the general’s wife will probably remain unfulfilled, my years are not those, and my profession is not such as to marry. -Nor, Kuku-Hop, Tibet, etc. - these are my brainchildren.

In 1888, the last work of Przhevalsky "From Kyakhta to the sources of the Yellow River" was published. In the same year, Przhevalsky organized a new expedition to Central Asia. This time, too, Roborovsky and Kozlov were his assistants. They reached the village of Karakol, near the eastern shore of Issyk-Kul. Here Przhevalsky fell ill with typhoid fever. Kozlov wrote: "For a long time we did not want to believe that Przhevalsky could afford to do what he did not allow us, in this case - never drink unboiled water, but he himself ... drank himself and himself admitted it ..." .

He lay with a high fever, delirious, at times fell into oblivion. "Bury me by all means in Issyk-Kul, on a beautiful shore...". He died November 1, 1888.

He was placed in his coffin in expeditionary clothes, with his favorite fast-firing Lancaster. So he asked. The place for the grave was chosen twelve versts from Karakol, on a high steep bank. And a modest inscription is inscribed on the gravestone: "Traveler N. M. Przhevalsky." So he promised.

In 1889 Karakol was renamed Przhevalsk.

Przhevalsky entered the world history of discoveries as one of the greatest travelers. The total length of its working routes in Central Asia exceeds 31.5 thousand kilometers. Having made a number of major geographical discoveries, he radically changed the idea of ​​the relief and hydrographic network of Central Asia. He initiated the study of its climate and paid much attention to the study of flora: personally, he and his colleagues, mainly Roborovsky, collected about 16 thousand plant specimens belonging to 1,700 species, including more than 200 species and seven genera unknown to botanists. Przhevalsky also made a huge contribution to the study of the Central Asian fauna, having collected collections of vertebrates - about 7.6 thousand specimens, among them several dozen new species. Many dozens of animal species are named after Przhevalsky and his companions ...

Przhevalsky only in very rare cases used his right to discover, almost everywhere retaining local names. As an exception, "Lake Russkoe", "Lake Expeditions", "Mount Monomakh's Hat" appeared on the map.

Grandiose exhibitions were held twice in St. Petersburg. The collections collected by Przhevalsky's expeditions included 702 specimens of mammals, 1200 reptiles and amphibians, 5010 specimens of birds (50 species), 643 specimens of fish (75 species), more than 15,000 specimens of plants (about 1700 species).

Przhevalsky - for the glory of Russia

For some reason, Semenov forever remembered the day when he met Przhevalsky. The Military Statistical Review of the Amur Territory, written by a young officer who dreamed of traveling deep into Central Asia and sent by him to the Geographical Society, did not necessarily have to fall into the hands of Semenov. But it hit. And Semyonov, not knowing anything about the author, impartially assessed this work and even wrote a review: "The work was based on a very efficient and thorough study of sources, and most importantly, on the most subtle understanding of the country."

This phrase inspired Przhevalsky, convinced him that he was on the right track, and filled him with hope for a successful future. Their meeting inevitably had to take place - their aspirations are aimed at one thing - at Central Asia - and it did.

Semyonov looked with interest at the tall, well-built figure of Przhevalsky and read in his blue eyes a sincere determination to serve science wholeheartedly, regardless of the difficulties inevitably encountered on the traveler's path. Semyonov asked the young officer about this. He confirmed: yes, he is determined to do everything in order to glorify the science of Russia.

Semyonov is silent. He looks. Then he says:

- But you must understand that now there can be no question of your trip to Asia. The government will not release money for an expedition led by a talented person, but who has not yet proven himself as an explorer and traveler.

“I understand,” Przhevalsky answered, “and I am ready to prove my ability for such a journey.” I propose to go along the banks of the Amur and Ussuri, which, one might say, have not yet been explored, and collect material that may be of value to science. For such a journey, I am well prepared in every respect.

Yes, this expedition would certainly be useful both for society and for yourself. It would bring you exactly the experience that you still lack. However, I must grieve you, Nikolai Mikhailovich, that you yourself must seek funds for your expedition. The Geographical Society is unable to subsidize you now.

Przhevalsky was silent. He did not hope that society would give the necessary money, but he still counted on insignificant assistance. Money, God willing, will be found, but besides them, how many other difficulties associated with the organization of the expedition will have to be overcome ...

Przhevalsky thanked, bowed, left. Semyonov looked after him for some time. “This young man can make a wonderful traveler ... Who knows if he will not be able to reach those places that I could not reach ...”. Semyonov was not mistaken. That is exactly what happened. Przhevalsky became the greatest traveler of the 19th century.

There were no particularly prominent people in his family. Unless Karnila Anisimov Parovalsky, a Zaporizhzhya Cossack who entered the Polish service, received the nobility from Stefan Batory in 1581 and slightly changed his surname to the Polish way. Since then, the Przhevalsky family has gone. Nikolai Mikhailovich's grandfather studied in Polotsk, at a Jesuit school, but quickly changed his mind - apparently, he did not like the future that awaited him, he fled from school. One of his two sons, namely Mikhail Kuzmich, became the father of Nikolai Mikhailovich.

The life of Mikhail Kuzmich himself did not work out. Maybe he was just unlucky. He left military service with the rank of lieutenant - he could not rise to a higher rank and retired due to poor health. As his wife, he chose Elena Alekseevna Karetnikova, the daughter of a wealthy landowner in the Smolensk province, and settled with her in his small estate Otradnoy. He died early, only forty-two years old, when his son Nikolai was seven years old, leaving in the arms of a young widow two more sons - Vladimir and Eugene ...

The boys in Otradnoye lived well and freely. They were not forcibly kept in the house and were allowed to disappear for whole days in the forest and fields. Nikolai quickly learned how to handle a gun and often returned with booty.

He will keep his passion for hunting forever.

At the age of sixteen, he graduated from the gymnasium and, impressed by the exploits of Russian soldiers and officers in the defense of Sevastopol in the Crimean War, begged his mother to let him go to the army. So it was far from accidental that he found himself in the cadet regiment, although the service turned out to be completely different from what he expected. In fact, no one seriously served: the officers got drunk, drove the soldiers to the parade ground, and the junkers were not paid any attention at all and encouraged only if they found drinking companions in them. Przhevalsky was disgusted with this, and he always kept aloof from such amusements. The officers said about him: "He is not ours, but only lives among us."

About that period of his life, Nikolai Mikhailovich later wrote: “After serving five years in the army, trudging around on guard and in all kinds of guardhouses and shooting with a platoon, I finally clearly realized the need to change this way of life and choose a more extensive field of activity where I could spend labor and time for a reasonable purpose. During this period, a huge change took place in my concepts and outlook on life - I well understood and studied the society in which I was.

He enters the Academy of the General Staff, in addition to the basic subjects studied there and necessary for a military man, Przhevalsky absorbs the works of Ritter, Humboldt, Richthofen and, of course, Semenov, devoting all his free time to this study, often sitting at the table until the morning. And finally, the long-awaited order, signed after several hopeless reports with a request to transfer him to service in Siberia. "The staff captain Przhevalsky N. M. was assigned to the General Staff with an appointment for employment in the East Siberian Military District ...".

And so a new life began.

In 1867, already in Irkutsk, with the help of letters of recommendation from Semenov, he secured a two-year business trip to the Ussuri Territory. In addition, again, not without the help of Semenov, the Siberian Department of the Geographical Society instructs Przhevalsky to study the flora and fauna of the region, to collect botanical and zoological collections.

The expedition to the Ussuri region was difficult, but also excitingly interesting. Przhevalsky made magnificent collections and made, in essence, the first serious description of the vast Russian outskirts. For more than two months, without being distracted by any other work, he wrote a report on his journey. The message he made to the Geographical Society convinced everyone who had previously doubted that he was a born explorer. His description of the Ussuri Territory revealed such pictures in the life of nature and Russian settlers that those who listened to him were amazed: how was it possible - working alone, except for the dissecting boy, to collect such deep, extensive information ...

Przhevalsky proved his ability to work independently. The work on the Ussuriysk Territory in the Geographical Society is estimated at the highest score. Now he has the right to count on the society's help in organizing an expedition to Central Asia.

And again Semyonov helps him. By the power of his authority, Semyonov raises money to finance the trip of a young researcher to Asia. Przhevalsky, in anticipation of a decision, is worried, looking for all sorts of extreme ways - just to achieve the implementation of the plan - he is even ready to resign if his immediate superiors categorically refuse him. In the end, he is ready to equip the expedition with his own money!

But everything worked out. The War Ministry determined the means for the expedition, to which they added what they could, the Geographical Society and the Botanical Garden, and inspired Przhevalsky, barely restraining his impatience, writes in his diary: “I received an assignment to make an expedition to Northern China, to those walled possessions of the Heavenly Empire, oh which we have incomplete and fragmentary information gleaned from Chinese books, from the descriptions of the famous traveler of the XIII century, Marco Polo, or, finally, from those few missionaries who, at some time and in some places, managed to penetrate into these countries.

He will pass into these countries and open them to science.

Little was known about those countries, the road to which was blocked by mighty mountain ranges, whose peaks were lost somewhere behind the clouds, endless deserts that stopped the most courageous of travelers. The vast part of the continent, stretching from the Siberian mountains in the north to the great Himalayas in the south, remained, in essence, a "white spot" in geography - exactly the same "white spot" as Central Africa before the travels of Livingston and Stanley and Central Australia before the heroic campaigns Leichhardt and Burke.

Przhevalsky knew, of course, that the Russians had once penetrated into those countries fenced off from the rest of the world by mountains and deserts. In 124Z, Constantine, brother of Alexander Nevsky, the ambassador of his father, Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, Grand Duke of Vladimir, went to Karakorum, the capital of the Mongol Great Khan. Yaroslav himself and his brothers were here. Later, the papal ambassador Plano Carpini made his way here, and even later, the Franciscan monk Odorico, who let in so much fog in the descriptions he left that it was impossible to separate truth from fiction. In the 19th century, several attempts, more or less successful, were made by the British, but the information obtained by them was only superficial, random. That is why, going on the road, Przhevalsky carefully studied the poor experience of the few predecessors who tried to penetrate the countries closed to Europeans.

In September 1870, Przhevalsky went on his first expedition to Central Asia. His former student at the Warsaw School, where Nikolai Mikhailovich taught, Lieutenant Mikhail Alexandrovich Pyltsov, was traveling with him. Through Moscow and Irkutsk, their path lay further - through Kyakhta to Beijing, where Przhevalsky hoped to receive a passport from the Chinese government - official permission to travel to the regions subject to the Heavenly Empire.

Days passed, full of painful expectations, vague promises from Chinese officials, but finally a passport was received, and Przhevalsky, yearning, nervous in fruitless expectation, leaves for Tibet. A small caravan of eight camels carrying expedition equipment has a long way to go. But this is not an expectation - this is a movement towards the goal, and Przhevalsky goes on the road with a light heart.

The great Gobi desert met them with crackling, 30-degree frosts with chilling winds. They crossed the desert, crossed the mountain range and entered the city of Kalgan. It was December, and after severe frosts, the Gobi suddenly plunged into spring: Kalgan was green, and the air was filled with the smell of fresh leaves. A few days spent here allowed travelers to have a good rest and gather strength, replenish provisions, although they relied mainly on hunting, check weapons - revolvers and guns again and again: those areas where Przhevalsky intended to go were engulfed by the Dungan uprising . Dungans - Chinese Muslims - fought for their independence, trying to form a state that was not subject to the Heavenly Empire.

Przhevalsky went to the lake Dalai-nor. He wanted to determine the geographical boundaries of the Mongolian highlands, about which there was only approximate information, and achieve the main goal - to pass into the middle Tibet. From Dalai-nor, he headed to the upper reaches of the Yellow River - the Yellow River - by a bypass road, avoiding the villages, the inhabitants of which met travelers with caution, often even hostility - simply because they had never seen Europeans before.

In the gorges of the huge Alashan ridge, Przhevalsky stands for several weeks, tirelessly working, shooting, hunting, and in the evenings, line by line, covering the pages of the diary in the uneven candlelight. “Having climbed to a high peak, from which a distant horizon opens up on all sides, you feel freer and admire the panorama that spreads under your feet for a whole hour. Enormous sheer cliffs, blocking gloomy gorges or crowning mountain peaks, also have a lot of charm in their original wildness. I often stopped in such places, sat on a stone and listened to the silence around me. It was not disturbed here either by the talk of people's speeches, or by the bustle of everyday life ... ".

And he also thought at such moments that he was now living exactly the kind of life he had always striven for, and that otherwise he would hardly be able to live now.

He walked about 500 kilometers through the valleys along the banks of the Yellow River and found that in these places the great Chinese river has no tributaries and, moreover, the channel itself lies differently than can be seen on the maps. Along the way, he collects plants, maps the area, makes a geological description of the rocks that make up the mountains, keeps a meteorological journal, observes and amazingly accurately captures the life, customs, customs of the people through whose lands he passed.

(To be continued)

Nikolai Mikhailovich Przhevalsky is one of the most famous and famous.

Date of Birth. Childhood

Nikolai was born in March 1839, in the village of Kimbolovo, which was located in the Smolensk province.

His parents belonged to the class of small landowners. Kolya studied at the local Smolensk gymnasium, after which he became a non-commissioned officer of the Ryazan Infantry Regiment.

Youth. Education

After serving a little, and gaining experience, he entered the Academy of the General Staff. During the period of study, Nikolai Mikhailovich wrote several geographical works, for which he was enrolled in the Russian Geographical Society.

The time of graduation from the Academy coincided with the Polish uprising. Not having time to celebrate the end of his studies, he went to suppress the Polish rebellion in Poland, where he stayed for a while.

Przhevalsky taught at the local Junker School of History and Geography. In his spare time he liked to hunt and play cards. They say that he had a phenomenal memory, and therefore victory often smiled at him in the cards.

First expedition

Nikolai Mikhailovich participated in many research expeditions. The first occurred in 1867-1869, he traveled around the Ussuri region. He compiled an ornithological collection, and he also discovered a number of new geographical objects.

Second expedition

In 1876 he went to the Central Asian expedition, during which he was the Altyntag mountains. On the same journey, Przhevalsky compiled a description for Lake Lobnor (he proved that it was fresh).

Third expedition

In 1879, he again went to the same geographical area, where during this expedition (of 13 people), he discovered several mountain ranges, and gave descriptions of local rivers and lakes. Went down the Urungu river

Fourth Expedition (Tibetan)

Nikolai Przhevalsky was tormented by illnesses, but, despite the illness, he went on another expedition in 1883 (of 21 people). This was the Tibetan expedition, which lasted until 1885. Through the river Ugra reached the Tibetan Plateau. He explored the Kunlong region, and found many ridges and lakes in it. He spoke about the Yellow River, about its origins.

Fifth expedition

It took place in 1888. In the village of Karakol, he continued his research and observations. Unfortunately, Nikolai Mikhailovich fell ill. Przhevalsky died in October 1888 from an illness. He was buried Two years before his death, he received the rank of major general of the Russian army.

The value of the works of Przewalski

Nikolai Mikhailovich is an amazing and traveler, the author of many geographical works. Over the years of his activity, he managed to develop a unique methodology for research activities, and safety precautions.

It is worth noting one feature in the travels led by Przhevalsky - not a single person from his team died. It is amazing! Perhaps the fact that only soldiers and officers of the Russian army took part in his expeditions. This provided iron discipline and order.

In addition to the many discovered geographical features, this man discovered a number of new species of horses and camels. Who hasn't heard about the famous Przewalski's horse? The Tibetan bear, by the way, is also the discovery of a Russian traveler.

The British Royal Geographical Society named the Russian traveler Przhevalsky the greatest traveler in the world. Why? For 11 years of travel, he traveled huge distances, about 31,500 kilometers.

In addition, huge zoological collections were collected, many plant herbariums were compiled. Nikolay Przhevalsky is recognized all over the world. In several world institutes he was awarded the title of doctor. Nikolai Mikhailovich is an honorary citizen of St. Petersburg and Smolensk. In 1891, the Russian Geographical Society established a medal and a prize named after the traveler.