Renowned explorer Przhevalsky illustrated in the Presidential Library’s materials

April 12, 2020 marks the 181st anniversary of the birth of Nikolay Przhevalsky (1839–1888), one of the greatest Russian geographers, climatologists, naturalists, and travelers. He devoted eleven years of his life to long expeditions; he walked nearly 31,500 kilometers through the forests of the Ussuri Territory, the endless steppes of Mongolia, the hot sands of the Gobi Desert, and the mountain trails of Tibet.

Nikolay Mikhailovich was born in the village of Kimbrov, near Smolensk. “According to the stories, I grew up very painfully in early childhood and was terribly capricious”, - Przhevalsky recalls in the chapter of Alexander Skabichevsky’s collection dedicated to him A. F. Pisemsky: his life and literary career.

Having chosen a military career, Nikolay Przhevalsky enters the Ryazan Infantry Regiment. In 1856 he was promoted to ensign and a year later went to Petersburg to take an exam at the General Staff Academy. Having entered the Academy, he studied a lot of history and natural sciences, he wrote a number of scientific papers and was accepted into the Russian Geographical Society.

In 1867, Przhevalsky was sent as the leader of a two-year expedition to the Ussuri Territory. Going down the Amur River and climbing the Ussuri River, Nikolay Mikhailovich explores these places for a year and a half, which he loved for the rest of his life. “The official purpose of this trip was to carry out various statistical surveys, next to which could be my personal studies, with the subject: a feasible study of nature and people of the new, little explored region”, - writes Przhevalsky in his book Traveling in the Ussuri Territory. 1867-1869.

Upon his return to Petersburg, he was promoted to major general with the appointment of a member of the Military Scientific Committee of the General Staff.

In the period from 1870 to 1885, Nikolay Mikhailovich conducted four expeditions to Central Asia. The first familiarity with this region lasted three years and was devoted to the study of Mongolia, China and Tibet.

“The border of our country with the Chinese state stretches for thousands of miles” - the diary of the researcher Fyodor Tarapygin quotes in the above-mentioned book The Famous Russian Traveler Nikolay Mikhailovich Przhevalsky.

Przhevalsky collected scientific evidence that the Gobi is not a plateau, but a hollow terrain, and the Nanshan Mountains are not a ridge, but a mountain system.

Nikolay Mikhailovich was the first to penetrate deep into these deserts, the first to go where the European’s foot had not yet set foot. Once, at the border of China with Russia, the merchant Tikhonov presented the traveler with a skin and a horse skull, explaining that the locals had caught the wild animal. Przhevalsky sent the remains to the Zoological Museum of St. Petersburg, from where it was reported that they belong to a hitherto unknown species. The scientist I. S. Polyakov, who studied it, described the discovered animal and named the new species in honor of the discoverer Przhevalsy’s horse.

During the fourth expedition to Tibet, Przhevalsky fell ill with typhoid fever and contracted. Seven years of wandering in the deserts undermined his health, and no treatment could help anymore. The traveler gave his comrades last orders. “Bury me... certainly on Issyk-Kul on the shore, but not to be washed away by water. Make the inscription simple: “Traveler Przhevalsky”. ”On the morning of October 20, 1888, Nikolai Mikhailovich died.

But the life of his research data, observations, and diary entries continued after his death. The Council of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society attended to the publication of the results of his travels, "worthy of our famous traveler and Society". The work of summarizing and publishing the results of Przhevalsky's research activities was raised to the state level - Emperor Alexander III ordered the release of a sufficient amount of money for this.

As a result, we got a great opportunity to learn about the little-studied territories of Russia and neighboring countries thanks to the works of Nikolay Mikhailovich Przhevalsky.