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In St.Petersburg, in the park right in front of the Admiralty, stands
a bronze bust on a high pedestal - a  monument
to Nikolai Przhevalski. The famous explorer looks eastward into the distance.
Below, a camel is kneeling with its head raised, prepared for any sign
from its master to continue on their route across the endless sands. An
untiring explorer of the unknown regions of the world, Przhevalski was
the first traveler to cross the great deserts of Central and East Asia.
His expeditions and discoveries added to the fame of Russian science.
Nikolai Przhevalski was born in 1839 in the city of Smolensk west of Moscow. Though after finishing a secondary school, he joined the army, a military career had little appeal to him. The young man was far more interested in the study of nature and took every minute of his leisure time to wander in the woods watching wildlife and picking plants for his collection. Feeling the inadequacy of his training, he entered the academy of the General Staff and after graduation taught history and geography at a military school. But his desire to travel and explore the unknown never subsided. Particularly keen on studying Central and East Asia he finally managed to enlist the support of the Geographical Society to launch expeditions to Mongolia, China and Tibet. The explorer spent more than ten years traveling in the saddle across the mountains and arid deserts and sleeping in tents. With a rifle and a surveying compass he covered a distance nearly as long as the equator, filling in many of the blank spaces on the map with the outlines of mountain ridges, lakes and rivers. As a result of his expeditions deserts crossed by his caravan acquired geographical borders. Traveling in deserts, Przhevalski found a great number of species of unknown plants and animals and brought back to Russia extensive botanical and zoological collections, numbering 35.000 specimen. In Western China he discovered a rare species of horse, now known by his name. A staffed specimen of the Przhevalski horse can be seen in the Zoological Museum in St.Petersburg. His four expeditions were all successful but cost him a great physical and emotional strain. Przhevalski explained his success by amazingly good luck. In fact, such expeditions took a born traveler totally committed to his cause, a traveler with a broad scientific background, strong character, energy and determination, and, naturally, sound health and tough muscles. Besides, travels in the wilderness took a person who would not balk at manual work, being ready to load up the camels and saddle the horses, a person who would not be too fastidious about food and lodgings, prepared to make do with whatever comes at hand; who would be an excellent walker and have an agreeable character and easy ways so as to make friends and win people over. Przhevalski fully qualified as such a traveler. He managed to cope with both the hardships encountered in the wilderness and the hostile attitude of native populations. He fulfilled his mission and explored many areas in Central Asia, where he was the first European to set foot in. In 1888 Przhevalski was ready to launch his fifth expedition but contracted typhus and died in Turkestan in the town of Karakol, later re-named Przhevalsk. Before he died, Przhevalski asked his colleagues to bury him in his traveler’s outfit with his favorite gun on the high bank of Lake Issyk-Kul. The great traveler, who had covered thousands of miles of Asian deserts, gave his entire life to exploration. He took up the challenge offered to him by the great and exciting world of nature. The endeavor brought him the excitement and the feeling of fulfillment that only another traveler can fully understand… |