November 29 1870 years
Russian traveler Nikolai Przhevalsky He set out to explore Central Asia. Over three years, he traveled nearly 12 km, made important geographical discoveries, and gained worldwide fame.
The vastness of the desert—that's what I dream of day and night. Give me mountains of gold, I won't trade my wild freedom for them.
By that time, 30-year-old Przhevalsky was already a captain in the General Staff, and his journey had very specific goals: to compile maps of areas of interest to the Russian Empire.
Born into a noble family, he dreamed of discovery and adventure from childhood. He loved solitude and hated the secular life of St. Petersburg and the sedentary life. His passion for travel bordered on vagrancy.
From his youth, he was fascinated by geographical sciences. While studying at the General Staff Academy, he put forward a bold geopolitical project: "to occupy all of Manchuria" and become China's closest neighbor. From then on, his dream expedition was just eight years away.
History must be looked at as a mirror in which all human stupidity is reflected.
He called his journey what it was—a "reconnaissance mission." He took his former student, Second Lieutenant Mikhail Pyltsov, as his assistant. They became the first Europeans to explore the remote regions of Northern Tibet.
Przhevalsky mapped three mountain ranges, the watershed between the largest rivers, the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, indicated geographic coordinates and key heights, collected more than 500 plant species and about a thousand specimens for the zoological collection.
After this, he undertook four more expeditions. He spent nine years, two months, and 27 days in Central Asia, covering 29585 miles and leaving behind 18 thick notebooks containing his observations.
He possessed a phenomenal visual memory, which allowed him not only to write books, but also to win large sums of money at cards.
He died in October 1888, during his fifth journey to Central Asia, after drinking raw water from a stream and contracting typhoid fever. He was buried on the shore of Lake Issyk-Kul. He was 49 years old.
The saddest future awaits me in old age