Соколов Б. С.

The expeditions organized by the Russian Geographical Society in the second halfofthe 19th century make up a distinct epoch in the exploration of Asia. This article is devoted to one ofthe key figures of that epoch, Vsevolod Roborovskii (1856-1910), who started his career as zoologist and botanist in the expeditions to Inner Asia, conducted by Nikolai Przhevaskii in 1879-1881 and 1883-1885. After the death ofhis mentor on the shore of Lake Issyk-Kul in 1888, Roborovskii continued a series of Russia’s “Tibetan expeditions,” first in 1889-1890, and then in 1893-1895, when he headed the famous 20-thousand-kilometer-long journey to explore the eastern Tien Shan, Nan Shan, northern Tibet, and Dzhungaria. The expedition collected a large amount of mineralogical,botanical, and zoological specimens and mapped extensive areas of the “unknown high Asia.” In January 1895, while on the Tibetan Plateau, Roborovskii had a stroke which rendered him paralytic. Nonetheless, he continued to study the materials gathered by the expedition for a number ofyears after its return to Saint Petersburg, and published a tl^ee-volume account of its findings in 1899-1901.