Przhevalsky. Legends and facts

April 12 is not only a day of cosmonautics, but also the birthday of the great our traveler and researcher of Central Asia Nikolai Mikhailovich Przhevalsky. The author of aphorism, under which can be subscribed today all travelers and bloggers: "Travels would lose half of their charms, if it were about them it was impossible to tell". In 2019 marks 180 years since his birth. "My Planet" decided to remember some little-known facts and incredible legends surrounding the name of the scientist.

Money for his first Central Asian expedition Przhevalsky won the cards

Nikolai Mikhailovich Przhevalsky. 1876 year

It is really kind of so. Unlike the fascinating and absolutely unbelieving Dostoevsky, Przhevalsky in his youth was a cold and rational player. "I play in order to win independence," he said. Due to its luck and phenomenal visual memory, which allowed him to win large sums, Nikolai Mikhailovich even got the nickname golden pheasant. He never had more than 500 rubles with him. and did not borrow, and as soon as I won a thousand, immediately went out of the table. Only one day he retreated from his rule and won in one evening 12,000 rubles.! It happened in the winter of 1868 in Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, where Przhevalsky served as a senior adjutant for the headquarters of the seaside region. "Now I can turn out to be a wealthy person and placing it regardless of service," he recorded in his diary.

Przhevalsky believed that family life is not for a traveler. In his expeditions he took only volunteers, only military and only idle

For comparison: Geographical Society and Military Ministry on the organization of the first expedition, 2000 rubles were allocated to Przhevalsky. Annual, she lasted three years old – from 1870 to 1873. So won prhevalsky 12 000 rubles., Of course, we came by the way. And, I must say, after that, Przhevalsky’s winnings, no longer triggered to the maps. But on the second expedition of 1876-1877, he received from the State Treasury already 28,000 rubles. But then he has already become a world famous traveler.

He opened a horse

"The newly open horse," Nikolai Mikhailovich wrote, "called Kyrgyz Kyrgyz, and the Mongols of this, lives only in the wildest parts of the Jungian desert". But not only the horse opened Przhevalsky. He was the first to describe several tens of animals, among which the wild camel, the Tibetan Bear Food, the Bobe Maral and Black Hare, as well as more than 200 plants. In addition to the notorious wild horse, his name is also called the Pestrushka, raznzin, luster, scinturing gecko, and from plants – Buzlock, Zhusgun, Sleeping, Rhododendron, Rogoz, Sage and Shatlar.

How the Przhevalsky expeditions were organized

In the first Central Asian expedition, there were only three people with him in the detachment. In the future, their number has increased. There were several officers in the group, with each soldier-bunker, there were also about ten Cossack-guards and conductors from local. About 15-20 people. Moved on horses. Spent the night in tents or yurts. Loads whose weight sometimes reached 3 tons, carried on camels or yaks – the number of the latter reached 60. The food was extracted by hunting, but just in case she was driven behind her flock of rams. However, the main food served Dzamb – flour from carmen or wheat roasted grains. Firewood was often brought with them. Sometimes turned into merchants and sold specially taken for this purpose.

He was a terrible woman’s naughty

On the photo on the left: Nikolay Przhevalsky in 1860. In the photo on the right: Przhevalsky after hunting in 1876

Przhevalsky believed that family life is not for a traveler. In his expeditions he took only volunteers, only military and only idle. When one of his nearest satellites and friends, Lieutenant Mikhail Pollenov married – by the way, on the sister of Przhevalsky Alexandra, – he immediately struck him out of the following expedition, calling a traitor.

Przhevalsky spent on traveling 11 years of life, overcoming the distance of 31,000 km

Expedition Przhevalsky in the Ussuri Territory and Central Asia

During all this time, no one satellite died despite the fact that there were no doctors in expeditions. Relied exclusively on good health and our avos. "Only hope for happiness and confidence that you can work miracles to the courage – these are the data on which we founded our determination to go ahead of the sowing head, without reasoning about what will happen or what could be".

He was considered a conspiracted sorcerer with an innumerable army

Participants of one of the expeditions

Sometimes had to enter into armed clashes with the local population or bandits. Here’s how Przhevalsky describes one of these battles when 300 Tangov horsemen were attacked: "The whole robbing robbing, approaching the distance near the versts, with a loud guikan, rushed into the attack … Like a cloud, rushed to us a horde, wild, bloodthirsty. And on the other side ahead of their bivouac, in silence, with pritselennymi rifles stood our little bunch – fourteen people for whom was now no other outcome, death or victory … When the distance between us and the robbers dropped to five hundred steps, I ordered: "Pl", And our first volley flew, then the rapid pallet began. However, Tanguts continued to ride as if nothing had happened. Their commander grew a few left from the gang, the shore of the lake himself, and encouraged his subordinates. In a few moments, the horse under the commander was killed, and he himself probably wounded, bent, ran back. Then the whole shaka, who did not shoot down to us less than two hundred steps, immediately turned to the right and disappeared for the nearest collapse. ".

Przhevalsky considered something holy, or the sorcerer. They said that the ours in the boxes carry eggs from which all new and new soldiers hatch

Described simply and briefly, but the battle lasted as many as two hours. During this time, travelers were shot more than 800 bullets and killed 30 attackers. Themselves lost only one horse.

Thanks to the incident among the locals, the legend of the invincibility of the our squad was strengthened, and the Przhevalsky himself was considered to be sainted, or the sorcerer. They said that in the boxes the ours carry eggs, of which all new and new soldiers hatch, bullets reach their guns to the horizon itself, the invisible people are fighting for them and that ours know how to send storms and snowfall and treat any diseases. "Crowds of the people flocked to them on a bow, patients came for healing, parents brought children for blessings," writes in a biographical essay about Przewalsky Mikhail Engeldt. – Near the city of Dalan-China, the expedition met a crowd of a man in two hundred, which, standing on his knees on both sides of the road, diligently prayed great Hubilganu (saint) … The robbers were disappearing at the first hearing about the appearance of ours, and the thing left by them served as a whole settlement … "

Przhevalsky was not an angel

Tibet. Expedition Przhevalsky

He could order to beat the Nagayki conductor who started "not there". And once almost shot the next local guide, which could not find a well in the desert. He stopped him, according to his own words, only the fact that "this is not correlating this thing, but still worsen, since we will probably not find a well without him," and hesitated his (Mongol) from all his strength ". In general, Przhevalsky quite often personally resorted to "strong physical motivation" and was cool not only with conductors.

One Tibetan ruler refused to sell camel expeditions and rams. "Then, without any further reasoning, I planted Dzun-Zasan under the arrest in our camp tent, near which armed clock was set, – writing Przhevalsky in his memoirs. – Assistant Prince, hardly not even more scoundrel, was tied to the open-air chain, and one of the approximate, daring to hit our translator Abdul, was immediately carved. Such measures had the desired action. ".

Not traveler and military intelligence?

It is known that Przhevalsky went away from the Unter-Officer to General Major, but few know that one of the main goals of his expeditions was military intelligence. And he received funding not so much from our geographical society, how much from the General Staff of the our Empire. "Here you can repeat the feats of Cortes, – wrote Przhevalsky in his diary. – Thousands of our soldiers are enough to conquer the whole Asia from Baikal to the Himalayas … Europeans should go here with money in his pocket, with the fitting in one hand and with Nagaika to another to carry in the name of civilization of all these screams of the human race … in my opinion, Only one guns and cannons of Europeans can make any business here. The missionary sermon to which is so reliable in Europe, – voice of blatant in the desert … The best passport for China is the ability to quickly shoot ".

He died quite mysteriously

Lazareza, in which Nikolai Mikhailovich Przhevalsky died. Photo of 1890

It is believed that Przhevalsky died on November 1, 1888 from the abdominal typhoid, at the very beginning of his fifth Central Asian expedition, because he drank the noncomputed river water. It is rather strange, because during the time of the wanderings, which water he did not have to drink. Modern specialists call another diagnosis: lymphogranulomatosis (Lymph nodes cancer). A great traveler on the shore of Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan is buried, near the city of Karakol, who soon by decree Alexander III was renamed Przhevalsk.