The Central Asian Falconry Project

Ella Christie (1861-1949) was a Scottish heiress who travelled through Central Asia on two occasions, in 1910 and 1912, publishing her accounts of the journey thirteen years later. An heiress to the industrial fortune of her grandfather, Alexander Christie, the Lady Ella, or “Miss Christie of Cowden” as she preferred to be called, had an… Continue reading Through Khiva to Golden Samarkand: The Remarkable Story of a Woman’s Adventurous Journey Alone through the Deserts of Central Asia to the Heart of Turkestan

Count Konstantin Konstantinovich Pahlen (1861-1923) was a Russian Imperial official who travelled through Central Asia in 1908-1909 for an investigation of the local administration. Born into an protestant aristocratic family from present-day Latvia, Pahlen was to become a provincial governor just like his father. In June of 1908, Emperor Nicholas II ordered the Governing Senate… Continue reading Mission to Turkestan, Being the Memoirs of Count K.K. Pahlen 1908-1909

Carl Mannerheim is that strange anomaly, a future head of state who happened to also mention the tradition of Kyrgyz eagle hunting in his memoirs. Mannerheim is now considered the father of modern Finland, but he was born into the Russian empire and rose in the ranks of the Imperial Russian Army. At the age… Continue reading Across Asia from West to East in 1906-1908

Seven Journeys Eastward, 1898-1912, Among the Cheremis, Kalmyks, Mongols and in Turkestan and to Afghanistan Gustav John Ramstedt was a Finnish linguist and ethnographer described as “one of the great linguistic investigators of Altaic peoples.” Concerned with the question of whether the Finns were descended from Mongols, Ramstedt travelled extensively in the regions of Central… Continue reading Seven Journeys Eastward