Click for Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia Forecast
--Go on a day trip out of Ulaanbaatar driving a tank, shooting different rifles and launching grenades!!! On the   way, enjoy a nice scenery from a beautiful mountain pass!!!
--Go on a tour to nature and nomadic families observing their routine lifestyle!!!...

--Just call to 98206816 or 976 98206816!!!

Available: consulting on route-planning, rent of strong tents, gas stoves, saddles, saddle bags, safety helmets, fishing gears and sleeping bags.
On August 14th, the shamans are to hold a spirit calling ceremony in "The 13th Century" complex found near Tsonjin Boldog Hill. It's at about 75km to east from Ulaanbaatar.
Support Mongolian people by using services provided by the Mongols themselves!!!"-Now, most foreign tourists enter and leave Mongolia with foreign-owned airlines or trains, stay at foreign accommodations, eat at foreign restaurants in Ulaanbaatar and travel in the country with foreign tour companies"/admitted Davaadorj Ts, the Minister of Infrastructure and Trade. 02.10.2007/.
Mongolia travel companions wanted:
30. Looking for people to travel by bike. Ideally following a river, from Ulaanbaatar/let's plan it together/. I'm flexible. A hiking tour would be great too. saraniort@yahoo.fr Tel: 95001082.  28: An Italian lady can go in coming days on a 4 or 5-day Central Eastern Mongolia tour;Read more...

Welcome to Mongolia!

Dear Guest,
Sain bainu?/ "Are you fine?"/. Ta saikhan namarjij bainu?/"Are you having a good autumn?"

It's me, Bolod, a Mongol man who runs a tour operator-the Bolod's Tours and Guesthouse in Mongolia.
Thank you for visiting my live website! It's about Mongolia and the Mongols.
Welcome to the ancestral heartland for more than 12 mln. Mongols who live now in 8 countries/Mongolia/2.7mln/, China/5.8-6.0mln/, Afghanistan/3.0-4.0mln/, Russia/0.8mln/, Iran, Burma, Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan/. ...If we can bring Herat's Moghols, Kyrgyzstan's Sart-Kalmyks, Kuko-nor's Mongols, Russia's Kalmyks and those Hazaras who are clearly of Mongol descent and who want it themselves, back to the central land of their ancestors ?! They wouldn't be coming to Mongolia as refugees, they will be here at home !  ... If Astana is bringing the ethnic Kazaks from different countries to Kazakhstan in order to make their country stronger, why Ulaanbaatar wouldn't consider to do the same?! We have enough land for everybody who wants to settle permanently in Mongolia for the ethnic reason. UN should help us too. When Soviet Union ended up with the splits, Germany has received ethnic Germans from Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and other former republics too. Remember, Turkey received Turks from Bulgaria when Todor Jivkov changed his mind towards them. Ukraine and Russia welcome their ethnic kinsmen from the post-Soviet countries to settle in their countries.

We, the Mongols are even more separated than the ill-fated Kurdish people. Do we know any person, any family or any nation who is happy for being separated ?!

We invite you to visit the country and its people. You will be visiting a people with centuries-old nomadic lifestyle, listening to the absolute silence and breathing  the purest ever air  and seeing the eternal blue sky dominating over this beautiful land on Central Asian plateau:
green taiga forests, the second largest fresh water lake in Siberia, ancient burials, icy streams of crystal clear rivers,  in its north,
two-humped camels, towering sand dunes, green oases with saksaul trees, rocky mountains in scarsely green plains, natural formations of cliffs... in its South,
endless steppes, homeland of best horses, bird gathering at blue lakes, fishing rivers, numerous gazelles, volcanic craters... in its East,
snow capped mountains, great lakes, rock paintings, steep canyons, yak herds and massive sand dunes, mountain and field caves ... in its West!

Discover Mongolia with Bolod's Tours which operates since 1991! Stay comfortably in Bolod's guesthouses operate since 2000! It's a truly experienced native tour operator and guesthouse reccommended by Lonely Planet's "Mongolia" guidebook of 2001/page 139/ and 2005/pages 69, 72/ and its "Trans Siberian Railway" of 2006/p. 263/, "Mongoru"/in Japanese/ by Globe-Trotter/ of 2007-2008/page 56/, "Mongolie" by Petit Fute of 2008-2009/page 86/and on the www.mongoliatourism.gov.mn- the official tourism website of Mongolia.

What's now the situation with Mongolia's tourism like? As Mr. Davaadorj Ts, the Minister of the Manufacturing and Trade admitted on October 2nd, 2007, on TV, "-Now, most foreign tourists enter and leave Mongolia by foreign-owned airlines or trains, stay at foreign-owned accommodations, eat at foreign restaurants and travel with foreign tour companies". It's true, indeed, nowdays.
This country doesn't need foreign investments in fields where the Mongols are capable or must do businesses themselves. What kind of foreign investments does Mongolia indeed need? The country needs foreign investment in manufacturing and technology most!!! Mongolia's rulers must serve in the interests of their own people.

I'm almost one of patriots who want to remain in this  last homeland instead of emigrating abroad as too many Mongols do so. Exodus of its young population and export of Mongol women are the greatest threats to the further existense of  Mongols as a nation...
Nationwide mining boom and gold rush are the greatest threat to Mongolia's nature... The gold may feed the people for 50 years, while preserved Nature-Mother would be able do it for another 5000 years.

Thank you for taking your time visiting my modest website.

I will keep my website live and constantly updated.

Bolod

Some of Mongol-owned restaurants and canteens in Ulaanbaatar:
1. "
Avtai Sain Khaan", a Mongolian meals restaurant with high-quality service in Ulaanbaatar. Located opposite to the USA Embassy. Tel: 99116670.
2. "Ikh Mongol" restaurant\original Mongolian draft beer and food and european food\, Opening hours : 10am to 11pm, located opposite Asa Circus, Tel: 320450
3. "
Ikh Khuraldai" restaurant, located at 400meters to south from Peace Bridge on Chinggis Avenue, tel: 976-11-342511, 976-11-343553

4. "Modern  Nomads" restaurant. www.modernnomads.mn

Web: 
Some of Mongol-owned companies in Mongolia:
1. www.gmobile.mn G-Mobile is the first Mongol-owned cellular operator in Mongolia!!! I'm now with G-Mobile.
2. www.monos.mn - The company's great brand  is "Salimon".

3. "Mill House" LLC, the newest flour making factory: www.millhouse.mn
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Монголчуудын тухай сэтгэгдлүүд\Impressions of the Mongols\эх үүсвэрийг заалгүй хуулахыг хориглоно!!!
Сэтгэгдэл 1: "Two were Mongolian lamas in shabby robes of saffron and crimson, bound at the waist by twisted sashes of faded purple cloth. One lama had a crushed felt hat on his shaven head, the other was bare-headed, and both wore high, leather Mongol boots. The one with hat was tall and rather gaunt, with a long nose, and sunken cheeks below high cheekbones. The other was shorter and more thickset, with a broader face. Both might have been taken for American Indians. As we camp up, they were in the act of replacing their carved snuff-bottles in their belt-purses, having taken them out to exchange them with third man, who had just joined them.
The newcomer was a layman, with a frank, pleasant expression in contrast to the somewhat furtive looks of the lamas. He too would have resembled an American Indian except for the long, drooping moustache under his small, finely chiseled nose. Unlike the lamas, he was wearing a dark blue summer robe of heavy serge, with a red sash, a brown belt hat, and cloth boots. Though the features and dress of all three were so typically Mongol, and unlike anything we had seen in China, I thought I would try the experiment of greeting them in Chinese. The taller monk answered, with quite a strong accent, explaining that he, like many other lamas of the border regions I had visited, often had occasion to deal with the Chinese merchants in buying things for his temple, and had learned their language in that way.
pages 6, 7. "The Land of the Camel" by Schuiler Cammann. 1950. The Ronald Press Company. NewYork.

Сэтгэгдэл 2: " We found the Mongols to be a hospitable people with full, healthy-looking faces and often with handsome and intelligent intelligent features...
In the morning several Mongol men and women looked in on us and very kind-heartedly sewed the extensions on our sleeves and fixed knapsacks for us. The Chinese have a long way to go to match the Mongols in kindness...".
"The Chinese Agent In Mongolia" by Ma Ho-t'ien. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1949.

Сэтгэгдэл 3: " Here, for the first time, we accosted representatives of pure Mongol race; truculent-looking rascals they seemed to us, after the reserved and rather timid Uriankhai/энэ тохиолдолд Тувачуудыг хэлж байна.А.Б/. The natural influence of the wild life and freedom of the open Mongolian plateau could be traced in their careless and reckless manner; they were loud-speaking, rough soldiery, used to a hard life, apt to bully those below them, but respectful to their superiors./page 260/
...Thus we never saw the Khan/of the Durbets/; and much to our regret, for he was a rare type of an hereditary prince of ancient stock, claiming direct descendent from Jenghis Khan himself. One evening two of his sons visited us, giving us thereby an idea of appearance of a Mongol of a good birth. After our dealings with the rift-raft of the herdsmen, with rough soldiers and with primitive hunters, we had grown accustomed to the idea that all Mongols were heavily built, rough, ill-mannered, ugly to look upon, and with leathery faces, but these two Mongol gentlemen astonished us by their indefinable look of breeding and by their charm of manner. Of average height, and lightly built, with clean, sharp-cut features, soft, dark, olive skin and small hands, they showed a marked contrast to their retainers. Their had the refined air, the politeness of manner, courteous style, which belongs only to those Mongols who are accustomed to rule...There is still "spirit" left in the Mongols, judjing by these two men of a good birth; they, at any rate, gave us no impression of decay or deterioration. Turned into the right channels, the Mongol Khans could wield great power to good effect. Even now the tide is turning, and when the nomads have realized their strength and regained their self-reliance, they may also regain their independence..."/pages 269, 270/.
"Unknown Mongolia"/a record of travel and exploration in North-West Mongolia and Dzungaria/ by Douglas Carruthers. 1913. London. Hutchinson & Co

Сэтгэгдэл 4: "Саяын хөдөөний монголчууд огт танихгүй хүнийг зочилсонд би их баярласан, сэтгэл минь их хөдөлсөн. Гэвч надад нэгэн гунигт бодол төрж байна. Тэд одоо мөхөөд байхгүй болсон миний ард түмнийг санагдуулчихлаа. Гайти арлын уугуул- монголжуу төрхтэй хүмүүсийн сүүлийн хэдхэн төлөөлөгчийн нэг нь би\Одоо тэнд чинь гол төлөв африкчууд болон миний ард түмнийг хядсан европчуудын үр садаас цөөн хүн байдаг\. Манайхан үнэндээ, яг саяын монголчууд\малчин 2 айлыг хэлж байна. А.Б\ шиг зочломтгой, цайлган зангаасаа болж мөхсөн юм. Өөрөөр хэлбэл харийнхан тэдний минь зочломтгой занг ашиглан арлыг маань эзлэн авсан юм даа. Бас тэд нар жаргаснаас хойш гадагшаа гардаггүй уламжлалтай байж. Энэ үеээр нь европчууд тэднийг минь жинхэнэ хяддаг байсан. Тэд минь хэт гэнэн, болгоомжгүй байж дээ...". Швейцарын парламентын гишүүн байсан гэх нэгэн авгай 2009 оны намар Төв аймгийн нутагт надад ярьсан билээ.

Сэтгэгдэл 5: "The houseboys, Chinese privates from the Sarachi district of central Suiyuan, tried to crowd into the mess hall, saying that if "that no-account" could come in, they could too. They recognized him as a Mongol by the scarlet vest he wore with his student uniform-no Chinese would wear anything as bright- and Sa-hsien people, as members of the first wave of Chinese migtation into the Mongol grazing lands, are the most open in their scorn of the people they dispossessed.
Their feeling was even more obvious next morning when Fred went to ask the cook for an extra plate of eggs to give Dunguerbo. "Mongol no good!" the Chinese servants said with emphasis. This annoyed us very much, as Dunguerbo had a far finer personality and a much more generous nature than most of the Chinese we had contact with up there"
page127, "The Land of the Camel" by Schuyler Cammann. The Ronald Press Company. New York. 1950.

Сэтгэгдэл 6: "...I call the whole thing a tragedy because it does not give either Chinese or Mongol fair chance. The Mongols at present are, as a race, at a standstill, if they are not dying. Yet with wise treatment they would become again withing 2 generations a proudand self-reliant people. The world needs more and more its pasture lands, to supply civilazation with wool and meat and hides. The Mongols, with Russia on one side of them and China on the other, are powerless. As a nation they are unarmed and incoherent.."
"The Desert Road to Turkestan" by Owen Lattimore. 1929, Boston.

Сэтгэгдэл 7: "Huc and after him, Prjevalsky have described the Tsaidam Mongols as morose and melancolic, speaking little-in fact, hardly better than animals. I was glad to find all those I met quite different from what the accounts of these travelers had caused me expect. Not only they showed themselves ready to do anything for me, but they expected themselves to make my stay agreeable, inviting me, or playing on a rough kind of banjo they manufacture themselves".
page 130, The Land of the Lamas" by Rockhill W.W/a journey into eastern Tibet and Mongolia in 1888-1889/.

Сэтгэгдэл 8: "Away in the distance we had seen some black spots from which faint columns of blue smoke were raising peacefully in the morning air. these were the yurts, or felt tents, of the Mongols, towards which we were making.. .. All round the sides of the tent boxes and cupboards were neatly arranged and at one end were some vases and images og Buddha. In the centre, was fireplace, situated directly beneath the hole of the place. I was charmed with the comfort of the place. The Chinese inns, at which I had so far had to put up, were cold and draughty. Here the sun came streaming in through the hole in the top, and there were no draughts whateever. Nor was there any dust; and this being the tent of a well-to-do Mongol, it was clean and neatly arranged"
-"Among the Celestials" by Captain Younghusband, C.I.E. London. John Murray, Albemarle Street. 1898

Сэтгэгдэл 9: "At Urga, in June, the great meet which the Living God blesses with his presence is an amazing spectacle, reminiscent of the pageants of the ancient emperors. All the elite of Mongolia gather on the banks of the Tola River, dressed in their most splendid robes, and the archery, wrestling, and horse racing are famous throughout the East. This love of sport is one of the most attractive characteristics of the Mongols. It is a common ground on which a foreigner immediately has a point of contact. The Chinese, on the contrary, despise all forms of physical exercise. They consider it "bad form," and they do not understand any sport which calls for violent exertion. They prefer to take a quiet walk, carrying their pet bird in a cage for an airing ; to play a game of cards; or, if they must travel, to loll back in a sedan chair, with the curtains drawn and every breath of air excluded"
page 158, "Across Mongolian Plains" by Roy Chapman Andrews. D. Appleton and Company. New York. 1921.

Сэтгэгдэл 10: "There were several Mongol yurts about, and we had visits from some of the men. They were tall, strong, muscular fellows, but very childish, amused at everything, and very rough in their manners.
Looking on these uncouth, indolent men, it was difficult to imagine that they were the descendants of the wild Tartar ordes, who under Chengiz Khan had conquered China, had penetrated to India, had subdued all Turkestan and Pursia, and swept through Russia even to Central Europe..."-
page 128, "Among the Celestials" by Captain Younghusband, C.I.E. London. John Murray, Albemarle Street. 1898

Сэтгэгдэл 11: "The question naturally arises, Why the Mongols decreasing when they own so good a land? whatever the cause of Mongol decadence, it cannot be through lack of available territory"./page 290/
"Lama-ridden, and fleeced by the Chinese, the Mongols remain in a state of serfdom under their chiefs"./page 293/
"Such questions came to us as the red-coated Mongol horsemen rode near us during the day, sat around the camp-fires with us at night. They could tell us nothing, they were unaware of their ancient greatness. Only the name of Jenghis remained in their memory, and him they treated as a deity and spoke of with reverence"/page 295/
"Let us look at the Mongols of the present day. The traveller in Mongolia, alive to the history and former greatness of the people who dwell there, will recognise much at the present day that corresponds to those old accounts of the Mongols as here quoted. He will note that they are still hardy, still capable of enduring fatigue, cold, and hunger; so far, indeed, as physique goes, the Mongol of to-day is probably equal of the men Jenghis Khan let to battle"./page 306/
"Lamaism in Mongolia has been countenanced, and in every way encouraged, by the Chinese, who were clever enough to realise the influance such an organisation would exercise over nomad people. The Chinese patronized and endowed the monasteries, and granted special privileges to the lamas... Lamaism absorbes a large portion of the male population by inducing a vast majority of men, who under ordinary conditions of life would be the bread-winners and workers, to turn into a species of parasite. The boys, for instance, who in the earlier days devoted their time to martial and physical exercises, camp-work, or herding the flocks, are now entered at early age as students in the lamaseries, and their lives are entirely sacrificed to the forms and services of religion; when grown up, this tends to make them lead idle, useless lives, wholly dependent on others, when they should be independent and self-supporting."
pages 312, 313, "Unknown Mongolia"/a record of travel and exploration in North-West Mongolia and Dzungaria/ by Douglas Carruthers. 1913. London. Hutchinson & Co
/үргэлжлэл бий/

Articles

Foreign Explorers of Mongolia:

-Marco Polo (1273-1275), 

-Ivan Petlin and Andrey Mundov visited Mongolia in summer, 1618.

-Ivan Porshennikov traveled to Mongolia in 1647.

-Fyodor Baikov visited Mongolia in 1654-1656.

-Nikolay Spafarii visited Mongolia 1675.

-Gerbillon (1688-1698),

-Ijsbrand Ides (1692-1694),

-Lange (1727-1728 and 1736),

-Safronii Gribovski traveled to Mongolia in 1794...

-Fuss and Bunge (1830-1831),

-Palladii Kafarov visited Mongolia in 1847-1859. Kafarov found "Secret History of Mongols" in Beijing.

-Fritsche (1868-1873),

-Pavlinov and Matusovski (1870),

-Ney Elias (1872-1873),

-N. M. Przhevalsky (1870-1872 and 1876-1877),

-Zosnovsky (1875), M. V. Pjevtsov (1878),

 -G. N. Potanin (1877 and 1884-1886),

-Count Szchenyi and L. von Loczy (1879-1880),

the brothers Grum-Grzhimailo (x889I~9o),

 -P. K. Kozlov (1893-1894 and 1899-1900), V. I. Roborovsky (1894),

-V. A. Obruchev (1894 1896),

-Futterer and Holderer (1896),

-C. E. Bonin (1896 and 1899),

-Sven Hedin (1897 and 1900-1901),

-K. Bogdanovich (1898),

-Ladyghin (1899-1900)

-Katsnakov (1899-1900).

continued....

An unique image of 1957 Gobi-Altai earthquake:

the Great earthquakes in Mongolia.

Figure 1. Outline of Mongolia superimposed on a shaded relief map of the western United States. The yellow lines on the figure show the portions of the faults that ruptured the ground surface during the three M8+ events that occurred during the 20th century. Six M7+ earthquakes also occurred during the 20th century in Mongolia and produced surface faulting as well, but are only represented as dots on this map.

Mongolia, a country of 2.5 million people living within an area four times the size of California, is a spectacular natural laboratory for studying faults and great earthquakes that occur in the interior of continents far from plate boundaries. During the 20th century, western Mongolia experienced three earthquakes of approximately M8, and another six events of about M7. Figure 1 gives the locations of these events.

Mongolia's Ninja Miners Wreak Environmental Havoc.

Story by Lindsay Beck

"It was a beautiful place before," said the 56-year-old mother of three. "There were two rivers flowing. Look at what they've done. It's all been dug up." Like many in rural Mongolia, Chogtsol is a herder, but in the distance the ninjas are visible -- the thousands who scavenge old mines panning for gold, named for the green pans they wear on their backs that make them resemble the cartoon "Ninja Turtles".For the ninjas, the income earned from the specks of gold clawed from the river bed is a key social safety net in the vast Central Asian country where more than one in three live below the poverty line. But the environmental impact on 's fragile grasslands is putting them in direct conflict with herders, who rely on the pastureland to graze their animals and for whom the country's rivers are an essential source of sustenance. "If we have a river, we have life. Without the river, there is no life there," said Tsetsgee Munkhbayar. A native of Uyanga Som in the central province of Uvurkhangai, Munkhbayar now lives about 400 km (240 miles) away in the capital, Ulan Bator, where he heads an organisation dedicated to saving the Uyanga River. "The nomads are losing their pasture. They're squeezed by mining more and more," he said from his cramped city office, a world away from the windswept grasslands where he was raised.

Gold Rush   Most of the sites where the ninjas work were once legal mines, but inefficient practices mean that often only 60-70 percent of an area's mineral wealth is extracted before the companies move on.That's when the ninjas move in. Estimates of how many Mongolians are involved in the small-scale mining of placer sites -- open-pit mines where minerals can be extracted without tunnelling or blasting -- range from 30,000 to up to 100,000. "To be frank, nobody is reclaiming the land used by ninjas," said Environment Minister I. Erdenebaatar. "At the moment, we don't have regulations or a legal environment to cover the ninjas.”Legal or not, for people like 32-year-old Tsermaa, work as a ninja is a lifeline.Tsermaa, who uses only one name, is spattered with mud as she takes a break from heaving spadefuls of soil into pans and sifting through the frigid sludge in search of glittering specks. She made about 60,000 togrogs (US$52) a month as a midwife before coming to the mining site. Here, she makes nearly five times that, selling her finds to middlemen on site. The global price of gold has risen 25 percent this year to US$650 an ounce. Even as she profits from her work, Tsermaa is aware of the environmental consequences. "It's been very bad for the land. The water here is all polluted," she said. She scans an area resembling a moonscape with hundreds of holes bored deep into the ground and figures hunched over the dried-up river bed sifting through pile after pile of earth and gravel. Nearby, a makeshift ger village has sprung up, the traditional tents transformed from family dwellings into pool halls and small shops.

 Poisoned rivers.  "One word: disaster," is how Munkhbayar responds when asked about the country backing its future on mining. Mining accounts for the bulk of foreign investment and nearly 60 percent of export earnings in , but activists say relying on the industry for economic growth will have environmental consequences the country is ill-prepared to handle. "... Little has been done to systematically assess and address the costs of possible environmental damage from the sector's ongoing and planned activities," the World Bank said in a recent discussion paper. But many in the industry say irresponsible placer operations that walk away without any reclamation work and leave the site ready for scavengers are giving them all a bad name. At the Boroo gold mine, a hard-rock operation owned by Canada's Centerra Gold, slurry is detoxified before it is discharged into the tailings pond, which itself is sealed to prevent leakage into the groundwater. Water from the pond is recycled back into the plant. The mine, its operators say, shows that it is possible to develop the industry responsibly. But for those scavenging the river bed in Uyanga Som, state-of-the-art plants are unheard of. There, the source of the river has been damaged and the impact of the mining may be permanent. "Although placer mining is not large-scale, it has the worst impact on the environment," said Erdenebaatar, the environment minister. "Because it pollutes the river and chemicals might be absorbed into the soil, it has a huge impact on biodiversity.” But even as herders like Chogtsol see the land being destroyed, residents find it difficult to rally against something they also know provides extra income many are desperate for -- particularly those who lost their herds in unusually severe winters around 2000. "It's not wrong that it's being dug up," said Chogtsol, stirring a vat of mare's milk that is fermenting into vodka. "Mongolians should have the wealth." The end 

Swen Hedin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The size and complexity of the famous Swedish explorer Sven Hedin's bibliography rival the scope of his explorations. His books were excerpted, translated and republished in dozens of locations and languages. For the uninitiated, figuring out which version of a Hedin title may contain something of interest and be different from which other title is very difficult. My purpose is to assist in such efforts, not to provide a scholarly research tool for the specialist. A complete bibliography by Willy Hess is listed in section IV below.
        The material here includes primarily his books and in the first instance their English editions. No effort has been made to exhaust the list of non-English editions. However, I devote considerable space to the Swedish and German ones, the former generally being the originals (most published by the firm of Albert Bonnier in Stockholm). His works in German were published almost exclusively by F. A. Brockhaus in Leipzig; the demand for his work in German seems to have been insatiable. Brockhaus often issued full, shorter, and yet shorter versions of the same work, all under the same title, many in popular series for young readers. There were frequent reprints, which I have not attempted to track systematically. Generally I try to identify the first edition; for others, I will cite first of all that which I have been able to examine. I make no attempt to cite, among others, the numerous translations of his work into Japanese or Chinese; it strikes me as even less likely that any readers of this page would prefer their Hedin in Yiddish (yes, such translations do exist!). Reprints of Hedin's works continue to appear--several relatively inexpensive ones having been published in recent years in South Asia.
        For those interested in the numerous photographs and maps Hedin published, unfortunately many of the translations (including some of the standard English ones) and most of these recent reprints are quite inadequate. The best reproductions tend to be in the original Swedish editions and in some of the early "full" translations.
        Those wishing an overview of Hedin's expeditions (at least through 1908) should begin with the summary account in his memoir, My Life as an Explorer. Large sections of the multi-volume accounts of individual expeditions make for dry reading. Hedin was trained in physical geography; I am not sure he figured out or cared how much of his soundings of lakes and measurements of river flow would really interest the average reader. Part of the problem also lies in the nature of much of the exploration--if one floats down the Tarim or slogs across the Tsaidam Plateau in the autumn rains as he did, there is a certain inevitable monotony. It is not always clear how one can best write about that if at the same time one wishes to chronicle the journey.
        An additional problem for the modern reader is that our cultural sensitivity is different from Hedin's. In some ways he is oblivious to many of the aspects of history and culture that so fascinated someone like Aurel Stein. At times Hedin's European arrogance is more than annoying; in our politically correct age, he would be censured. Finally, today's reader may respond unsympathetically to the litany of the cost of his expeditions to his pack horses, mules, and camels, not to mention the wildlife: yaks, camels, asses and antelope. Rare was an expedition in which more than a handful of his pack train came back alive. And he managed to lose more than a few of his human staff as well.
        Where possible, I have examined the books de visu. I have yet to read more than a fraction of them (we are told his published works amount to more than 30,000 pages!). My annotation in many cases is based on information in library catalogues; I have also drawn upon the at times extended descriptions of the publications in the biography by George Kish listed below. Over time, I hope to add some notes and perhaps expand this bibliography into categories not yet covered. These limitations notwithstanding, I hope the material will provide a reasonably thorough guide for the interested reader who wishes to traverse Asia (and some aspects of twentieth-century politics) with Hedin. Suggestions for corrections and additions would be welcome.