How many of them there were - boys who read “Robinson Crusoe” and “fell ill” with dreams of distant travels and great discoveries... But then life took its toll and the dreams dissolved in everyday life. Grigory Nikolaevich Potanin (1835-1920) is one of the very few and very happy exceptions to this rule. As family legend says, when he was eight years old, he literally devoured the immortal work of Daniel Defoe - and from that moment until the very end of his long life he devoted himself to travel. Time changes words and their meanings. For a modern person, “travel” means a comfortable movement “from point A to point B,” getting acquainted with the sights, etc. And “discovery” is something global, like Columbus’s discovery of America or Magellan’s discovery of the strait named after him. name. And in this sense, Altai, Siberia, China, Tibet, Mongolia were discovered long before Potanin visited them. But for a person like Grigory Nikolaevich, there were plenty of opportunities for discoveries. And it’s not just a matter of “pure” geography, although there were much fewer “blank spots” on the world map after his expeditions. His works and research amaze with the diversity of his interests. He is a historian and economist, biologist, zoologist and geologist who has collected a wealth of material. A special place is occupied by his ethnographic research - right up to the discovery of several previously unknown nationalities. Potanin went on his first expedition at the age of 28, and went on his last when he was 64 years old. On almost all famous expeditions he was accompanied by his wife, Alexandra Viktorovna Potanina (1843-1893), but not just as a life partner, but as an independent researcher. This book presents to the modern reader the results of the expeditions of these two outstanding Russian travelers: Grigory Nikolaevich and Alexandra Viktorovna Potanin. G. E. Potanin is an encyclopedist scientist, a multifaceted personality, a man of bright destiny. A.V. Potanina became the first woman accepted as a member of the famous Russian Geographical Society. The Potanins traveled thousands of kilometers through the unexplored expanses of Altai, Siberia, China, Tibet, and Mongolia. Brilliant scientific research has been carried out and the richest geological and botanical collections have been collected. A huge literary and scientific heritage has been published, which has not lost its scientific significance to this day. And their tireless civic and educational activity, loyalty to the ideals of youth and their main love - Siberia - have earned the grateful memory of Russians. The electronic publication includes all the texts of the paper book and the main illustrative material. But for true connoisseurs of exclusive publications, we offer a gift classic book. The publication is generously illustrated with color and black-and-white images of hard-to-reach, exotic and downright dangerous places visited by the researchers. The gift edition is designed for everyone who is interested in the history of geographical discoveries and loves reliable stories about real adventures. This edition, like all books in the Great Journeys series, is printed on beautiful offset paper and elegantly designed. Editions of the series will adorn any, even the most sophisticated library, and will become a wonderful gift for both young readers and discerning bibliophiles.