This book for the first time gives the Russian reader the opportunity to become fully acquainted with the historical plot, known in foreign literature as the “Great Game” in Asia. Its essence boils down to the fact that during the second half of the 19th century, in the gigantic expanses of Eurasia, the rivalry between the two greatest empires - the Russian and the British - played out in a very dramatic form. The main prize in this “game” was not the “jewel of the British crown” - India, as many English authors claimed, but the opportunity to control vast markets and sources of raw materials in the deep regions of the Eurasian continent. All countries of the Middle East, Central and South Asia, and the Far East - from Turkey to Japan - were involved in this “game” as objects. The Pamirs, due to their geographical lack of exploration and political unexploration, turned out to be the point at which all the contradictions of the powers were focused, and here the “Fight on the Roof of the World” took place - the culminating stage of the “Great Game”