Himalayan project

This publication of Leo Borkin , cand. Biol. sciences, head of the Center for the Himalayan Scientific Research of the St. Petersburg Union of Scientists, we open a series of articles on the Himalayas. Our newspaper became an information partner of SPBSU on the Himalayan project.

The majestic Himalayas, framing from the south for centuries hiding from Tibet strangers, have long attracted the attention of our compatriots.

Thus, the Decembrist Nikolai Bestuzhev (1791–1855), who was engaged in geographical research in the Trans -Baikal link and conducted meteorological observations, wrote in early 1837 to his brother Pavel from the Petrovsky factory: “We are not awake that we consider ourselves the inhabitants of the Himalayas: the Tibetan ridge with our Gimalayas <...> there is the father of our apple -paces, and stands and stands and stands. other ridges ” [1] .

The highest mountains in the world prevent the penetration of tropical rains (monsoons) to the north of Asia. Climatically (and for many groups of plants and animals and physically), the Himalayas form a powerful barrier to spread. Indeed, the world of Indian jungle has little similarity with Siberian taiga or arid steppes and deserts of Central and Central Asia.

Founder of domestic zoogeography and animal ecology N.A. Severovs (1827–1885) in the report presented on January 26 [February 7] 1877 at the joint meeting of the departments of the physical and mathematical geography of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society in St. Petersburg, substantiated the new division of the so-called Palearctic-the vast territory located in the moderate (intrutal) latitudes of Eurasia and the north of Africa. In the classical article, he indicated that the “natural” southern border of the Palearctic coincides with the “limit of tropical rains”, that is, it is determined by the Himalayas.

Unfortunately, the passionate desire of both the naturalist himself and his followers to examine the nature of the Himalayan region was not realized. At first this was prevented by the “big game”, that is, the geopolitical rivalry between the Russian and British empires. The British tried not to let our travelers to the north of India, believing (and not without reason) that they would also collect an intelligence information. Then, the Soviet government, unknown to scientists, also did not really encourage their field work in this vast region.

As a result, Russian scientific expeditions for the study of the Himalayas were single, and some of them turned out to be almost forgotten for various reasons. Among them, the expedition of the St. Petersburg entomologists of 1912 under the leadership of A.N. Avinova (1884–1949), a chamber-junker of the king and a connoisseur of butterflies, who emigrated to the United States in 1917.

The most widely known the Central Asian expedition of the Roerichs (1925–1928), which took place under the American flag and to American funds. A noticeable contribution to the study of the Himalayas made the Urusvati Institute organized in 1928. The few employees of this, remarkable in their plan for a non-state comprehensive scientific research institution, which is located in the picturesque Kula Valley, collected large material in botany, zoology, ethnography, linguistics, archeology and art, mainly in the western part of the Gimalaev [2] .

Post -Soviet Russia has opened new opportunities for scientific research in the Himalayas, including in the field of natural sciences. A number of Russian expeditions of a geographical and biogeographic nature were carried out, mainly in Nepal [3–4 ] .

In the spring of 2010, members of the St. Petersburg Union of Scientists (SPBSU) also decided to start their field surveys in the all kind of snow monastery. A group of biologists was formed, the personal interests of which were related to the study of plants and animals of mountain and desert parts of Central Asia.

Our first expedition was held in the fall of 2011 in the eastern part of the Indian state, Hima Pratodesh, making two intersections of the Great Himalayan Range.

In the spring of 2013, the second West Himalayan biogeographic expedition to SPBCU was successfully conducted, which examined in the state of Jammu and Kashmir the amazing Kashmir valley and the former high-mountain kingdom of Lada, also known as a small, or Indian, Tibet.

Our third expedition in the spring of 2014 also went to the west of India, but to the southern regions (the States of Rajasthan and Gujarat), since earlier in the Gimalayas, where we wanted to go, catastrophic destruction took place, many people died and the infrastructure was destroyed. Our route went through the ancient mountains arable to the arid coast of the Arabian Sea and the Big Desert Tar on the border with Pakistan.

In the course of these three expeditions that had a comprehensive biogeographic nature, a large scientific material on botany, zoology (ornithology, entomology, herpetology) and hydrobiology was collected. In the Specit Valley, we discovered unique triloid amphibians. The brought collections were transferred to the funds of several institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences to make them available for processing other specialists. In addition to speeches at scientific conferences, a series of articles was published by both us and other authors, members of St. Petersburg State University, biologists of various specialties (botanists, ornithology, herpetology, molecular zoology, hydrobiology), two doctors and four candidates of sciences, and decided to establish the Center for Gimalayan Scientific Research (CNES) within the framework of St. Petersburg. Documents prepared by this initiative group were approved by the Coordination Council of St. Petersburg on May 13 of the same year.

At this stage, several tasks are set before the center:

• in the field of biogeography : a) the study of the plant and animal world in various landscapes and mountain belts in the gradient of heights from the Sylick foothills to Transhimalayas; b) the identification of the southern border of the palearctic and the penetration zones of the palearctic species in the Himalayas;
• in the field of evolutionary theory : the study of an unusual (new) variant of polyploid species in animals;
• In the field of science history : collecting materials on Russian and British expeditions of the XIX - early XX centuries in the Western Himalayas, including photographing the places they have visited.

Currently, the fourth biogeographic expedition to St. Petersburg in the Western Himalayas and to the western outskirts of the Tibetan Highlands is being prepared. It is scheduled for June this year, in connection with which the composition of our center increased at the expense of new specialists.

In the future, it would be desirable to expand the range of Himalayan studies and other areas of science, primarily a geological and geographical cycle. No less fascinating would be field research in the field of humanitarian and social sciences (linguistics, ethnography, religious studies, etc.). However, this is largely determined by the possibilities of interaction between scientists of various specialties within the framework of complex expeditions, which is not always easy, as well as the problem of their financing.

In our Himalayan center, we decided to limit ourselves to the study of the Western Himalayas, which are associated with Pamir through Karakoum. In 2013, we visited the southern foot of this huge mountain ridge going to Tibet. To the north behind Karakorum is desert Kashgar (north-western China) is an ancient focus of civilization, and followed by the mountain country of Tien Shan (Kyrgyzstan), well studied by domestic researchers. Thus, the vast mining systems of Central Asia are connected in one research complex, which is of particular interest to Russian science, which has been working here for almost two centuries.

In our plans, the organization of at least five expeditions in the Western Himalayas, Karakoram and to the western outskirts of Tibet. The main dream of our center is the organization of field research in the still not studied areas lying between the Himalayas and Tibet, where scientific expeditions have not yet visited. I would like to conduct such a pioneer scientific expedition under the Russian flag. But this needs money. Sponsors-patriots, ay!

1. Paseetsky V.M. Geographical research of the Decembrists. M.: Nauka, 1977. S. 155.

2. See Borkin L.Ya. Izvara, N.K. Roerich, Himalayas. St. Petersburg: European House, 2014.

3. For example, Efremov Yu.V. On the geography of Western Tibet // News of the Russian Geographical Society. SPb., 2007. T. 139. Issue. 2. S. 1–10; Ufimtsev G.F. Himalayan notebook: Essays on morphotectonics and geomorphology of Eurasia. M.: Scientific world, 2005.

4. See Koblik E.A., Chernyakhovsky M.E., Volcit O.V., Vasilieva A.B. and Formozov N.A. Some characteristics of the provision of the paramount faunistic line in the Nepal Himalayas // Bulletin of the Moscow Society of Nature Test, the Biological Department. 2000. T. 105. Issue. 4. S. 3–21.