Kozlov, Petr Kuzmich

Born Oct. 3(15), 1863, in Dukhovshchina, in what is now Smolensk Oblast; died Sept. 26, 1935, in Petergof, now the city of Petrodvorets. Soviet explorer of Central Asia. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (1928).

The son of a herdsman, Kozlov graduated from a military school in 1887. He was a member of the expeditions of N. M. Przheval’skii, M. V. Pevtsov, and V. I. Roborovskii. From 1899 to 1901, Kozlov led a Mongolian-Tibetan expedition to the upper reaches of the Huang, Yangtze, and Mekong rivers, during which important data were gathered on the orography, geology, climate, flora, and fauna of the Tibetan highlands and on little-known eastern Tibetan tribes. The results of the expedition were described in his book Mongolia and Kham (1905–06).

Between 1907 and 1909, Kozlov headed a Mongolian-Szechwan expedition, which discovered the remains of the ancient city of Khara-Khoto (Karakhoto) in the Gobi Desert. Excavations there uncovered objects from the material culture and spiritual culture of the Tanguts, including 2,000 books in Tangut, Chinese, and other languages. The expedition also collected important ethnologic data on the peoples of Mongolia and Tibet . Kozlov set forth the results of the expedition in the book Mongolia and Amdo and the Dead City of Khara-Khoto (1923).

The expedition also gathered much information on zoology, botany, and the like.

From 1923 to 1926, Kozlov made a Mongolian-Tibetan expedition, during which he discovered and investigated Noyon Ula —a royal Hunnish burial ground (beginning of the first century A.D.) in the Khentei (Kentei) Mountains. The journals from this expedition were published under the title Journey into Mongolia, 1923–1926.

Kozlov also lectured extensively to a wide audience. He was elected an honorary member of and awarded medals by the Russian Geographical Society and many foreign geographical societies. A glacier in the Tabyn-Bogdo-Ola Mountain Range has been named after him.