B. Baradiyn and his travel diaries on Mongolia and Amdo (from the archives of orientalists at the IOM RAS)

The article discusses the starting phases of B. Baradiyn’s long expedition to Lavran. His journals that are housed at the Archives of Orientalists at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences give an account of all stages of the journey. B. Baradiyn was only 27 years old when he was commissioned by the Russian Committee for Middle and East Asian Studies to travel firstly to Urga and then to the Tangut Buddhist monastery of Lavran. The journal “Amdo-Mongolia” gives a description of Dalai Lama XIII’s visit to Mongolia. Being himself a Buddhist and a scholar, B. Baradiyn considers the positive and negative stages of the development of Buddhism in Mongolia, shares his views on the life of the Mongolians and Tibetans. In addition to entering daily notes about his journeys into his travel journals, B. Baradiyn also described all aspects of life of the local population, including history, geography, economics, politics, etc., in which he was deeply interested.