The Plague Expedition to Anzob in Russian Turkestan. Photograph album by A.M. Levin, 1899.

Galleries and Reading Room

Library

Shop

Café

We’ll be closed on Monday 6 and Tuesday 7 July, reopening as usual on Wednesday 8 July.

We're running paid user research studies to improve Wellcome Collection online

Take part in research

A presentation album containing thirty-one photographs from the Russian Anti-Plague Expedition to Anzob mountain village in Russian Turkestan (subsequently northwestern Tajikistan) made in the autumn of 1898. Anzob is situated on the southern slopes of the Zarafshan range of the Pamir-Alay Mountains in the valley of the Yaghnob River (a tributary of the Fan Darya River which flows into the Zarafshan River). The plague outbreak started there in summer 1898, caused by the Gissar natural focus located nearby. The area was enclosed and quarantined, and a special expedition departed from Saint Petersburg, led by Duke Alexander Petrovich of Oldenburg (1844-1932), general of infantry, medical doctor and the head of the anti-plague commission since 1897. The party travelled to Krasnovodsk (subsequently Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan) via Crimea and Tiflis, and thence to Samarkand by the Trans-Caspian Railway, stopping at Bukhara and Karmana (summer residence of the Emir of Bukhara), where they had an audience with Emir 'Said Abd al-Ahad Khan (1859-1911)
From Samarkand a small party including Dr Levin, Meshchaninov, the writer and traveller to Central Asia Sergey Mstislavsky (1876-1943), several Cossacks and military officers headed up the Zarafshan and Fan Darya River to Anzob. While following a lesser-known mountain trail, the party unexpectedly entered the infected area and had to stay there and build a disinfection chamber. Eventually the epidemic was successfully stopped with the help of the world's first anti-plague vaccine created in the laboratory of Waldemar Haffkine in 1896
The album follows the expedition route through the Fann Mountains (Pamir-Alay system) to Anzob, and contains views of the mountain ranges, Zarafshan, Fan Darya, and Yaghnob Rivers (including river crossing by the expedition, and several bridges), the mountain villages Marzich (Ayni district), Dardar and Tokfan (Takfon, all in Tajikistan). There are several group portraits of the expedition members going along the narrow passes on the mountain ledges in the Fan-Darya River valley (featuring A.M. Levin), large photographs of Levin carrying out the preventive vaccination against plague in Anzob, quarantine chamber in Tokfan (Meshchaninov is in the centre), and a grotto on the border of the Anzob cordon (featuring Levin and Meshchaninov). Four photographs show Bukhara (street views, the cotton bazaar, the summer palace of the Emir), there is also a group portrait of the mace-bearers of the Emir of Bukhara in Karmana, a view of ruins of the ancient Sarvadan fortress, and two views from the Trans-Caspian Railway (the Skobelev museum in Geok Tepe, Turkmenia, and a camel caravan)

1 photograph album (23 leaves) : 31 photoprints, silver gelatin ; album ca. 21 x 30 cm

The Plague Expedition to Anzob in Russian Turkestan. Photograph album by A.M. Levin, 1899.

Licence and re-use