223 
1879.] Information regarding the Khirgiz Steppes and Tarhistan. 
latter half of the 13th century, those political events which ushered in the 
two-century dominion of the Mongol Tatars or Tartars over Russia. But 
with the throwing off of that yoke, the confines of our Empire advanced 
with swift strides and with that extension increased the influence of Russia 
in the East. In the 16th century the Government of Moscow subdued 
Kazan (1552) and Astrakhan. Since then the free Cossacks, by moving 
from the valley of the Don and settling on the Yolga, the Yaik (1580), 
the Teruk and in Siberia, have extended still more the confines of Russia. 
Our steady connection, both mercantile and political, with Central 
Asia has in the course of several centuries given us the power to enlarge 
by degrees the circle of our geographical knowledge of that part of the 
world. We have learnt much by questioning the natives of the countries 
of Asia both far and near who have visited us, but we have learnt still more 
from the journeys to such lands of our own countrymen. We, unfortu¬ 
nately, are not in possession of complete knowledge of all these journeys,* 
much less of the geographical results of each of them. We therefore are 
not able to follow, step by step, the gradual collection of Russian geogra¬ 
phical knowledge regarding Central Asia. Nevertheless we do possess a 
sufficiently full treatise of the knowledge obtained in the 16th century. 
This treatise must be reckoned the first complete and purely geographical 
work put together in Russia. We allude to the Chart of the entire Sove¬ 
reignty of Moscow and of the adjacent countries, called “ the Great Survey,” 
and to the compilation explanatory of the Chart entitled “ the Book of the 
Great Survey.” The Chart has not come down to us, but the Book has been 
printed several times. 
In the preface to the last edition of the Book of the Great Survey,f 
Spasski furnishes particulars as to the date of the completion of the Chart 
and of the explanatory book and of its later editions. The beginning of 
the Survey relates to the reign of John IV, who “ in the year 1552 ordered 
the land to be measured and a survey of his kingdom to be made.”| In 
the time of Boris Godoonoff, that is, in the last years of the 16th century, the 
Survey was enlarged, and during the reign of Michael Theodorovitch, or 
about the year 1627, the Ancient Survey “ fell into complete disorder, so 
that henceforth it was not possible to determine the borders of the country 
* Amongst the number of such travels, the journey to the Khanates of Khiva and 
Boukhara of the Englishman Jenkinson in 1558-59 cannot of course be reckoned, even 
though it was carried out from Moscow, and this because it belongs more to Europe than 
to Russia. If moreover it had an influence on the circle of our information regarding 
Central Asia, that influence was very limited. 
f The Book of the Great Survey spoken of was issued, under the auspices of the 
Imperial Society for inquiring into the History and Antiquity of Russia, by Spasski. 
Moscow, 1816. 
I History of Russia by Tatishtsheff, Yol. I, page 506. 
