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Alexandra PotaninaTraveler, ethnographer, writer
Date of Birth: 25.01.1843
Country:  China |
Alexandra Potanina - Explorer and Writer
Alexandra Viktorovna Potanina was born on January 25, 1843, in the city of Gorbatov, Nizhny Novgorod Province, into the family of V. N. Lavrovsky, a teacher at the Nizhny Novgorod Theological Seminary. She received her education at home under the guidance of her older brothers and attended a school for girls from the clergy, where she excelled in reading and drawing. In 1866, she became a governess at the city eparchial school. It was in 1872, when she visited her brother Konstantin, who was in exile for revolutionary activities in the town of Nikolsk (Vologda Region), that Alexandra Viktorovna met his friend and fellow exile, Grigory Nikolaevich Potanin (1835-1920).
In 1874, Alexandra Viktorovna and Grigory Nikolaevich got married. The couple moved to Saint Petersburg the same year. Together with her husband, Alexandra Viktorovna participated in four expeditions to Central Asia between 1876 and 1893:
- Northwest Mongolia (1876-1877, from Zaysan through the Black Irtysh Valley), 1879-1880;
- North China, East Tibet, and Central Mongolia (1884-1886, the exploration of the Tibetan Plateau and crossing the Gobi Desert), 1892-1893.
