Gombojab Tsybikov | |
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![]() Gombojab Tsybikov in a 1900 portrait | |
Born | Gombojab Tsebekovich Tsybikov 20 April 1873 Urda-Aga, Transbaikal Oblast, Russian Empire |
Died | 20 September 1930 | (aged 57)
Nationality | Buryat |
Occupation(s) | Russian explorer of Tibet, social anthropologist, photographer, educator, statesman |
Gombojab Tsybikov (Russian: Гомбожаб Цэбекович Цыбиков Gombozhab Tsebekovich Tsybikov; Buryat: Цэбэгэй Гомбожаб, Mongolian: Цэвэгийн Гомбожав, alternatively romanized as Gombozhab and Tsybikoff; 20 April 1873 – 20 September 1930) was a Russian explorer of Tibet from 1899 to 1902. Tsybikov specialized in ethnography, Buddhist Studies, and after 1917 was an important educator and statesman in Siberia and Mongolia.[1]
Tsybikov is mostly credited for being the first photographer of Tibet,[2] including Lhasa. His travelogue, issued in Russian in 1919, 1981, and 1991, and translated into several languages (Chinese, Czech, English, French, and Polish), included a lot of materials from Tibetan sources on Tibetan history and first-hand accounts on Tibetan affairs of the time, making it an important reference source.