Nikolai Nikolaevich Karazin (1842-1908), very popular during his lifetime, revealed to the reader the newly conquered Central Asia: life, customs, culture of its peoples. The presented novel dilogy - "On the distant outskirts" and "Pursuit of profit" - realistically returns the reader to the era of the 19th century, when not only ascetics and altruists, but also adventurers and nouveau riche went to Asia. Karazin, being a participant and eyewitness to the colonization of Central Asia, was one of the first to capture those unusual artifacts, mentefacts, landscape features for the European eye that became the components, or patterns, of the Turkestan text of Russian culture. The volume is equipped with historical, literary, cultural and ethnographic comments and illustrations by the author. For a wide range of readers.