This is a book of travels among the remote cities and deserts of Russian Central Asia - Bokhara and Samarkand as well as Khiva and the River Oxus - where in the last century British and Russian imperialism clashed in the Great Game to win control of the approaches to northern India. Ruled by medieval tyrants, this lawless arena attracted the knights errant of Victorian Britain and Russia (and one notable American) into a lethal tournament of shadows. As he set out into the Soviet Union when it was on the point of disintegration, Philip Glazebrook found that modern Russia has its extreme dangers too. This book was shortlisted for the 1992 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award. The author also wrote "Journey to Kars", "Captain Vinegar's Commission" and "The Gate at the End of the World".