Tatiana Staats

Following graduation from Vassar College, Tatiana Staats worked as a chanteuse in a boîte de nuit in Tripoli, Libya. Later she returned to academia, specializing in the study of pre-13th century Turkic Languages, principally Classical Uighur. The elder brother of the Dalai Lama, the former chief abbot of sKu-‘bun (“Thousand Images”) Monastery in Tibet, officiated at her wedding.

A Persian and Turkish speaker, Tatiana worked for the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Istanbul, Turkey, before moving to West Berlin, Germany, and then to Peshawar, Pakistan. She also lived in the Philippines and France.

Tatiana is the author of several monographs on Soviet and Chinese Central Asia. She founded the Inner Asia Institute in Washington, DC. Tatiana has translated Russian-language ethnographic articles for the Smithsonian Institution, as well as Kazakh- and Uzbek-language materials for the US Board of International Broadcasting. She is also a prize-winning chef (Air France, Watergate Hotel, etc.)

A published photographer and ornithophile, Tatiana now lives in Florida with her husband.

List of works present in this website