ALEXANDRA Tolstoy, daughter of historian Nicolai Tolstoy and distant cousin of the author of War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy, is to wed the Cossak guide she met on her travels through Uzbekistan in the Russian Orthodox Church in Chiswick this Sunday, September 14th.

Alexandra, graduate of Edinburgh University wrote The Last Secrets of the Silk Road after she and some university friends went on a unique eight month, 5,000 mile, epic journey by horse and camel along the Silk Road, which spans Central Asia, through Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kirghizstan, the Taklamakan Desert and China and was the great trade route between the East and West.

Twenty six at the time, she met Shamil Galimzyanov whilst travelling for three months and 1,700 miles through Uzbekistan to reach China. He was their guide, riding bare chested along the way and, as the only Russian speaker of the group, Alexandra got to know him, his life story and they fell in love.

Having convinced herself that their lives were too different for them to ever be compatible, it took many years for her to finally realise that they were meant to be together. Since becoming engaged, however, she said: ‘‘There are so many things that brought us together — my father sent me to Russia in my gap year, I studied Russian at Edinburgh University and, of course, the Silk Road trip — that I feel it was meant to be.

‘‘I know that wherever we are — riding horses across central Asia or making a living in rural Oxfordshire — we’ll be happy. Even though we are from completely different cultures, I feel that we’re made for each other.’’ They will be married in the Russian Orthodox Church in Harvard Road later this month and it will be followed by a small reception at her parents’ house.