On the basis of archival data from previously unpublished documents and manuscripts of the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation, the Bahmetev Archive of Columbia University in the United States, the article provides a clear description of the role of the Eastern Pamirs in the culture of the frontier and Russia's strategy. The authors characterized the activities of the Pamir detachment, from 1889 to 1917 standing guard over the southeastern borders of the Russian Empire, the memoirs, departmental correspondence, reports of officers of the General Staff in different years who served in a unique unit were analyzed. The documents reveal to the reader the mysterious image of “Roofs of the World”, which was formed at the turn of the century before last and at the end of the era of geographical discoveries and under the influence of Russia's territorial expansion in central Eurasia. The beginning of scientific study of the region coincided in time with the Anglo-Russian-Chinese delimitation in Central Asia – a process that actually stretched over more than twenty years. The authors paid special attention to the life of Europeans and the local population in the hard conditions of the Eastern Pamirs, an analysis of the relations of the indigenous population with the Russian military, and the peculiarities of the region’s perception in the late imperial period. The final section of the article shows how the system of border control and interaction with local people, used before 1917, was modernized in the Soviet period and partially preserved in the post-Soviet space.