George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1877-1949) was born in Alexandropol and trained in Kars as both a priest and physician. Gurdjieff travelled in the remotest regions of Central Asia and the Middle East, before gathering pupils in Moscow before the First World War and continuing his work on the move - first to Essentuki in the Caucasus, and then through Tiflis, Constantinople, Berlin and London to the Chateau de Prieure near Paris, where he re-opened his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man in 1922 on a larger scale.
The story of his unremitting search for a real and universal knowledge, and the exposition of his ideas, are unfolded in his major works: Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, Meetings with Remarkable Men, Life is Real Only Then, When 'I am' and Views from the Real World.