[1] His father, Esper Alekseevich Ukhtomsky had been an officer in the Imperial Russian Navy during the Crimean War, and had served during the siege of Sevastopol.

After the death of his first wife in 1870 when Uktomksy was only 9 years old,[2] he married 1874 Karin Etholène, the daughter of Adolf Arvid Etholén, who was the Russian governor of Alaska.

[4] Ukhtomsky combined his interests in the occult, aestheticism and Asia with a very firm ultra-conservatism that was implacably opposed to any changes that might threaten the absolute monarchy presided over by the House of Romanov.

[4] Ukhtomsky would later write reports criticising the overzealousness of the local Orthodox clergy in attempting to win converts, and expressed tolerant views regarding Russia's non-Orthodox faiths.

[4] Ukhtomsky criticised the policy of Russification and argued for the loyalty of the Buddhist clergy towards the Russian empire, blaming all of the difficulties in Buddhist-Orthodox relations on the Orthodox Archbishop of Irkutsk, Veniamin.

[5] As one historian noted: "In an age when Tsarist prerogatives were perennially under siege by calls for European style reforms such as parliaments and constitutions the Asianist ideology provided an attractive argument for maintaining the autocratic status quo".

[5] Ukhtomsky believed in the notion originating in Russian folklore of the "White Tsar" as the natural ruler of Asia who would unite the East against the West.

[6] Ukhtomsky came to be the leader of a faction known as the vostochniki ("Easterners") who promoted the ideology of Eurasianism, arguing that Russia had a special bond with Asia.

[5] His expertise in Eastern matters and his high social standing led to him being selected to accompany the Tsesarevich Nicholas on his Grand tour to the East.

Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna bought several thousand copies for various government ministries and departments, and a cheaper edition was subsequently printed.

[10] Ukhtomsky became a close confidant and adviser to the Tsar on matters of Eastern policy and was made editor of the Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti (Saint Petersburg Gazette) in 1895.

Ukhtomsky turned the Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti, previously a liberal newspaper, into a conservative paper that glorified autocracy, which alienated many readers.

[11] Under his editorship, the Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti took a markedly anti-Western line as he warned in one editorial that to "follow slavishly the scientific road of the West [which will only lead] to catastrophes of a revolutionary nature.

"[11] At the same time, his advocacy of his pan-Asian ideas and his defense of the empire's minorities against the policy of Russification won him many critics on the right.

[11] Konstantin Pobedonostsev, the reactionary chief procurator of the Holy Synod, censured the Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti several times for its criticism of the Russification policy that he favored and for the editorials Ukhtomsky wrote in defense of the Jews and the Poles.

[12] The War Minister, Marshal Aleksei Kuropatkin wrote in his diary: "I think that one of the most dangerous features of the sovereign is his love of mysterious countries and individuals such as the Buriat Badmaev and Prince Ukhtomsky.

[15] When the Boxer Rebellion broke out in 1900, it stoked fears of the "Yellow Peril" throughout the world, but Ukhtomsky used the occasion to repeat in a memo to the Emperor Nicholas II his long held beliefs about Asia, arguing that the Boxer Rebellion was fundamentally directed against the Western powers, and that Russia's relationship with China was different in his view.

[7] Ukhtomsky concluded: "There are in essence no borders for us in Asia, and there cannot be any, other than the immeasurable blue sea freely lapping at her shores, as unbridled as the spirit of the Russian people".

[7] Ukhtomsky was dispatched to Beijing to offer Russian support against the Western powers who might seek to take advantage of the situation and push into China.

He would remain an important social figure far beyond Eastern affairs and his editor's duties, becoming a household name in the house of Leo Tolstoy, and through him establishing ties with Doukhobor leader Peter Vasilevich Verigin.

He survived the revolution, and having lost his son in the First World War had to support himself and his three grandchildren by working in a number of Saint Petersburg's museums and libraries, as well as by odd translation jobs before dying in 1921.

Dy Ukhtomsky married Princess Natalia Dimitrieva Tserteleva (1892 - 1942), daughter of philosopher and poet Prince Dimitri Nikolaevich Tsertelev (30 June 1852 - 15 August 1911) and had three children: Dmitri, Alexei (1913 - 1954), and Marianne (1917 - 1924).