Olufsen was fluent in Russian and Usbegic, so he was able to conduct his own interviews with natives, employing only a Tajik interpreter with whom he conversed in Ottoman Turkish. In Bokhara, the travellers "were welcomed as guests" by the Emir, lengthening their stay, with the result that the present study "can be used as a work of reference on the details of the region's architecture, archaeology, customs, religions, traditional costume, and for its profuse illustration from photographs of ethnographic and handcrafted pieces, monuments and local peoples" (Gorshenina, Explorateurs en Asie Centrale. Voyageurs et Aventures de Marco Polo à Ella Maillart, pp. 225).