Reading all the travel reports from Westerners,who passed through Kalgan,it is quiteobvious,that the city as such was not very attractive.Russians coming from the West,Chinese traders coming from the East describe the place just in passing,and focus onwhat they have bought or sold there.It seems,that it shares thus a fate with otherChinese cities and places like Dunhuang or the oasis cities in Xinjiang,spaces andplaces,that only exist to be passed through.And yet,in order to understand the place,the workings of tea and fur trade and the inland trade route,it has to be determined,which role Kalgan played for Western traders.Hence the two questions,that I will tryto answer in this paper:Firstly I would like to collect all impressions of the city ofKalgan observed by Western travelers from the late18`"century onwards,andsecondly reconstruct from their observations a"character"of the city.In a second step,I would like to compare and connect the city of Kalgan/Zhangjiakou to other tradecitiesm treaty ports etc.in China,in order to more distinctly elaborate its specificity asgate way city for Russian overland trade.