Wish we were here: Central Asia
As a teenager I happened upon a somewhat unusual passion – Genghis Khan. Renowned as bloodthirsty conquerors he and his Mongol successors were in fact surprisingly enlightened – tolerant of different religions, promoting intercultural exchange between the regions they conquered, and building a Eurasian trade network on an unprecedented scale – or at least so the book I was reading argued as it gently elided over some of the bloodier massacres… Still, the interest it sparked still lingers and with it a desire to visit Central Asia.
The appeal of such a trip is, understandably, not immediately apparent to most. Currently the region, encompassing various -stans, is best known for various brutal dictators grown fabulously wealthy off the back of oil to build strange follies in the middle of the Central Asian desert. Think Kazkhstan’s bizarre new capital city Nur-Sultan which looks like something conjured from the more fevered dreams of Flash Gordon’s set designers, or the 75m tall golden statue of the president of Turkmenistan that rotates to face the sun…. These have a certain dictator kitsch appeal but not enough to sustain a whole trip.
Underneath these vulgar excrescences, however, lies a region rich in beauty and culture with ancient cities built off the back of the legendary wealth of the Silk Road Tashkent, Bukhara, and perhaps most beautiful Samarkand.
Things to do:
Visit Shah-i-Zinda
Wandering through the ancient city one can visit the Shah-i-Zinda necropolis crowded with jewel-like mausoleums picked out in intricate blues. A little way away lies the stunning Tomb of Tamerlane, the last great steppe conqueror who once sacked Delhi and stacked the heads of slaughtered in a pyramid outside. At the heart of the city lies Registan, a beautiful and ancient public square flanked by yet more stunning architecture.
The lost Louvre of Central Asia
To the west, in the otherwise uncharming town of Nukus, lies a museum dubbed “the lost Louvre of Central Asia”. At its heart is the Savitsky Collection put together by Igor Savitsky an electrician who, as Stalinism purged and executed his country’s greatest artists, saved their works charming and brought them to the back and beyond out of the sight of the grasping KGB. Perhaps the most stunning piece, The Bull by Vladimir Lysenko, stares madly down at you from the wall. Not far off lies another eerie reminder of Soviet madness the strange moon like landscape of what one was the Aral Sea now almost entirely drained by a disastrous Soviet irrigation project.
Fan, Tian Shan, and Pamir Mountains
Out of the wild steppe rises the Fan, Tian Shan, and Pamir Mountains still nearly completely untouched that range from arid vastness to lush greenery studded with shining lakes. An adventurous trekker can drink in some of the world’s most beautiful scenery near undisturbed before venturing back down to sample the cuisine of a region where Persia, Russia, and China collide, and biryanis rub shoulders with dumplings and noodles in this forgotten heart of the Eurasian world island.
