On the Silk Road

Last month, officials from China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan joined together to get the Silk Road listed as an UNESCO World Heritagesite in 2011. Long after its hey day, the Silk Road is attracting still attracting new visitors. The Silk Road Society, a UK based NGO, that according to its mission statement  was “founded to raise awareness in the UK of the regions of Eastern Europe, Central Asia and China through which the ancient Silk Roads traversed, includes blog posts, photos as well as information on related charities. Another site to take a meander at is the Sarajevo, Amman, Istanbul, Bishkek, Xian blog (helpfully shortened to Saramistbixian) a personal travel blog exploring five cities  and surrounding regions on the silk road in five weeks. Besides the well known sites (your Hagia Sophias, your Petras) there are also brief snapshots of life, like this post:

There, I think I finally spelled it right. The memory card holding my photos of Bishkek, including photos of the Kyrgzy National Fine Arts Museum, overgrown parks, Soviet-block architecture, and decay, seems to have broken; so I have little to post from Bishkek, the capital. Which is good — because I wouldn’t want your first impression of this beautiful, but tragic, “stan” to be of the tired city of Bishkek.

Rather, it should be of some of the beauty and wonder of Kyrgzstan — its land and its people. We found the boy and his little sister in the picture above with his family, at their summer yurt, or jailoo, on the road to Naryn. I think I’m going to call him the “golden child” — he’s holding, by its feet, a fly he caught with its wings still frizzing, and then let go. His sister was nonplussed; I knew I had just seen something I’ve only thought truly possible for video game and comic book characters. It was everyday magic. Then again, when you’re in a yurt all summer long, hanging with the family, the horses, sheep and goats, what else are you gonna do for fun, but develop lightning-fast reflexes, excellent animal husbandry and superior horse-back riding skills, at 8?

And as someone who has never rode a horse in my life (I think I’m allergic); I’m impressed.