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[the Edge of the World the TILChhiKher § yaae ua of the World The Silk Road to Samarkand We descended the windswept Kunjerab | Today, 18,000 of the 21,000 inhabitants of the County Pass and left the jagged, cloistered peaks of the Kar- are Aryan Tajiks who don’t share the nomadic heritage akorum Range behind us (see NEXUS Issues 2 & 3). The of their Tartar neighbours, the Kirgiz and Uigur who, glaciated terrain gave way to sunny alpine meadows with Han Chinese, make up the remainder of the popu- where bushy, furred marmots sunned themselves on lation. In Tibetan, Tajik means ‘Persian’. As early as 500 boulders or scampered out of the way of our NATCO BCE Darius the First included the Haoma Varga (soma bus as it clattered down the road to the Chinese border . post at Piralee. We completed customs formalities, offi- cially entering the Xinjiang (pronounced Zingjang) Uigur Region of the People’s Republic of China and transferred to another bus. Passing through a long, fertile valley we saw people dressed in thick black cotton-padded coats harvesting a wild reedy grass by hand. Trains of shaggy twin- | : humped Bactrian camels plodded lazily along the dusty road beneath their loads of freshly cut fodder. After a while this valley opened onto a broad, stony plain sur- — * rounded by the snow-capped peaks of the Tagdum Bash 4 Pamir. Here, for the first time, we saw yaks saddled for . ~*~ riding. eaters) of the Pamirs at the edge of his empire. Early Aryan (Iranian) dialects still survive in the Tajik and 134 kilometres and six hours later we arrived in the Wakhan Pamirs. In Persian the place is called Sar-i-koh, main settlement of the Tajik Autonomous County, ‘the Mountaintop’. Taxkurgan (Tashkurgan) - population 5,000 - where we would spend the night. A few miles to the west, the last In the chill dark before dawn we assembled in the rays of sunlight were falling on the Russian Pamirs in featureless compound where we had spent the night, Soviet Tadzhikistan. like many we would stop at along the Silk Road’s lonely stretches. Built in the style of the caravanserai still found In 328 BCE these mountains saw Alexander the Great throughout Central Asia, a high wall of bricks or clay defeat the last of the Sogdian barons and marry one of surrounding a wide courtyard. The various rooms or their daughters, the beautiful Roxana. In the Turki lan- buildings, dormitories, dining rooms, kitchens, work- guage of Central Asia, Taxkurgan means ‘stone towers’ shops etc open out onto this yard, so entry can only be and in the 2nd century CE the geographer Ptolemy made through a gate in the main wall. Later, in Western describes these stone towers as being on the road to the China and Tibet, we saw many Red Army and Public land of silk. Security Bureau barracksas well as markets and residen- tial communities built in the same fashion. Making The Road 500 years later the Buddhist monk and scholar Hsuan Tsang stayed at this stone fort on his way back to The road to Kaxgar (Kashgar) took us through the The Original Tripitaka China. Evading an Imperial Prohibition he left Gansu, Muztagh Ata Mountains where we waited for three crossed the Gobi desert, travelled to Samarkand and | hours while a large bulldozer carved a road through a then entered India by way of the Hindu Kush and collapsed mountainside after which our bus was stuck Peshawar. We journeyed from the Indus to the Ganges, on a boulder overlooking the steep gorge below. More mastering Sanskrit and collecting Buddhist Sutras. His rocks had to be piled under the rear wheels before we adventures were immortalised in the Monkey folk sto- could continue. For much of the journey we didn’t seem ries. Hsuan Tsang was the real Tripitaka. | to travel on any kind of road at all, just following the direction of previous tyre marks while in the distance we XUS New Times Eight - Autumn 1989 We descended the windswept Kunjerab Pass and left the jagged, cloistered peaks of the Kar- akorum Range behind us (see NEXUS Issues 2 & 3). The glaciated terrain gave way to sunny alpine meadows where bushy, furred marmots sunned themselves on boulders or scampered out of the way of our NATCO bus as it clattered down the road to the Chinese border post at Piralee. We completed customs formalities, offi- cially entering the Xinjiang (pronounced Zingjang) Uigur Region of the People’s Republic of China and transferred to another bus. Today, 18,000 of the 21,000 inhabitants of the County are Aryan Tajiks who don’t share the nomadic heritage of their Tartar neighbours, the Kirgiz and Uigur who, with Han Chinese, make up the remainder of the popu- lation. In Tibetan, Tajik means ‘Persian’. As early as 500 BCE Darius the First included the Haoma Varga (soma f o eaters) of the Pamirs at the edge of his empire. Early Aryan (Iranian) dialects still survive in the Tajik and Wakhan Pamirs. In Persian the place is called Sar-i-koh, ‘the Mountaintop’. In the chill dark before dawn we assembled in the featureless compound where we had spent the night, like many we would stop at along the Silk Road’s lonely stretches. Built in the style of the caravanserai still found throughout Central Asia, a high wall of bricks or clay surrounding a wide courtyard. The various rooms or buildings, dormitories, dining rooms, kitchens, work- shops etc open out onto this yard, so entry can only be made through a gate in the main wall. Later, in Western China and Tibet, we saw many Red Army and Public Security Bureau barracksas well as markets and residen- tial communities built in the same fashion. Making The Road The road to Kaxgar (Kashgar) took us through the Muztagh Ata Mountains where we waited for three hours while a large bulldozer carved a road through a collapsed mountainside after which our bus was stuck on a boulder overlooking the steep gorge below. More rocks had to be piled under the rear wheels before we could continue. For much of the journey we didn’t seem to travel on any kind of road at all, just following the direction of previous tyre marks while in the distance we Passing through a long, fertile valley we saw people dressed in thick black cotton-padded coats harvesting a wild reedy grass by hand. Trains of shaggy twin- humped Bactrian camels plodded lazily along the dusty road beneath their loads of freshly cut fodder. After a while this valley opened onto a broad, stony plain sur- rounded by the snow-capped peaks of the Tagdum Bash Pamir. Here, for the first time, we saw yaks saddled for riding. 134 kilometres and six hours later we arrived in the main settlement of the Tajik Autonomous County, Taxkurgan (Tashkurgan) - population 5,000 - where we would spend the night. A few miles to the west, the last rays of sunlight were falling on the Russian Pamirs in Soviet Tadzhikistan. In the chill dark before dawn we assembled in the featureless compound where we had spent the night, like many we would stop at along the Silk Road’s lonely stretches. Built in the style of the caravanserai still found throughout Central Asia, a high wall of bricks or clay surrounding a wide courtyard. The various rooms or buildings, dormitories, dining rooms, kitchens, work- shops etc open out onto this yard, so entry can only be made through a gate in the main wall. Later, in Western China and Tibet, we saw many Red Army and Public Security Bureau barracks as well as markets and residen- tial communities built in the same fashion. In 328 BCE these mountains saw Alexander the Great defeat the last of the Sogdian barons and marry one of their daughters, the beautiful Roxana. In the Turki lan- guage of Central Asia, Taxkurgan means ‘stone towers’ and in the 2nd century CE the geographer Ptolemy describes these stone towers as being on the road to the land of silk. The Original Tripitaka 500 years later the Buddhist monk and scholar Hsuan Tsang stayed at this stone fort on his way back to China. Evading an Imperial Prohibition he left Gansu, crossed the Gobi desert, travelled to Samarkand and then entered India by way of the Hindu Kush and Peshawar. We journeyed from the Indus to the Ganges, mastering Sanskrit and collecting Buddhist Sutras. His adventures were immortalised in the Monkey folk sto- ries. Hsuan Tsang was the real Tripitaka. The road to Kaxgar (Kashgar) took us through the Muztagh Ata Mountains where we waited for three hours while a large bulldozer carved a road through a collapsed mountainside after which our bus was stuck on a boulder overlooking the steep gorge below. More rocks had to be piled under the rear wheels before we could continue. For much of the journey we didn’t seem to travel on any kind of road at all, just following the direction of previous tyre marks while in the distance we NEXUS New Times Eight » Autumn 1989 The Silk Road to Samarkand Making The Road