Reviews for Caravans to Tartary

The average rating for Caravans to Tartary based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-09-18 00:00:00 Travis Schatz Here's how it starts : "The still valley lies like a carpet of felt between cold blue mountains. Near a group of dry-stone dwellings seventeen camels are grazing on sweet rush. Five Kirghiz camel-drivers kneel round a wood fire and enjoy bowls of salty tea. "This is the caravan with which we are to travel. Twice each winter it makes the journey from the encampment of Mulk Ali, near the Chinese border, to Akhandoud, capital of the Wakhan, taking nine or ten days to cover about 125 miles. Its raison d'etre is purely economic: dairy products form the basis of the Kirghiz diet and in winter these are in insufficient supply to meet their needs. They are obliged to go to barter their felts and sheep in exchange for grain from the Wakhi peasants living in the lower valleys. "The Kirghiz are of Turko-Mongolian descent and are also indigenous to Soviet and Chinese Asia. At different time in their past they have been herdsmen and warriors, or simply brigands, depending on the fortunes of their rulers and the accidents of history; since the seventeenth century, however, they and their herds have regularly migrated in summer to the Pamirs. Once the route of pilgrims and merchants, the high plateau has become their province. "In the nineteenth century, war between England and Russia led to the partition of the Pamirs between Russia, China and Afghanistan, but the Kirghiz continued to move freely throughout the area, citizens of no particular country. It was after the Bolshevik revolution that the political situation forced several thousands of them to cross from Russia to China, and later from China to the Afghan Pamirs. They became Afghan subjects and settled there more or less permanently, the rich grassland of the high plateaux providing an adequate supply of food for their flocks. The harshness of the terrain ensured that they were left in freedom, without threat of hostile action from the neighbouring peoples, and in addition they were granted exemption from taxes and from military service, on the understanding that they would continue in their role as vigilant watchdogs of the north-east frontier. "It was in the summer of 1967 that Roland and I had made our first expedition to this region. The Kirghiz chief Hadji Rahman Qul Khan had told us then of the existence of these caravans of two-humped camels which traveled in mid-winter, following the route of the frozen river-beds so as to avoid the high snowy passes. ... an exceptional conjunction of circumstances, together with royal permission to travel in the forbidden area, now made it possible for us to embark on our adventure. "Abdul Wakil, the eldest son of Rahman Qul, is waiting for us in Khandoud ... "His wealth is indicated by the livestock he owns: 10,000 goats and sheep, 100 yaks, 10 horses and 17 camels. We are to join up with the camels. We ride on horses hired from Wakhi peasants. It is the custom for them to accompany their animals, looking after them and walking alongside, leading them by a rope. "After seven hours in the saddle we reach our first stopping place, Sherk, at an altitude of 9,320 feet, and there we are greeted by a rich landowner. His lively young wife runs up to me, lifts my hand to her lips and kisses it. I kiss hers at the same time and, from her friendly smile, I realize that it is exactly the right thing to do. The next day she presents me with a kind of shortbread for the journey, on a tray covered with a cloth. Knowing that the tray must never be returned empty, I give it back with a packet of tea and a small bottle of perfume. "it is minus 20 degrees Centigrade during the night. "Today we cross the Wakhan River by the Sargaz Bridge, so narrow and lightly built that we have to go over one at a time. ... "In the early afternoon we are forced to leave the rapidly narrowing riverbed and negotiate a high pass. Ai Bash opens a bag of sand and sprinkles it over a spit of ice so slippery that the camels could not possibly venture on to it. It is a steep climb. The animals hang back and the camel-drivers have to coax them forward. Every fifty yards the caravan halts so that we can get our breath back. Without warning, the last camel collapses right by the edge of the precipice, and driven by blind instinct, crawls, literally crawls, a distance of several yards: risking their own lives the camel-drivers remove its load so that it can get back on its feet. ... "When I stop for a moment to catch my breath it is the silence, a silence which is total, that makes me dizzy. We spent the night in a cave infested with rats. There are many such caves in the valley: firewood or a few branches are stacked against the outer wall for any travelers who may arrive, reassuring evidence of the tacit cooperation that exists among the nomads of the Pamirs. Fire is vital; before matches made their appearance the camel-driver's most precious possession was his chaqmag or flint-lighter, which was worth a horse in exchange." *** This is primarily an oversize picture book with some text ... *** more quotes "With each day I am increasingly conscious of the monotonous regularity of the various tasks performed by the Kirghiz women. All the morning is spent making bread which, together with the salted milky tea, is the basis of their diet at this season of the year. When the midday meal is over, the afternoon is devoted either to melting ice to provide a supply of water, or to sewing, or very occasionally to their own pursuits. Then once evening meal has been prepared and eaten they go almost immediately to bed." " ... Sometimes Roland goes with them to fetch ice. On the vast frozen expanse of a glittering lake they look like ridiculous dwarfs as they attack the thick ice-pack with repeated blows of an iron bar and fill their bags with the lumps. "The meals offer little variety : mostly meat balls made with minced yak meat, meat soup made from tough leathery mutton, and above all 'ash' - freshly made noodles lightly cooked in stock, very difficult to swallow. "The caravaneers have to put up with a very restricted diet while they are travelling, with only two meals a day, morning and evening, so that they do not interrupt the slow progress of the camels. Once back in camp they spend much time simmering their favorite dish, the 'qurut.' This is a cheese made of curdled milk, hard as stone, which they slowly stir into water to make a thick paste, adding fat and pieces of bread. At this time of the year it is their only milk-based food, as the yaks do not yield much in winter. We appreciate that the bowl of milk we are offered each day is a generous gesture of hospitality. "One of the women's duties is to milk the yaks, beasts that are a sort of compromise between a goat and mammoth, and wear an expression of permanent bad temper ... but its dung is the best fuel available in the high plateaux of Central Asia ..."

Review # 2 was written on 2012-07-29 00:00:00 Mark Williams Outstanding book of a world that almost certainly no longer exists - two books in fact. The first half documents the Michaud's journey with a Kirghiz winter caravan along the Wakhan Corridor, that narrow spit of land in northeast Afghanistan between the Pamirs and the Karakorams, and which originally served as a buffer between the British and Russian empires, but which today separates Tajikistan and Pakistan. The text is brief but descriptive - but as with their other projects, its the photos that are the heart of the book. The second half is a more random overview of life in the villages, caravanserai and steppes of northern Afghanistan at the end of their journey. It features stunning portraits and photos of daily life (teahouses, markets, weddings, etc.), and then ends with an excellent final section - both in its text and photos - on the insane Afghan sport of boz-kashi, which is a kind of cross between polo, rugby and Armageddon, (you can see it on YouTube or in the grossly under-appreciated - IMHO - "Rambo 3"). Sadly, while these photos from the 1970's represent a life largely unchanged since Alexander's time (read Steven Pressfield's excellent The Afghan Campaign if you don't believe me), I doubt that much of this has survived the endless warfare that began with the Soviet invasion in 1979 and continues to this day, and such exotic Silk Road destinations as Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz and Faizabad are better known today for much sadder reasons. SIDE NOTE: As with most books purchased in Nepal (where I bought this back in the early 90's), this was imported through India - and so the two page map at the beginning was hand-stamped in several places by some bored government censor with the words: "The external boundary of India as depicted in this map is neither accurate nor correct." A pleasant reminder of how back in the early 80's, every foreign magazine in Taiwan had the characters for "Communist Bandit" (共匪) stamped over any picture of Mao, Chou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, etc. What a task that must have been, when Taiwan brought in hundreds of copies of TIME and Newsweek! Ah, good times...