All of the “stans” were not known as nations during their heyday in the middle ages. People were identified with the oasis they lived in: Samarkand, Bukhara, Tashkent, whatever. The area was inhabited by Turkic people (which comprises many many sub-divisions: Turkomans, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs, Uighurs), and Persian people, and Caucasian tribes and Tibetans and mongoloid races, and other forgotten subgroupings. We are talking about a mecca of multiculturalism. They were always at war with one another, basically. Turkestan was a very complicated collision zone of identities and races. <\/p>\n
The famous medieval “Silk Road” traveled through Turkestan, making the cities along the way internationally known, in an age before mass media. As a matter of fact, for centuries, Turkestan was essential. Over this vast steppe and desert-land, the caravans would come, bringing goods, and information, and technology from China. If Turkestan had been made up of Himalayan-tall mountain ranges, the Silk Road could not have evolved. It is impossible to over-estimate the impact the Silk Road had on the human race. Turkestan’s string of city-states was one of the reasons why this occurred. <\/p>\n
If I had a time machine, one of the places\/times I would KILL to visit would be an oases along the Silk Road. Samarkand, Tashkent. They were Islamic cities, when Islam was at its height. Islam, at that time, was an incredibly assimilative religion. The Islamic warriors would conquer a land, and immediately begin to assimilate all the best from that conquered culture: literature, scientific discoveries, inventions, philosophies. People came from all over Turkestan and beyond to study in the theological centers set up here. Turkic and Persian cultures fused together, which still is reflected in the architecture in these cities today. (Wherever the Russians didn’t destroy the buildings.) <\/p>\n
Then came 1498. <\/p>\n
And an incredible discovery was made. Wonderful for the human race in a “macro” sense, but a disaster for Turkestan. The sea route to India was discovered. And basically, with that discovery, Turkestan slipped out of history and disappeared completely. The famous city-states fell into decay, nobody came anymore. The Silk Road withered up and died. And Turkestan lost its reason for being. <\/p>\n
Four centuries later, the Russians “discovered” Turkestan. These Turkomans, who had been completely left in history’s dustbin suddenly, once again, were sitting on the most valuable piece of land on earth. Russia and Great Britain began their “Great Game”: the struggle for control of Central Asia. The two superpowers of the 19th century battled it out with one another on the deserts and steppes. <\/p>\n
I am just so curious what that must have been like. For the Turkomans who, for centuries, had lived in their desert oases, ignored by the rest of the world, ignoring the rest of the world, completely self-contained, silent, unknown. And then … boom. Here come two massive superpowers wielding weaponry such as they have never seen, fighting wars over the land. <\/p>\n
These ancient people of pretty much unknown origins: the Turkomans…who, through their oral history and epics, know that long long long ago, their land was talked about in books, was revered, mythologized, dreamt of. And they know that they, once upon a time, were the greatest warriors on the planet. They just were not cut out to be a modern people. Their glory days occurred seven centuries ago. <\/p>\n
I am very curious about people with such long memories. What could they tell us? Who knows, maybe I’m romanticizing. I probably am. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
All of the “stans” were not known as nations during their heyday in the middle ages. People were identified with the oasis they lived in: Samarkand, Bukhara, Tashkent, whatever. The area was inhabited by Turkic people (which comprises many many … Continue reading