This trip is going to touch many of the historical cities of the Silk Road.
The Silk Road used to be the legendary commercial route between China (or the Far East in general) and Europe, taking the name from the silk, the material for which China possessed the know-how (in reality it seems this name was first used retrospectively in 1877).
In practice the Silk Road was more a collection of routes (the best route was different according to the season) and it was not only about silk, but was also a generic communication link between East and West.
The Silk Road was established nearly 2000 years ago for the first time by the Chinese, who for a large period of time were also policing it to protect the traders. The main disruption to the Silk Road came around 1300 with the collapse of the Mongol Empire and the subsequent chaos.
Our journey covers the stretch of the Silk Road connecting the Middle East on one side with the Tian Shan and Pamir mountains on the other side. Teheran & Yazd in Iran, Merv & Urgench in Turkmenistan, Samarkand & Bukhara in Uzbekistan are on this path.
Obviously today there is no need for the Silk Road to trade generic goods between the East and the West. It is however interesting to notice how a map of oil and gas pipelines in the area is somewhat reminiscent of the Silk Road suggestions.
(written in San Diego)
2 commenti:
Hi Lorenzo!
I promised I would follow your blog.
So here I am, back from the other side of the Silk Road: Xi'an, China (you would have loved that!)
Good luck - to both of you - for this great trip! (maybe sooner or later we'll manage to organize another one together...)
Fantastic to hear from you Sergio!
Must have been fun to be 3GPP-globetrotting to Xian....
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