Silk Road Kazakhstan
Halford Mackinder was an English geographer, well regarded as one of the founders of geopolitics and geostrategy. According to a recent article in The Economist magazine, he first put forward the idea of the Eurasian Heartland in 1904. He claimed that whoever controls the Eurasian Heartland, i.e. the land between the arctic sea and Himalayas, controls the world.
It was a bit of a surreal experience to find myself in this part of the world in the middle of the current Ukraine Russia conflict. I must say that I was surprised at first when I read this postulate from Mackinder in the Economist magazine article. But after carefully looking at the map of the Eurasian continent and reading more history of the region, I see his point, even though I may not fully agree with it for the modern era.
Eurasia is the largest continent on the planet. As big as Europe and China may be, they are just the bookends for the continent. The distinction between Europe and Asia is more cultural or political than geological. Russia doesn’t seem to decide if it lies on the European or Asian side of the continent. Moreover, there isn’t any seriously formidable obstacle across the continent that could have prevented travel (on horses or camels) across. Even the mighty Himalayas to the south can be circumvented to access the Indian subcontinent.
It’s no surprise then that there were invasions in Central Asia from all directions; Greeks, Arabs, Persians, Turks, Mongols, and Chinese. In its recent history, Central Asia was part of the Soviet empire, dominated by Russia.
It was also part of the Silk Road trade route. The trade route is named after just one product (albeit precious at the time), silk, and therefore perhaps wrongly implies the nature and direction of trade. Many products from different origins were traded and transported in many different directions, as per the archeological evidence. As much as the sea trade has now increased exponentially with modern ships and canals engineering marvels, trade across the continent remains important, especially for the landlocked countries in Central Asia.
It’s not my intention to regurgitate all of this history for the sake of it. But, I would love to explore the traces of these historical invasions and trades at the place and in its people. Everyone knows about Genghis Khan who was the founder of the largest contiguous Mongol empire ever created on earth in twelfth and thirteenth centuries on this continent from Europe to China. But this region was also inhabited earlier in Iron Age and beyond by the Indo-Iranian tribes that were locally called Saka or Scythians. Thus the golden warrior, whose remains and belongings were found in Issyk near Almaty burial site (kurgan) was from Saka tribe and is very much thought as an ancestor in modern Kazakhstan, just as many Turkic and Mongol tribes that settled in the region.
It’s also about the rugged steppe geographical terrain that’s more conducive to live a semi nomadic life with moving cattle and sheep herds from high altitude summer pastures to winter low lands. This unique combination of history and geography makes this region not just interesting to explore, but also forces me to look inwardly about my own identity.
The pictures are from the caravansary archeological site in Taraz, South Kazakhstan. Taraz city is on one of the silk trade routes. The caravansary is like a guest house for traders crisscrossing the region.
