Grandpoohbah's Blog
Pages
(Move to ...)
Home
▼
Monday, September 14
Kapchagay
›
At the feet of Nagarjuna (creator of the Prajnaparamita sutra, carved here onto boulders by Vajrayana Dzhungars in the 16th-18th centur...
1 comment:
Wednesday, September 9
Bayseit
›
The road from Dzharkent to Bayseit is dotted with small Uyghur villages. Chinese long-haulers rest under their trucks cheek-by-jowl wi...
Tuesday, September 1
Charyn Canyon
›
As Imperial Russia expanded into the Siberian Far East, it encountered rival territorial claims from China In 1860, Russia imposed an a...
Sunday, August 30
Tien-shanski
›
I wake early. The memory of Basshi's heat is distant, at this altitude in the Tien Shan a quilt is handy in the wee hours. Parting t...
Sunday, August 23
Chokan Valikhanov
›
You write me that you love me. I will tell you without ceremony that I have fallen in love with you. Never, to anybody, not even to my...
Sunday, August 16
In the Tien Shan to Kolsay Lake
›
We turn south from Altyn-Emel, and cross the Steppe towards the Tien Shan. This is big-sky country. A cloudburst on the open steppe is...
Wednesday, August 5
Altyn-Emel
›
The Dzungarian Gate is a pass in the Dzungarian Alatau mountains along the border between Kazakhstan and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomou...
Wednesday, July 29
Semirechye
›
(Above: a Polish map of 1903 showing the province of Semirechye. Below: contemporay Google Map.) We are driving NE from Almaty to S...
Tuesday, July 28
Aleksander's Grandfather and the First of May
›
We are in Almaty, walking in the shadows of the soaring Tien Shan range. Across high valleys, to the south and west, lie Kyrghyzstan, ...
Sunday, August 17
La Albiceleste Defend
›
Getting into the National Stadium at Brasilia feels like getting into a college game. Argentine fans are a vocal and visible minority...
›
Home
View web version