Central Asia is composed of the "stans," meaning "land," as in Turkmenistan, land of the Turkmen. The Stans seem as remote & exotic as Shangri la, and bizarrely enough, are just as mystical, except they are real, almost... After a 10 border crossing into Turkmenistan, we saw little but cotton fields & occasionally people hand picking it and putting the harvest into donkey drawn wagons, circa 1850. But the surrealness of that was nothing compared to the absolute artificialness of their principle city, Ashgabat. It's as if it's designed from episodes of CSI Las Vegas, or more likely, the futuristic cities depicted in Japanese anime, all Gugenheim buildings with bright flowing light streams, and giant flat screens showing odd animated geometric designs, adorning them. It was Rush Hour but there was no traffic, and the few cars were new. Honking & smoking are outlawed, and one member of our group was arrested and taken to jail for possession of sleeping pills for which she had a prescription. The uniformed border officers were all young and unsmiling, never removing their military style hats. The women wore brightly hued long dresses & head coverings but seemed subdued & overly regimented, like they were bit players on "The Truman Show." We went to a large bank but it was a facade, a complete building but the doors were locked. Money changing was performed by a man standing in the shade behind it.
The rest of the country had nothing, the roads were completely in disrepair, almost undrivable, but there was another, equally illusionary city, Kunya-Urgench, a modern reconstruction of a 1000 year capital, 5 buildings all from the imagination of the people building them. A country of that may not exist but does made of things that exist but shouldn't.
9/8/16
Land Of Illusion
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Martin Hash
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- Joined: Wed Jan 20, 2010 2:02 pm
Land Of Illusion
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Shamedia, Shamdemic, Shamucation, Shamlection, Shamconomy & Shamate Change
