A Carpet Ride to Khiva

A Carpet Ride to Khiva PDF Author: Chris Aslan
Publisher: Icon Books Ltd
ISBN: 1848312717
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Book Description
The Silk Road conjures images of the exotic and the unknown. Most travellers simply pass along it. Brit Chris Alexander chose to live there. Ostensibly writing a guidebook, Alexander found life at the heart of the glittering madrassahs, mosques and minarets of the walled city of Khiva - a remote desert oasis in Uzbekistan - immensely alluring, and stayed. Immersing himself in the language and rich cultural traditions Alexander discovers a world torn between Marx and Mohammed - a place where veils and vodka, pork and polygamy freely mingle - against a backdrop of forgotten carpet designs, crumbling but magnificent Islamic architecture and scenes drawn straight from "The Arabian Nights". Accompanied by a large green parrot, a ginger cat and his adoptive Uzbek family, Alexander recounts his efforts to rediscover the lost art of traditional weaving and dyeing, and the process establishing a self-sufficient carpet workshop, employing local women and disabled people to train as apprentices. A Carpet Ride to Khiva sees Alexander being stripped naked at a former Soviet youth camp, crawling through silkworm droppings in an attempt to record their life-cycle, holed up in the British Museum discovering carpet designs dormant for half a millennia, tackling a carpet-thieving mayor, distinguishing natural dyes from sacks of opium in Northern Afghanistan, bluffing his way through an impromptu version of "My Heart Will Go On" for national Uzbek TV and seeking sanctuary as an anti-Western riot consumed the Kabul carpet bazaar. It is an unforgettable true travel story of a journey to the heart of the unknown and the unexpected friendship one man found there.

A Carpet Ride to Khiva

A Carpet Ride to Khiva PDF Author: Chris Aslan
Publisher: Icon Books Ltd
ISBN: 1848312717
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 333

Get Book

Book Description
The Silk Road conjures images of the exotic and the unknown. Most travellers simply pass along it. Brit Chris Alexander chose to live there. Ostensibly writing a guidebook, Alexander found life at the heart of the glittering madrassahs, mosques and minarets of the walled city of Khiva - a remote desert oasis in Uzbekistan - immensely alluring, and stayed. Immersing himself in the language and rich cultural traditions Alexander discovers a world torn between Marx and Mohammed - a place where veils and vodka, pork and polygamy freely mingle - against a backdrop of forgotten carpet designs, crumbling but magnificent Islamic architecture and scenes drawn straight from "The Arabian Nights". Accompanied by a large green parrot, a ginger cat and his adoptive Uzbek family, Alexander recounts his efforts to rediscover the lost art of traditional weaving and dyeing, and the process establishing a self-sufficient carpet workshop, employing local women and disabled people to train as apprentices. A Carpet Ride to Khiva sees Alexander being stripped naked at a former Soviet youth camp, crawling through silkworm droppings in an attempt to record their life-cycle, holed up in the British Museum discovering carpet designs dormant for half a millennia, tackling a carpet-thieving mayor, distinguishing natural dyes from sacks of opium in Northern Afghanistan, bluffing his way through an impromptu version of "My Heart Will Go On" for national Uzbek TV and seeking sanctuary as an anti-Western riot consumed the Kabul carpet bazaar. It is an unforgettable true travel story of a journey to the heart of the unknown and the unexpected friendship one man found there.

Alabaster

Alabaster PDF Author: Chris Aslan
Publisher: Lion Fiction
ISBN: 1782642293
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
'Imaginative, authentic, and evocative. A powerful narrative beautifully told.' - Gerard Kelly, author of The Boy Who Loved Rain Maryam is stuck in an abusive marriage, living with her in-laws, in a conservative, toxically religious Middle Eastern setting. A few years back, her father was given a jar of priceless perfume by a dying leper and it seemed as if their fortunes would improve, but then Maryam's father contracted leprosy and was exiled by the village. Maryam and her brother, Eleazar, and sister, Marta, experience the shame and ostracism this brings. The precious jar that was meant to bring them freedom, but it only seems to have brought destruction. But rumours abound concerning a new doctor; perhaps hope is on the horizon... A beautifully crafted novel about two sisters who face the stigma of shame, the sorrow of loss, and the startling hope one can find when someone shows you a different way of seeing the world.

Manacle

Manacle PDF Author: Chris Aslan
Publisher: Lion Fiction
ISBN: 1782642560
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
'Imaginative, authentic, and evocative.'- Gerard Kelly, author There is a dark presence in Phin's life. His step-father is a drunk and his malevolence poisons their home. One evening the violence gets out of control and as Phin's mother drags his broken body away, she can only think of one place to take him: to the local healer. But this healer deals in more than medicinal remedies and at her insistence he calls on the spirits to ensure Phin is never harmed again. However, his words are more than a call, they are invitation - one that the spirits welcome as a legion descend and take root within Phin. Phin awakens to discover he is no longer in control of his mind or his body, and something is certainly inhabiting his soul. He possesses super-human strength and immediately takes revenge on his step-father. This would have sated Phin, but the spirits have other ideas - they drive him into the wilderness and all who go to him quickly rue the day. As he terrorises the village, soldiers come to remove him - but how do you restrain a man who can break the strongest of manacles. And is there any hope for one who has been overcome by darkness?

Travels in Central Asia

Travels in Central Asia PDF Author: Ármin Vámbéry
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Asia, Central
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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Book Description


The Golden Journey to Samarkand

The Golden Journey to Samarkand PDF Author: James Elroy Flecker
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 88

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Mosaic

Mosaic PDF Author: Chris Aslan
Publisher: Lion Fiction
ISBN: 9781782643388
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
"When a pot breaks, it's useless; at best there might be a shard that you can use to scoop grain. But what about a broken life? What about me? I feel so fragmented. Can I be repaired somehow? How do I live with the hate I feel towards those I'm supposed to be closest to? My life is in pieces and I don't know what to do..." Will one tragic event leave friendship and family ties irrevocably broken? And how will a historical Middle Eastern mountain community deal with news of a miracle worker? Is he too good to be true?

Russian-Soviet Unconventional Wars in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Afghanistan [Illustrated Edition]

Russian-Soviet Unconventional Wars in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Afghanistan [Illustrated Edition] PDF Author: Dr. Robert F. Baumann
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1782899650
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
[Includes 12 maps and 4 tables] In recent years, the U.S. Army has paid increasing attention to the conduct of unconventional warfare. However, the base of historical experience available for study has been largely American and overwhelmingly Western. In Russian-Soviet Unconventional Wars in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Afghanistan, Dr. Robert F. Baumann makes a significant contribution to the expansion of that base with a well-researched analysis of four important episodes from the Russian-Soviet experience with unconventional wars. Primarily employing Russian sources, including important archival documents only recently declassified and made available to Western scholars, Dr. Baumann provides an insightful look at the Russian conquest of the Caucasian mountaineers (1801-59), the subjugation of Central Asia (1839-81), the reconquest of Central Asia by the Red Army (1918-33), and the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979-89). The history of these wars—especially as it relates to the battle tactics, force structure, and strategy employed in them—offers important new perspectives on elements of continuity and change in combat over two centuries. This is the first study to provide an in-depth examination of the evolution of the Russian and Soviet unconventional experience on the predominantly Muslim southern periphery of the former empire. There, the Russians encountered fierce resistance by peoples whose cultures and views of war differed sharply from their own. Consequently, this Leavenworth Paper addresses not only issues germane to combat but to a wide spectrum of civic and propaganda operations as well.

Making Uzbekistan

Making Uzbekistan PDF Author: Adeeb Khalid
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501701355
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 438

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Book Description
In Making Uzbekistan, Adeeb Khalid chronicles the tumultuous history of Central Asia in the age of the Russian revolution. He explores the complex interaction between Uzbek intellectuals, local Bolsheviks, and Moscow to sketch out the flux of the situation in early-Soviet Central Asia. His focus on the Uzbek intelligentsia allows him to recast our understanding of Soviet nationalities policies. Uzbekistan, he argues, was not a creation of Soviet policies, but a project of the Muslim intelligentsia that emerged in the Soviet context through the interstices of the complex politics of the period. Making Uzbekistan introduces key texts from this period and argues that what the decade witnessed was nothing short of a cultural revolution.

A Ride Through Islam

A Ride Through Islam PDF Author: Hippisley Cunliffe Marsh
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Afghanistan
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description


Eighteen Years in the Khyber, 1879-1898

Eighteen Years in the Khyber, 1879-1898 PDF Author: Sir Robert Warburton
Publisher: London, J. Murray
ISBN:
Category : India
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
Sir Robert Warburton (1842-99) was a British army officer who served for 18 years as the political officer, or warden, of the Khyber Pass, the most important of the mountain passes connecting Afghanistan and present-day Pakistan. He was born in Afghanistan, the son of a British officer and his wife, a noble Afghan woman who was the niece of Amir Dost Mohammad Khan. Warburton was educated in England, commissioned an officer, and served at posts in British India and in Abyssinia (present-day Ethiopia) before being appointed, in 1879, to his post in the Khyber. Home to the fiercely independent Pushtun Afridi people who resisted external control, the pass frequently had been blocked by the Afridis or by fighting among the hill tribes. Warburton is credited with keeping the frontier peaceful and the pass open, mainly though diplomacy rather than force. He drew upon his Afghan background and his fluent Persian and Pushto to gradually win the trust of tribesmen whose traditions made them deeply suspicious of outsiders. In August 1897, one month after Warburton's retirement, unrest broke out among the Afridis, who seized the pass and held it for several months. Warburton was called back into service and participated in the Tirah expedition of 1897-98, in which Anglo-Indian forces reopened the pass. Warburton was especially proud of the role played in the expedition by the Khyber Rifles, a paramilitary force recruited from Afridi tribesmen that he had raised and commanded. Eighteen Years in the Khyber, 1879-1898 is Warburton's account of his education and career. It touches upon virtually every individual and event that played a role in relations between Afghanistan and British India during the last quarter of the 19th century. Long in poor health, Warburton returned to England and died before the book was completed. Posthumously published, it is illustrated with a number of striking photographs and includes a detailed fold-out map of the Khyber.