Top Ten electricity substations of Central Asia

With the sheer vastness of the travel blogging world it seems incredible that there remains a subject yet to be celebrated for all the richness it truly deserves. Thus I hereby right the wrong of that criminally neglected, artistic treasure that is the electricity substation. I can only hope that others take up the baton in promoting the profoundly inspiring, cultural genius represented in these creations from other parts of the world. 10. Azerbaijan The lush patina of rust off…

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The New (and rather short) Central Asian Encyclopedia

As the popularity of the region increases it has become apparent that the guidebooks don’t always give you a complete picture of the region’s culture. Hence I would like to present some updates and revisions of relevant terminology. Circus We all know the circus comes in a tent, so with a region dominated by nomadic culture, where the tent like yurt has for centuries been the preferred form of accommodation, it seems entirely logical that the circus would be housed…

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The splendour falls an apartment walls and Soviet concrete old in story

We have an image of the Soviet city as an unremittingly dull, social wasteland of stained concrete and cheerless vistas but this is further from reality than you might imagine, certainly in Central Asia. For a start they often have far more trees than many European capitals and once the green of spring has arrived they do a lot to mask those architectural sins that do exist. The West was hardly short on post-war, faceless concrete monstrosities, so it would…

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Soul of the city: Astana, Kazakhstan

Anyone who employs an internationally acclaimed architect to design an iconic building for a brand new capital city, with a brief to combine state of the art design, whilst paying reference to the country’s cultural heritage and then goes and sticks a shopping centre in it, is clearly someone who does not know the meaning of the word soul and will never know the meaning of the word soul. Whether or not it was Kazakhstan’s strong man of politics (regional…

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China vs Tajikistan: the toilet design challenge

Few competitions can be as eagerly awaited as this, so wisely, the start had been rescheduled so as not to clash with that only marginally less popular international fixture: the Football World Cup. How would the plucky newcomers, tiny Tajikistan, whose performance I laid out recently in Top 10 toilets of Tajikistan – http://insideotherplaces.com/2014/06/19/top-ten-toilets-of-tajikistan/, fare against the might of imperial China. Would this be a foregone conclusion or an epic battle of David vs Goliath. Lets view the evidence from…

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The signs of China

No doubt anyone visiting China could rustle up a selection of amusing manglings of the English language on signs and shop fronts, so I make no grand claim to originality here but just wish to celebrate the country’s touching faith in translation software and piss poor, old dictionaries someone found at a garage sale. People may concentrate on obvious errors but often they just have a special charm in expressing something in a way that a native English speaker never…

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Xinjiang, museums and the Big Lie

IMPORTANT NOTE – in the many years since writing this piece my understanding of the situation has evolved. I hope to resolve my misunderstandings with a future visit to the region but until then I am content to leave this here to receive any constructive comments With free entrance, quality exhibits, largely comprehensible English information and staff out numbering visitors, the museums in Xinjiang offer, at first glance, a quality experience outstripping the majority of that of  their Central Asian…

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Park life in Xinjiang

The niggling possibility of getting hacked to death by axe wielding terrorists has, for some strange reason deterred some tourists from coming to Xinjiang, so the streets of the region’s capital Urumqi were hardly awash with foreign faces. Locals are obviously made of stern enough stuff to not let such a trifling matter interfere with their daily routine and for many this means going to the park. In Urumqi the security concerns for patrons of the People’s Park were subtly…

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Kashgar: manufacturing history

IMPORTANT NOTE – in the many years since writing this piece my understanding of the situation in the region has evolved somewhat.  Although I stand by the basic issue of the destruction of history here, I hope to resolve the issues with a future visit to the region but until then I am content to leave this here to receive any constructive comments I arrived late in Kashgar, about ten years late, to find two thousand years of history bulldozed…

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The Chinese highway code

Eschewing the conventional wisdom of issuing road users with a booklet describing good practice for drivers and pedestrians, the Chinese authorities prefer the medium of roadside murals to convey the more salient points of the subject. This has the additional benefit of providing employment for semi-skilled artists rendered unemployed by advances in creative computer software. I have provided a convenient translation of the images for those unfamiliar with Chinese, cultural, automotive norms. 1. Headbutting is a particularly ineffective means of…

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