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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