News from Tartary – Peter Fleming

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Lucy Kelaart

                          

Peter Fleming’s News from Tartary about a journey through Xining and Xinjiang in the 1930s is a travel favourite of mine and so I’m pleased to see it back in print in a special edition thanks to the Queen Anne Press (www.queenannepress.com). Beautifully bound just like the original, but with the addition of expedition map endpapers and a foreword by Fleming’s daughter, Kate Grimond, the edition is limited to 150 copies – a tangible treat in our digital world.

It’s a story of pure travel – the endless waiting for permissions, evading officials, living from hand to mouth, long days in the saddle or on foot pushing on into the interior of this great unknown region, of fatigue and animal illnesses, courting the small disasters of expedition life (such as Fleming’s one fine suit being dyed ‘lettuce’ green) – as well as one of bringing back news of the state of affairs in this isolated, unknown, far corner of China and the Chinese, Russian and British interests within it.

Many of the desert stages would seem the same to travellers by horse and camel today, but Fleming would be hard pressed to recognise much in the towns on the fringes of the Taklamakan. Then, he and his travelling companion, Ella Maillart (both pictured above) were welcomed by British aksakals (‘head men’ or ‘white beards’) – true products of empire. Fleming, employing his gentle humour, writes – ‘The gateway of the aksakal’s house was draped in our honour with large home-made Union Jacks of similar but by no means identical designs.’ He goes on to describe the interior – ‘There was a gramophone  with Russian records…; there were oil lamps from Tashkent, and an umbrella, and even a cuckoo-clock. This flotsam from the West created a homely atmosphere pleasingly flavoured with incongruity.’ Now, nearly 80 years later, this flotsam is gone; everything is Chinese to the hilt and the great mix of people that Fleming and Maillart encountered has disappeared.

Even more reason, then, to read this travel book. A beautifully true account of travel at a caravan’s pace.

N.B. – To coincide with this republication, I.B Tauris have also republished  To Peking and Bayonets to Lhasa, both by Fleming and both on the periphery of Steppe territory…

 

 

Classic FM Live – Behzod Abduraimov

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Lucy Kelaart

Good news coming out of Uzbekistan is pretty rare these days. Last night it came in the form of Behzod Abduraimov, a young pianist from Tashkent, who played Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 at Classic FM Live at the Royal Albert Hall. My goodness it was exciting. When he walked on to the stage he seemed so young. At just 21 years old – he is. He hung over the piano like a small schoolboy concentrating intensely, and highly enthusiastically, on his homework (see the picture above). His playing was full of energy and a fluidity that was beautiful to observe. You have to be full of passion to play this work and Behzod is. His pale hands, reflected in the lid of the piano moved with such incredible speed that the spectacle alone would have been worth the visit. And he had something else too – you really felt that he was enjoying the performance. He was totally immersed in and moved by the music, but somehow you felt he was also smiling. By the end of the third movement I had tears in my eyes. I’m not sure whether it was the piece, the performance or the fact that a young boy brought up in post-independence Uzbekistan has so much promise – an ambassador and example for his country’s youth. Hurrah!

Watch this space for an interview with Behzod in the next week or so…

Travel Local

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Lucy Kelaart

An old friend of ours here at Steppe recently launched Travel Local  - a site set up to allow travellers from anywhere in the world to book their trip through a locally owned company in their destination, and to do so with complete confidence (payments are 100% protected). For the traveller it means cheaper, high quality trips and for local companies it allows a greater share in the tourism revenue and, I suspect, a more heightened interest in ensuring that everything goes completely to plan. The site is initally focussing on Asia, and within that Central Asia gets a star billing. Huw Owen, the mastermind behind the company, is a long-time Central Asia-phile and cut his travel teeth working for Audley. Back at Steppe HQ, we get a lot of enquiries from people who want to travel independently in Central Asia and backed by Huw’s confidence I’ll be sending them in Travel Local’s direction in the future. The beauty of working at the local level is that if you want to ride a horse from Samarkand to Bukhara then travel to Chust by bus then cross the border to Kyrgyzstan – they have the flexibility and the know how to help you do it, as well as lots of thoughtfully put together itineraries if you want to travel ‘off the shelf’…

Shakespeare’s Comedy-e Eshtebahat

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Thierry Kelaart

This year the pioneering Afghan theatre company – ‘Rah-e-Sabz’ (Path of Hope) – will be staging Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors in Dari at the Globe theatre as part of the London 2012 Festival. The Globe is hosting productions of all of Shakespeare’s 37 plays, each performed in a different language.

The path to the Afghan production is by no means easy. Notwithstanding the fall of the Taliban, a woman appearing on stage in Afghanistan is still perceived by some to be little better than a prostitute. For over a generation men and women have not appeared on stage together and professional theatre barely exists.

A performance of Love's Labour's Lost, by William Shakespeare, in the Bagh-e Babur, Kabul, in a 2005 production by Rah-e Sabz. Photograph: AP Photo/Tomas Munita

Set up in 2005 by Corinne Jaber, Rah-e-Sabz is one of the only theatre groups in Afghanistan. So precarious is the current climate – the group was set to practice at the British Council in Kabul the same afternoon on which it was bombed – that the troupe are no longer able to rehearse in their homeland and so are bound for India before their UK performance at the Globe this May.

The fundraising launch for this theatrical endeavour was hosted by Simon Robey of the Royal Opera House at his home in Upper Wimpole Street. Impassioned talks were given by Rory Stewart MP and Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles. Both commended the incredible zeal of Corinne and her co-producer Roger Granville and the important role of the company in reviving and fostering Afghanistan’s theatrical legacy.

The Comedy of Errors (Comedy-e Eshtebahat in Dari) will be staged at the Globe Theatre, London on 30-31st May 2012. Tickets can be bought direct from The Globe. This will be followed by performances at Hatfield House and the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford. More information on those events will follow and you can expect to read more about the production in the pages of Steppe. Meanwhile, calling all polyglots with free time on their hands – if you fancy tackling all 37 plays and all 37 languages, including Troilus and Cressida in Maori, you can see the lot for £100, standing every time. Go on – you know you want to.

Alexander Burnes: Travels into Bokhara

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Lucy Kelaart

Eland Books have just launched a beautifully edited edition of Alexander Burnes’ Travels into Bokhara. When the original was published in 1835, Burnes became an overnight sensation, lecturing to packed halls in London and even given an audience by the King. At the tender age of 26, Burnes travelled into the unknown territories to the northwest of the British empire in India, reaching as far as Bokhara in modern-day Uzbekistan. Dressed as a local and in command of the local languages, the brilliant Burnes reported back on the geography and politics of the region, right at the beginning of what later became known as the Great Game between the British and Russian empires.

The launch for the book was held at 50 Albemarle Street, home to John Murray publishers for over 200 years, and in the very room where Burnes plotted his journeys into Central Asia. A small portrait of Burnes hanging there was used as a frontispiece for the first volume of his writings, but Burnes thought he looked like a carpet-seller, like a Bokharan, and in the second volume his moustache was turned down and his face became more serious.

The original portrait, below, is on the cover of the new edition.

Alexander Burnes by Daniel Maclise, 1834

And finally, we have Kathleen Hopkirk, wife of Peter Hopkirk (of Great Game fame), to thank for condensing Burnes’ three-volume work into a much-shorter, much-easier read than the original. Plus William Dalrymple for writing the introduction. The book will be reviewed in Steppe soon, but if like me, you can’t wait – you can buy it here: http://www.travelbooks.co.uk/book_detail.asp?id=178

 

Little Genghis: Episode 1

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Steppe
Little Genghis Episode 1

Little Genghis Episode 1

Little Genghis is a collaboration between Nicolas Journoud and Steppe. Conceived in the early days of Steppe, it took five years to find the right illustrator to make the idea reality, and the reality full of ideas. Nicolas sums up the concept of Little Genghis as follows: ‘The day Genghis, a very sensible little shepherd boy, leaves behind the mountains and his family to live with relatives, he discovers the two wierdest universes in the world: the city and girls. But cities, he finds, are sometimes logical.’

We love Nicolas’s work. To see more, check out his website on www.ex-patria.org, and watch out for more blogs from Little Genghis.

Turkmen Carpets

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Lucy Kelaart

I recently reviewed a book on Turkmen carpets for Selvedge Magazine’s winter issue. These carpets are quite spectacular when you stop awhile and appreciate them.

Chuval Large Tent Bag, Front Panel 145 x 73 cm South Turkmenistan. Salor Late 18th Century © Greiner Studios GmbH, Neustadt

Turkmen Carpets: Masterpieces of Steppe Art, from 16th to 19th Centuries – The Hoffmeister Collection. Arnoldsche Art Publishers, 2011, $95

Peter Hoffmeister’s first encounter with a Turkmen carpet in the early 1970s, whilst searching for beautiful things to furnish his home, struck a chord with his “sense of great art to the full”. During the ensuing forty years he has collected these textiles with a passion, inspired by their beauty, their nomadic creators and the historical roots of their design.

The excellent, high-quality photographs in this book allow you to get a real appreciation of these carpets. Spend time pouring over any of the images and it is hard not to become absorbed by the stylised geometric tribal emblems or göl at the heart of the Turkmen carpet. The book’s author, Dr Elena Tsareva, head of textile research at the Kuntskamera Museum in St Petersburg and an expert on Central Asian textiles, reinforces this feeling, describing how “Ornaments and colours are among the most ‘talkative’ of ‘visual texts’, serving as a kind of lingua franca able to carry age-old messages, irrespective of when and by whom they were created.”

In a departure from other books on the subject – and there are a large number – her text takes the form of twelve stories, some applying a broad brush, others deeply focused, with subjects ranging from the carpets of different tribes to a particular type of knot.  Throughout, the book is tinged with a certain kind of magic, although I can’t put my finger on whether that is a result of the passionate eye of the collector, the profound and interesting knowledge of the author, the carpets themselves – everyday usable repositories of tradition, lore and pure beauty in a sandy, desert world – or a combination of all three.