Photos

Silkroad travels: Pamir
In Alichur, our first village in the Pamir, we were hosted by the English teacher, Rachinda. We were offered Shurba and Kefir, Non (=bread) and Yak butter at the dastarkhan (=family table) .

I just learned from the readings of Marco Polo that at his time the lingua franca of the Silkroad was Farsi. Tajik, the native language of our host in Alichur, is a language closely related to Farsi. Along the ancient Silkroad network Farsi-related languages are indeed spoken from the Turkish border on to the Pamir. Between Alichur and the border to China Tajik is more and more replaced by Khyrgyz, a Turk language and in Western China only a small minority speaks Tajik.