Turkey | Midyat

The city of Midyat, about thirty-seven miles east-northeast of Mardin, is in the middle of Tur Abdin, the old Syriac Christian heartland located in the mountains and plateaus just north of the Mesopotamian plain. Many Syriacs migrated out of the area in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the old Syriac quarter in Midyat was largely abandoned. A modern Kurdish city grew up nearby. A few Syriacs have drifted back to the town in the twenty-first century—according to local sources about 130 Christian Syriac people now live in the Old Town. There is also reportedly a small Syriac Jewish population. Kurds also live in the Old Town, and in fact I did not encounter any Syriac Christians. Locals say they do not engage in casual encounters with tourists. 

 The old Syriac Christian quarter of Midyat (click on photos for enlargements).

 Syriac Christian Church undergoing renovations

 Steeple of Syriac Christian Church. Note the characteristic teardrop design on one side of the steeple.

 A private residence utilizing the teardrop motif

Street scene in Midyat. I don’t know why, but I kept expecting Joseph and Mary and their little toddler to come walking around the corner. 

  Typical street scene in Midyat

 Typical street scene in Midyat

 The old bazaar in Midyat. The store fronts on the right are all boarded up. 

 The entrance to what is apparently a private residence. The stonework of tawny limestone appears to be new. The art of stone masonry and carving is alive and well in Midyat. There are numerous new stone buildings with elaborate carved decorations in the Kurdish part of Midyat. 

 We walked half a mile or so in the brutal heat to the Mor Abraham & Mor Hobel Monastery, which supposedly contains a 1700 year-old church, only to find that the entire complex was closed to the public that day. 

 An old Syriac mansion which has been turned into a museum, cultural center, and conference hall. It and the nearby streets also serve as the settings of a popular Turkish soap opera called “Sila”. Curiously, Mardin was also used as an open-air set for a Turkish soap opera. 

A room in the museum made up as a traditional Syriac Audience Chamber. The local Syriac patriarch sat in the chair at the end of the room. Petitioners knelt on the carpets and pleaded their cases. 

 One room in the museum is a traditional Syriac bridal suite made up for the wedding night. Enough to make anyone want to get married. 

 Kurdish man who drove me to Midyat. His regular job is as an imam in a mosque in the city of Batman. He is the proud father of eight children. 

 Kurdish girls hamming it up. They spoke Kurdish, of course, but my driver claimed they did not speak Turkish at all. They were eager to practice English, however, which they learn from watching TV.

Kurdish girl 

Uzbekistan | Paikend | Varakhsha

I already mentioned the Kushans, who may have ruled Bukhara when the Magok-i Attari was first constructed. After the Kushans, around the beginning of the sixth century, Sogdiana fell under the sway of the Hephthalites, perhaps descendants of the Yuezhi, who themselves may have been Blonde-Haired Blue-Eyed Proto-Hippie Potheads but exact origins unclear.

The Hephthalites emerged in the fifth century a.d. and at the peak of their empire controlled much of East Turkistan (current day Xinjiang Province China, Afghanistan, and northwest India. According to one contemporary historian, the word “hephthalite” is derived from the Sogdian word for “strong man” Although the Hephthalites may have claimed suzerainty over the city-states of the Zerafshan Valley the Sogdians probably enjoyed a degree of autonomy, and by 563 a.d. Hephthalite influence in the region had ended altogether.

It was around this time that the Ark in Bukhara and the various small settlements surrounding it had coalesced into an important city. Still, it was one of numerous cities in the Bukhara Oasis and not necessarily the most dominant. Varakhsha, on what was then the western edge of the Bukhara Oasis (its ruins are now in the desert), and Paikend (also Baikand), on the very southern edge of the oasis, were both substantial, well-fortified cities older than Bukhara itself. Indeed, according to the ten-century historian Narshakhi a trader who went to Bagdad was more likely to brag that he was from Paikend than from Bukhara. These cities of the Bukhara oasis and the other loosely aligned city-states which made up Sogdiana dominated trade on the Silk Road arteries stretching from China and India to Byzantium, southern Russia and northern Africa, and their language, an early form of Iranian, became the lingua franca of commerce.

Locations of Paikend and Varakhsha (click on images for enlargements)

Paikend, twenty-eight miles southwest of Bukhara, was an important caravan stop on the Merv-Bukhara-Amul (at the Amu Darya Crossing)-Samarkand route. Attacked and largely destroyed by invading Arabs in the 710s, it was partially rebuilt but probably never recovered its former prominence. It is now in ruins. 

Ruins of Paikend

Southern entrance to the city. Stalls used by merchants can still be seen at top, just left of center.

Remains of what were probably residences

View of vineyards from the walls of the city

Ruins of Varakhsha

Varakhsha, twenty miles west-northwest of Bukhara, probably exceeded Bukhara in importance during its heyday. It boasted of impressive palaces used by Sogdian rulers. Once in the cultivated part of the Bukhara oasis, it may have been abandoned for lack of water as the oasis contracted. 

Ruins of Varakhsha

Ruins of Varakhsha

Ruins of Varakhsha

Ruins of Varakhsha

From Varakhsha the desert now stretches for hundreds of miles to the west

The religions practiced in Sogdia were indicative of these trade links with varying cultures. Buddhism, which had entered the region via Bactria, was in decline by the sixth century, but Zoroastrianism, the dominant religion of the Sassanian Empire to the southwest, was flourishing. Nestorian Christianity, stamped out in Byzantium, had spread eastward, and as early as 334 a.d. there was a Christian bishop in Merv, just south of the Amu Darya. By the sixth century Nestorian Christians were established in Samarkand, and probably in Bukhara. Manichaeism and a host of breakaway sects and chthonic cults also found followers among the Sogdians. By the end of the sixth century Sogdiana was flourishing, but dangers lurked just beyond the horizon. It was probably at this time that the Sogdians constructed the Kanpirak, or “Old Woman, the 150 or-more-long wall which surrounded most of the Bukhara Oasis and served as a bulwark against the hostile Turkish nomads who inhabited the deserts and steppes to the north. The invaders who would bring down Sogdiana and forever change the way of life in the Land Beyond the Rivers came not from the north, however, but from the south, in form of Arabs who came proclaiming the new religion of Islam.

Greece | Thessaly | Kalambaka | Meteora #1

The corner take-out that I frequented  in Thessaloniki raised the price of chicken souvlaki from 2.50 to 2.75 euros. That signaled the end of my love affair with Thessaloniki. The heart is so fickle! The next morning I walked a mile through a persistent drizzle to the train station and caught the train south to Kalambaka, home of the Meteora monastery complex. I have Been Here Before, but was eager to return when it was cooler and the environs less crowded. It is the shoulder of the tourist season, and prices of hotels and meals have started to drop. It is certainly cheaper than Thessaloniki. And the weather is fantastic! Hard frosts at night but warming into the 50s F. in the afternoons. Great for hiking. Gorgeous foliage.

St. Nicholas Monastery, one of six monasteries in the area now open to the public (click on photos for enlargements). 

Monastery of St Barbara

Great Meteora Monastery

Monastery of Barlaam

From the road a trail climbs up 715 vertical feet through the chasm to the left of Barlaam Monastery.

Trail to Barlaam Monastery

Trail side shrine

Avian voyeurs would have a field day here. I saw at least fifteen or twenty different kinds of birds. 

Mongolia | Gov-Altai Aimag | Biger Depression | Biger Market

Wandered by the Biger Market, in the town of Biger, located in the Biger Depression. This huge natural sump, with no outlet to the sea, drains an area very roughly fifty miles from east to west and twenty miles from north to south. At its bottom, at an altitude of about 4,265 feet, is a salt lake, Biger Nuur, measuring several miles long, its size varying considerably according to the time of year and the amount of recent rainfall. The Depression is bounded on the north by the Shar Shorootyn Nuruu, with peaks of over 10,300 feet, and on the south by another range with several peaks of over 11,000 feet, including 11,092-foot Burkhan Buudai Uul. Although much of the floor of the Depression is covered with barren gravel and salt flats, the foothills ramping up to the mountains on either side provide excellent grazing for sheep and goats and the mountains themselves support large herds of yaks. Small streams flowing out of the mountains are utilized for irrigation, allowing for small vegetable gardens. At one time even grapes were grown here; the area is currently famous for its enormous potatoes. These favorable conditions, along with its strategic location straddling an important caravan route from Uliastai, the capital of Mongolia during the Qing era (1891–1911) to Shar Khuls Oasis in southern Gov-Altai Aimag and on to China, Tibet, and Xinjiang, made the Biger Depression a relatively prosperous place. 

Entering the Biger Depression (click on photos for enlargements)

Biger Market

Biger is famous for its potatoes and other vegetables grown in irrigated gardens.

Aaaruul—dried milk curds—from the 3rd Bag, roughly equivalent to a township

Saddle for sale at the market

Nice saddle

Biger is also famous for its vodka made from yak milk.

Mountains to the south of the Biger. These mountains are notorious for their sightings of almas, the Mongolian equivalent of yetis. 

Cyprus | Larnaka | Stoics | Zeno

 According to the New York Times, Stoicism is back, if not correctly understood: If You’re Reading Stoicism for Life Hacks, You’re Missing the Point.

I have long considered myself a Stoic and once made a pilgrimage to the birthplace of Xeno, the founder of Stoicism. See Cyprus | Larnaka | Zeno | Stoics.

My Man Xeno

Mongolia | Gov-Altai Aimag | Burkhan Buudai Uul

In 1998 I made a lengthy jeep tour of Gov-Altai Aimag in southwest Mongolia. While driving through the Biger Depression about 60 miles southeast of Altai, the capital of Gov-Altai, my jeep driver, a man named Chültem, pointed out a mountain to the south known as Burkhan Buudai Uul. “This is the sacred mountain of central Gov-Altai Aimag,” he said. “It is possible to ride horses to the top. You should come back again to Gov-Altai sometime and go to the summit of this mountain.” Later in the trip we again saw Burkhan Buudai Uul from various distances and perspectives and I soon made up my mind to someday return and ascend this mountain.

I was not able to get to Gov-Altai Aimag until some years later. After a two hour flight from Ulaanbaatar my translator, a twenty-two year old woman named Oyuna, and I landed in Altai, at 7132 feet the highest aimag capital Mongolia. The temperatures in Ulaanbaatar had been up in the eighties but a surprisingly chill wind greeted us as we walked from the plane to the small airport terminal. From out of the throng just outside the gates appeared two men who appeared to be in their sixties. The thin and wiry one introduced himself as Namsum (namsum = “bow and arrow”). Acquaintances in Ulaanbaatar had assured me that he was an expert in the history and local lore of Gov-Altai and in particular the Biger Depression and Burkhan Buudai Uul. He had been born in the Biger Depression and had worked there all his life as a schoolteacher, but he was now retired. He was nattily attired in dress shirt and slacks, khaki jacket, polished brown loafers, and a gray fedora. The man with him, he explained, was a schoolteacher chum of his from Altai town who out of curiosity had come along to the airport to meet the visitor to Gov-Altai. While waiting for our luggage Namsum mentioned that just the day before, June 25, it had snowed in Altai.

After a stop for staples at the Altai Market, a conglomeration of steel cargo containers with goods sold out of their back doors, we headed southeast on the unpaved road to the Biger Depression. A few miles out of town, on a hillside a half mile or so to the right of the road, could be seen several small stands of larch. “See those trees over there?” asked Namsum. I had taken note of them, since trees are so unusual in the Altai area. “Back in 1921,” he continued, ”a small band of White Russians under the command of the Buryat Vandanov rode down here from Narobanchin Monastery on the Zavkhan River north of here and was going to loot the monastery known as Aryn Khüree, which was located just behind that hill. It was wintertime and the black trunks of the trees stood out against the snow. From several miles away Vandanov saw the trees and thought they were Mongolian fighters assembled to protect Aryn Khüree. He and the White Russians turned around and rode back to Narobanchin Monastery. There used to be a monument near the base of the hill with an inscription on it thanking the trees for saving Aryn Khüree, but it has since disappeared. And of course Aryn Khüree itself was later destroyed by the communists in 1937.”

Vandanov had been a commander in the army of the notorious world-class psychopath and megalomaniac Roman Fyodorovich von Ungern-Sternberg (1886–1921), the so-called Bloody Baron, who with a rag-tag army of White Russian refugees and soldiers-of-fortune; displaced Cossacks; desperados and criminals; psychopaths of various hues; Inner Asian malcontents, including a detachment of Bashkir Muslims; and other assorted riffraff, had seized control of Örgöö (Ulaanbaatar) in February of 1921. He had intended to conquer all of Mongolia and then use it as a base for an Asian Buddhist empire. As one of his followers put, it, “Here in these historic plains we will organize an army as powerful as that of Genghis Khan. Then we will move, as that great man did, and smash the whole of Europe. The world must die so that a new and better world may come forth, reincarnated on a higher plane.” Bolshevik partisans soon put an end to this quixotic scheme. The Bloody Baron was captured and eventually executed, but shards of his army under the command of renegades like Vandanov continued to terrorize western Mongolia, including what is now Gov-Altai Aimag.

Soon we start the gradual descent toward Dötiin Davaa, a 9099-foot pass through the Shar Shorootyn Mountains. In a matter of minutes the skies cloud over completely and big wet snowflakes are falling. Namsum is impressed. Rain or snow at the beginning of a trip, especially a journey to a sacred mountain like Burkhan Buudai Uul, is a good sign, he insists. By the time we reach the pass, sixteen miles from Altai and almost 2000 feet higher, we are in the middle of an outright blizzard. It was June 26. At the top of the pass is a large ovoo surmounted by a length of tree trunk draped with hundreds of blue prayer scarves. Several cars and jeeps have stopped here and a dozen people are circumambulating the ovoo. One man has a bottle of vodka and is tossing capfuls of the alcohol onto the ovoo, while others splash the rocks with offerings of milk tea from plastic soda bottles. We get out of the jeep and circumambulate the ovoo three times on foot. Back in the jeep Namsum related that this large ovoo here at Dötiin Davaa was created by a famous local lama named Buural Lamkhai (c.1860-1910). As late as the nineteenth century, he says, the Gov-Altai region and especially the area around Dötiin Davaa had been well-known for its shamans. They were notorious, so claims Namsum, for causing mischief of one kind or another and were especially skilled at inflicting curses on people. The local herdsmen were afraid of them and they were in constant conflict with the local Buddhist lamas.

Ovoo at 9099-foot Dötiin Davaa

Once Lama Buural Lamkhai and some of his disciples set out on a trip to Lake Khövsgöl in northwest Mongolia. They had no sooner started out than two shamans, followers of the chief shaman in the area, stole their horses. Buural Lamkhai went into meditation and began chanting. This went on for several days. Soon the chief shaman fell ill; his arms and legs became numb and he was unable to move. Suspecting that Buural Lamkhai was the cause of his ailments he ordered his two followers to return the stolen horses and then beg the lama to come and heal him. This Buural Lamkhai did. The chief shaman recovered his health but his shamanic power was broken. To commemorate his victory over the shamans Buural Lamkhai built this ovoo here at Dötiin Davaa and established a temple nearby named Bureg Nomyn Khaan Khiid. “Ever since then, Gov-Altai has not been cursed by shamans,” noted Namsum. The temple has since been destroyed, but all travelers on the road still stop at the pass and make offerings to Buural Lamkhai’s ovoo. The lama had a camp near where Namsum was born, at Bayan Gol in the shadow of Burkhan Buudai Uul, and Namsum says we may get a chance to visit this place after we ascend the mountain. I ask Namsum if there are still practicing shamans in Gov-Altai. There are no traditional shamans still active that he is aware of, but he insists that there are still people who are quite capable of inflicting curses on their enemies.

Uzbekistan | Dabusiya

As you know, the Great Silk Road City Of Bukhara fell to the Mongols sometime of February of 1220. By the beginning of March Chingis Khan was ready to march on Samarkand. The two Jewels of Mawarannahr, Bukhara and Samarkand, were linked by the so-called Royal Road, an ancient thoroughfare following roughly the course of the Zerafshan River. Samarkand is 135 miles east of Bukhara ATCF, but upstream from Bukhara the Zarafshan River loops to the north before continuing on east, and the distance between the two cities via the Royal Road, which roughly follows the river, was between thirty-seven and thirty-nine farsakhs (148 to 156 miles) This was a journey was six or seven stages, or days, by camel. 

The Zerafshan Valley (click on photos for enlargements)

Accompanied by the huge flock of levies who had been dragooned in Bukhara for the anticipated siege of Samarkand, the Mongol army proceed north on the Royal Road, probably passing once again through the towns of Shargh, Iskijkath, and Vabkent  and finally reaching the edge of the Bukhara Oasis at Tawais. After another eight miles they passed by the Caravanserai Of Rabat-i-Malik and continued on twelve more miles to Kermaniye. 

The huge portal of the Rabat-i-Malik Caravanserai

At some point beyond of the Bukhara Oasis Chingis Khan may have divided his army into two parts, with one contingent crossing the Zerafshan River and proceeding east on the north bank, and the other riding east on the south bank. According to a story told by the Chinese Daoist Chang Chunzi, who himself traveled along the north bank of the Zerafshan a year later, in 1221, Chingis Khan himself led the army on the north bank. The Chinese holy man saw “on the road a well more than one hundred feet deep, where an old man, a Mohammadan, had a bullock which turned a drawbeam and raised water for thirsty people. The emperor Chinghiz, when passing here, had seen this man, and ordered that he should be exempted from taxes and  duties.”

Beyond Kermaniye the Royal Road veered to the south-southeast and passed a region dotted with numerous cities and towns that had flourished for a thousand years in the rich oases lining the Zerafshan RIver. This was the very heart of old Sogdiana. Chingis Khan, in his haste to get to reach Samarkand, did not linger in this well-populated and prosperous region. According to the Persian historian Juvaini (1226–1283), “whenever the villages in his path submitted, he in no way molested them.” The historian al-Athir (1160–1233), however, asserts that Chingis Khan continued to seize able-bodied men in the towns he passed through, adding them to the already vast horde of levies he had dragooned in Bukhara. Al-Athir further asserts that these men were forced to march on foot alongside the Mongol army and that any who fell from hunger or exhaustion were killed. 

We hear of only two cities which put up any real resistance. The first was Dabusiya, located twenty-four miles south-southeast miles east of the current-day town of Karmana on the south bank of the Zerafshan. One of the half dozen or so major cities of ancient Sogdiana, Dabusiya had been a well fortified city as early as 112 a.d., and in the early eighth century over 10,000 Sogdian and Turkish troops had unsuccessfully defended the city walls against Arab invaders. It was later occupied by the Samanids, and was still a well-fortified city when it it finally fell to the Qarakhanids during the reign of Ismail II al-Muntasir, the last of the Samanid rulers. With the defeat of the Qarakhanids it became part of the Khwarezmshah’s realm. Although still heavily fortified, with mammoth walls facing the Zerafshan River, it did not provide much of an obstacle to the Mongols. Chingis left a detachments of troops to besiege the city while he and bulk of his army hastened eastward to Samarkand. We hear no more of Dabusiya from Juvaini or other historians, but eventually the city fell to the Mongols and was at some point destroyed. It was never rebuilt and today there is no city or town of Dabusiya, although the ruins of the old city walls still rear up from the south bank of the Zerafshan. 

Looking down the Zerafshan River from the ruined ramparts of Dabusiya

 The walls of Dabusiya

 Walls of Dabusiya

An old street running through the ruins of Dabusiya

 One of the city gates in the distance, with a street running through the city

Street running through the city

 The Zerafshan River upstream from the top of the city’s ramparts

 Local people taking the ferry across the Zerafshan

Nowadays people come here to visit the tomb of Daliv Ismatulla Abrievich Imam, a famous local saint, whose mausoleum now stands amidst the ruins of the old city.

 Mausoleum of  Daliv Ismatulla Abrievich Imam, situated amidst the ruins of Dabusiya

 Mausoleum of Daliv Ismatulla Abrievich Imam

Tomb of Daliv Ismatulla Abrievich Imam

My driver (left), without whose help I would have never found Dabusiya; the imam in the charge of the mausoleum (center); and some guy who insisted on getting into the photo (right)