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Zusatztext 'Too many travel writers visit Central Asia in a hurry! bulking out their own misadventures with a slice of the region's colourful history. But the strength of this readable book derives from the author's patience: after seven years in Uzbekistan! Alexander has provided a frank and penetrating portrait of the country! with all its contradictions and absurdities. He writes with clear-eye observation and courage! and never fails to emphasize the ingrained hospitality and random acts of kindness that remind you that! in spite of everything! Central Asia is still an exceptionally alluring place.' Informationen zum Autor Chris Aslan Alexander: Christopher Aslan Alexander was born in Turkey and grew up in war-torn Beirut. After university he moved to Central Asia. While writing a guidebook about Khiva, he fell in love with this desert oasis boasting the most homogeneous example of Islamic architecture in the world, and stayed. Klappentext A unique, beautiful and moving account of seven years living in the remote Uzbek desertThe Silk Road conjures images of the exotic and the unknown. Most travellers simply pass along it. Brit Chris Alexander chose to live there. Immersing himself in the language and rich cultural traditions of Khiva, a remote desert oasis in Uzbekistan, Alexander discovers a world torn between Marx and Mohammed a place where veils and vodka, pork and polygamy freely mingle against a backdrop of forgotten carpet designs, crumbling but magnificent Islamic architecture and scenes drawn straight from The Arabian Nights. Accompanied by a large green parrot, a ginger cat and his adoptive Uzbek family, Alexander recounts his efforts to rediscover the lost art of traditional weaving and dyeing, and the process establishing a self-sufficient carpet workshop, employing local women and disabled people to train as apprentices.A Carpet Ride to Khiva sees Alexander being stripped naked at a former Soviet youth camp, crawling through silkworm droppings in an attempt to record their life-cycle, holed up in the British Museum discovering carpet designs dormant for half a millennia, tackling a carpet-thieving mayor, distinguishing natural dyes from sacks of opium in Northern Afghanistan, bluffing his way through an impromptu version of My Heart Will Go On for national Uzbek TV and seeking sanctuary as an anti-Western riot consumed the Kabul carpet bazaar. Zusammenfassung An account of seven years on the Silk Road....
