Kashgar: The crossroads of Central Asia

October 5, 1999
Web posted at 11:30 AM EDT

By John Fox

For almost a thousand years, Kashgar has been a crossroads of Central Asia

In the near distance donkeys bray and a man plays a horn as traders make their way to the Kashgar market. Some have come from the mountains to the west, after traveling through the cold night. An old Uigur man with his felt hat pulled over his ears eases his donkey and cart past me, flashing his gold teeth as he fades into the market throng. As he turns away, I experience that familiar rush- another Quest has begun!

As the team archaeologist my job is to investigate the ancient and modern cultures of the places we explore. On AsiaQuest, my focus is tracing Marco Polo's route and gathering evidence to help prove whether or not he made the journey to China he has long been given credit for. In the end, you'll make the final call.

Marco Polo's trek to Kashgar was a little tougher than mine. It took me eight hours to get here from Beijing. Marco Polo took three years. He had to travel thousands of miles by foot and horse over some of the highest mountains in the world to get to this safe haven. With all that lay behind him, he still had the Taklamakan Desert to cross before he was even within range of Kublai Khan's court at Cambaluc- modern Beijing.

For almost a thousand years, Kashgar has been a crossroads of Central Asia, a place where traders from Silk Road cities arrived to buy and sell spices, silks, precious metals and other valuable goods. Once here, Marco Polo had little to say about Kashgar- about 250 words total- which is surprising considering its importance and the fact that he'd just traveled months through remote mountains to get here.

Bartering for grapes at the Kashgar market

Everywhere I walk in Kashgar I see smiling faces. Men put their hands to their hearts as a gesture of welcome and children test their English on me, yelling "Hello!" as I walk by. Marco Polo's impressions were far less favorable. He called the Uigurs here a "wretched set of people who eat and drink in miserable fashion." Marco, like many Christian Europeans of his time, was very biased against Muslims and so he had little trust or admiration for the Uigurs of Kashgar. As for the food, well I wouldn't call it wretched, but it does take some getting used to. Unlike us, Marco didn't have the experience of school cafeteria food to compare to!

The most striking feature of the Kashgar market is the endless array of crafts from all over Central Asia: beautiful wool carpets from as far away as Iran, bone-handled knives from the oasis towns to the south, the finest silks, and hats of every shape and size. Everywhere I turn I'm accosted by a salesman-"This is best knife, best price!" Marco Polo remarked that the "inhabitants live by trade and handicrafts," while "their merchants go about the world on trading journeys." He was right about that, but unfortunately, that's all he offers on the subject. And strangely, he never mentions carpets or silks, which were being sold here long before Marco arrived. The cotton and grapes that Marco remarked on are still staple crops here, but the Christians and their churches that were here in his time have long since vanished- their churches destroyed, their cemeteries plowed over with the passage of time.

All in all, Marco's account of Kashgar is pretty dead-on and little has changed. But why did he have so little to say about a place that is so remarkable and impressive in its details? Did he really walk these streets at all? Over the coming weeks, I'll be investigating that central question everywhere we go.

In the meantime, you've voted for us to go to Taklamakan Desert, so it's time to hit the trail!

John