The Silk Road is a legend. When you hear these two words, you immediately see caravans of camels traversing deserts of Asia and struggling to pass through difficult mountain paths. You can see merchants’ stalls full of colorful fabrics, jewels and beautifully smelling spices. You think of fairy-tale, oriental palaces. You hear rustle of the pages of old manuscripts and parchments.
All of this is but imagination, fed on the Tales of One and a Thousand Night. But how did the Silk Road look for real? History is much more complicated, full of bloody battles, politics, discovering economical connections and dependencies between far-away countries. The history of the Silk Road is so fascinating, because through it one can see how the cultures and civilizations of today have been forming through the ages. Without the meeting of great civilizations of East and West the world would look much more different. The secrets of silk and gunpowder production and paper manufacturing, spreading of the Islamic culture throughout the world – all this happened only because of the existence of the Silk Road.
To us the history and culture of the Silk Road consists of: history of the empires that ruled over the Silk Road, the most significant cities along the trade route and biographies of people who travelled along the Silk Road and described its beauty, both ages ago and more recently. Moreover we are really interested how people live in Central Asia today, when dramatic events of recent history and political changes took their toll on them.
We wanted to feel all this with our own senses – and describe our feelings and fascination with the cultural mix that is now Central Asia. We wanted to discover less known places of Eastern Europe and Asia. Many have heard about Samarqand or Kara-kum Desert – but not many know how beautiful is Bogdo Mountain in Russia during sunset, or who was Khoja Akhmet Yasawi or how important to Kyrgiz is the sacred mountain Sulaiman-Too. We wanted to show all this to our friends and strangers. We wanted to make unique pictures and films that can bring the beauty of the Silk Road to those who stayed at home.
We wanted and we did it – we spent 2,5 month on road, riding 20 000 km across deserts mountains and seas. We are proud to share our memories.
