Kashgar: Oasis City on China's Old Silk Road

Photographs by John Gollings

Reviewed by Katrina Pariera.

During the 2008 Summer Olympics, China’s capital city, Beijing, became the meeting place for cultures from all over the world. But go back 100 years and nearly 2500 miles and you will find Kashgar — one of the most important cultural stopovers in China’s history.

China's link to the world

Kashgar was one of the key stops on China’s Silk Road, linking China to the Middle East, the Mediterranean and the Indian subcontinent.

Traders from all over the continent used these routes to transport not only goods — but culture, language, and genes, as well.

Nestled between the vast desert and immense mountain range, Kashgar was once an isolated oasis on the long trade route across the Asian continent.

Mosques and markets

Inhabited throughout history by various waves of religious and ethnic groups, Kashgar today remains a mostly Muslim community.

Speckled with mosques and shrines, and known for its famous Sunday Market, the city is now a crossroads for tourists on their way to Russia, Central Asia or other parts of China.

A rich inheritance

Although the city has attracted visitors from all over the continent, it inherited much of its culture from the Uygurs, nomads from Mongolia to the north.

The majority of Kashgar’s people are Uygur Muslims — which also make up the majority of the whole Xinjiang province.

The language one hears in Kashgar exemplifies the city’s cultural hybridity — while most Kashgarites are fluent in Mandarin, many share linguistic ties with Persian, the language of their Turkic neighbors.

A bustling market

Kashgar is known for its famous outdoor Sunday Market, which carries an unexpected assortment of bright and varied goods. The market patron can buy mutton stew, pomegranate juice, pastries, handmade silk cloths, furniture, traditional wool hats, camels, donkeys and horses.

If the patron is a man he can also get his beard shaved and head massaged after his long day of haggling prices.

The old and the new

Like other ancient cities, Kashgar provides a striking contrast between the modern and traditional.

Highways are full of the sounds of blaring horns and speeding engines, while smaller country roads bare the sounds of braying donkeys and squeaky wooden wheels.

Signs of life and death also intermingle along Kashgar’s dirt roads.

From tree to shrine

Mud brick graves can be found clustered around old poplar trees in the desert sands, while the same poplar trees are used to form trellises for growing grapes.

Sometimes the old, gnarled poplar trees are turned into shrines by tying multi-colored strips of cloth and ribbon around all the branches.

Out of many, one

What stands out most about Kashgar is not that it is a city displaying the remnants of an important past, nor a city of mixed cultures living side by side.

Kashgar is both of those things, but moreso it is a place defined by the convergence of many cultures into one.

The sights, smells and sounds of Kashgar represent a mixed world, where a set of beliefs, rituals and styles has emerged to form one of the most unique cultures in the world.

About John Gollings