The Wandering Scot

An occasional travel journal.

Browsing Posts tagged Stans

We came down through the Salang Pass from Mazar, and then drove up a surprisingly good road to the Panjshir valley.  The entry to the valley is an extremely defensible narrow gorge between steep cliffs. The Panjshir Valley was the great stronghold of the mujahideen in their battle against the Soviets, and there are frequent […]

I crossed from Tajikistan into Uzbekistan at the Tursanzade-Denau crossing, on the road from Dushanbe to Termez. The Tajik exit formalities were straightforward, taking only about 25 minutes.  On the Uzbek side, the immigration formalities were easy, but customs was a little ugly. Uzbekistan has tight currency controls.  If you are carrying undeclared currency, the […]

Khojand (aka Khujand) is a sleepy industrial town in Northern Tajikistan. In an earlier age it was Leninabad. And in an even earlier one, it was Alexandria-the-Furthest. Yes, Big Alex was here, pursuing a Scythian army. In 329 b.c. he re-founded the existing city as Alexandria Eschate (“Alexandria the Farthest”) on the Jaxartes River. Unfortunately […]

Astana's Cosmonauts

Astana takes pride in being Kazakhstan’s visionary new capital. But in the older parts of town there are also many traces of the Soviet past. My favorite of these is a fine Soviet era mosaic outside the train station, showing a spectacled engineer and a waving cosmonaut.  A nice reminder of Kazakstan’s broader role in […]

The Darvaza Gas Crater

The Darvaza Gas Crater is the debris from a disastrously failed Soviet gas well. After the failure, the escaping gas was left to burn itself out. It has been merrily burning for over 30 years now.  (More Davaza photos.) Through StanTours, I had arranged a 4WD, driver and guide for the trip, about 150 miles […]

Ashgabat: Much Strangeness

Turkmenistan is by far the strangest of the ex-soviet Republics.  The late President Niyazov (aka “Turkmenbashi”) ruled as an absolute monarch, with a personality cult that would have made Stalin blush.   Strange relics of his reign still dot Ashgabat. The Arch of Neutrality is a 75 meter tripod tower, adorned with a 12 meter golden […]