2018, Central Asia

We start the day wandering in the awe-inspiring old city, which constitutes the City Center. It’s a labyrinth of small streets full of shops selling all kind of goods, from fabric to local handicrafts of dubious authenticity. The atmosphere, at least, is original, and that is due to the vast majority of Uighurs living in the city.

The beauty of the place is sadly ruined by the blockades installed at the entrance of all the neighborhoods of Kashgar: at each one of them we are required to show the passport. But, as tourists, we are the lucky ones: if policemen summarily look at our documents, it is not the case for locals, for whom the checks are more thorough and sometime include random questions and/or perquisitions. Police is basically everywhere: a metal detector is installed at every shop, and bigger ones require a baggage check, which we can randomly skip as foreign tourists. Despite the control and repression, we see a lot of young children playing in the streets, which makes us understand that, after all, these people adapt to the situation and live as normally as they can.

At around midday we opt for visiting the Mosque, the biggest of the country, for which we pay the exorbitant price of 45 yuan (roughly 7€ per person): too bad the place is empty. Besides, we are reminded by the police that the place is not meant to be used for religious purposes: women can enter without covering head or arms and prayers are not allowed. The garden is calm, though, and perfect for some relaxing time away from the busy streets of the city.

Back in the old city, we stroll in the streets and notice how the vast majority of buildings is actually pretty recent: the “real” ancient Kashgar has actually been demolished and replaced with a new one, more suitable for tourism, decorated with brand new Islamic-inspired buildings. The previous ones, made with mud bricks, and dating back to centuries ago, can only be seen in another portion of the small town, around 2 kms away. Even this latter one, though, at the moment of writing, is being progressively demolished and the authorities don’t let anyone in.

During our two days in Kashgar we also have the time to visit the local bazaar, literally full of any kinds of stuff. Despite its gigantic size, many products on sale are fake replicas of luxury brands, making it not so different from the so-callled “fake market” that we visited in Beijing: to our major amusement, we stumble on ridiculously fake Samsung TVs (Somsung), Sharp (Sahpr) or LG (LGwd). Of course, we also find tons of fresh products: fruits, almonds, nuts, dates, cold goat milk and local bakeries based on the local ingredients.

Grenade juice, nut-based pastries and goat meat are just some of the key elements of the unexpectedly developed Uigur cuisine, which can be tasted at incredibly cheap local restaurants: a meal for two costs around 4/5€ drinks included. When ordering, the local language is the hardest barrier though: written in the Arab alphabet, it has absolutely nothing to share with Chinese or to other languages, even if some words share common roots with Turkish. Nevertheless, in general menus are written in both Uighur and Chinese, which allows us to use our translator app to help us understand what we order. Even in the fanciest Uighur restaurants, the atmosphere is hardly happy. It’s high season in Xinjiang; still, most tables are empty and you don’t need to reserve in advance to get one, even in those nights with live music, often performed with a local guitarist singing beautiful local songs with a middle-eastern sound.

The second day in Kashgar, we miss the opportunity to visit the Karakol lake, one of the best spots of the region. The trip is a bit expensive and we are quite tired, so we take the time to better discover the streets and try to get a better glimpse of the local life. In all but the smallest streets, small shops work incessantly, often full of female customers of all ages, buying products for the entire family.

Generally speaking, thousands of years later, Kashgar still plays the role it had at the time of the ancient Silk Road, that is, being an extraordinary center of commerce and trading. Apart from the Bazar, the town is all about selling and buying goods from all over the Eastern World: gold and fruits from Central Asia, electronics and clothes from China, but also silk, leather and even animals.

And if Europe seems having lost the role it had, at the profit of the Chinese superpower, this can’t be farther from truth. Brands people long for in this part of the world are mainly Gucci and Luis Vuitton, with local designers “borrowing” inspiration from their European counterparts; European footballers are as popular here as they are in their home countries. A bunch of hundred kilometers north of Kashgar, in Urumqi, trains fulls of car components for German and French automotive brands go back and forth from Chinese factories.

Of course, Internet has replaced the ancient Silk Road as a mean of exchanging ideas but Xinjiang, thanks to its key position in the continent, has probably never been so important in the last centuries as in this decade. For Chinese authorities, this region is not only another piece of their already enormous territory, but the main access point to Central Asia and Europe. It should then come as no surprise the recent intensification of controls and “safety” procedures: the local government will do whatever possible to keep the control of the region. Cost what it costs.