Kashgar, one of the great cities of the Silk Road, home of the Uighur and ancient meeting point of cultures and empires. Before its demolition, its old city was considered the best preserved Islamic city of central Asia. With the pretext of construction safety the authorities completely demolished it and built a replica to replace it, in what was seen by many locals as an attack on Uighur's cultural identity.
When we visited, it was the new "old city" we saw. There was a clear effort from the authorities to maintain the architectural traits and the new "old city" is still a beautiful place to visit as you can see in the picture below. However, a lot of historical and cultural elements were lost.
No comments:
Post a Comment