Central Asia

Tall tales of the Golden East: the fabulous fabrications of two 20th-century con artists

27 July 2024 9:00 am

Capitalising on his Afghan-Indian heritage, Ikbal Shah claimed to have crucial inside knowledge of Central Asia, while his son Idries later purveyed a rebranded Sufism for the West

The pleasure of reliving foreign travel through food

22 June 2024 9:00 am

Russian hand pies, Polish chlodnik, Turkish fruit compote and a Latvian trifle are among the many dishes recreated in Edinburgh by the globetrotting Caroline Eden

What Xi wants from Central Asia

14 September 2022 10:10 pm

President Xi Jinping hasn’t stepped outside his country since the pandemic began. For almost three years, China’s elderly leaders have…

The exotic Silk Road is now a highway to hell

30 November 2019 9:00 am

This engaging book describes the Norwegian author’s travels round the five Central Asian Stans — a region where toponyms still…

The wars that really are about the oil

30 August 2014 9:00 am

You can’t understand any of the world’s crises without understanding petropolitics