Silk Road myths and legends

What is it?

The Silk Road was a series of trade routes that connected China with Persia, Mesopotamia and Byzantium via Central Asia. The routes spanned a vast swathe of Earth, reaching from Europe through the Middle East and central Asia to China. It also included sea routes through the Red Sea and Persian Gulf to India and Indonesia.

Was there really silk on it?

Yes — and spices, weapons, metals, gemstones and livestock. But it was more than just things to buy and sell — the “Silk Road" was also about ideas. It was, in fact, an early and incredibly slow Internet — slower even than dial-up — through which people learnt about such ideas as religious beliefs, like Buddhism, Islam and Christianity.

When did it begin?

Possibly with Arimaspi nomads — whom legend says had only one eye — trading horses and art in Central Asia as early as 2000BC.

Didn’t Marco Polo travel the Silk Road?

Yes — at least parts of it. He left Venice in 1271 with his father and uncle on a trading mission that took them to the famous palace of the Mongol emperor Kublai

Khan — a 24 000km journey that took 24 years. They would not have known the route as the Silk Road, though — that term was first dreamed up by German traveller Ferdinand von Richthofen in

1877.

Is it easy to travel on the Silk Road now?

That’s like asking, “how long is a piece of string?“Certainly, there are parts of the original trade routes, such as through Afghanistan, that are off-limits to travellers with any survival sense. Other countries, such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are open for tourism. They are also a long way from being trashed by mass tourism, selfie-sticks and “likes”. One way to travel is by train — most of the former Soviet states have usable railway networks. In Uzbekistan, you can even take the train know as the “Sharq”. Now who wouldn’t want that? —