Central Asia [antikvár]

Foreword, or"The Land that Will Not Let You Go"Some stories are long but soon forgotten, others flash by in a matter of moments and still stay with us for a lifetime.Satellite images of the wasteland stretching between the Aral Sea and the Caspian Sea show a huge, white, seemingly snow-covered area in sharp contrast to the lifeless, sand-coloured monotony of the Ust Urt Plateau. All that maps reveal about this white area is that it is called the salt swamp of Barsa Kelmes.A chilly dawn of a late-October day in 2002 found me crushed in a crowd of people on the train station of Kongrat. We were all making for the town of Beyneu in Kazakhstan, across the Ust Urt. As the cold temperature and stern mood of the early hours evaporated in the carriages the journey that was to last until evening looked to be far more bearable. Soon after departure the train climbed up onto the Ust Urt, and with that even the smallest anomaly our eyes could settle on in passing disappeared from the already quite barren landscape. All that remained was a bleak wasteland stretching out to infinity, and the intangible spell cast by being ringed in by the horizon.Our train rumbled on towards Beyneu at a slow, ponderous pace, as if it knew that it had nowhere to hurry in this pathless wasteland. At unequal intervals we would halt at one desolate station or other, to then rumble on as if nothing had happened.As the train stood at a station I guessed to be somewhere near the swamp of Barsa Kelmes, I realized after a rather long wait that nothing was happening. To my enquiry my Uzbek travel-mate replied by pointing out the prominently displayed name of the station, and read it out aloud for emphasis: Barsa Kelmes. Naturally, I had no idea what this meant. The sign Barsa Kelmes, to be read in Karakalpak script means, as he explained: the land that will not let you go. Though fearful for a moment, I found the train soon coming to life again, to continue the journey. From that moment I saw these lands in a changed light, the peculiar meaning of that train-station's name ringing on in my ear.Who would never be allowed to go? Exiles, who spent their years of punishment, or whole lifetimes in these lands long ago? Or the unknown inhabitants of the lonely graves and cemeteries dotting the desert? Perhaps captives of the god-forsaken prisons along the ancient caravan routes? They must have understood exactly what barsa kelmes means. But anyone travelling through the grassy wasteland can understand as well, experiencing the sand and clay deserts of Central Asia, where there is no sense of change in the bleak world stretching out to infinity. There is no goal, or any presence of constructive intelligence here, where the petrified ruins of ancient cultures contemplate the distance timelessly. That is also why there is no comparison for the magical spectacle of sunrise and sunset, and the never ceasing hum of the wind in these parts. The heartrending experience this landscape commands, of infinity and our own smallness, binds us to this captivating world, and brings home the terrifying message of that train-station's suggestive name: the land that will not let you go.