Pictured above is an Orthodox Church in Aulie-Ata, a city in the Syr Darya Oblast or what is now Taraz, Khakastan. The church adheres to features of Eastern Orthodox Church architecture:  a rounded rectangular shape symbolizing a ship as a … Read more

In contrast to the major Ashkenazi (European) Jewish population, Bukharan Jews are Mizrahi Jews who speak a Persian dialect with elements from Biblical Hebrew (Bukhori), and are followers of Sephardic Judaism. They lived mainly in the territory of the former … Read more

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/out-of-eden-walk/media/2018-02-on-foot-in-the-path-of-the-silk-road/   Jumping several centuries backward (and forward) in time from our point in the nineteenth century, Paul Salopek’s “Out of Eden Walk” is a ten year long bipedal journey along ancient routes of human migration. Although Salopek’s routes and … Read more

This photo of an ornate candlestick is from the Turkestan album of pictures taken by the Russians during their expansion into Turkestan. The presence of a mosque in Turkestan is evident of the Mongol legacy of Islam in the region, … Read more

This image, from the Turkestan Album’s ‘Historical Part’ (Part 4), shows an Orthodox church at a fort in Syr Darya Oblast. The centre of Syr Darya Oblast was Tashkent, and the region now covers areas of Uzbekistan and Kazakstan. The … Read more

These pictures depict Chala-Qazaqs (or “half-Kazakhs”) of the Kazakh steppe. As steppe Kazakh nomads inherited their tribal identity from their fathers, those who were born from a Kazakh mother and a non-Kazakh father could not be regarded as “fully” Kazakh. … Read more

This images shows a portion the city of Chardzhou in Russian Turkestan from 1890. The second largest city is Turkmenistan, Chardzhou is known in contemporary times as Türkmenabat and even Āmul, a name from ancient times. The city is the … Read more

This image portrays the transfer of the bride from her parent’s home to that of the groom, a part of a mini-series depicting Tajik wedding rituals within the larger ethnographic collection. While the picture seems to be staged in this … Read more

The above photo was taken of a Central Asian family inside a Kyrgyz tent in the Syr Darya oblast (annexed as a part of Russian Turkestan around 1867).  Apart from its obvious context as an family portrait – a posed … Read more

In the Balkans, the Ottoman forces repelled the Russians at strategic locations along the Danube. Despite the British and French unable to field armies at these early stages of the war in late 1853 and 1854, the Russian were ultimately … Read more