>> After all the restrictions it is a relief to be travelling once again to Central Asia and where better to get in the mood than wonderful Istanbul, writes Caroline Eden

OCT. 28 2021 (The Bulletin) — Istanbul’s cultural distractions are infinite. As I write, the Jewish Museum of Turkey is just finishing a month of events and throughout the city stages are set up for concerts and screenings linked to Beyoglu’s Kultur Yolu Festival (until 14 November). 

I am stopping for a short while, desperately trying to see and eat as much as possible, and catching up with old friends. This has only just become possible again. Turkey was on the UK’s red list until mid-September, which meant not only no Turkey, but no transiting through Istanbul’s superbly well-connected airport to cities such as Almaty and Samarkand either. 

Central Asia was off-limits. 

This all brings to mind a formidable traveller from the past, Ella Christie. Born in 1861, close to Edinburgh, she travelled twice to Central Asia, in 1910 and 1912, publishing her adventures in 1925 in ‘Through Khiva to Golden Samarkand’, a book I cherish. 

Before setting off the Foreign Office issued her with a personal warning: should she contract plague in Central Asia she ought to hang a red cloth over the window. But Christie knew such government advice was iffy. No thought was given as to where red cloth was to be obtained, if there would be any windows over which to hang it. Christie made a note of this guidance, and went anyway. 

I am relieved to be back on the road myself, double-vaccinated and with relevant paperwork in hand. In my suitcase are hardback copies of my latest book ‘Red Sands: Reportage and Recipes Through Central Asia from Hinterland to Heartland’. Almost a year on from publication, I want to give copies to those who helped me. There has been little in-person celebrating and so this feels important. 

I also want to return simply because I miss Central Asia like a friend. I want to eat Uzbekistan’s superlative winter melons and to walk Almaty’s tree-lined streets. It will, I suspect, after all that we have been through, and are still enduring, feel like a revisiting, a rebound, a retreat. A homecoming of sorts, even. 

>> Caroline Eden is a food and travel writer. In December she is giving a three-part online course entitled ‘The Taste of Place: Central Asia through its Landscape, Culture and Food’. Sign up here: www.92y.org/class/the-taste-of-place

–ENDS–

— This story was published in issue 505 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on Oct. 28 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021