Sara Wheeler

The exotic Silk Road is now a highway to hell

Though containing the ancient entrepots of Bukhara and Samarkand, the Central Asia Stans have become a byword for cruelty and corruption

  • Sovietistan: A Journey Through Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan

    Erika Fatland, translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson

    Maclehose, pp. 480, £20

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