{"id":13250,"date":"1993-10-02T12:46:00","date_gmt":"1993-10-02T12:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/wordpress\/books\/the-silk-road\/the-silk-road\/"},"modified":"2021-06-03T06:24:52","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T04:24:52","slug":"the-silk-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/the-silk-road\/","title":{"rendered":"The Silk Road"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The king was traveling the Asian Hashish roads to collect and renew the royal cannabidea collection in the royal botanical garden in Dusheti. Tsur shezaf was traveling to see the Silk Roads \u2013 to visit Tibilisi of Vachtang Gorgasali \u2013 the wolf head king, to\u00a0 Samrkand of Timur the lame, to Taxila following Alexander the great, to Wu di’s Xian & to\u00a0 Beijing \u2013 the capital of Kublai \u2013 Xan Marko Polo’s emperor.
\nBaku,\u00a0 Buxara, Tashkent, Dushanbe & Osh. China and the Heavenly mountains, Pakistan & the Karakoram highway that crosses between Pamir & Hindu-Kush. And again to China\u00a0\u00a0 to legendary Kashgar & Turpan \u2013 the Silk Road’s oasis and from there to Don Huang \u2013 the flaming torch at the far end of the big wall, to Xian & to the forbidden city & to the junks in Hong Kong.
\nThe journey stitches past & present, imagination & adventure, sailing a ferry on the Caspian sea, rocking on a Chinese lorry in the Pamirs, singing in a slow train to the Khyber pass and in a loaded bus to Dara, a village on the Afghan boarder where weapons are manufactured on the street and plastic begs full of Hash are rolling on the ground. The\u00a0 Silk Road.
\n
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

On ‘The Silk Road’<\/span> By Dan Daor<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Less passive than Bruce Chatwin and more generous than Paul Theroux, Tsur Shezaf transverses the Silk Road and two thousand and something years. He is not seeking horses and the culture of the West, that is India, like the Chinese, nor does he want to peddle Christianity or do business, like many before him who followed the road from west to east\u2026.
\nAll doors opened before the writer bearing the British passport, the Israeli ‘chutzpah,’ the thirst for knowledge and the lust for adventure.
\nHe accomplished it quickly and worked hard, and in happy contrast to the few other travel books that have been published in Hebrew, he has also done some reading. His swift and rhythmic prose – in which short descriptions, bits of conversations, and cogent historical summaries – punctuated by quotations, references names and extracts from interviews — is a kind of courtesy: he who has heard, heard, he who has thought, thought, and he who has not is also just fine. The signposts Shezaf has handsomely though not bothersomely sown along the way will make the reader think. Or not. It is possible to enjoy the energetic musicianship even without puzzling out the staccato.
\nAnyone who has ever dreamt of Samarkand, Don Huang, Marco Polo, Ibn Batuta, Benjamin of Tudela, Shuan Dzang, Errol Stein, Bukhara or Kashgar knows at least in a general way what motivates this book. And after quickly reading through its dense pages, I can only thank Tsur Shezaf for doing so much to bring reality to these magical names, and doing so without diminishing their enchantment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Dancer in Buchara<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Travels With A King And A Knight<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

FULL MOON IN TASHKENT<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"


<\/strong>The Silk Road – book cover

In the\u00a0\u00a0 summer of 1991 Tsur Shezaf went to cross Asia from Istanbul to Beijing on the\u00a0 silk Roads.<\/strong> It was a strange\u00a0 time \u2013 the Soviet empire was gone and nothing else emerged yet.
He was probably the first westerner to cross central Asia un attended by KGB after 70 years of\u00a0 Communism.
Between Georgia and the Chinese border he was accompanied by the king of Georgia Lado Bagrateyoni, traveling together in a battered “Lada” that was driven by the knight Zaza Zizishvili \u2013 an architect, adventurer and a man that waves his hands and catches passing money, drops them down and the money disappears.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[188,189,202],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-books-books","category-the-silk-road"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Silk Road - shezaf.net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/the-silk-road\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Silk Road - shezaf.net\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Silk Road - book coverIn the\u00a0\u00a0 summer of 1991 Tsur Shezaf went to cross Asia from Istanbul to Beijing on the\u00a0 silk Roads. It was a strange\u00a0 time \u2013 the Soviet empire was gone and nothing else emerged yet. He was probably the first westerner to cross central Asia un attended by KGB after 70 years of\u00a0 Communism.Between Georgia and the Chinese border he was accompanied by the king of Georgia Lado Bagrateyoni, traveling together in a battered "Lada" that was driven by the knight Zaza Zizishvili \u2013 an architect, adventurer and a man that waves his hands and catches passing money, drops them down and the money disappears.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/the-silk-road\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"shezaf.net\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"1993-10-02T12:46:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-06-03T04:24:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/1993\/07\/\u05d7\u05d6\u05d9\u05ea-\u05d3\u05e8\u05da-\u05d4\u05de\u05e9\u05d9.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"850\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tsur Shezaf\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tsur Shezaf\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/the-silk-road\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/the-silk-road\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Tsur Shezaf\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/a56eb32e9bbcfec8f80481d2a4e8c7b7\"},\"headline\":\"The Silk Road\",\"datePublished\":\"1993-10-02T12:46:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-06-03T04:24:52+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/the-silk-road\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":491,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/the-silk-road\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/1993\\\/07\\\/\u05d7\u05d6\u05d9\u05ea-\u05d3\u05e8\u05da-\u05d4\u05de\u05e9\u05d9.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Books\",\"books\",\"The Silk Road\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/the-silk-road\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/the-silk-road\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/the-silk-road\\\/\",\"name\":\"The Silk Road - shezaf.net\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/the-silk-road\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/the-silk-road\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/1993\\\/07\\\/\u05d7\u05d6\u05d9\u05ea-\u05d3\u05e8\u05da-\u05d4\u05de\u05e9\u05d9.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"1993-10-02T12:46:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-06-03T04:24:52+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/a56eb32e9bbcfec8f80481d2a4e8c7b7\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/the-silk-road\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/the-silk-road\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/the-silk-road\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/1993\\\/07\\\/\u05d7\u05d6\u05d9\u05ea-\u05d3\u05e8\u05da-\u05d4\u05de\u05e9\u05d9.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/1993\\\/07\\\/\u05d7\u05d6\u05d9\u05ea-\u05d3\u05e8\u05da-\u05d4\u05de\u05e9\u05d9.jpg\",\"width\":600,\"height\":850,\"caption\":\"The Silk Road\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/the-silk-road\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"\u05d3\u05e3 \u05d4\u05d1\u05d9\u05ea\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Silk Road\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/\",\"name\":\"shezaf.net\",\"description\":\"\u05e1\u05e4\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd | \u05d4\u05e8\u05e6\u05d0\u05d5\u05ea | \u05e2\u05d9\u05ea\u05d5\u05e0\u05d5\u05ea | \u05d8\u05d9\u05d5\u05dc\u05d9\u05dd\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/a56eb32e9bbcfec8f80481d2a4e8c7b7\",\"name\":\"Tsur Shezaf\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/4abef09b29629a1d9c7cce49a88323aee776335b9c5c3ecaec0dd4d914583461?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/4abef09b29629a1d9c7cce49a88323aee776335b9c5c3ecaec0dd4d914583461?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/4abef09b29629a1d9c7cce49a88323aee776335b9c5c3ecaec0dd4d914583461?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Tsur Shezaf\"},\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/shezaf.net\\\/en\\\/author\\\/tsurshezaf2019gmail-com\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Silk Road - shezaf.net","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/the-silk-road\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Silk Road - shezaf.net","og_description":"The Silk Road - book coverIn the\u00a0\u00a0 summer of 1991 Tsur Shezaf went to cross Asia from Istanbul to Beijing on the\u00a0 silk Roads. It was a strange\u00a0 time \u2013 the Soviet empire was gone and nothing else emerged yet. He was probably the first westerner to cross central Asia un attended by KGB after 70 years of\u00a0 Communism.Between Georgia and the Chinese border he was accompanied by the king of Georgia Lado Bagrateyoni, traveling together in a battered \"Lada\" that was driven by the knight Zaza Zizishvili \u2013 an architect, adventurer and a man that waves his hands and catches passing money, drops them down and the money disappears.","og_url":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/the-silk-road\/","og_site_name":"shezaf.net","article_published_time":"1993-10-02T12:46:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-06-03T04:24:52+00:00","og_image":[{"width":600,"height":850,"url":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/1993\/07\/\u05d7\u05d6\u05d9\u05ea-\u05d3\u05e8\u05da-\u05d4\u05de\u05e9\u05d9.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Tsur Shezaf","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Tsur Shezaf","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/the-silk-road\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/the-silk-road\/"},"author":{"name":"Tsur Shezaf","@id":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/a56eb32e9bbcfec8f80481d2a4e8c7b7"},"headline":"The Silk Road","datePublished":"1993-10-02T12:46:00+00:00","dateModified":"2021-06-03T04:24:52+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/the-silk-road\/"},"wordCount":491,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/the-silk-road\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/1993\/07\/\u05d7\u05d6\u05d9\u05ea-\u05d3\u05e8\u05da-\u05d4\u05de\u05e9\u05d9.jpg","articleSection":["Books","books","The Silk Road"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/the-silk-road\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/the-silk-road\/","url":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/the-silk-road\/","name":"The Silk Road - shezaf.net","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/the-silk-road\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/the-silk-road\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/1993\/07\/\u05d7\u05d6\u05d9\u05ea-\u05d3\u05e8\u05da-\u05d4\u05de\u05e9\u05d9.jpg","datePublished":"1993-10-02T12:46:00+00:00","dateModified":"2021-06-03T04:24:52+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/a56eb32e9bbcfec8f80481d2a4e8c7b7"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/the-silk-road\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/the-silk-road\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/the-silk-road\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/1993\/07\/\u05d7\u05d6\u05d9\u05ea-\u05d3\u05e8\u05da-\u05d4\u05de\u05e9\u05d9.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/1993\/07\/\u05d7\u05d6\u05d9\u05ea-\u05d3\u05e8\u05da-\u05d4\u05de\u05e9\u05d9.jpg","width":600,"height":850,"caption":"The Silk Road"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/the-silk-road\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"\u05d3\u05e3 \u05d4\u05d1\u05d9\u05ea","item":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Silk Road"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/#website","url":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/","name":"shezaf.net","description":"\u05e1\u05e4\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd | \u05d4\u05e8\u05e6\u05d0\u05d5\u05ea | \u05e2\u05d9\u05ea\u05d5\u05e0\u05d5\u05ea | \u05d8\u05d9\u05d5\u05dc\u05d9\u05dd","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/a56eb32e9bbcfec8f80481d2a4e8c7b7","name":"Tsur Shezaf","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4abef09b29629a1d9c7cce49a88323aee776335b9c5c3ecaec0dd4d914583461?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4abef09b29629a1d9c7cce49a88323aee776335b9c5c3ecaec0dd4d914583461?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4abef09b29629a1d9c7cce49a88323aee776335b9c5c3ecaec0dd4d914583461?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Tsur Shezaf"},"url":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/author\/tsurshezaf2019gmail-com\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shezaf.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}