A literary travelogue, or travel to Margiana

Inspiring open areas of Turkmenistan find their reflection in many works of art. And how pleasant it is to find at times verses about surprising and really familiar places on pages of works of foreign authors. In literature there is such genre – travelogue which has developed from travelling notes of writers who travel all over the world. Following genre stylistics, we will try together with the writers who at various times have visited historical monuments of Ancient Marv and Nisa, to make digression on our native land, and to see it through eyes of foreigners. «If to look from above, from the height of the bird's flight, at the extreme southwest of Central Asia, the territory of modern Turkmenistan, a huge ocean of high sands of the great desert Karakum which almost closely have risen to the foothills of the Kopet Dagh will meet. And, only having got accustomed attentively, you will notice a narrow green strip of piedmont zones. This, apparently, an ordinary-looking, narrow strip of the earth also is the centre of the most ancient culture. Here yet in VI millennium BC sources of bright Central Asian civilization in the form of monuments of type of Jeitun which will surprise the world with shine and originality, arise. Let's imagine that we were taken 35 centuries back to the territory of the ancient country of Margush. Waters of the rough river Murgab promptly flow to the north, flowing down from foothills of the Hindu Kush. In the spring they are of almost coffee colour from fertile silt which together with water a wide fan spreads in a deltoid part of the river».

This fragment from the book «In search of the country of Margush» whose author is famous scientist-archaeologist Victor Sarianidi, depicts brilliant Margiana - ancient civilization, in search of which Victor Ivanovich spent many years of his life. His researches have crowned success, and how many surprising opening the archaeologist in Turkmenistan has made! In conclusion of the scientific work he writes: «It is possible not to doubt that Margush was one of the centres if not the native land of Zarathustra whose doctrine, having arisen far in the heart of southeast Kara Kum, soon becomes the first world religion». And one more interesting sight from travelling notes of writer Leonid Leonov who has visited vicinities of Old Marv in 1930. «And so it, Marv, Marg, Margiana, and Mouru as its Macedonian Alexander - a navel terrestrial on the Murgab named. It absolutely special here, silence, like a reliable ditch protecting idle greatness of the Sanjar’s tomb. At a drying up pool, such microscopic sardobes the round stone is heated. I bend, from it that hour wrinkled legs with claws are born both the turtle head, and a stone slowly creeps away … Here passed a world path of the people from the Volga to India, from China to Moscow, from Persia through the Amu to the Amur; for merchants there were soldiers, and on traces of soldiers - empire. Branchy branches of Central Asian dynasties and declines cut by difficult historical processes here ripened. it is necessary to see it, by all means, even if not to read wonderful, with gold in depressions in the ground Arabian ligature, still remained here and there, the trip to Margiana, present Marv, remains not less instructive ».

Travelling notes of wanderings across Turkmenistan, find an echo and in the lyric poet of the modern Kazakhstan writer Nadezhda Chernova. Visiting of the ancient site of ancient settlement and archaeological complex of Nyssa entered in the list of the World Heritage List of UNESCO, has inspired the poetess for creation of some verses. One of the sections of her poetic collection "Solstice" is named «Golden Nisa». And in a series of works «Turkmen notebook», there is a poem, which is very subtle reflecting a historical epoch in the present shape of Turkmen beauties.

In the gait of women of Ashkhabad There is a pride of Greek goddesses, That finishes symmetry of a garden Also ennoble the sky blue. Have decayed former Parthians, Their fortress terrible is empty. There will grow grass and again will wither - The beauty is immortal only!

But, as they say: «it is better to see once, than hundred times to hear». And this expression is possible to describe charm of Turkmenistan - the country where the sun does not stint warmth in winter, in summer where the ancient history is organically intertwined in modern space, and traditions of ancestors - not the dusty Talmud on the book shelf, and a real component of the present life of Turkmen.

Selbi Charyeva

Selbi Charyeva

Our orientation is to bring people together

A literary travelogue, or travel to Margiana

News Turkmenistan

A literary travelogue, or travel to Margiana

News Turkmenistan

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