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Buy a digital subscription Go to the Digital EditionCentral Asia, a plant-hunter’s paradise, has long held Chris Gardner under its spell. For two decades the Antalya-based botanical writer and photographer has traversed countless miles of steppe and mountain in search of the hardier cousins of many of his favourite Turkish plants – from towering foxtail lilies to the tiny ‘Trollius lilacinus’, exquisite ice queen of the Tien Shan
Saddle-sore was putting it mildly. I am definitely not a born rider. Thankfully, back in 1999, my 30-year-old body recovered swiftly, helped by a shot or three of finest walnut-flavoured vodka, as prescribed by my friend and fellow naturalist Vladimir Kolbinsev, a long-time researcher and wildlife guide in Kazakhstan. The next day we were off again, riding (or clinging on) as the horses powered up to a 3,000-metre pass in Kazakhstan’s fabulous Aksu-Dzabagly Nature Reserve in the Tien Shan (Celestial Mountains). Once at the pass, any aches quickly dispelled, the landscape and flora were all-consuming. Around us loomed snowcapped peaks. Below us foothills were riven.
This was my introduction to Central Asia, a massive region that for so long had been shrouded in Soviet-era mystery and seemed impossible to reach. Only now was that beginning to change. The ex-Soviet states had their independence, and tourism was growing, fuelled by the lure of the fabled Silk Road, whose ancient hub was Central Asia. Of course, the notion of the Silk Road is an artificial one that we ourselves (or more correctly the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen, in 1877) have imposed on the landscape. Yet for botanists it is very real and very rich, a plant-hunter’s paradise, a 5,000-mile route from central Turkey to China and Mongolia, passing through the southern band of Asian steppe, and blessed with the most spectacular flora on earth≤…
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Chris Gardner and his wife, Başak Gardner, organise and lead botanical tours worldwide, including Turkey and the lands of the Silk Road (viranatura.com). Their books, ‘Flora of the Mediterranean’ and ‘Flora of the Silk Road’, are available from cornucopia.net
Berrin Torolsan is enchanted by the House of Hindliyan. Photographs by Tim Beddow
Philip Mansel on a book that tells the story of the Pera-born dragoman Mouradgea d’Ohsson, the ultimate cosmopolite who lifted the lid on the Topkapı. This special 24-page feature, Cornucopia includes 28 of the images from Mouradgea’s magnum opus, Tableau général de l’Empire othoman
Anatolia on foot 40 years ago, by Christopher Trillo, with photographs by the author and Stephen Scoffham
Caroline Eden tells Ergun Çağatay’s remarkable story
John Hare on how the two-humped wild camel was saved from extinction
Tim Stanley on a celebration of Şeyh Hamdullah and the 500-year-old calligraphy tradition that almost vanished
A newly discovered 16th-century painting of Süleyman the Magnificent, sold by Sotheby’s London this spring (and subseqently donated to the Istanbul Municipality by an anonymous businessman), is the most ‘immediate’ portrait of him until the last years of his life. This is Süleyman in his pomp. By Julian Raby
An affectionate tribute to Suna Kıraç by Özalp Birol
Fruit poached to perfection, the fragrant ‘hoşaf’, or compote, is a simple, soothing finale to any meal
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