Film

The Secret History of December 25th

http://www.pilgrimsonthesilkroad.com/ (Adoration of the Magi – Fourth century Sarcophagus) Around this time of year, questions about the exact date of Jesus’s birth pop up in sermons and over dinner tables everywhere. The most common explanation I hear is that Jesus was likely…

Bees That Drink Human Tears

http://www.pilgrimsonthesilkroad.com/ Howdy! Listen everyone, plant lots of flowers…if we run short the bees will go for your eyes! Well, not necessarily. But this item from the Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society seems a bit unsettling. From the abstract: Lisotrigona cacciae,…

The Time Zones Are A-Changin’

http://www.pilgrimsonthesilkroad.com/ In America, you change the time. In Mother Russia, time changes you! Enjoy that clock rollback Sunday morning. In Russia some lawmakers are losing sleep over the country’s eleven time zones. (The continental United States has a measly four time zones). They want…

Uzbek Film Industry Flourishes

Here’s an article you might enjoy about the rebirth of the Uzbek film industry. Like many countries in the region, piracy remains a problem. Nevertheless, small film studios are beginning to crank out films for Uzbek audiences. What should this industry…

Interlude in Bukhara

View Bukhara in a larger map (June 4, 2007) We spent most of the day visiting many of the historic sites in this Silk Road city. At the museum in the city’s main fortress, we found a photo of the…

Back to Serabulak

View Larger Map (June 3, 2007) Today we made the journey from Samarkand to Bukhara, with one very important stop along the way. About two hours into our bus ride, we took a detour to see the village of Serabulak.…

The Road to Samarkand

View Larger Map (June 2, 2007) We spent all day Wednesday in transit from Ukraine to Uzbekistan. We spent the day Thursday touring Tashkent. An earthquake in 1966 destroyed much of the old city. This meant that many structures of…

The Last Mennonite in Molotschna

View Larger Map (May 30, 2007) 11:00am – On Tuesday we visited the Molotschna villages southeast of Zaporozhe. The Mennonite colonies here covered a couple of hundred of square miles with dozens of villages. A majority of the participants had…

Zipping through Zaporozhye

View Larger Map (May 28, 2007) 9:00am – This is the second full day of the journey. We are visiting sites in Zap, as well in in the former Mennonite colonies of Chortitza and Rosenthal on the Dnieper River. The…