haidian
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Central Asia's Most Important City Is ... Not in Central Asia
It's in China. Welcome to Urumqi
Central Asia's beating heart, the commercial hub of the region that cultivated the old Silk Road, is neither of the fabled Thousand and One Nights cities of Samarkand or Bukhara. In fact, the center of this region is not even really in Central Asia. It's in China.
Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, the autonomous region that together with Tibet makes up China's western edge, is a bubbling, gritty metropolis, and probably the most cosmopolitan place between Shanghai and Istanbul. On the surface, Urumqi resembles most second-tier Chinese industrial hubs. But, with its myriad advertisements, signs and business placards in Chinese, Uighur, Russian, Kazakh and Kyrgyz -- written in Chinese, Arabic or Cyrillic scripts --Urumqi is no ordinary Chinese city. In fact, it has emerged as the de facto capital of a revived Central Asia, a region poised to assume a higher profile in the world's energy, diplomatic, and cultural scenes.
https://www.theatlantic.com/china/a...important-city-is-not-in-central-asia/277764/
It's in China. Welcome to Urumqi
Central Asia's beating heart, the commercial hub of the region that cultivated the old Silk Road, is neither of the fabled Thousand and One Nights cities of Samarkand or Bukhara. In fact, the center of this region is not even really in Central Asia. It's in China.
Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, the autonomous region that together with Tibet makes up China's western edge, is a bubbling, gritty metropolis, and probably the most cosmopolitan place between Shanghai and Istanbul. On the surface, Urumqi resembles most second-tier Chinese industrial hubs. But, with its myriad advertisements, signs and business placards in Chinese, Uighur, Russian, Kazakh and Kyrgyz -- written in Chinese, Arabic or Cyrillic scripts --Urumqi is no ordinary Chinese city. In fact, it has emerged as the de facto capital of a revived Central Asia, a region poised to assume a higher profile in the world's energy, diplomatic, and cultural scenes.
https://www.theatlantic.com/china/a...important-city-is-not-in-central-asia/277764/
