Women dressed in traditional Kazakh clothing sit waiting in the Renaissance hotel, where expat oil workers stay while visiting Atyrau on business.Carolyn Drake—Panos Pictures for TIME
This is the fourth installment in a five-part series from TIME International’s annual Summer Journey issue, Travels Through Islam: Discovering a world of change and challenge in the footsteps of the 14th century explorer Ibn Battuta.
It was a whirlwind. TIME’s Hannah Beech and I covered a lot of subject matter in a very short amount of time during our journey to Kazakhstan. We looked for evidence of Chinese influence at the bazaar, at the bus terminal, at gas stations and on a rooftop; we spoke with Uighur leaders and scholars and a lawyer whose family fled to the Soviet Union from China in the 60’s, and with Kazakh traders from China who had crossed back into Kazakhstan for business.
Three hours by plane to the east, we snuck around an oil refinery and asked about its effects on the environment, then visited a museum honoring the explorer Ibn Battuta, who passed through a riverside town on horseback in the 14th century. All this in five days. It’s hard to see any connection between the place that Ibn Battuta encountered and what we as western journalists experienced 700 years later. I’m not sure how long Ibn Battuta stayed there, but maybe his visit was nearly as brief as ours, a short glimpse.
There are some things you can see more clearly as an outsider passing through, and many more that you completely overlook or just experience as confusion. Why was the guarded housing complex for Chevron employees—each home outfitted with identical grills and trashcans—completely empty? How did the man I photographed asleep near the train tracks end up there? On a tight deadline and with lots of territory to cover, there are always questions left unanswered.
I suppose this is what a journey is—something that leaves you with fragments of experience that hopefully add up to something meaningful.
Carolyn Drake is a photographer based in Istanbul. Her work has focused on Central Asia since 2007 and has been supported through grants from the Guggenheim and Fulbright foundations and the Lange Taylor Prize.
Women dressed in traditional Kazakh clothing sit waiting in the Renaissance hotel, where expat oil workers stay while visiting Atyrau on business.Carolyn Drake—Panos Pictures for TIMEUighurs from Kazakhstan pick mulberries from a tree near the bus stop at Baraholka bazaar. There have been several waves of persecution-driven Uighur migration into Kazakhstan from the east over the last century. Carolyn Drake—Panos Pictures for TIMEThe town Saraichik, which was one of the biggest cities of the Golden Horde in the 13th century. Ibn Battuta visited in 1334 and replaced his horses with camels. The town lies on the banks of the Ural River in western Kazakhstan, 50km from the oil city Atyrau.
Carolyn Drake—Panos Pictures for TIMEPhotos in the home of a Uighur family in Druzhba, an Almaty neighborhood that is 80% Uighur.
Carolyn Drake—Panos Pictures for TIMEA young Uighur girl watches Uighur dancers on television at home in the Druzhba neighborhood of Almaty.Carolyn Drake—Panos Pictures for TIMEA man passed out on the train tracks near an oil refinery in Atyrau.
Carolyn Drake—Panos Pictures for TIMEBuses to China depart every evening from a bus stop across the street from Baraholka bazaar. Many Kazakhs from China cross back and forth for business. Uighurs have found it more difficult to receives passports since the Urumqi riots in 2009 so their ability to work as traders - traditionally a Uighur job - has been limited.
Carolyn Drake—Panos Pictures for TIMEProducts for sale at Baraholka bazaar, a market with products from neighboring China, Russia and beyond.Carolyn Drake—Panos Pictures for TIMEAtyrau oil refinery, which will soon be renovated and expanded with the help of Chinese investment. As the output of the refinery grows, it is likely that the pollution dropped into the canal on its edge will also.Carolyn Drake—Panos Pictures for TIMEPhotos in the home of a Uighur family in Druzhba, an Almaty neighborhood that is 80% Uighur.Carolyn Drake—Panos Pictures for TIMEA Uighur woman in the Druzhba neighborhood of Almaty takes a sugar bowl from the window sill to serve guests tea.Carolyn Drake—Panos Pictures for TIMEPassengers wait to board a bus that leaves for China from Baraholka bazaar every evening. Many Kazakhs from China cross back and forth for business.Carolyn Drake—Panos Pictures for TIMEA Chinese man prepares for work in the kitchen of Golden Dragon restaurant in Almaty. He and the other Chinese employees of the hotel/restaurant live in dorms on the roof of the building.Carolyn Drake—Panos Pictures for TIMEA street scene in Atyrau, an oil city in western Kazakhstan that is 50km from the medieval trading city of Saraychik that Ibn Battuta visited in the 14th century.Carolyn Drake—Panos Pictures for TIME
