Kashgar

Sunday market:

Once a week, on Sundays, it seems like the whole region is coming to Kashgar to sell and buy stuff. A gigantic market where you can buy and sell everything. Carpets, clothing, shoes, hats, old Ugur knives and also many souvenirs nowadays. The best experience you can have is to eat in a local joint between local market people, but you have to look out for your wallet. 

With a local bus (number 16) you can go a little further than the actual city (and market) to the animal market. Thousands of sheep, camels, horses, cows, goats and I know a lot more is being traded on a encircled site. You have to have a bit of good intestines to walk around here – sometimes they don’t treat the animals like we want to see it. You have to think that it has been the same way here for centuries.

The market is getting more popular every year but I hope i twill keep it’s local sense and atmosphere and it doesn’t turn out to be a tourist-market in the future. 

The old (inner) city:

You are probably too late to see the old city in its glory. The Chinese have decided to destroy the whole old "mud" city and put down new buildings in a touristy way. A thorn in the eye of every (Western) tourist what an average Chinese does not seem to understand.

Small, narrow streets and alleys where children kick a ball and girls jump rope. Stroll through it, get lost and you might be lucky that someone invites you to one of the courtyards behind the high walls where the old Ugur people live and work.  

Other attractions:

• A visit tot he Id Kah mosque.

Kashqar was originally a city state in Sinkiang, which was repeatedly subjected to Huns and Han Chinese until the 8th century. In 78 AD. a Chinese garrison was stationed there. The city came into the hands of the T'ang dynasty at the end of the 7th century and then successively in the hands of Turkish Karluks (8th century), Uyghurs (10th-11th century) and Kara-kitai (12th century).

The city is traditionally important as a trading center (junction of caravan routes) and is the westernmost Chinese Silk Road city. With the conquest by the Mongols in 1219 began a flourishing period, which ended with the looting by Timoer Lenk (14th century). At the time of the Tj'ing dynasty, the city became Chinese again (1755). Since 1755, the city has repeatedly been the scene of Islamic uprisings (especially 1862-1875 and 1928-1937). In the 19th century, a Central Asian warlord, Yakub Beg, proclaimed khan of the state of Kashgaria. After his death in 1877 the area came under Chinese rule again. 

In early August 2008 Kashgar was the scene of an attack against the Chinese border police. Sixteen agents were killed and sixteen more were injured according to the Chinese state news agency Xinhua. Two people entered the border post in Kashgar with a van and threw two bombs that exploded immediately. According to the Chinese police the attack had a terrorist character and he could be linked to a militant separatist group, the Islamic Party of Turkestan. In February 2009 the Chinese government started moving 50,000 families from the old center of Kashgar.

The demolition of the more than 1000 years old city center, where Uyghurs in particular live, is a thorn in the eyes of architects and archaeologists, who regard the local architecture as unique. The reason for the demolition is given by the Chinese government that the old city would be eroded and outdated by its age and that the old houses would be at risk of collapse during an earthquake. The demolition would also be necessary to install sewers, water pipes and wider streets. Kashgar is one of the last cities in Xinjiang where traditional Uyghur architecture and culture can still be found.

Most Uighur homes in other cities have already made way for Chinese flats and highways in recent decades.