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In the steppes of Central Asia :.




     In The Secret Commonwealth (2019), Sir Philip Pullman mentions numerous places of Central Asia. As the geography of this area is not necessarily known of every reader (including ourselves), here come some details about the places referred to in the second instalment of The Book of Dust...

     BEWARE ! Be warned that this page (obviously) includes some SPOILERS regarding the The Secret Commonwealth!


     NB: This page is under construction. Texts and pictures are still being updated. Feel free to let us know if you think some useful facts are missing or inacurate...


Lyra's Central Asia
 


Akchi

     The most probable place referred to as Akchi in The Secret Commonwealth is a very small town located in central Kyrgyzstan (41°13'20.7"N 74°50'30.9"E), right South of Almaty and West of Chinese border. Akchi (or Akchiy) is part of the district of Ak-Talaa, considered as the poorest in the country. The economy of this mountain area mainly consists in livestock farming.
     In The Secret Commonwealth, Mehrad Karimov travels there in his quest for the special attar of rose sought by Delamare. He stops in a tea-house of that city where trade is made among merchants to deal the precious substance. Though the actual village is located slightly North of the common paths of the silk roads (and more specifically in a mountain area), its distance to the desert of Taklamakan corresponds approximately to the 500 kilometers mentionned in the book (chapter 11). However, the size of this settlement makes it unlikely to host tea house and trade place for merchants; but here comes maybe the artistic licence of the author: we're in another world, after all...
     Other cities named Akchiy exist, notably in the nearby Kazakhstan, but their distance to the other places and silk roads make them less likely candidates...

Aleppo

     Aleppo is the capital of Syria. One of the main characters of The Secret Commonwealth aims at reaching this city but the story ends before we can read more about the city. As we could read it, to be concluded...


Constantinople / Istanbul

     Located between Europa and Asia on the Bosporus strait, Istanbul (formerly known as Constantinople) is the main city in Turkey and a key-place of Western Europa history.
     The city plays a role in The Secret Commonwealth, acting as a milestone in both Malcolm's and Lyra's travel to the Levant, with notably two key-scenes:
  • The first one, involving Lyra, takes place "under the vast dome" of "the great cathedral", namely Hagia Sophia, which is probably the most famous building of the city. First completed in the 6th century and partly rebuild in the 10th century following the destruction of the dome due to earthquakes, the building - which shares the same dedication as Lyra's alma mater, St-Sophia - was used as a catholic church until the 15th century and as a mosquee until 1934. The building was then converted into a museum until the decision was taken in 2020 to turn it back as a mosquee. Hagia Sophia appears on the cover of many international editions of The Secret Commonwealth.
  • The second one revolves around Malcolm confronting an opponent in the Bazaar, a commercial maze including 18 doors, 58 streets and some 4000 shops, located within the walled city and erected between the 15th and 18th century. The place was destroyed and rebuilt a few times, due to earthquakes and fires.


Istanbul - aerial overview about historical Sultanahmet and Galata district. Pic by Selda Yildiz and Erol Gülsen / CC-BY-SA-3.0 Hagia Sophia / Pic by Aril Vagen / CC BY-SA 3.0 Main way (Kalpakçılar Başı Caddesi) of the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. / Pic by Gryffindor / CC BY-SA 3.0

Karamakan

     There is no desert properly known as Karamakan in our world. However, this name reminds two deserts located of our Central Asia: the Karakum and the Taklamakan deserts.

     The Karakum is a desert located East of Caspian Sea, occupying more than the half of Turkmenistan.

     The Taklamakan is a desert located in the North-Western part of China, in a large bassin surrounded by mountains, West of Lop Nor Lake whose name is reccurent in The Secret Commonwealth and directly linked to that desert so that it is assumable that the Taklamakan is the real-world inspiration of Karaman ; despite the name variation. That desert spans on about 270.000m², which is roughly bigger than the United-Kingdom. The distance between its western boundaries and the Kyrgyzstan city of Akchiy corresponds roughly to the 500km estimated in the Chapter 11 of The Secret Commonwealth.

Taklamakan desert in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Pic by Pravit / CC BY-SA 4.0 Landscape in Taklamakan desert near Yarkand, Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, China / . Pic by Colegota / CC BY-SA 4.0

Khwarezm

     Khwarezm area (or Chorasmia) is located South of Aral Sea, and East of Caspian Sea, as it is well described by Sebastian Makepeace in Chapter 9 of The Secret Commonwealth. Spanning over both Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, this area hosted civilisation since 1500 BC. Chorasmians living there will meet the top of their apogee at the 12th and 13th century before being defeated by Mongol fighters near 1221. Survivors will wander for some years before sacking Jerusalem in 1244 and being shortly afterward exterminated.
     Based on these limited elements, the link between this past civilisation and the content of fictive book by fictive Gottfried Brande The Hyperchorasmians, read by Lyra, is as obscure to ua as it is to Pan...

Lop Nor

     The Lop Nor (or Lop Nur) is a salted swamp located in North-Western China, in the Xinjiang province (or Sin-Kiang, as it is spelled by Pullman) which has decreased in size over the century due to a drying process. Initally a huge lake during ice age, it still gather the waters from various rivers of the area, including the Tarim river.
     Proof of civilisation settling in the surroundings of the lake exists since about 1800 BC. The Tocharians lived there until 900 but many other tribes and civilisations lived nearby as this area was on silk roads, which brings still nowadays numerous archeological places of interest. It is also testified that Marco Polo went through this area over his travels.
     In the course of the second half of the 20th century, it was the place for Chinese nuclear tests. These came to an end in 1996. Nowadays, the region notably rely on the intensive production of potash, a fact which can be linked to the book, too, as a multinational company of that field is mentionned in the course of the story...


Lop Nor Salt Lake - Xinhua/ChinaDaily.com.cn Lop Nor - Discover China Tour

Pisidia

     Pisidia is a Southern region of Turkey, located about 300 miles (500km) away from Constantinople/Istanbul, as described by Pullman in the Chapter 26 of The Secret Commonwealth; it is in fact the historical or antique name of the area, and no geopolitical instance bear this name nowadays.
     In absence of city mentionned in the book, it is also quite difficult to define exactly where the action of chapter 26 takes place: we got very little details regarding the auditorium hosting the conference attended by Malcolm and our only clue is the presence of a cafe or restaurant named Calvi's... At best can we guess that the unnamed city might be Uzak or Afyon, for it is connected (in our world...) to the railway network which Malcolm will later use to reach Smyrna.

Seleukeia

     Seleucia Pieria (Seleukeia, in Greek) is an antique and abandonned harbour city near Antioch (nowadays Antakya) and located near to the modern Turkish city of Samandag and to the mouth of the Orontes River. The city used to be a military camp in antique wars and an independent city under the Roman Empire. The location and geography of the harbour combined with a series of earthquakes in the 6th century and political changes in the areas are some of the causes which could explain the decline and desertion of the city, at some point between the 9th and the 14th century.
     The place is located about 130km West of Aleppo, modern capital of Syria, making the distance consistent with the content of The Secret Commonwealth. Obviously, the city never got a train station in our world and the city mentionned in the book is more likely the Lyra's world pendant of either Antakya or Samandag.

Smyrne

     On the Western Egean cost of Turkey, Izmir (or Smyrne, its Greek name) is a city and a harbour whose existence dates back to 3000 BC, providing surviving archeological remains of many former settlements. Due to its crossroads location, the city was owned over centuries by many civilisations or states. It hosted Greeks, Romans and Ottamans. The city depends from Turkey since 1923.
     The city hosts a few chapters of The Secret Commonwealth and we can guess it will be featured once again in the final book. However, no clue of any Suleiman Square can be reported (in our world, of course).
     Funnily enough, The Secret Commonwealth does not include the first mention of this city in Lyra's adventure, as the heroine invents a story involving an embassador (from the "College of Izmir", Turkey) trying to poison Lord Asriel when she first join the Gyptians in her journey to the Fens (see Northern Lights, chapter 8). The city also appears, as Smyrna, in the appendices of Lyra's Oxford. For the record, when our team met Philip Pullman in 2007, he already pointed out that flyer page of the book stating unter our oath of secrecy (we did kept the info secret until he publicly shared it himself in 2017) that this page (or its content, as we then thought) was related to the to-be-published Book of Dust...

Izmir - Free photo stock - Pixabay Izmir - Free photo stock - Pixabay Panoramic view from Izmir seens from Kadifekale fort, Izmir, Turkey. Pic by Bernard Gagnon / CC BY-SA 3.0

Tashbulak


     Tashbulak (or Tash-bulak) is a town of Kyrgyzstan close to Naryn, located in a mountain area about 150km East of Akdzhar, as stated in Dr Strauss' journal in Chapter 5 of The Secret Commonwealth, and about 100km West of Akchi, mentionned above. It is the place of a research station in Lyra's world, under threat and then possibly destroyed by "mountain men". We could note find any clue about the existence of a city named Khulanshan, possibly located near to Akdzhar according to data available from Dr Strauss' journal.
     There are also numerous other cities named Tashbulak (literrary "stone spring"), either in Kazakhstan or even in Kyrgyzstan again; the one we're refering here to is however from our point of view the most likely candidate inspiration of Pullman's story, due to its position and distances to neighbour cities and to the presence of a university in the nearby city of Naryn, which could explain the existence of a research station in that area. Note that a city with a similar name is known to have hosted roses since the period of 800 to 1100, but its location does not seem to match the details provided in Pullman's book.

Sources and copyright
Main content: Wikipedia, French and English articles.
Seleukia: Britannica.com
Roses in Tashbulak: Spengler, Robert N et al. “Arboreal crops on the medieval Silk Road: Archaeobotanical studies at Tashbulak.” PloS one vol. 13,8 e0201409. 14 Aug. 2018, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0201409
Images Istanbul:
-By Selda Yildiz and Erol Gülsen. — Private work - priv. Homepage: Istanbul Tipps, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, Link
-By Arild VagenPrivate work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
-By GryffindorPrivate work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
Images Taklamakan:
- By ColegotaPrivate work, CC BY-SA 2.5 es, Link
- By PravitPrivate work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
Images Izmir:
- Free stock pictures - Pixabay
- By Bernard GagnonPrivate work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
Images Lop Nor:
- ChinaDaily.com.cn / Xinhua
- Discover China Tours
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Page created: October 2019
Last updatef: 16-01-2021

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