The Railway by Hamid Ismailov is an enthralling display of imaginative writing and technical adroitness, charting the fortunes of a fictional Uzbek village throughout the 20th century. Aided and abetted by his translator, Robert Chandler, Ismailov brings to brilliant life a richly-populated community as it copes with one of the most turbulent centuries in […]

I know what you were thinking: “It’s about time for another post about Craig Murray, because we haven’t had enough of those.” Well you are in luck, because I just read his new book, Murder in Samarkand, and am about to — somewhat reluctantly — share my thoughts on it.
But first I should […]

The increased airport security is an ordeal. I was fine with that and planned in enough time to reach my easyjet flight from London-Luton to Berlin. Long queues, delayed departures, all that was pretty much calculated.
Being a little tired from an overdose of house-moving and tidying, I forgot to remove a cream from my […]

This is the story of Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Tashkent. From his arrival in August 2002 to his suspension by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in October 2004 Murray grew increasingly disillusioned with the conduct of relations between Washington, London and Tashkent.
This disillusionment, which manifested itself in widely-publicised speeches and […]

After a short delay it appears Craig Murray’s book Murder in Samarkand is due out in the next week or two. The former British Ambassador to Tashkent’s account of his time in Uzbekistan is expected to be pretty explosive. Additionally, and perhaps as a primer, he has published on his website a handful of […]

In the steppe near Tashkent they came upon a never-ending ladder with wooden rungs and iron rails and that stretched across the earth from horizon to horizon. (…) Whistling and thundering, a snake-like wonder hurtled past them, packed both on the inside and on top with infidels shouting and waving their hands. ‘The End […]

The as yet unpublished memoirs of a former British ambassador to Tashkent have become a cause celebre thanks to the release of formerly confidential Foreign and Commonwealth Office documents appearing to indicate that the British government knowingly received information from the government of Uzbekistan; information gained under torture.
The documents were initially published on the […]

Diplomatically speaking