An Adventure on Rails With the Orient Silk Road Express: Where Marco Polo Meets Agatha Christie
An elegant train glides through the endless expanses of Central Asia, from Samarkand to Kazakhstan, tracing the legendary Silk Road: the Orient Silk Road Express. It's an adventure on rails.
December 27, 2024
The two red velvet benches and golden wood paneling of the train compartment might, with a bit of imagination, lead you to expect Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s famous detective, to poke his meticulously groomed mustache inside, ready to solve the mysterious murder on the Orient Express. In reality, it’s Alexander who knocks on the compartment door—a conductor and butler in one. Dressed in a dark blue uniform with sleeves just a touch too long, he serves chai, black tea in a glass, poured from a samovar. It all feels a bit like a movie set, but the view through the window of passing Karl May-esque landscapes is pure cinematic magic.
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A train journey through Uzbekistan means a journey through the desert. More than two-thirds of this country, which is larger than Germany, is covered by mountains and deserts. Right now, we’re traveling through the Kyzylkum, the Red Desert; the other is the Black Desert, Karakum.
Landscape, tea and cookies
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Some 700 years ago, somewhere out there, perhaps the most famous traveler of all time, Marco Polo, journeyed through these lands with a caravan—under far less comfortable and much more perilous conditions. He faced robbers, bandits, and sandstorms. We, on the other hand, are enjoying the scenery, tea, and cookies aboard the Orient Silk Road Express, a luxurious tourist train. The tracks cutting through this endless wilderness were built in the 19th century by Russian engineers.
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We're traveling along the legendary Silk Road route, which today passes through the “Stan countries”—Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan (also called Kirghizia), and Kazakhstan. In the 19th century, this region was part of the Russian Empire. Much to the dismay of the British, Russian military engineers built this railway from the Caspian Sea through endless deserts to Tashkent and beyond. Today, this route is a blessing for tourists. Marco Polo was just seventeen when his father, Niccolò, and uncle, Maffeo—both daring merchants—brought him along on a “business trip.” The journey would last 24 years, taking them through an unknown world filled with hardships, dangers, wonders, and the Emperor of China, who was so impressed with Polo that he didn’t want to let him leave. Upon returning home, Polo was imprisoned by the Genoese as a spy. Quite a homecoming! While in his cell, he dictated his adventures to his fellow prisoner, Rustichello. The result became the travelogue of all travelogues. Marco Polo, by the way, lived another 25 years after his release—a happy and wealthy man.
On the trail of the Venetian
"The Silk Road doesn’t even exist," says Mr. Gabriel, a fellow traveler from Switzerland who has just entered the room. "It never existed." In fact, the Silk Road was nothing more than a sprawling network of sandy caravan routes. From Xi’an in China to Venice, the distance was 6,400 kilometers, but there were numerous starting and ending points. Along this “Silk Road,” caravans transported spices, porcelain, silk—and in 1346, the plague—to Europe. Marco Polo wouldn’t have recognized the term “Silk Road.” It originated in the 19th century when the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen coined the name. It has stuck ever since.
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The heart of this “Silk Road” was Samarkand. The city provided safety, supplies, and trading opportunities. Today, its main attractions include the Shah-i-Zinda necropolis and the Registan Square. The stunning square, with its three massive Quranic schools, or madrasas, adorned with sky-blue ceramic tiles, was built between the 15th and 17th centuries. Medieval geographers called Samarkand the “Rome of the East” and the “Pearl of the Islamic World.” Alexander the Great passed through here; Genghis Khan razed the city with his hordes, but another Mongol later made it his magnificent capital: the bloodthirsty Timur, also known as Tamerlane. Once a bandit in his youth, much like Stalin, Timur built an empire in the 14th century that stretched from Delhi to Istanbul. His brutal reign claimed the lives of 17 million people.
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But that was a hundred years after Marco Polo and long before we boarded the Orient Silk Road Express at the Samarkand train station. Built in 2013 by Uzbekistan Railways, this marvel of modern travel is something Marco Polo would have envied. It allows passengers to traverse vast countries in comfort, seated on red velvet upholstery with a personal butler, covering great distances overnight while they sleep. By morning, stepping off the train, cars are ready at the platform, and adventures await: Kyrgyz mountain villages, turquoise Tajik alpine lakes, or architecture straight out of One Thousand and One Nights. Or you might find yourself cheering on a team at a rural horse polo match deep in Kyrgyzstan, where the goal is to grab a dead goat from horseback and toss it into the opponent’s “goal”—a well. These special train journeys come in several variations, each lasting two weeks. Tickets range from €3,790 to €10,800, depending on the level of comfort (reference price: lernidee.de).
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Passengers also sleep in beds that don’t sway. Of the 13 nights on this journey to Almaty, six are spent in hotels. The train offers five cabin categories, with the best and most spacious called Kalif. Those who opt for the Kalif travel in the train’s first-class section, with only four Kalif cabins sharing an entire wagon. It’s a unique definition of luxury: enjoying a refreshing shower while a hostile desert landscape passes by outside. Most cabins are designed for two travelers, some with shared showers in the wagon, others without. The Orient Silk Road Express isn’t a true luxury train like the similarly named “real” Orient Express, which runs from Venice to London and requires evening formalwear so you match the silverware.
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The train can accommodate a maximum of 120 passengers, but on our journey, there are only 76 guests, attended to by 33 staff members. Janik, our friendly young waiter from Kursk, is enthusiastic about his job, saying he loves experiencing new countries while getting paid for it. “When the wagon rocks heavily and we’re serving soup,” Janik laughs, “we feel like circus acrobats!”
Across Kazakhstan
In an Agatha Christie story, Poirot would have already unmasked the culprit by now. Instead, we continue our journey through vast Kazakhstan, the wealthiest of the “Stan” countries thanks to its oil reserves. Twenty percent of the population here are Russians, predominantly Orthodox Christians. Almaty is a modern city of two million, bustling with shopping malls, heavy traffic, a large ice-skating stadium, and even a seven-ton bronze Beatles monument. It’s no surprise, then, to also find the Ascension Cathedral in Almaty—a stunning wooden structure. Stalin closed it in 1929, repurposing it as a communist propaganda radio station. It wasn’t until 1995 that the church was reopened.
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In Almaty, also known as Alma-Ata (“a place full of apples”), the journey ends for the travelers. But Marco Polo makes one last appearance, in the exotic bazaar filled with spices and oriental mysteries. Mr. Gabriel, the Swiss railway enthusiast, shudders once more at the sight of Kazakhstan’s national dish, Beshbarmak: fatty mutton served with a type of lasagna and a sheep’s head as decoration. However, Mr. Gabriel is also relieved—no murder on the Orient Express.
This article appeared in the Falstaff TRAVEL issue Winter 2024/25.