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Life.Culture.Discovery.

Once a Silk Road connector to China and Central Asia, valley in Kashmir aims to milk internet and air connections

  • In Indian Kashmir bordering China and Central Asia, Gurez, once a stop on the Silk Road, has been reinventing itself since going online and gaining an air transport service

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A helicopter comes in to land in the Gurez Valley in Indian Kashmir. Improved transport links and the arrival of the internet are changing the fortunes of the remote region. Photo: Umar Altaf

Once upon a time, the Gurez Valley was on the Silk Road connecting Kashmir with China and Central Asia.

Trading posts such as this were melting pots where merchants, traders, scholars, and travellers interacted and exchanged goods, and ideas.

Silk Road outposts like Gurez declined in importance with the discovery of sea routes in the 17th century.

With the Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, Gurez ended up on the Indian side of the border. Subsequent India-Pakistan conflict and the resultant border restrictions have had lasting consequences for the region’s economy, culture and society.

Abdul Salam Lone, 53, fetches winter feed for his cattle in Chorwan in the Gurez Valley. The temperature can fall to minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit) there in winter. Photo: Umar Altaf
Abdul Salam Lone, 53, fetches winter feed for his cattle in Chorwan in the Gurez Valley. The temperature can fall to minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit) there in winter. Photo: Umar Altaf
Ghulam, 70, a tailor making traditional clothes, talks with friends outside his shop in Chorwan. Photo: Umar Altaf
Ghulam, 70, a tailor making traditional clothes, talks with friends outside his shop in Chorwan. Photo: Umar Altaf
Fata Begum 70, makes traditional “pakol” woollen caps. Photo: Umar Altaf
Fata Begum 70, makes traditional “pakol” woollen caps. Photo: Umar Altaf
Umar Altaf is an independent journalist and a photographer based in New Delhi, India. He covers politics, culture, climate change, gender, human rights and minorities. He studied in the AKS school of photography.
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