China – Xinjiang province (Xinjiang)
W Urumczi, the capital of Xinjiang Province - the westernmost province of China, located on the border of Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mongolia, Russia and Kazakhstan - nothing was like in the south, in Yunnan or Sichuan, where I traveled in 2014 year. Winter with temperatures reaching -20°C, cuisine based on dumplings, skewers and naan pancakes, and also the language - there are two languages in this province: Chinese and Uyghur, written in Chinese characters and Arabic script respectively - both equally incomprehensible to me.
What surprised me most was the ubiquitous inspections - at the entrances to stores, parks, housing estates or bus stops. To get to work, you had to come at least 20 minutes earlier, to pass all the checkpoints on the ground floor of the skyscraper. You could not bring liquids or other items subject to airport restrictions. Here we all had a constant "airport high" - every day, everywhere and endlessly.
At work, and sometimes even on the street, I felt like committing seppuku - although it's not Chinese, and Japanese tradition. Chaos, typical chinese, he attacked me from everywhere: a kaleidoscopically variable work schedule, noise, jostling in the streets – and two propaganda songs, that echoed non-stop from every alley, shop and elevator. I can hum them, woken up in the middle of the night, even now - and this, it seems, that was what it was all about. After a mad sprint to find an apartment, I managed to move in 20. floor, leaving all that cattail at the bottom. I could rarely admire the Tianshan Mountains on the horizon, although they usually drowned in a suspension of smog.