Customer Reviews

A Ride to Khiva: Travels and Adventures in Central Asia

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

South central Asia, the focus of the worlds attention in 2003, received an earlier share of it in the 1870s. For centuries travelers tales and the mention of such exotic names as Samarcand, Tashkent and Bokhara had aroused interest and fired imaginations. To all this was added rumor in 1875 that British interests in India were threatened by Russian expansionism. In particular, it was believed that Russian forces were massing in the recently occupied city of Khiva, nowadays in Uzbekistan, in preparation for an invasion of India.

A situation like this fitted perfectly the kind of investigative reporting adventures that Frederick Burnaby craved. In 1876, this 33-year-old captain in the British army took leave of absence, and set out for Khiva. The journey involved a ride of over one thousand miles in well below freezing conditions across steppes and wastelands.

On his return, Burnaby wrote A Ride to Khiva and it instantly became a best seller. A well-educated man, proficient in many languages, and a keen observer of all he encountered, his account still ranks as one of the great adventure classics of literature.

I am grateful to the neighbor who lent me this book, and can report that reading it has provided many hours of fascination. Burnaby died ten years after writing this book, supposedly during a massacre in the Sudan. Keen Internet browsers might find reference to a recent revelation that throws doubt upon the truth of the official account of his death.

Burnaby, a classic hero/adventurer type, was the 19th Century's Indiana Jones. His book, a popular sensation when first published in the mid 1800s, chronicles his exciting, dangerous, and sometimes humorous horseback and sleigh/carriage ride from southern Russia to Khiva, in what was then an independant khanate in Central Asia, in the middle of winter. If you like exciting, true adventure travel tales, you owe it to yourself to see this book. A standard by which all subsequent narratives should be measured

This is an excellent story as related by other reviewers. However, I recommend against buying the General Books LLC (August 5, 2009) edition of Burnaby's classic. The production value is extremely low. There are numerous typos on each page which makes reading difficult to enjoy. This is also not a page-for-page reprint, so page breaks occur mid-page. This also makes reading this book much less enjoyable. Please do read Burnaby's "A Ride to Khiva", but to not waste your money on the General Books LLC edition.

A Ride To Khiva: My Travels And Adventures In Central Asia 1875 is the personal memoir of soldier, traveler, writer, and pioneer balloonist Frederick Gustavus Burnaby, who died on January 17, 1885 at the age of 42 who was then a colonel in the British Army and speared to death in the Sudan along with 73 of his men. In 1875 Burnaby chose to personally investigate the rationale behind Russia's exclusion of foreigners in Central Asia. In the middle of winter Burnaby traveled by rail, carriage, sleigh, and horseback, while observing the people and their customs. A classic tale of true adventure, of struggling with language barriers, and of the determination to see one's task through, A Ride To Khiva is very highly recommended reading -- especially for enthusiasts of true adventure sagas.

This is an exciting adventure book, writen in 1876 about the travels of a British Army Captain through Western Siberia into Khiva, a city in Central Asia recently taken by the Russian Empire. It purports to be just travel by an army man at liesure, and wanting to see parts of the world. Since we are in the "Great Game" era, when Britain and Russia were contending for the countries around India, I have the feeling that it was more than that, and that the author's mission was somewhat akin to "checking out the land" in the case of an impending conflict. Anyway, it's extremely well-written, and the descriptions of both the places and the people are first rate! The author obviously had a keen eye, and I would really love to read the report he actually submitted to his superiors in London when he returned. I'm sure it's still buried deeply in their secret files.

It's a first hand account of an adventure, in the days before aeroplanes.
I enjoyed it thoroughly. Specially since it gave us an insight into a part of Asia of which we do not have much information. Highly recommend it for a relaxing read with your feet up in front of the fireplace.

This is a good read. It does not drag at all, and does capture subtle points of the central asian tribal culture that seem to run consistent with behavior to this date.

By all accounts (see e.g. Wikipedia) Fred Burnaby was a larger than life English character who traveled the world, bent fire pokers around people's necks with his bare hands as a party trick, spoke multiple languages, and died young in battle. He also wrote travelogues, "A Ride to Khiva" being the perhaps the best known - maybe a better term would be the least unknown given that the current Amazon sales rank is about 1.8 million.

Khiva was a state in Central Asia near the Aral Sea that few Europeans had visited by the time Colonel Burnaby set out to do so in the 1875-76, while on a 6-month sabbatical leave from the Army. That the six month period happened to coincide with an unusually cold winter, rather than, say, a nice warm period of the year, seemed not to be a consideration to the sturdy Englishman. A complication of the trip was obviously that Khiva was planted right in the borderlands between Russia and British controlled India and thus in a highly contested area in years to come.

The Preface opens with the modest lines "The title explains the nature of this work. It is merely a narrative of a ride to Khiva". The latter is a true statement and is perhaps the reason why this book is not particularly well known. No doubt the trip was adventurous beyond words, but the narrative is in large parts a pretty dry description of the trip. This is unfortunate because in places Burnaby exhibits a great dry wit, as when he discusses what happened when a bunch of locals left their master's cotton out in the wild while they went off partying:


"Will not some of the cotton be stolen?" I inquired of Nazar.
"If God pleases," was his pious answer.
The Mohammedans invariably throw upon the Deity the responsibility for any mischance that may occurs through their own negligence. The doctrine of fatalism thus covers a multitude of sins.
I subsequently discovered that the only way to impart a little circumspection to my careless camel-driver when, after smashing my boxes, he excused himself on the grounds that the Almighty had been the cause of his disaster, was to administer to the delinquent a slight chastisement. This having been inflicted, I exclaimed, "Brother, it was the will of God. You must not complain; it was your destiny to break my property and mine to beat you. We neither of us could help it, praise be to Allah.
This method of dealing with my party had a capital effect upon them, and much more care was afterwards taken in loading and unloading the camels."


I'm glad I read it as it gives some interesting insights into local customs, the treatment of women relative to sheep and horses, etc. But, on the whole it was a bit disappointing and is somewhat difficult to recommend, unless you really are hungry for first-person accounts of the time and geographical area. Speaking of hunger, in case you ever need a bit of practical information, this book more or less explains how to eat a horse in 12 hours or so.

One odd thing is that this is the only book I have ever bought (from Amazon) that has zero publishing information. It is a nice paperback but with no publishing or printing information whatsoever. Looks like a straight reprint of the original with no printing date. The only thing it does have is an ISBN number on the back.