| Abstract | The 36-hour International Express from Almaty, the dour, Russian-accented capital of the newly independent Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan, to Urumqi, China's booming metropolis in the heart of the continent, is rich with promise. Yet the "sleeper" title doesn't celebrate the journey's moving panorama of wastelands that form the cultural and geopolitical divide between Chinese civilisation and the Euro-centred world of the former Soviet Union. Sadly, it notes that the train covers almost the entire big-sky distance in the dark. |
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