A portrait of a unique area at a unique time

What I enjoyed about this was not JUST the unique subject - how many travelogues of central Asia have you come across? - and not just the author's skill in painting a picture with words, but the time in history he was able to capture when the ending of the cold war was still fresh, the Soviet Union only recently buried, and the people most affected by it still trying to decide what it meant for them, and what their future held. In this I found not only Mr. Thubron's skill in painting vivid landscape without actually using a picture (with which I'm becoming familiar), but a rich look into both ancient and recent history that hasn't seemed to be as thoroughly addressed in the West.