TIGblogs - Malcolm Lawrence

Silk Road in Caucasus

Nabucco Pipelines

Ingushetia Castle Tower - Caucasus Mountains

The recent conflict between Georgia, South Ossetia and Russia is leaving behind a horror of human tragedies. Ethnic cleansing (such a horrible term) is garnished lavishly with humanitarian crises. And the rest of us watch without being able to do anything, except to send bottles of water, food and clothing.

What nobody seems to care is about what is left behind in terms of cultural heritage on this stretch of the ancient Silk Road, or the current Petroleum Road, as I call it. In the previous wars in this zone, as well as in other parts of the world (Kosovo, Croatia, Iraq, Iran, Syria) buildings and artifacts, which have survived millennia, were destroyed sometimes only with a push of button from a plane.

And now I was thinking: on the Silk Road the nations constructed pieces of art in the shape of watchtowers, castles, and gigantic walls to protect themselves and mostly the trade, from robberies and invasions. The cities along this famous road often changed allegiance to different kings and rulers. Maps were redrawn every other 50 years or more. But the watchtowers, castles, and precious artifacts survived to the 20th century when we started to build more and more sophisticated machines to destroy people and objects. The problem is that the now-a-day weaponry is able to annihilate an entire city in less than 24 hours. The other problem is that people don’t care about cultural heritage of other nations – see the US bombing on Dresden and Berlin in WWII or the looting of the Baghdad Museums only 5 years ago.

Plus, now the stakes are much bigger then during the Silk Road times. Now is about surviving or dying – the petroleum is more vital than spices and precious fabrics. And the kings of this industry more powerful of Genghis Khan and Attila put together and multiplied by thousand.

Would these powerful CEOs stop the destruction of cultural heritage when the pipelines are on stake? I don’t believe so. In the fights for Chechnya and Ingushetia, the incredible tower-castles of Ingushetia were not spared. Only few remain in a country that was called “The land of Towers”. Why now the invaders would be different? Specially when Georgian believes themselves as the first Europeans? (see my blog about this claim)

I only hope that the bombings will cease because they might destroy some pipeline – obviously much bigger concern in the mind of the current “emperors” of the petroleum than the human life. And while we cannot influence the Georgian President, the Ossetian military or the Russian generals, we might want to speak with these engineers who build the pipelines and ask them to place them near to cultural heritage sites and big cities. This way we will protect the people and the ancient artifacts.

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