MARCO POLO

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Marco Polo (1254–1324) was an Italian merchant traveler from the Republic of Venice whose travels are recorded in Livres des merveilles du monde, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned the mercantile trade from his father and uncle, Niccolo and Maffeo, who traveled through Asia, and apparently met Kublai Khan. In 1269, they returned to Venice to meet Marco for the first time. The three of them embarked on an epic journey to Asia, returning after 24 years to find Venice at war with Genoa; Marco was imprisoned, and dictated his stories to a cellmate. He was released in 1299, became a wealthy merchant, married and had three children. He died in 1324, and was buried in San Lorenzo.

The First Trip East
Istanbul - Sudak - Bokhara - Samarkand - Kashgar - Turfan - Xanadu - Beijing 
Niccolo and Maffeo brothers set out from Constantinople (modern Istanbul) in 1260, and sailed across the Black Sea to Soldaia in the Crimea. Today the city is called Sudak and is in the Ukraine. Soldaia was a largely Greek city at that time and routinely traded with various Mediterranean ports.



Marco Polo was born in Venice on September 15, 1254 to a wealthy Venetian merchant named Niccolò Polo. Marco’s father and his uncle Maffeo Polo being merchants had established trading posts in Constantinople, Sudak in Crimea, and in a western part of the Mongol Empire in Asia.

In 1264, the Polo brothers joined up with a diplomatic mission sent by  Hulagu, the ruler of Il-khanate to his brother Kublai Khan, both grandsons of Gengis Khan. They reached the seat of Kublai Khan, the leader of the Mongol Yuan dynasty, in Dadu (present day Beijing, China) in 1266.

Kublai Khan, the Mongol Emperor, received the Polos well and expressed his interest in Christianity. He then sent them back to Italy with a Mongol named Koeketei as an ambassador to Pope Clement IV. They carried a letter from the emperor requesting the Pope to send 100 educated people to teach Christianity and western customs to his people. He also requested oil from the lamp of the Holy Sepulcher. The emperor also gave them  the paiza, a golden tablet a foot long and 3 inches (7.6 cm) wide, to signify certain privileges and authority, allowing them to acquire lodging, horses and food throughout  his dominion

Koeketei left in the middle of the journey, leaving the Polos to travel alone to Ayas in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. From that port city, the Polos sailed to Saint Jean d’Acre, capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Pope Clement IV died on November 29, 1268. The long sede vacantebetween the death of Pope Clement IV, and the election of a new pope delayed the Polos from fulfilling Kublai Khan’s request.

In 1269 or 1270, Teobaldo Visconti, then papal legate for the realm of Egypt suggested that the brothers return to Venice and wait for the nomination of the new Pope

In 1271, Theobald Visconti was elected as Pope Gregory X. He received the letter from Kublai Khan brought by the Polo brothers.

Today, Bokhara and Samarkand are cities in Uzbekistan, and Balkh is a town with some interesting ruins in Northern Afghanistan. The Persian empire was once much larger than modern Iran, including much of what we now call Central Asia. The brothers lived in Bokhara for three years and became fluent in Persian.

Cascar is a region lying between north-east and east, and constituted a kingdom in former days, but now it is subject to the Great Kaan. The people worship Mahommet. There are a good number of towns and villages, but the greatest and finest is Cascar itself. The inhabitants live by trade and handicrafts; they have beautiful gardens and vineyards, and fine estates, and grow a great deal of cotton. From this country many merchants go forth about the world on trading journeys. The natives are a wretched, niggardly set of people; they eat and drink in miserable fashion. There are in the country many Nestorian Christians, who have churches of their own. The people of the country have a peculiar language, and the territory extends for five days' journey

	If you look at a satellite image of the Pamir Mountains you will see a large quadrangle framed by mountain ranges. Perhaps that is why it was called "The roof of the world". Most of the Pamir Mountains are located in Tajikistan; the rest are in the western part of China's Xinjiang province, and in north-western Afghanistan (Badakhshan province). The highest peaks of the mountains frame the area: Peak Kongur (7719m) and Peak Muztag-Ata (7550m) to the East, Safed-Khirs Range to the West, Peak Lenin (7134m) and Trans-Alay Range to the North, the stunning icy Hindukush (Tirich-Mir 7690m) to the South. There is an other well-known mountain ? peak Somoni (former peak Communism 7495m), the highest mountain of the former Soviet Union.. Muztag-Ata is clearly visible from the Tajik side and gives the impression of a white mirage on the horizon while traveling among the high Pamir deserts and hills. Geographically we can separate the Pamir Mountains into two parts: Western Pamir (which is actually Badakhshan ) and the Eastern Pamir. Badakhshan is a country of high steep rocky mountains with small narrow valleys, small green villages located wherever people could find some land for cultivation and irrigation. From high altitudes they look like small green islands among huge rocks and mountains. The climate is continental, dry with warm and sunny summers and comparably cold winters. The Eastern Pamir is a country of high waste deserts, strong wind, dazzling sun and yaks. The word extreme is best used to describe the area: extreme cold, extreme dry, extreme sun-shine, extreme wind and so on. In fact, the climate is very dry (sometimes it is below 10% humidity) and cold. The minimum temperature in Tajikistan was fixed in Bulunkoul (a village in the mountains) at -63 °C. In summer time the temperature goes up to 25 °C at noon and falls down to 0 °C at night. Here, in this small area, you will find real unity in diversity, different people, different cultures, different languages, different landscapes and mountains. In the Eastern Pamirs the landscape and climate are quite different than the Western Pamirs, and you feel it as soon as you get there. Sometimes it looks a like a huge high plateau situated at high altitude (3500-4500m) with comparably low mountains (4500-6000m) around. In spite of that there are many interesting animals in the mountain, such as marmot, ibex, wolf, hare, brown bear, snow leopard, and the magnificent Marco Polo sheep. The Pamirs have been known since the earliest times, when first caravans went to ancient Egypt, bringing sky-colored lapis lazuli to the country. We are very limited on information about that time. But one thing is clear; the country was on the Great Silk Route for a long time. And huge ruins of old fortresses still remain silent about that time. The well-known traveler of the 13th century, Marco Polo, on his way to China, visited the Pamirs and described it in his book. The Pamir mountains of Tajikistan are, without doubt, the least visited mountain range in the world, yet one which offers some of the most magnificent landscapes, picturesque rural scenes, exhilarating trekking and genuine hospitality to be found anywhere on the planet

PAMIRS

Pamirs, a region they know as POMIR – “the roof of the world”, although some claim that POMIR means “feet of the sun”. The Pamirs are one of the last "undiscovered


Pamirs, mountainous region of central Asia, located mainly in Tajikistan and extending into NE Afghanistan and SW Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China; called the "roof of the world." Many peaks rise to more than 20,000 ft (6,096 m); Ismoili Somoni Peak (24,590 ft/7,495 m) and Lenin Peak (23,508 ft/7,165 m) are the Pamir's highest. The region forms a geologic structural knot from which the great Tian Shan, Karakorum, Kunlun, and Hindu Kushmountain systems radiate. Snowcapped throughout the year, the Pamir experiences long cold winters and cool summers. Annual precipitation is c.5 in. (12.7 cm), which supports grasslands but few trees. Several large glaciers, including the 144-mi-long (231-km) Murghab Valley glacier, are in the Pamir. Coal is mined in the W Pamir, but nomadic sheep herding in the upland meadows is the main economic activity. Terek Pass, used by Italian traveler Marco Polo on his way to China in 1271, is one of several high passes used by routes passing through the Pamir. The French explorer Pierre Bonvalot made the first European north-south crossing of the Pamir in 1886.

Since my mother gave me a book to read when I was 9, I have dreamed of hunting Marco Polo sheep, the magnificent argali of Asia. Now 56 years later I am in Khorog, Tajikistan, ready to drive the last seven hours to our hunting camp high in the Pamir Mountains. It has taken me five travel days to get this far. Our campsite sits at 13,500 feet. We will be hunting between 15,000 and 16,000 feet. I have been on Diamox for three days, hopeful it will help with the extreme elevation. There will be two other hunters besides myself, Ted, 60 from Houston and Jim, a 74-year-old dentist from Little Rock, AR. They are both good men, self-made, and Christian. 


Yesterday we made a 360-mile drive from Dushanbe to Khorog. It was the rockiest, most horrible road to nowhere I have ever been on. We paralleled the Pyanj River separating Afghanistan and Tajikistan for 300 miles. I am told that we will be hunting in and out of both countries. At 15,000 feet in the snowbound Pamir's there are no other persons wandering around. My goal is a Marco Polo in the 58-inch range and a 40-inch ibex. Last night in the dark with a 100-foot drop off to the river, we came around a narrow rocky turn and were immediately blinded by thick dust in the headlights. The driver slammed on the brakes, and as the dust cleared there was a large yard rock slide 10 yards in front of us. One minute earlier and we would have possibly been pushed over the edge and into the river by the rocks. I have never seen country so steep, rocky and vertical as this part of Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The people here are very friendly but the landscape is extremely foreboding and unforgiving. This is truly more an adventure than a hunt so far.

The plain is called PAMIER, and you ride across it for twelve days together, finding nothing but a desert without habitations or any green thing, so that travellers are obliged to carry with them whatever they have need of. The region is so lofty and cold that you do not even see any birds flying. And I must notice also that because of this great cold, fire does not burn so brightly, nor give out so much heat as usual, nor does it cook food so effectually.^[2]

Now, if we go on with our journey towards the east-north-east, we travel a good forty days, continually passing over mountains and hills, or through valleys, and crossing many rivers and tracts of wilderness. And in all this way you find neither habitation of man, nor any green thing, but must carry with you whatever you require. The country is called BOLOR. The people dwell high up in the mountains, and are savage Idolaters, living only by the chase, and clothing themselves in the skins of beasts. They are in truth an evil race

The Polos spent the next 17 years in China under the patronage of Kublai Khan. Niccolo and Maffeo were granted important positions in Kublai Khan’s Court. The Mongol Emperor took a liking to Marco, an engaging storyteller. Marco’s immersed himself into the Chinese culture and mastered four languages. He served as an official in the salt administration and made trips through the provinces of Yunnan and Fukien. At one stage, he was the tax inspector in the city of Yanzhou.

Marco Polo marveled at the use of paper money in the Mongol empire, an idea that had not reached Europe at that time.

In 1291, Kublai Khan entrusted the Polos with their last duty. It was to escort the Mongol princess Koekecin to her betrothed, the Il-khan Arghun of the breakaway state of the Mongol Empire in Persia, ruled by the Mongol House of Hulagu.

The Polos departed from the southern port city of Quanzhou with a caravan of several hundred passengers and sailors. They sailed to Sumatra, Ceylon and India. They visited Mylapore, Madurai and Alleppey in India. Marco Polo nicknamed Alleppey as the “Venice of the East.”

The journey was harrowing due to storms and disease. Many perished. By the time they reached Il-khanate in Persia in 1293 or 1294, only 18 people, including the princess and the Polos, were still alive.  They came to know that Il-khan Arghun to whom the princess was betrothed had died. They left the Mongol princess Koekecin with the new Il-khan Gaykhatu. The Polos then moved to Trebizond . From there they sailed to Constantinople and then reached Venice in 1295. They had travelled almost 15,000 miles (24,000 km).  The Polos returned to Venice with thier fortune converted in gemstones. In Venice, the Polos struggled to converse in their native tongue. Above all, they were unfamiliar to their family.

Marco Polo (1254 to January 8, 1324) was a Venetian explorer known for the book The Travels of Marco Polo, which describes his voyage to and experiences in Asia. Polo traveled extensively with his family, journeying from Europe to Asia from 1271 to 1295 and remaining in China for 17 of those years. Around 1292, he left China, acting as consort along the way to a Mongol princess who was being sent to Persia.

Although he was born to a wealthy Venetian merchant family, much of Marco Polo’s childhood was spent parentless, and he was raised by an extended family. Polo's mother died when he was young, and his father and uncle, successful jewel merchants Niccolo and Maffeo Polo, were in Asia for much of Polo's youth.

Niccolo and Maffeo’s journeys brought them into present-day China, where they joined a diplomatic mission to the court of Kublai Khan, the Mongol leader whose grandfather, Genghis Khan, had conquered Northeast Asia. In 1269, the two men returned to Venice and immediately started making plans for their return to Khan's court. During their stay with the leader, Khan had expressed his interest in Christianity and asked the Polo brothers to visit again with 100 priests and a collection of holy water.

Khan's Empire, the largest the world had ever seen, was largely a mystery to those living within the borders of the Holy Roman Empire. A sophisticated culture outside the reaches of the Vatican seemed unfathomable, and yet that's exactly what the Polo brothers described to confounded Venetians when they arrived home.

Marco Polo’s Voyage to China

In 1271, Marco Polo set out with his father and uncle, Niccolo and Maffeo Polo, for Asia, where they would remain until 1295. Unable to recruit the 100 priests that Kublai Khan had requested, they left with only two, who, after getting a taste of the hard journey ahead of them, soon turned back for home. The Polos' journey took place on land, and they were forced to cut through challenging and sometimes harsh territory. But through it all, Marco reveled in the adventure. His later memory for the places and cultures he witnessed was remarkable and exceptionally accurate.

Xanadu

Finally, after four years of travel, the Polos reached China and Kublai Khan, who was staying at his summer palace known as Xanadu, a grand marble architectural wonder that dazzled young Marco.

In the centuries since his death, Marco Polo has received the recognition that failed to come his way during his lifetime. So much of what he claimed to have seen has been verified by researchers, academics and other explorers. Even if his accounts came from other travelers he met along the way, Marco's story has inspired countless other adventurers to set off and see the world. Two centuries after Marco's passing,Christopher Columbus set off across the Atlantic in hopes of finding a new route to the Orient. With him was a copy of Marco Polo's book.