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69-721: The city is located at the Dzungarian Gate ( Alashankou in Chinese), a pass connecting the two countries through the Dzungarian Alatau mountains. West of the pass, the port of entry on the Kazakhstan side is Dostyk . Alashankou is 73 kilometers (45 mi) from Bole , 460 kilometers (290 mi) from Ürümqi , and 580 kilometers (360 mi) from Almaty . The weather in Alashankou is harsh. Alashankou

138-578: A hexameter poem (now lost) about a journey to the Issedones of the far north. Aristeas reported that beyond them lived the one-eyed Arimaspians , further on were the gold-guarding griffins , and beyond these the Hyperboreans. This Aristeas, possessed by Phoibos , visited the Issedones ; beyond these live the one-eyed Arimaspoi, beyond whom are the Grypes that guard gold, and beyond these again

207-475: A legendary creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle , is a common heraldic theme of Central Asia. According to modern theory, the griffin was an ancient misconception derived from fossilized remains of the Protoceratops found in conjunction with gold mining in the mountains of Scythia , present day eastern Kazakhstan. According to Mayor and Dodson the association of

276-686: A branch of the Uralic language family, who previously lived in the steppe in what is now Southern Russia, settled in the Carpathian basin in year 895. Mongolic languages are in Mongolia. In Manchuria one finds Tungusic languages and some others. Tengrism was introduced by Turko-Mongol nomads. Nestorianism and Manichaeism spread to the Tarim Basin and into China, but they never became established majority religions. Buddhism spread from

345-499: A geological and physical phenomenon, Carruthers continues: [T]he Dzungarian Gate is as unusual as that of the Jordan depression . They are both examples of a rift-valley caused by the movement of the earth's crust, not by the action of water. This valley once formed the connecting link between the drainage of Dzungaria and that of Southern Siberia. The chain of lakes at either end of the valley ( Balkash , Ala Kul , Ebi Nor , etc.), are

414-534: A land in the northeast where griffins guard gold and where the North Wind issues from a mountain cave. Given the parallels between Herodotus' story and modern reports, scholars such as Carl Ruck , J.D.P. Bolton and Ildikó Lehtinen have speculated on a connection between the Dzungarian Gate and the home of Boreas , the North Wind of Greek mythology . With legend describing the people who live on

483-532: A major transportation hub due to freight associated with the Belt and Road Initiative 's Eurasian Land Bridge Economic Corridor. Alashankou is made up of 1 subdistrict and 1 town . Dzungarian Gate The Dzungarian Gate , also known as the Altai Gap , is a geographically and historically significant mountain pass between China and Central Asia . It has been described as the "one and only gateway in

552-458: A natural pathway from the plateau of Mongolia to the great plain of North-western Asia, and is the one and only gateway in the mountain-wall which stretches from Manchuria to Afghanistan, over a distance of three thousand miles. On the west, the Ala-tau drops suddenly from peaks above snow-line to the level of the floor of the depression, 700 feet above the level of the ocean,—the lowest altitude in

621-590: A northern land known as Hyperborea ("Beyond the North Wind"), where people lived in complete happiness and had extraordinarily long lifespans. Eurasian steppe The Eurasian Steppe , also called the Great Steppe or The Steppes , is the vast steppe ecoregion of Eurasia in the temperate grasslands, savannas and shrublands biome . It stretches through Hungary , Bulgaria , Romania , Moldova , Ukraine , southern Russia , Kazakhstan , Xinjiang , Mongolia and Manchuria , with one major exclave ,

690-557: A number of ecoregions , distinguished by elevation, climate, rainfall, and other characteristics and home to distinct animal and plant communities and species and distinct habitat ecosystems . The major centers of population and high culture in Eurasia are Europe, the Middle East, India and China. For some purposes it is useful to treat Greater Iran as a separate region. All these regions are connected directly or indirectly by

759-477: A rich caravan the steppe nomads could either rob it, or tax it, or hire themselves out as guards. Economically, these three forms of taxation or parasitism amounted to the same thing. Trade was usually most vigorous when a strong empire controlled the steppe and reduced the number of petty chieftains preying on trade. The silk road first became significant and Chinese silk began reaching the Roman Empire about

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828-553: A story of a traveller to the East who visited a land where griffins guard gold and east of which live the Hyperboreans, modern scholars have theorized that the Dzungarian Gate may be the real-world location of the home of Boreas, the North Wind of Greek Legend. The Greek writer Herodotus writes in his Histories (4.13) that the explorer Aristeas , a native of Proconnesus in Asia Minor active circa 7th century BC, had written

897-525: A violent temper to match. He was frequently shown as a winged old man with shaggy hair and beard, holding a conch shell and wearing a billowing cloak. Pausanias wrote that Boreas had snakes instead of feet, though in art he was usually depicted with winged human feet. Closely associated with horses (native to the Eurasian steppe; see Przewalski's horse , also known as the Dzungarian horse ), Boreas

966-520: Is a straight valley which penetrates the Dzungarian Alatau mountain range along the border between Kazakhstan and Xinjiang , China. It currently serves as a railway corridor between China and the West. Historically, it has been noted as a convenient pass suitable for riders on horseback between the western Eurasian steppe and lands further east, and for its fierce and almost constant winds. In his Histories , Herodotus relates travelers' reports of

1035-642: Is bounded on the north by the forests of European Russia and Asian Russia or Siberia . There is no clear southern boundary although the land becomes increasingly dry as one moves south. The steppe narrows at two points, dividing it into three major parts. The Pannonian Steppe is a western exclave of the Eurasian Steppe, separated from the main steppe by the Carpathian Mountains . It is found in modern-day Austria , Hungary , Romania , Serbia and Slovakia . The Pontic–Caspian Steppe

1104-713: Is divided into Alatao and Aibihu subdistricts. It has a permanent population of 10,000 and a floating population of 30,000. The agreement between the Soviet Union and the China to connect Kazakhstan with Western China by rail was achieved in 1954. On the Soviet side, the railway reached the border town of Druzhba (Dostyk) in 1959. On the Chinese side, however, the westward construction of the Lanzhou-Xinjiang railway

1173-599: Is interrupted by two great rivers, the Amu Darya (Oxus) and Syr Darya (Jaxartes), which flow northwest into the Aral Sea and provide irrigation for agriculture. In the southeast is the densely populated Fergana Valley and west of it the great oasis cities of Tashkent , Samarkand and Bukhara along the Zeravshan River . The southern area has a complex history (see Central Asia and Greater Iran ), while in

1242-571: Is named after a Mongolian kingdom which existed in Central Asia during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It derived its name from the Dzungars , who were so called because they formed the left wing ( züün , left; gar , hand) of the Mongolian army, the self-named Oirats . It was raised to its greatest prominence by Galdan (also known as Galdan Boshigtu Khan) in the latter half of

1311-688: Is one of China's national first-class ports of entry. The volume of imports and exports passing through Alashankou accounts for 90% of the total for all of Xinjiang. Since 2010, it has surpassed Manzhouli , Inner Mongolia to become the busiest land port-of-entry in China. Formerly a township-level port commission under the administration of Bole City , Alashankou was upgraded to a county-level city in December 2012. The city governs an area of 1,204 square kilometres (465 sq mi), including 12 square kilometres (4.6 sq mi) of built-up area, which

1380-637: Is the main European end of the Eurasian Steppe and begins near the mouth of the Danube , stretching northeast almost to Kazan and then southeast to the southern tip of the Ural Mountains . Its northern edge was a broad band of forest steppe which has now been obliterated by the conversion of the whole area to agricultural land. In the southeast the Black Sea–Caspian Steppe extends between

1449-658: Is the main part of the Eurasian Steppe in East Asia. It covers large parts of Mongolia and the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia . The two are separated by a relatively dry area marked by the Gobi Desert . South of the Mongol Steppe is the high and thinly peopled Tibetan Plateau . The northern edge of the plateau is the Gansu or Hexi Corridor , a belt of moderately dense population that connects China proper with

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1518-790: The Black Sea and Caspian Sea to the Caucasus Mountains . In the west, the Great Hungarian Plain is an island of steppe separated from the main steppe by the mountains of Transylvania . On the north shore of the Black Sea, the Crimean Peninsula has some interior steppe and ports on the south coast which link the steppe to the civilizations of the Mediterranean basin. The steppe narrows around

1587-635: The Hyperboreoi , whose territory reaches to the sea. Except for the Hyperboreoi, all these nations are always at war with their neighbors... Based on Greek and Scythian sources, Herodotus describes the Issedones as living east of Scythia and north of the Massagetae , while the geographer Ptolemy (VI.16.7) appears to place the trading stations of Issedon Scythica and Issedon Serica in

1656-742: The Kurgan hypothesis , their common ancestor is thought to have originated on the Pontic-Caspian steppe. The Tocharians were an early Indo-European branch in the Tarim Basin . At the beginning of written history the entire steppe population west of Dzungaria spoke Iranian languages . From about 500 AD the Turkic languages replaced the Iranian languages first on the steppe, and later in the oases north of Iran . Additionally, Hungarian speakers,

1725-836: The Pannonian steppe , located mostly in Hungary . Since the Paleolithic age , the Steppe Route has been the main overland route between Europe , Western Asia , Central Asia , East Asia and South Asia economically, politically, and culturally. The Steppe route is a predecessor not only of the Silk Road , which developed during antiquity and the Middle Ages , but also of the Eurasian Land Bridge in

1794-765: The Sino-Soviet Split , the border town remained a sleepy backwater for some 30 years, until the Alashankou railway station was finally completed on September 12, 1990. Since the 2010s, freight trains to Russia, Germany or Poland are sent over the pass. The Dzungarian Gate has been noted in modern history as the most convenient pass for horseback riders between the western Eurasian steppe and lands further east, and for its fierce and almost constant winds. The area has also become known for its gold deposits and for producing prodigious numbers of dinosaur fossils, especially Protoceratops . Given that Herodotus relates

1863-468: The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China to connect Kazakhstan with Western China by rail had been reached in 1954. On the Soviet side, the railway reached the border town of Druzhba (Dostyk) (whose names, both Russian and Kazakh, mean 'friendship') in 1959. On the Chinese side, however, the westward construction of the Lanzhou-Xinjiang railway was stopped once it reached Urumqi in 1962. Due to

1932-788: The Tarim Basin . They may have been identical with the people described in Chinese sources as the Wusun . According to E. D. Phillips, the Issedones are "placed by some in Western Siberia and by others in Xinjiang." J. D. P. Bolton places them on the south-western slopes of the Altai Mountains . Since Herodotus places the Hyperboreans beyond the Massagetae and Issedones , both Central Asian peoples, it appears that his Hyperboreans may have lived in Siberia . Heracles sought

2001-824: The Tarim Basin . The Hexi Corridor was the main route of the Silk Road . In the southeast the Silk Road led over some hills to the east-flowing Wei River valley which led to the North China Plain . South of the Khingan Mountains and north of the Taihang Mountains , the Mongolian-Manchurian steppe extends east into Manchuria as the Liao Xi steppe. In Manchuria, the steppe grades off into forest and mountains without reaching

2070-659: The Tian Shan through Dzungaria or south of the Tian Shan through the Tarim Basin . Trade usually took the southern route and migrations the northern. This is most likely because the Tarim leads to the Ferghana Valley and Iran, while Dzungaria leads only to the open steppe. The difficulty with the southern route was the high mountains between the Tarim and Ferghana. There is also another reason. The Taklamakan Desert of

2139-591: The brown bear are predators roaming the steppe. Smaller mammal species are the Mongolian gerbil , the little souslik and the bobak marmot . Furthermore, the Eurasian steppe is home to a great variety of bird species. Threatened bird species living there are for example the imperial eagle , the lesser kestrel , the great bustard , the pale-back pigeon and the white-throated bushchat . The primary domesticated animals raised were sheep and goats with fewer cattle than one might expect. Camels were used in

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2208-530: The golden-antlered hind of Artemis in Hyperborea. As the reindeer is the only deer species of which females bear antlers, this would suggest an arctic or subarctic region. Following Bolton's location of the Issedones on the south-western slopes of the Altay Mountains , Ruck places Hyperborea beyond the Dzungarian Gate into northern Xinjiang . The griffin ( Greek : γρύφων, grýphōn ),

2277-681: The 17th century, who made repeated incursions on the territory of the Kazakh state, until Galdan was wiped out by the Qing government in about 1757–1759. It played an important part in the history of Mongolia and the great westward Mongolian migrations. After 1761 its territory fell mostly to the Qing dynasty ( Xinjiang and north-western Mongolia) and partly to Russian Turkestan (earlier the Kazakh state provinces of Semirechye - Jetysu and Irtysh river). A traveler going west from China must go either north of

2346-661: The British journalist and MP , Morgan Philips Price , with whom he travelled: One can picture the Dzungarian Gate in the Ice Age : a narrow strait through which the Arctic-AraloCaspian Sea ebbed and flowed into the seas of Central Asia , scoured by icebergs descending from ancient glaciers on the Ala-tau and Barlik Mountains and forested perhaps down to the water's edge,—not unlike the Straits of Belle Isle at

2415-604: The Dzungarian Gate with gold and griffin ( Protoceratops ) skeletons spanned a thousand years of classical history: The second-century A.D. Alexandrian geographer Ptolemy and ancient Chinese sources agree in locating the issedonians along the old trade routes from China to the West, from the western Gobi desert to the Dzungarian (or Junggarian) Gate, the mountain pass between modern Kazakhstan and north-western China. Recent linguistic and archaeological studies confirm that Greek and Roman trade with Saka-Scythian nomads flourished in that region from Aristeas's day to about A.D. 300—exactly

2484-420: The Eurasian Steppe route which was an active predecessor of the Silk Road . The latter started in the Guanzhong region of China and ran west along the Hexi Corridor to the Tarim Basin. From there it went southwest to Greater Iran and turned southeast to India or west to the Middle East and Europe. A minor branch went northwest along the great rivers and north of the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea. When faced with

2553-440: The Pacific. The central area of forest-steppe was inhabited by pastoral and agricultural peoples, while to the north and east was a thin population of hunting tribes of the Siberian type. Big mammals of the Eurasian steppe were the Przewalski's horse , the saiga antelope , the Mongolian gazelle , the goitered gazelle , the wild Bactrian camel and the onager . The gray wolf , corsac fox , Pallas's cat and occasionally

2622-443: The Tarim is too dry to support much grass, and therefore lacked nomads likely to rob caravans. Its inhabitants lived mostly in oases formed where rivers ran out of the mountains into the desert. These were inhabited by peasants who were unwarlike and merchants who had an interest in keeping trade running smoothly. On the other hand, Dzungaria had a fair amount of grass, few towns to base soldiers in and no significant mountain barriers to

2691-424: The broader gauge of 1,520 mm ( 4 ft  11 + 27 ⁄ 32  in ) Russian gauge ), so there are breaks of gauge . It is proposed to build a standard gauge transcontinental railway to link Europe and China to bypass these two breaks of gauge. This project was signed in 2004. On July 10, 2010, Bole Alashankou Airport was opened with scheduled flights to Ürümqi. Alashankou has again become

2760-418: The cave of the stormwinds somewhere near the Dzungarian Gate" has been known for 2500 years, by travelers from Aristeas in the classic era, to Giovanni di Piano Carpini in the Middle Ages (before Marco Polo ), and to Gustaf John Ramstedt in the 20th century. Carruthers reports the story of the buran , a ferocious winter wind said to sally from a hole in the side of a mountain: We had frequently heard of

2829-410: The center of the steppe. The Northern Silk Road went along the north and south sides of the Tarim Basin and then crossed the mountains west to the Fergana Valley . At the west end of the basin the Pamir Mountains connect the Tian Shan Mountains to the Himalayas . To the south, the Kunlun Mountains separate the Tarim Basin from the thinly peopled Tibetan Plateau . The Mongolian-Manchurian Steppe

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2898-405: The civilization of their subjects, lost their nomadic skills and were either assimilated or driven out. Along the northern fringe of the Eurasian steppe, nomads would collect tribute from and blend with the forest tribes (see Khanate of Sibir , Buryats ). Russia paid tribute (compare yasak ) to the Golden Horde from about 1240 to 1480. South of the Kazakh steppe the nomads blended with

2967-432: The depression; the wind is called "ebe," or "yube" by the Kirghiz, and in special cases, when it reaches its maximum velocity, the term "buran" is applied. Boreas ( Greek : Βορέας , Boréas ) was the Greek god of the cold north wind and the bringer of winter. (Mallory and Adams speculate that the name may derive from a Proto-Indo-European root *gworh- meaning mountain. ) Boreas is depicted as being very strong, with

3036-491: The drier areas for transport as far west as Astrakhan . There were some yaks along the edge of Tibet . The horse was used for transportation and warfare. The horse was first domesticated on the Pontic–Caspian or Kazakh steppe sometime before 3000 BC, but it took a long time for mounted archery to develop and the process is not fully understood. The stirrup does not seem to have been completely developed until 300 AD (see Stirrup , Saddle , Composite bow , Domestication of

3105-530: The east of India to the Tarim Basin and found a new home in China. By about 1400 AD, the entire steppe west of Dzungaria had adopted Islam . By about 1600 AD, Islam was established in the Tarim Basin while Dzungaria and Mongolia had adopted Tibetan Buddhism . Raids between tribes were prevalent throughout the region's history. This relates to the ease with which a defeated enemy's flocks and herds can be driven away, making raiding profitable. In terms of warfare and raiding, in relation to sedentary societies,

3174-443: The horse and related articles). Parts of the Eurasian steppe experience an ecological regime shift in form of woody plant encroachment , such as the Black Sea-Kazakhstan steppe, the Tibetan Plateau steppe, and the Central Asian steppe. This process involves the gradual increase of shrubs at the expense of grasses. The World Wide Fund for Nature divides the Eurasian steppe's temperate grasslands , savannas and shrublands into

3243-512: The horse gave the nomads an advantage of mobility. Horsemen could raid a village and retreat with their loot before an infantry -based army could be mustered and deployed. When confronted with superior infantry, horsemen could simply ride away, retreat and regroup. Outside of Europe and parts of the Middle East, agrarian societies had difficulty raising a sufficient supply of war horses and often had to enlist cavalry from their nomadic enemies (as mercenaries ). Nomads could not easily be pursued onto

3312-434: The inland basins of Central Asia, with the exception of the Turfan depression , which is actually below sea-level. Geologically, the valley of Dzungarian Gate was created by the active strike-slip Dzungar fault system. In strike-slip faults the blocks slide past each other laterally, and in this case they do so in a counter-clockwise direction or dextrally, similar to the famous San Andreas Fault . Remarking on it as

3381-525: The mixture of agriculture and pastoralism in Manchuria its inhabitants, the Manchu knew how to deal with both nomads and the settled populations and therefore were able to conquer much of northern China when both Chinese and Mongols were weak. The steppe culture of Russia was shaped in Russia through cross-cultural contact mostly by Slavic, Tatar-Turkic, Mongolian and Iranian people. Rus' rulers would ally themselves by marriage with fellow-steppe peoples. In addition to ethnicity, also instruments such as

3450-421: The modern era. It has been home to nomadic empires and many large tribal confederations and ancient states throughout history, such as the Xiongnu , Scythia , Cimmeria , Sarmatia , Hunnic Empire , Sogdia , Xianbei , Mongol Empire and Göktürk Khaganate . The Eurasian Steppe extends for 8,000 kilometres (5,000 miles) from near the mouth of the Danube in Romania to the western edge of Manchuria . It

3519-425: The mountain-wall which stretches from Manchuria to Afghanistan , over a distance of three thousand miles [4,800 km]." Given its association with details in a story related by Herodotus , it has been linked to the location of legendary Hyperborea . The Dzungarian Gate ( Chinese : 阿 拉 山 口 ; pinyin : Ālā Shānkǒu ; Kazakh : Жетісу қақпасы Jetısu qaqpasy or Жоңғар қақпасы Joñğar qaqpasy )

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3588-530: The north of Dzungaria are mountains and the Siberian forest. To the south and west of Dzungaria, and separated from it by the Tian Shan mountains, is an area about twice the size of Dzungaria, the oval Tarim Basin . The Tarim Basin's arid conditions make it unsuitable for sustaining a nomadic population. However, along its periphery, rivers descend from the mountains, creating a circle of cities that thrived on irrigation agriculture and engaged in east-west trade. The Tarim Basin formed an island of near civilization in

3657-454: The north, the Kazakh Steppe proper was relatively isolated from the main currents of written history . Along the former Sino-Soviet border , mountains extend north almost to the forest zone, separating the Central Steppe from the Eastern Steppe, leaving only limited grassland in Dzungaria . This discontinuous section of the Eurasian steppe connects the great steppes of Central Asia and East Asia . The east-west Tian Shan Mountains divide

3726-500: The northern slopes of the mountains. One of the earliest mentions of the Dzungaria region dates to when Emperor Wu of Han (reigning 141–87 BCE), dispatched the Han Chinese diplomat Zhang Qian to investigate lands to the west. The northernmost Silk Road trackway , about 2,600 kilometres (1,600 mi) in length, connected the ancient Chinese capital of Xi'an to the west over the Wushao Ling Pass to Wuwei and emerged in Kashgar before linking to ancient Parthia . Dzungaria

3795-461: The other side of this home of the North Wind as a peaceful, civilized people who eat grain and live by the sea. Its gateway status is now supplanted by the new gateway city of Khorgas . The windswept valley of the Dzungarian Gate, 6 mi (10 km) wide at its narrowest, is located between Lake Alakol to the northwest, part of the Balkhash-Alakol Basin in Kazakhstan, and Ebinur Lake ( Chinese : 艾 比 湖 ; pinyin : Àibǐ Hú ) to

3864-409: The period during which griffins were most prominently featured in Greco-Roman art and literature. The story of Boreas , the personified cold north winter wind of Greek legend who lived in a cave north of Greece, parallels that of the buran , a strong winter wind said to blow into the Kazakh Steppe out of a hole in a mountainside in the Dzungarian Gate. Ildikó Lehtinen writes that "the story of

3933-401: The present day. Now a change has been wrought; earth-movement has drained the sea. But away to the north there still remain the lakes of Ala Kul, Sasik Kul, and Balkash , and on the south Ebi Nor,—pools left in the desert—all that remains of the great icy sea. The alluvial plains , once its bed, are now covered by desert grasses , while the forest clings only to the shaded slopes and gullies on

4002-411: The relative strength of the nomadic and agrarian heartlands. Over the last few hundred years, the Russian steppe and much of Inner Mongolia has been cultivated. The fact that most of the Russian steppe is not irrigated implies that it was maintained as grasslands as a result of the military strength of the nomads. According to the most widely held hypothesis of the origin of the Indo-European languages ,

4071-409: The remains of the great Asiatic Mediterranean Sea ; if their waters were to rise a few hundred feet they would break through the Gate, flooding the plains to the north and south. Noting that, "In prehistoric days the Dzungarian Gate must have presented a still more wonderful sight" when it "formed a narrow strait joining the Dzungarian inlet with the vast seas of Western Siberia ," Carruthers quotes

4140-438: The sedentary population, partly because the Middle East has significant areas of steppe (taken by force in past invasions) and pastoralism. There was a sharp cultural divide between Mongolia and China and almost constant warfare from the dawn of history until the Qing conquest of Dzungaria in 1757. The nomads collected large amounts of tribute from the Chinese and several Chinese dynasties were of steppe origin. Perhaps because of

4209-531: The southeast in China. At its lowest, the floor of the valley lies at about 1,500 feet (460 m) elevation, while the surrounding peaks of the Dzungarian Alatau range reach about 10,000 feet (3,000 m) to the northeast and 15,000 feet (4,600 m) to the southwest. Douglas Carruthers , who explored the area in the first decade of the 20th century, writes: The Dzungarian Gate is a defile about six miles wide at its narrowest point, and forty-six miles long, connecting Southern Siberia with Dzungaria. It forms

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4278-414: The southern end of the Ural Mountains , about 650 km (400 mi) northeast of the Caspian Sea , forming the Ural-Caspian Narrowing, that joins the Pontic-Caspian Steppe in Europe with the Kazakh Steppe in Central Asia . The Kazakh Steppe makes up most of the Eurasian Steppe in Central Asia. It extends from the Urals to Dzungaria . To the south, it grades off into semi-desert and desert which

4347-478: The steppe since the steppe could not easily support a land army. If the Chinese sent an army into Mongolia, the nomads would flee and come back when the Chinese ran out of supplies. But the steppe nomads were relatively few and their rulers had difficulty holding together enough clans and tribes to field a large army. If steppe nomads conquered an agricultural area they often lacked the skills to administer it. If they tried to hold agrarian land they gradually absorbed

4416-403: The steppe into Dzungaria in the north and the Tarim Basin to the south. Dzungaria is bounded by the Tarbagatai Mountains on the west and the Mongolian Altai Mountains on the east, neither of which is a significant barrier. Dzungaria has good grassland around the edges and a central desert. It often behaved as a westward extension of Mongolia and connected Mongolia to the Kazakh Steppe. To

4485-436: The terrors, dangers, and winds of the Dzungarian Gate... The natives relate the usual traditions as to the origin of the winds in this locality. In the myths of Central Asia a "hole in the mountain," or "an iron gate in a lake" is the usual explanation of the origin of winds. In the case of which I am writing the island called Ala-tyube—a small extinct volcano in Ala Kul—is made responsible for the furious winds which sweep through

4554-413: The time that the Emperor of Han pushed Chinese power west to the Tarim Basin. The nomads would occasionally tolerate colonies of peasants on the steppe in the few areas where farming was possible. These were often captives who grew grain for their nomadic masters. Along the fringes there were areas that could be used for either plowland or grassland. These alternated between one and the other depending on

4623-434: The west. Therefore, trade went south and migrations north. The Chinese city of Alashankou lies on the eastern end of the valley in the Börtala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture of Xinjiang . To the west, in the Almaty Province of Kazakhstan, lies its smaller counterpart, Dostyk , or Druzhba in Russian. Modern development of the pass for its economic potential was delayed by political considerations. An agreement between

4692-449: Was said to have fathered twelve colts after taking the form of a stallion, to the mares of Erichthonius , king of Troy . Pliny ( Natural History iv.35 and viii.67) thought that mares might stand with their hindquarters to the North Wind, and bear foals without a stallion. Przwalski's mares are noted for turning their hindquarters to strong winds. The Greeks believed that Boreas's home was in Thrace, and Herodotus and Pliny both describe

4761-401: Was stopped once it reached Ürümqi in 1962. Due to the Sino-Soviet split , the railway link was not completed until September 12, 1990. The highway port of entry was opened in December 1995. The railway networks of the two countries use different gauges (China, like most of Europe, uses the standard gauge of 1,435 mm ( 4 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ), but Kazakhstan uses

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