TRAVERSE 27
tournament that it neither wanted to participate and never chose for the outcome . In what was to become known as ‘ The Great Game ’ Khorog was the localised centre piece between disputed lands held by two regional empires , the Emir of Bukhara , and the Shah of Afghanistan , pulling the strings were the much larger , and centrally distant empires of Britain and Russia .
Once described as a Chess match played on a world scale , the ‘ Great Game ’ played out between the empires with the result being the Panj river described as the northern border of Afghanistan separating it from the newly formed Russian Pamir . To the south was the British Raj , in what is now Pakistan and yet the British realised that a buffer was needed to separate the two empires and prevent more conflict , the Wakhan Corridor . Created in
1893 the corridor was allocated to Afghanistan and has remained the only constant ever since .
Looking over the Panj to the high mountains it felt incredulous that here we were seeing this ‘ corridor ’, separating two once ‘ great ’ empires , and now two independent nations . It felt as if a rider with a strong arm , not affected by the altitude could throw a stone over Afghanistan and into Pakistan , it ’ s only thirteen
TRAVERSE 27