Inspired by a May 2014 journey to Central Asia with Yale Educational Travel, this photo essay offers perspectives on a series of notable aesthetic congruences between past and present, people and place, along the fabled Silk Road.

Crowning the yurt is the latticed tunduk, the national emblem of Kyrgyzstan and a fitting metaphor for the entire region. Click here to begin the essay; a single click enlarges each photograph.