The Murghab river comes out of the Afghan hills and dies in the sands of the Karakum, and where it spreads out near the town of Mary it created the oasis of Merv, one of the great cities of the medieval world. Kushmeihan is one of the sites scattered across that oasis, a low ruin in the flat, brown country east of the more famous monuments. The ancient Merv complex is listed by UNESCO, and the label here belongs to the same landscape of ramparts, mounds and mudbrick that stretches for many kilometres.
Merv was a city of enormous importance. Successive walled cities were built side by side, from the Persian Achaemenid satrapy and the Hellenistic Antiochia to the Sasanian, Arab and Seljuk periods. In the twelfth century, under the Seljuk sultan Sanjar, it was among the largest and richest cities in the world, with libraries, scholars and a mausoleum for Sanjar that still stands, its great dome visible from afar. In 1221 the Mongols under Tolui took the city and destroyed it, and many of its people were killed. It never recovered its former glory.
The land today is hot and dry, with irrigated fields of cotton and wheat, canals fed by the Karakum Canal, and the edge of the desert always close. In spring the steppe is briefly green and covered in poppies, but by early summer the heat is extreme, with temperatures of forty-five degrees common, so autumn and spring are the sensible seasons. Wind often brings dust, and the light in the evening has a golden, hazy quality.
Practical matters need honest mention. Turkmenistan is a country that is difficult for independent travellers: visas are restricted, foreign vehicles face special rules, and in practice most visitors travel with a guide and a fixed itinerary. Anyone wanting to ride here needs to arrange permissions well in advance and should not expect to wander freely. The roads on the plain are mostly flat and straight, in decent condition near the towns and rougher beyond them, with the occasional camel on the verge.
Bayramaly, about thirty-four kilometres from the point, is a town of about seventy-five thousand, with fuel, a bazaar and basic food, and Mary is the regional city to the west. A meal of lamb, flatbread and sweet melon, for which Turkmenistan is famous, is the proper reward after a day in the ruins. Take plenty of water and a hat, since there is almost no shade among the walls.