Where Empires Meet : Orientalism and Marginality at the Former Russo-British Frontier

The Russian and the British Empires never really met. However, separated only by the narrow Afghan Wakhan corridor as a buffer zone both empires left behind two mountainous regions that are located in close proximity to each other. Both Tajikistan ’s region of Gorno-Badakhshan and Gilgit-Baltistan in today ’s Pakistan are situated at a former imperial frontier which petrified in a Cold War context. In the course of the twentieth century, the border between the Soviet Union and the Indian subcontinent was turned into a highly politicised frontier between Central and South Asia.