Yärkäntning baghida bulbul, sayraydu sähär tangda Nakhsha eytip saz chelip, dostlar oynaymiz gulistanda Chalsangchu rawabingni sataringni, Yärkäntning muqamigha, Dostlar zoqlunup qalsun, dostlar, Yärkäntning sadasigha Yärkänt yolida ösäk, ösäkni berip korsäk Ösäktiki dostlarni dostlar qochaghlap turup söysäk The nightingale in Yärkänt's orchard sings at dawn Let's sing and play our instruments, friends, and play in the flower garden Play your rawab and satar for the muqam of Yärkänt Let's entertain ourselves, friends, with the songs of Yärkänt There's woodland beside the Yärkänt road, let's go and see Friends, let's embrace each other in the woodland Driving along the road leading west out of Zharkent on our way to a mäshräp gathering we pass an area of scrubby woodland. Our driver Nurmuhämmät bursts into song. This song, Ösäk Sadasi, he explains, is the anthem of the mäshräp. But this mäshräp isn't going to be much fun, he complains. He gestures towards his neck. This will be a dry gathering; no alcohol allowed. The town of Zharkent (Yärkänt in the Uyghur pronunciation) lies in southeast Kazakhstan, near the Chinese border crossing and trading centre of Khorgas. The new highway -built with Chinese money under the Belt and Road Initiative -has by-passed Zharkent. It retains the feel of a Soviet-era Central Asian town with its single-storey houses with sloping corrugated iron roofs and thick whitewashed walls. A ramshackle but thriving bazaar runs along the street leading to the old Zharkent mosque. Now a heritage site, this nineteenth-century monument combines the distinctive Chinese-style curved tiled roof with a Central Asian dome and minaret. The mosque and bazaar attest to the complex histories of
