Silk Road House: A Cultural and Educational Center   Welcome! Silk Road House is a non-profit organization created to promote and support an impressive array of diverse ethnic cultural traditions. The main goals of the Silk Road House are: to create a center for the collection of pertinent cultural and historical information to provide a place where creative activities can bring to life the traditions of the Silk Road here in United States to celebrate the Silk Road's tradition of hospitality Silk Road House symbolizes the connections, communications and bonds between peoples and cultures united by the Silk Road concept, and at the same time, a real network of the modern day contacts between those peoples and cultures. The Silk Road House is a welcoming cultural center where everyone who might be interested could find a wide range of accurate information concerning the history, culture, and everyday life of Silk Road countries.   A word of appreciation...   Our special and deepest thanks go to those who have made an array of donations to Silk Road House – by money, various things, books, time, skill or all these together... Among these generous individuals are (in alphabetical order): Ruth Abrass Navruz Avloni Shirchin Baatar Hanna Bailey Elena Balashova Alexander Bapa Natalie Bondar Kathleen Braunstein Genrietta Bykin Maria Bykin JoAnn Conrad Dieter Christensen Wayne Eastep Patrick Hayes David Hooson Karen Folger Jacobs Anait Khudanazarova Jack Kollmann Robert E. Lee Cariadne Margaret Mackenzie Semion and Ludmila Mirkin Scott Morgan Aiman and Mairbek Mussipov Elmira and Werdana Mussipov Zhanara Nauryzbaeva Karen Nelsen Joan E. Norvelle Beket Nurzhanov James O.Bailey Vadim Ryvkin Ernar Sagatov Turburam Sandagdorj Martin Schwartz Chris and Steve Shaw Zhuldyz and Lloyd Shimabukuro Elizabeth Shedd Tatiana Shubin Omerjan and Aygul Siddik John Sommer Kemal Sonmez Tenzin Tsophel Orna Uranchimeg-Tsultem Bayan Tulegenova Leonid Urjuk Santo K. van Ess Albina Yerzhanova Joanne Yoshimura ...as well as anonymous private donors, the SilkRoad Foundation and the Open Society Institute. Our cordial thanks to all of you! - Board of Directors of Silk Road House   Professor David Hooson   The Board of Directors and all members of the Silk Road House grieve over the passing away of David Hooson, a Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of California at Berkeley. He died on May 16 at Shell Beach, aged 82. Born in a five hundred year old house in the Vale of Clwyd in North Wales, he was an undergraduate at Oxford; his Ph.D. in Geography was from the London School of Economics. Since 1966 he taught at UCB. Professor Hooson had been among our most ardent and generous supporters -- he supported SRH morally, professionally, and even financially. He stood at the very beginning of Silk Road House activity, fostered its actual idea and blessed us for the creation of this center as a “cultural oasis”. More than that, it was he who on April 15th, 2007, opened our series of Sunday lectures with a remarkable introductory talk “Peoples in Between: Silk Road Geography” and donated to SRH a part of his rich and a matchless library. That library is indeed a phenomenal collection of rare geographical books, in English, Russian, and other languages, particularly devoted to the former Soviet Union and the former Soviet Republics in Central Asia, i.e. practically to the whole of Eurasia. Professor Hooson was a pioneer in the American (and apparently in the whole Western) geographical investigation of the former Soviet Union and territories that were once under its control, and that shall not be forgotten. His two early books -- "A New Soviet Heartland?" (1964) and "The Soviet Union -- A Systematic Regional Geography" (1966) -- are still worth close reading and addressing for references. As Robert Gohstand, one of his distinguished students, pointed out, David Hooson was a pioneer and major analyst in revealing the philosophical underpinnings, ideological struggles, and historical antecedents of Russian and Soviet geography to the communities of scholars in the West. Hooson's own sympathies and inclinations clearly encouraged a unified, integrative and regionally-based approach, exemplified in his own work and in that of many of his students. Professor Hooson had always been interested in ethnicity and nationalism. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, his enthusiasm was reawakened as his focus shifted to the former Soviet Republics in Central Asia and the Caucusus. His final book was the edited volume “Geography and National Identity” (1994). On our website there are – and always will be -- two pictures of David Hooson delivering his memorable introduction to what might be called today the entire scholarly activity at SRH. It’s hard to imagine that warm-hearted loving man and brilliant scholar is not with us anymore. He will be deeply missed and remembered by many. Below see some relevant web links dedicated to David Hooson (1926-2008): Hoosan Memorial Hooson Interview Hall of Fame Innovators

Current Events “Let’s go, my darling, to meet the bride”: Life and Music of the Judaizers, the Russian non Christian peasants in Azerbaijan by Elena Razumovskaya, Professor of St. Petersburg Music College named after N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov. Our dearest guest from Russia, Elena Razumovskaya -- one of the most revered and cherished teacher and collector of Russian musical folklore, the author of several remarkable publications. Some time ago, due to financial support of Amsterdam Jewish Museum, Elena N. Razumovskaya made a field research trip to do the ethnographic and musicological studies in the village of Privolnoye in the Southern Azerbaijan. That village is located in Jelalabad region, 300 km from Baku, the capital of the Republic, and 20 km from the Iranian border. The Russian peasants of Privolnoye are not Christian but Russian Judaizers: some of them preach Judaism and call themselves the Geres. Certain aspects of the Geres life are a unique synthesis of the Russian and the Jewish lifestyle. Their fascinating history and culture will be presented in the unique audio and video materials collected by the presenter during that first of the kind field work. June 28th, Sunday, 1-3pm