The Great Silk Road framed on the basis of local and regional ways of exchange and contacts of the ancientest and ancient human communities, tribes, later on nations of respective historical-cultural areas and countries of the Asian continent in the period of IV-I millennia B.C. This prehistory of the Great Silk Road includes latitudinal meridian paths of “nephrite” and “passing” exchange in the north, Middle-Eastern-Altay “carpet-fabric” path (materials of mountainous-Altay barrows, Middle-Siberian “path of toreutic metal” (from Bactrian-Sakian and Puritan-Ziviyo toreutic metal up to the monuments of Scythian-Siberian zoomorphic style”, Badakhshon-Middle-Near-Eastern “lazulite” path and also other ones along which the exchange of material and spiritual values took place. A multitude of ethnomigrational paths are elicited under the generalization of the materials pertaining to the archeological cultures of the epoch of bronze and early iron in Central Area and contiguous regions.
In the boundaries of the Central Asian part of the Great Silk Road this track of life and its ramifications were laid down by Indo-Europeans, Indo-Iranians and Iranians. The prototracks of the Great Silk Road connected Indo-European ethno-cultural communities with Near-Eastern ones in the west, early Turkic- in the east, Ugro-Finnish - in the north and the northwest. The proper historic stage of the Great Silk Road might have incepted approximately in the second and the first millennia B.C. (Kuzmina Ye. Ye.) or in the IV-I centuries B. C. (hypothesis of V. Hening and Y. Halun); but according to the official version it happened somewhat later, in the period of 9206 B. C. - 220 A. D., when the Khan empire getting firmly established strove to adjust commercial-economic ties, and if possible, to capture the territories lying to the north and north-west from the Great Chinese wall, Central Asian ones, first of all. Here there were used Chzhan Tsyan’s envoyship-cognitive missions (138-126 and 115 B. C.) and the unsuccessful reiterated military aggression (the first one occurred in 104 B. C.) against Davan state (Ferghana), which stood on that way. But every cloud has a silver lining: the acquaintance of the both parties took place, the Chinese and Central Asian peoples saw for themselves the profitable subjects of goods exchange, so it was concretely embodies and material values were followed by spiritual ones. Sughdians hereby took the upper hand in setting the fashion. There started a charitable process of Sughdian colonization, formation of settlements and commerce-artisanship trading stations founded by Sughdian merchants and handicraftsmen on the main track and its branches going across Ferghana, Seven-Rivers-Land, oases of the Tarim reservoir up to proper China. This track is interspersed today with the monuments well known for science. At the same time there was formed another track detouring the southern and southern-eastern slopes of the Pamir plateau through Bactria, Badakhshon, Vahan to Tibet and China or through that same Tarim reservoir to China.
The formation of the Great Silk Road was promoted by the creation of the great world empires of antiquity - those of Khan, Kushan, Parfyan and Rome - being a kind of guarantors seeking for economic profits and political contacts in one another. It would be just to call this first period of the history of the Great Silk Road as a Chinese-Kushanian-Parfyanian stage, chronologically embracing the time since the second century B. C. up to the fourth century A. D. The leading creative ethno-cultural communities of the Road were Chinese, Bactrians, Sughdians, Farses. The Great Silk Road brought these nationalities just as other ones to the wide international arena.
The efflorescence of international activity on the Great Silk Road when, probably, the most animated and resultative multilateral commercial-economic and cultural-cognitive relations were going on took place in the epoch of a new social-economic upsurge associated with the beginning of developing feudalism, in the epoch of the accomplished formation of all potential ethno-cultural forces pertaining to a series of civilizations: Sasanidian, Bactrian-Tahoristanian, Sughdian, Soghdian-Turkic and others. These are V-VIII centuries A. D. It was the epoch of thriving cities and villages, commerce-artisanship and fair centers, centers of handicrafts, culture and art with enormous multitude of monumental erections and masterpiece creations of the type of the monument of Samarkand, Panjakent, Bunjikat (the present Shahristan) and scores of others refer to. These are lovably cultivated agricultural oases with various gifts of human labor and, finally, local and international roads permanently animated by wayfarers and caravans. The picture was amazingly Oriental and bright, multifarious and variegated, enticing both the rich and the poor, traders and artisans, skilful architects, painters, acrobats and female dancers, poets and scholars. In Early Middle Ages the Great Silk Road raised many peoples who set out for remote journeys to meet one another. It was that very period when the dialogue of the Oriental peoples with those living in Africa, Europe and on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea speeded up turns.
In Early Middle Ages the Great Silk Road reached its apex, it comprised the remote corners of China and Siberia, the Far East, the Pacific seaside, Indostan, Byzantine Empire, African Magrib and the countries of Southern Europe. It became the great transcontinental track of the peoples. At that time there formed its third, northern path leading from Sughd through western Ustrushana to Chach, Ispijab and Seven-Rivers-Land (Haftrud) where it merged with the first Samarkand-Khujand-Ferghana track. This inference results from the urbanizational history of Chach, Ispijab and Southern-Western Land of Seven Rivers; it is done by well-known archeologists Yu. F. Buryakov and K. M. Baypakov; this conclusion is also fortified by that common knowledge that international roads lean, first of all, on urban centers. At the same time the northern track is laid our further through Khorezm to Northern Caspian seaside, the Caucasus and the Northern Coast of the Black Sea; Sasanidian Iran being detoured because of the reluctance of the Sasanids and Ephtalite and afterwards Western-Turkic governors. Due to the same reason the Second envoyship of the Western-Turkic khakan moved along this road to Byzantine Empire being headed by Sughdian Maniah in 658 A. D. The fact of importance is a wide involvement of the Western-Turkic khakanat into commercial-economic operations on the Great Silk Road. At this stage there shape three new branches of the Great Silk Road separating from Ferghana section of the track through the Alay Valley; a) to the Zarafshon upper reaches - mountainous Ustrushana and Sughd going through Mastchoh and Panjakent to Samarkand; b) to the Surkhob upper reaches, to Rasht; c) from the Alay Valley along the Alpine Pamirs, through Shughnon to Badakhshon, nearer to Bactrian track. These branches included into the orbit of international relations a group of regions pertaining to the Pamirs-Alay mountainous system and the valley areas which in Early Middle Ages enjoyed a steep development of social-economic life. Here the chains of early mediaeval town and villages, Alpine castles are framed. At this stage of history the international role of Sughdians merchants enhances much stronger. Syghdian towns serve not only as a trading transit overpasses, there form also international caravans in them (for example, a huge caravan was framed in a small town of Paykand which moved in the direction of China), Sughdian commerce-artisanship settlements and trading stations move farther into the depth of Siberia (for example, a settlement on the small river of Unga, the Angara tributary) and other regions. Archeology registers the facts of the influence on the part of Sughdian material culture in a number of places of Eastern Asia. And finally, we must mark the perception of Sughdian alphabet by Uigurs and through them by a number of the peoples of Eastern Asia; Sughdian musical instruments reached China in a big quantity from where they found their way to Japan. History is obliged to pay its dues to the talented and industrious Sughdian people being a kind of Hellenes and Phoenicians of Central and Eastern Asia and call the early mediaeval period of the Great Silk Road history as Sughdian stage. At this time the significant part of the Great Silk Road turned out to be in the boundaries of two simultaneously sprung up great statal formations - Arab (Omeyad and Abbasid) khalifats (661-1258) and Tan empire (618-907), in order to define the spheres of their influence they even christened their troops near Taraz (751), at the northern border of Central Asia. The defeat of Tan troops made the claims of this empire in regard to Central Asia more moderate.
The third stage of the Great Silk Road refers to IX-X centuries being of great importance in the history of the Tajik people. It was the time when ethnical formation of the Tajik people drew to its termination, the same concerns its statehood, literary language - Farsi-Dari-Tajik - the Tajik classical Renaissance (Ehyo) crystallized finally. The rich assortment of the famous inventory of goods observed in the markets of Khorosan and Maverannahr by traveler-geographer al-Muqaddasi and many other ones, bazaars, fairs, caravanserays, trading houses (for example, Bukhara Bait-ut-tiroz), narrow handicraft specialization appeared due to demands and potentialities of these or those concrete places (for example, renowned settlements famous for the production of fabrics: Zandana sort near Bukhara, Vedar sort near Samarkand and Darzanghi sort in the Surkhandarya Valley), variety of commodities beginning with the things of everyday needs and ending with jewelry and ornated dishes being masterpieces of applied art, developed monetary circulation including both copper “black dirhems” and silver ones, and gold dinars, and even sarraf (bank) cheques, great commerce-envoyship caravans (for example, famous big caravans of the X-th century participated by scholar-geographer Tadlan (922) going to Volga Bulgaria and his colleague Abu Dalaf moving to Tibet-China-India (about 942)) - all this brightly characterizes the trading life and market balance of the Great Silk Road together with Samanid state and Sughd as it part undoubtedly.
Of course, such a development of local and international trade couldn’t have been carried into effect without respective manpower and raw stuffs, productive potential developed urbanization of society, strong statal unions and the mighty merchant class.
Such availabilities were raised by the vast Abbasid khalifat in the western part of the Great Silk Road, Samanid state in Central Asia, Uigur and Chinese states in the East of the Great Silk Road. Apart from it, it is the period of intensification and afflorescence of commercial-economic cultural relations with Volga states of Khazars and Bulgars, formation of ties with Kiev and other Slavonic princedoms of Eastern Europe, extension of Khalifat and Samanid monetary production and torcutic wares farther on, to the Kama and the Oka, Baltic lands. At that time Tajik merchants enter directly the commercial frontiers of the Djurdjens and other states of the Far East. Commercial and cultural exchange with India, being still fairly enigmatical in that epoch, becomes fashionable and prestigious.
The next stages of the Great Silk Road history are associated with the afflictions of Chingizid intrusion, Timur wars, Sheibanid and Sefevid invasions, and declines and temporal rises of economy, trade and cultural exchange.
Upon the whole, the Great Silk Road was a grand creative instrument of Eastern civilizations; power once might of the peoples of the Orient, guarantor of their development and progress.
In our newest time owing to UNESCO initiative and participation of many world countries the Great Program is carried into effect - “The Great Silk Road as the Way of the Peoples’ Dialogue in the New Modern Comprehension of Technico-Economic and Scientific-Intellectual Progress of World Community”.