Merv, Turkmenistan: Exploring the Ancient “City of Kings” Hidden Deep in the Desert of the Silk Road Rising from the Karakum Desert’s endless sands, the ruins of ancient Merv stand as testament to civilizations that controlled Silk Road trade for over two millennia. Once among the world’s largest cities, rivaling Baghdad and Cairo during its medieval zenith, Merv today presents a landscape of eroded mud-brick walls, collapsed domes, and archaeological mysteries scattered across a vast UNESCO World Heritage Site. For travelers from Europe and North America, Merv offers something increasingly rare: a major historical city almost entirely devoid of tourist infrastructure, where you can walk among thousand-year-old structures with perhaps…