Skardu

Skardu was the seat of the Maqpon dynasty, which ruled Baltistan for some seven centuries; Maqpon Bokha founded the town as his capital around 1500 and brought craftsmen to it from Kashmir and Chilas. Its best-known ruler, Ali Sher Khan Anchan, king from 1595 to 1633, extended Balti power as far as Ladakh, Gilgit and Chitral, and the Kharpocho fort of the Maqpons still stands on the rock above the Indus. Before that Baltistan was Buddhist, a link in the chain of valleys between Kashmir, Ladakh and Central Asia, and the Manthal Buddha carved on a boulder at the edge of town dates from those centuries; the area is still sometimes called Little Tibet.

Maqpon rule ended in 1839–40, when Zorawar Singh, general of the Dogra ruler of Jammu, defeated the Balti forces and invaded the Skardu valley; the region then passed into the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir created in 1846. In the war that followed the partition of British India in 1947, fighting reached Skardu and the town came under Pakistani control in 1948; the ceasefire line of 1949, later the Line of Control, left Baltistan separated from Ladakh, with which it had shared language and trade for centuries.

The second half of the 20th century remade the town around mountaineering. Expeditions to K2, first climbed in 1954, and to the other Karakoram giants made Skardu their staging post, hiring porters and buying supplies in the bazaar. A road along the Indus gorge linked it to Gilgit, an airstrip brought flights from Islamabad, and Skardu became the administrative centre of Baltistan within Gilgit-Baltistan. Domestic tourism has grown quickly since, filling the valley with hotels.

Balti, the language of the town, is a conservative Tibetan language written today in a modified Perso-Arabic script, with older texts in Tibetan script; its survival gives Baltistan a cultural identity distinct from anywhere else in Pakistan. Place names, songs and much everyday vocabulary are Tibetan, while religion, law and schooling are shared with the rest of the country. Most people are Shia Muslims, with Noorbakhshi and Sufi traditions also present in the side valleys, and Muharram is observed intensely.

Music and dance keep clear Central Asian and Tibetan traces: drums, the surnai shawm and long horns accompany sword dances and cap dances at weddings and festivals. Polo is the great sport, played in the fast local form with few rules and a live band, and archery and the game of stone lifting also survive. Wood carving is the outstanding craft, seen in the balconies and mosque ceilings of Shigar and Khaplu, alongside weaving and stone and gemstone work.

Daily manners are formal and hospitable. Guests are served tea and dried fruit before anything is discussed, elders are greeted first, and dress is modest by the standards even of northern Pakistan. Women in town usually cover their heads, and visitors who do the same attract less attention. The town is used to climbers and trekkers, but outside the bazaar it remains a conservative place where quiet and discretion are appreciated.

The town holds several tens of thousands of people and is the largest settlement in Baltistan, with the district's administration, hospital, university campus and main market. Families farm irrigated plots of wheat, barley, potatoes and fodder along the valley and keep apricot, apple and walnut trees; the sandy valley floor between the fields is unproductive, which is why the settlement sprawls so widely.

Work comes from government service, the army, construction, trade up and down the Indus road, and increasingly from tourism. Hundreds of men work each summer as porters, cooks and guides for expeditions on the Baltoro, one of the few well-paid seasonal jobs available, and hotel building has been the visible growth industry of the last decade. Many households also depend on relatives working in Rawalpindi, Karachi or the Gulf.

The year divides sharply. Summer is crowded and busy, with jeeps loading in the bazaar before dawn and flights arriving when the weather allows; winter empties the hotels, closes the Deosai road and the high valleys, and brings power cuts and long evenings indoors. Current concerns include glacial lake outburst floods and landslides, water and electricity supply, the pressure of new hotels on farm land, and the unresolved constitutional status of Gilgit-Baltistan.

Balti food is closer to Tibetan and Central Asian cooking than to the food of Punjab. Prapu, buckwheat noodles served with a garlic and walnut or yogurt sauce, is the dish most associated with the valley; mamtu are steamed meat dumplings; and balay are hand-pulled noodle strips in broth. Breads are made from buckwheat, barley and wheat and eaten with butter, apricot oil or curd, and khurba, a rich layered bread, appears at celebrations. Mutton and yak or dzo meat go into slow stews, and vegetables are limited to what the short season produces.

Salted butter tea, churned and drunk hot in small cups, is the everyday drink, and green tea and sweet milk tea are also common. Apricots dominate the fruit year: fresh in midsummer, dried on rooftops for winter, pressed for oil, and the kernels cracked for nuts. Mulberries, walnuts, cherries and apples follow in season, and dried fruit is the standard offering to a guest.

In the bazaar the cooking is more national than local — rice, dal, karahi, kebabs and naan for drivers, traders and trekking crews — with Balti dishes easier to find in guesthouses and homes than in restaurants. Skardu is also where expeditions buy their supplies, so the shops stock flour, rice, tinned goods, dried fruit and nuts in bulk alongside gemstones and trekking gear.