Paul Brummell is a career diplomat who joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1987. He has served in Islamabad and Rome, and as British Ambassador to Turkmenistan from 2002 to 2005. He was British Ambassador to Kazakhstan, and concurrently non-resident Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan from 2005 to 2009. He was shortlisted for the 1999 Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize for an article on the San Remo Song Festival. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a member of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs.
This edition has been updated by Maria Oleynik (MLitt), a freelance translator fluent in ten languages, including Russian, her mother tongue, and Persian. She is an expert in the Middle East and Central Asia, as well as an avid and endlessly curious traveller.
