Living Zen is proud to have two guides who have come to know not only this great saint and his work but have visited, connected with this 'Second Mecca' as it is referred to, in Southern Kazakhstan.

Englishman Jonathan Trapman and his Russian Estonian wife Virve have had the honor to become the first translators into the English language of Yassawi's surviving verses (Hikmet). The great man wrote over 99,000 Hikmet with us knowing at present of only a couple of hundred to have survived.

Hazrat-el-Turkestan (literally The Blessed One of Turkestan) lies on the Southern tip of Kazakhstan near the border with Uzbekistan, on the route of the Silk Road. It is where Yassawi lived for much of his life. The place until the 16th century was called Yasi, thus his name. It also houses the hilvet (underground chamber) where Yassawi aged 63 decided to 'die to live' and withdrew for the remaining 62 years of his life underground. It was during this time he wrote most of his Hikmet. The journey to Turkestan includes a tour of all the sacred sites within the town and across the deserts and towns, villages and countryside where he spent his life.