Behind Chen Zhifeng’s hotel and gallery in northern Ürümchi are giant Jurassic Park-style gates often guarded by a huge hound (which I’m told is Chen’s personal pet). Inside the gates is something Chen refers to as an “Ancient Ecology” park: a collection of rare Xinjiang artifacts. There is a forest of petrified wood, a collection of meteorites, sand-polished boulders, mysterious stone balls, and a collection of ancient Turk ancestor stelae known as balbals. It is here, among propped-up 3,000-year-old desert poplars (the iconic symbol of Xinjiang), that Chen meets visiting heads of state and domestic dignitaries for business negotiations and history lessons in Xinjiang style. In the northeast corner of the park Chen has a motley crew of camels, eagles, peacocks, deer, and cows – but most impressively, a small herd of 38 wild horses from which his brand gets its name. These horses, known as the horse “discovered” by the famous Russian explorer Nikolay Przhevalsky, or as the horse of the Jungar Mongols, are native to the steppes of Northern Xinjiang. Przhevalsky and the Jungars did not …