Another major Indic influence on Socotra is evident from the fact that ghee, a form of clarified butter, is one of the major exports of the island. Ghee originated in South Asia and was taken by settlers and traders to the lands they travelled to.

Despite its strategic location near the Gulf of Aden, Socotra never became a major trading hub due to navigational issues. In the nineteenth century, the British took control of the island and, with the opening of the Suez Canal, the island became crucial to controlling the shipping routes to India. As Bombay was the major landing port on India’s western coast, Socotra became a part of Bombay presidency and was governed from there as part of British India. It remained a part of Bombay presidency until 1937 when it was separated and put under the Protectorate of Aden.

With the end of British rule and the onset of the Cold War, Yemen got divided, like Korea, into two politically opposed halves, each aligned with a different power bloc. South Yemen, along with Socotra, found itself under Soviet influence. As the Marxists took over, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen was proclaimed – the one and only Arab communist state in the world.

Since Socotra was located close to crucial oil reserves in the Gulf, the Soviets used it as a secret military base in order to have a presence close to the major shipping routes of the world. Soon thereafter, the island was closed to the world, its use restricted only to Soviet and South Yemeni military.

Only after the collapse of the Soviet Union and reunification of Yemen in 1990 was the island once again reopened to the world. This eventually brought a trickle of new visitors, mostly researchers and anthropologists interested in the island’s unique and, for the twenty-first century, extremely well-preserved natural and cultural heritage. However, accessibility still remained a problem as until 1999, the island did not have an airport.

Socotra’s long isolation from the rest of the world also had one more fascinating consequence – the Soqotrans did not have any script for writing down Soqotri until 2014, even though the language is one of the few in the region that are classified as ‘pre-Islamic’. It was a Russian linguist, Vitaly Naumkin, who, after decades of studying Socotra and its people during the time of communist influence over the island, finally devised a written form for one of the oldest languages in the world!

The Most Alien-Looking Place on Earth

Socotra is one of the most remote landforms on Earth, of continental origin. To put this in perspective, almost all remote islands on the planet are either of volcanic origin, such as St Helena in the Atlantic, or are atolls made of coral reef, such as the Maldives. The island has been separated from mainland Africa for the last seven million years – roughly about the same period (in geological terms) as when the Indian landmass crashed into Eurasia, leading to the formation of the Himalayas.

Socotra has a harsh climate – extremely hot and dry – while being surrounded by the Arabian Sea on all sides. This long geological isolation of Socotra combined with its extremely harsh climate has given rise to its spectacular flora. As for its fauna, bats are the only mammals native to the island, as is often the case with isolated land masses. There are, however, a great variety of birds and over 31 varieties of reptiles. Over 2,000 years of human settlement has greatly impacted the native flora and fauna and the presence of introduced species, such as goats and feral cats, are slowly eating away into Socotra’s native wildlife.