Over There and Back Again Eq2

Uzbekistan's prime number tourist attractions are the ancient Silk Road cities of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva. All 3 grew rich on the dorsum of the trade that passed through Primal Asia: gold, saffron, cucumbers, pomegranates, peaches and vino passing from west to east, while ceramics, cinnamon, rhubarb and bronze, as well as silk and the secrets of newspaper making, printing and gunpowder travelled from China to the W. Indeed, it was the cultural every bit well every bit mercantile exchange which made the Silk Road and then remarkable – with Buddhism, for example, taking route in Cardinal Asia, China and Tibet equally it withered in Republic of india, while the ancient fine art of Central Asia is a fascinating mix of Indian, Persian, Chinese, Arabic and even Greek influences.

In reality, there was never a unmarried, static Silk Road but rather a network of routes that evolved and shifted depending on the season, political considerations, and regional differences in rates of tax, piracy or both. Nevertheless sited around oases at crucial crossroads of the diverse routes, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva all became mainstays on the diverse trading routes that passed through the inhospitable deserts of Cardinal Asia.

Samarkand

Samarkand, the most spectacular of the Silk Route cities, is as former as Rome with urban settlements dating back to at least the sixth Century BC, and a history of human domicile going back up to 40,000 years. Until the 16th Century it remained Fundamental Asia's leading city in terms of population, commerce and culture, with its heyday during the 14th and 15th Centuries during the rule of Timur and his immediate successors. Proclaiming himself Conquistador of the Earth (though known more ordinarily known in the West as Tamerlane), Timur led his soldiers as far afield equally Delhi and Moscow, plundering Syrian arab republic, Persia, Asia Minor and Russian federation in the process, the greatest extent of territory ever conquered past a single leader.

From the areas he conquered Timur carried back to Samarkand not just wealth merely also the finest thinkers and craftsmen to create his purple upper-case letter. While just a handful of these buildings remain, they dominate the city with their scale and beauty, their huge vivid turquoise domes standing out confronting the unremarkably vivid blue skies.

At the centre of the city is the Registan, three enormous medrassahs (religious schools) set around a large open courtyard, described by George Curzon, Viceroy of Republic of india as the "noblest public square in the earth." It is the combination of the vast scale of these buildings – the portals of the two facing medrassahs are each over 35 metres loftier – and the delicacy of the tiling and mosaic work that is and so breathtaking. The bulk of the structures are the colour of the desert sand, with the walls and minarets busy with tessellating patterns and inscriptions from the Koran picked out in deep blue, turquoise and green, while the portals are a seething mass of geometric designs, and swirling, floral patterns. And while you might await then many competing and conflicting patterns to disharmonism, the simplicity of the structure and the limited palette brings instead a beautiful coherence to the buildings, with the countless patterns continually absorbing. We stayed just effectually the corner from the Registan, and institute information technology wonderful to be greeted by the domes of the Registan every time we emerged from our guesthouse and to see these majestic quondam buildings at various times of the mean solar day and in different lights.

Interestingly, on the facade of 1 of the portals, two tigers are clearly depicted and above them homo faces looking out over the square from backside two rise suns. Although this was the almost dramatic example, we were to see similar breaches of the Islamic rule against figurative art on several other religious buildings in Uzbekistan – a sign of the multiple influences on compages in the region, and the way that only elements of Islam were ever adopted.

Elsewhere in Samarkand, Timur's ain mausoleum and the Bibi-Khanym Mosque he built to be the largest in the world are both stunningly cute, and like the Registan are decorated with intricate mosaics and tiling and topped by soaring turquoise domes. The mosque, which is still the largest in Primal Asia, with a courtroom one time fringed by over 400 cupolas and marble columns has been beautifully restored externally just left untouched within, giving an insight into how all these buildings would have looked before restoration, with broken lattice windows, cracks developing in the brickwork and only some tiling remaining.

A brusque walk from the other monuments, the Shah-i-Zinda is a drove of mausoleums dating from the 14th and 15th Centuries. With each monument smaller and more intimate than the thousand central buildings it was possible to run across the detail of the tiling and frescos much more clearly. . Although at times the mixture of styles was overwhelming, the views along the "avenue" of mausoleums were stunning.

In the last few years the city has undergone big scale restoration and even reconstruction. As always we were torn over the merits of such dramatic rebuilding, though it was fabulous to see the grand buildings looking like they might in their heyday. Unlike many of the historic sites we've visited on this trip it was also wonderful that the streets around them have been pedestrianised so nosotros could enjoy them without dodging traffic, making the urban center an incredibly relaxing and like shooting fish in a barrel place to spend fourth dimension. Yet the decision to build high walls effectually the monuments and the older, residential areas of boondocks, segregating local people from their history and from tourists, felt lamentable and utterly unnecessary.

On several occasions nosotros succeeded in finding the modest gates that gave access to the warren of residential streets hidden backside the new walls, gaining a glimpse of a fascinating and very different side of Samarkand: tranquility narrow alleys lined with houses set circular courtyards, where water is piped in through metal pipes laid higher up ground, passing groups of men visiting the neighbourhood hammam and huddles of women squatting outside their houses talking with neighbours.

Bukhara

None of Bukhara'southward buildings have the grandeur of Samarkand's Registan or other key sites, even so information technology feels a more coherent city, with a greater number of historical buildings that remain much more integrated inside the urban center than they are in Samarkand. And while in that location's certainly been significant restoration hither it too feels less ostentatious and obtrusive than in Samarkand. Ane of the delights of staying in Bukhara was wandering down the streets of the old boondocks, and coming across an erstwhile mosque, medrassah or mausoleum, some restored merely most in a country of partial disuse, intermingled with the ordinary houses, and which nosotros could explore, invariably every bit the just people there.

In the centre of the old town is Ark, the city's aboriginal fortress. Most of the interior is in ruin, destroyed past the Bolsheviks in 1920, only the nifty outer walls remain. Since reaching Central Asia, we've both been reading almost The Great Game, the 19th Century Anglo-Russian struggle from authorization in Key Asia, and and so information technology was particularly interesting to see the Ark, which was the location of 1 of the nigh famous episodes. Information technology was there that ii British officers and players of the Game, Charles Stoddart and Arthur Connolly (it was Connolly in fact who had coined the phrase "The Slap-up Game"), were held in a vermin infested pit for 2 years past the then Emir before being publicly beheaded and buried somewhere nether the square outside the main gate.

We stayed a short walk abroad near the Lyabi-Hauz pond, the traditional social heart of the urban center. In the ancient tradition we spent very enjoyable afternoons and evenings sitting by the pond under the shade of the ancient mulberry trees, drinking tea and people watching. Just south of Lyabi-Hauz we were surprised to find a working synagogue and to learn that Bukhara has long had a meaning Jewish population, dwindling numbers of whom still remain and continue to speak their own, singled-out language, and wait like distinctly different from their Uzbek neighbours.

The absence of Bukharan Jews from the official history of the city is just i aspect of the retelling of Uzbek history that has occurred since independence in an effort past the Authorities to create a shared culture amongst the population in the absenteeism of the USSR and communism. Timur is now heralded as the father of the nation though he was Persian, not Turkic, and his neat-grandson Babur was driven out of Samarkand past the Uzbeks. In fact, historically both Samarkand and Bokhara have long been predominantly Tajik cities (Tajiks are closely linked to Persians, and speak a language closely related to Farsi rather than a Turkic language), and nearly of the population remains Tajik speaking. It'southward another reminder of how the region was carved upwards by the Soviets (and actually by Stalin as Commissar of Nationalities) in a policy of divide and rule to minimise the risk of a pan-Turkism uprising.

It used to be said that there were enough mosques in Bukhara to worship at a different one every twenty-four hours. While this is no longer the example there are still certainly a huge number. Notwithstanding while there remain big numbers of religious buildings in the urban center, and throughout Uzbekistan, nosotros've seen trivial sign of the exercise of Islam. This has been noted also by others, with travel writer Colin Thubron suggesting that while there was an initial resurgence of Islam in the early on 1990s, bound up with a mail service-Soviet nationalism, this declined as people became poorer, non richer, in independent Uzbekistan and began to look back more fondly at the Soviet era. Onetime British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray, however, sees a more than sinister reason for the apparent decline in Islam, claiming that the government has airtight 4 in five of the country's mosques, censors the mullahs' addresses, has banned the call to prayer and discouraged attention prayers and observing Ramadan. Indeed, according to Murray, even possession of the Koran or growing a beard is probable to pb to arrest, detention and torture. Certainly nosotros didn't hear the call to prayer once in our fourth dimension in Uzbekistan, despite the profusion of mosques and minarets, and even the working mosques we visited were oftentimes entirely deserted.

Almost of the sites here operate a rather flexible approach to ticketing. At times it's been unclear whether the person collecting our archway coin was fifty-fifty officially employed at the monument, while at virtually sites the price seems to depend on your interest in going in and the number of other tourists around. The concept of opening times also doesn't seem to exist and nosotros've been able to visit several sights early in the morning, or when they were officially closed, by paying the guards direct, enabling us to explore at leisure, the simply people effectually. Inevitably this means that some of our entrance fees accept gone direct to the guards and ticket part staff, rather than to the State, yet in a country where official corruption remains owned and most staff badly paid we felt ok virtually this.

Khiva

Khiva is the almost remote of the Silk Road cities, situated close to the Oxus River and surrounded by the Kyzylkum desert to the east and the Karakum desert to the west,. Whilst this isolation meant a bumpy eight hr car journeying for u.s.a. from Bukhara, its continued remoteness has contributed to ensuring that Khiva is the most complete and intact of the three cities every bit well every bit having some of the nigh homogenous Islamic architecture in all of Central Asia.

Dissimilar Samarkand and Bukhara, Khiva is a complete fortified city. The Inner City, or Ichon Qala, is wrapped in a 1 and a one-half mile belt of metropolis walls, some of which date dorsum to the 5th century. Inside the walls and set up around the main street linking the east and west gates are a remarkable collection of original mosques, madressahs, palaces, mausoleums and the town fortress, while to the northward and s run a maze of narrow alleyways with small mud brick houses and hammans. Particularly impressive is the Kalta Minor. Commissioned by the Khan in 1852 to stand at over 70 metres loftier, the biggest in the Islamic earth, information technology was abandoned in the wake of his expiry at 26 metres. Though not the tallest minaret in Khiva, its great latitude and the glorious caput-to-toe tiling mean it dominates the urban center's skyline. Elsewhere, in the 2 palaces, the blue and white tiling was more intricate than we've seen anywhere else in the country.

Mod day Khiva feels a world abroad from descriptions of the town in even the 19th Century. So, as capital of the Khanate of Khorezm, Khiva was a desert hideout for slave traders, brigands and thieves with a reputation for wanton cruelty, violence and sexual depravation. There were many Russian slaves who had been abducted and sold into slavery in the city, the release of whom became a frequently cited pretext for Russia's involvement in the Swell Game and expansion into Key Asia. Russian men were reportedly the near valuable slaves fetching a price of up to four camels, though Western farsi women were more sought later on than Russian women. Amazingly slavery but ended hither in the middle of the nineteenth century.

Khiva was designated a 'museum-city' in 1967 by the Soviets, which has led some to draw it equally lifeless. All the same to us information technology felt very much alive. There are many houses inside the metropolis walls, which take apparently been re-occupied following Independence, and immediately outside the walls are a dandy many more houses besides as a bustling bazaar.

At that place is a remarkable consistency in the architecture of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva. The master mosques and medressahs are fronted by enormous portals, usually decorated with mosaic and tiling but sometimes with frescoes, and surrounded by high walls. At the corners of the compound there are commonly minarets, and inside, set around an open-air courtyard, small recessed doorways lead into small-scale, patently cells, which in medrassahs housed the religious students. Above the doorways to each cell there is an arched window, echoing the shape of the main arched doorway, with more decorative tiling in a higher place, and at the back of the courtyard is usually a mosque, over again fronted by a tiled portal. Many caravanserai we saw besides had a like layout. This consistency of construction is mirrored by a consistency in the colours used in ornament, which is largely limited to deep bluish, turquoise and green, with occasional touches of yellow and orange. Yet the buildings are so beautiful, and so varied their decorations that they're continually absorbing.

At present that the bulk are no longer used for worship or study, most of the m mosques and medrassahs now host tourist stalls selling carpets, ceramics, Soviet memorabilia and other trinkets, as well as the odd restaurant. In Khiva the Mohammed Amin Khan Madrassah – the city's largest - is at present the Hotel Khiva with student cells converted into luxury rooms. We treated ourselves to a night at that place and loved staying in such a beautiful and historical building. Whilst nosotros were sad that like then many of these aboriginal buildings, the medrassah is no longer in utilize, we were glad that at least the cells continued to provide accommodation – admitting to a rather different clientele.

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Source: https://kandroverland.blogspot.com/2011/

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