Travels in Uzbekistan along the old Silk Road – A tick off the bucket list

Posted on : October 28, 2019
Author : AGA Admin

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The Republic of Uzbekistan is a young state in Central Asia that only proclaimed its independence from the USSR in 1991. The bulk of the country lies between the rivers Amu Daria and Syr Daria draining into the fast drying Aral Sea. These vast plains have been a cradle of mingling cultures & trade over two millennia. The Silk Road was the world’s original superhighway. And at the heart of the Silk Road were the rich trading posts of Samarkand, Bukhara & Khiva. Weaving its way from Asia to Europe and everywhere in between, it was along this network of ancient trading routes that caravans of people, along with their ideas, inventions and goods wended their way over land. The enormous wealth of these trading posts attracted bloody conquests and large rebellions. Beautiful cities were built, destroyed, and rose from the ashes again like the proverbial phoenix, which incidentally is the national emblem of Uzbekistan, known in Uzbeki as Huma.

After sea routes were discovered, the Silk Road gradually fell into disuse. The countries and cultures of Central Asia languished for decades under Soviet rule, all but lost to travelers and to the effects of international commerce. But in recent years, and after the death of its first President Islam Karimov, the country has begun to reopen its doors to a new breed of travelers wanting to rediscover the lost beauty of the Silk Road and has painstakingly restored many of its magnificent architectural gems, sometimes unfortunately too gleamingly new!

 A brief history of the many conquests and the decline of the Silk Road

The first towns of Samarkand and Bukhara came into existence in the first millennium BC. In 328 BC, it was conquered by Alexander the Great and came briefly under the Macedonian Empire. The Persians and the Chinese were in constant conflict over the power to control the wealth of the trade routes. Until the 7^th century AD, this expanse remained with the Soghdian Iranians. They were overrun by the Arabs and under the Abbasid Caliphate in the 8^th & 9^th centuries this area became the centre of culture and learning. Then the Turks came from the north and established a series of states though most were Persian in nature. In the 12th century, Transoxiana was united into a single state under Iran. In the 13^th century, the Mongols under Genghis Khan invaded that state. Under his successors, Iranian-speaking communities were displaced to other parts of Central Asia. With Timur in power, Transoxiana began its last cultural flowering, centered in Samarqand. After Timur, the state began to split, and by 1510, Uzbek tribes had conquered all of Central Asia. In the sixteenth century, the Uzbeks established two strong rival khanates, Bukhara and Khorazm. The Silk Road cities began to decline as ocean trade flourished. The khanates were isolated by wars with Iran and weakened by attacks from northern nomads. Between 1729 and 1741, Nadir Shah of Persia made all the Khanates into vassals. In the early 19th century, three Uzbek khanates—Bukhara, Khiva, and Quqand had a brief period of recovery. However, in the mid-nineteenth century Russia, attracted to the region’s commercial potential and especially to its cotton, began the full military conquest of Central Asia. By 1876, Russia had incorporated all three khanates into its empire, granting the khanates limited autonomy. The course of history beyond this to the emergence of present day independent Uzbekistan remains as bloody and complicated, especially noteworthy are the purges by Stalin who was as much in awe of Timur as he was suspicious of his Uzbek descendants!

Tashkent-I started my journey from Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, with my group of fellow women travelers. An earthquake destroyed Tashkent in 1966, while the country was under Soviet rule. With typical Soviet muscle and stoicism, the entire city was rebuilt and restored. As a result, you will find a charming mish-mash of restored 12th-century mosques and classical Russian architecture alongside Soviet looking block buildings, broad avenues, smart metro stations and leafy green parks. Not to mention the malls and the bazaars, Chorsu in particular which is a modern day version of the ancient Silk Road housed partly under an enormous concrete look-alike of a yurt tent. Hotel Uzbekistan, under renovation, towers over the city’s main park and its heart Amir Square, where a magnificent statue of Amir Timur on a horse holds pride of place. Timur may have been a butcher to those he conquered, but he was also a tactical genius and a great patron of the arts and architecture.

The completely rebuilt Hazrati Imami complex  

 Independence Square & the Mother of Sorrow  

Tashkent Metro  

Chorsu Bazaar  

Hotel Uzbekistan & Amir Timur

In total contrast is the respect given to our gentle Prime Minister, the late Lal Bahadur Shastri who died mysteriously after signing the Tashkent Declaration with Pakistan.

Shastri Street

PM Lal Bahadur Shastri

Samarkand-Samarkand is one of the most ancient cities in the world, as old as Babylon and Rome. It was the only city that was conquered in turn by Alexander the Great, Chengiz Khan & Timur. When Marco Polo visited in the 13^th century AD, the city was already 2000 years old! Legend says that Zarathustra, the founder of Zoroastrianism, handed 1200 chapters of the Avesta written in gold plates to the fire temple here.

We took a very clean and modern morning train to travel to Samarkand. Initially it was hard to believe this dusty town was once the centre of world trade and a thriving cultural melting pot. Well not until we came across these amazing edifices in blue tiles and mosaics and majolica. It was like walking through a magical doorway into a fairyland of glittering turquoise domes, soaring minarets and exquisite blue, green and gold mosaics majolica tiles and paintings. Symbolic of his great power, Timur started unprecedented construction works. They were mosques, mausoleums or maqbaras, madrassas and monasteries or khanakas mainly, and some palace complexes.

 Guri Emir Mausoleum was built in honor of Timur’s grandson whom he had chosen as his successor but who tragically died before him. Timur and his spiritual teacher are also buried in the same maqbara. The mausoleum is a fine example of medieval architectural craftsmanship. The ribbed dome and vault walls are completely covered with a mosaic of light and dark blue glazed bricks, gilding and painting. The relief rosettes on the dome imitate a starry sky.

Guri Emir Complex   

Guri Emir

Registan Square is the imposing central square of Samarkand built in the 14^th century, serving as a medieval bazaar that was, quite literally, a crossroads at the centre of the world. It was created to awe, impress, and subjugate in terms of its sheer proportions. It is flanked by madrassas on three sides built by different rulers in different centuries. Each of these gigantic structures is highly ornamented, and the facade of the Sher Dor madrassa depicts strange tigers with human faces upon their backs: clearly challenging the orthodox Islamic view that living creatures should not be depicted in art. They glitter at dawn and dusk in shades of the Silk Road: azure, lapis lazuli, indigo and gold.

Registan Square

Sher Dor

Sher Dor 

What is most amazing about the intricate interiors is that in addition to the paint and tiles, mostly ceramic, glazed terracotta, and in some places onyx, the relief work is actually papier-mâché, which is then plastered and painted over! My only dissatisfaction was with the newly minted appearance after renovation, which I felt, took away the old world charm of antiquity.

Shahi-i-ZindaMy favorite site in Samarkand, however, was just a 10-minute walk away. It is an extraordinary necropolis of decorated tombs, some of which are more than 1,000 years old. In terms of the sheer intricacies of artistryand shades of blue,this particular complex beat all others hands down. The oldest tombs are from the time of the Arab campaigns to take control of Samarkand by the Prophet’s cousin who was mortally wounded here. The newer tombs are of Timur’s wives and sisters built in the 14th & 15th centuries.

Shahi-i-Zinda

Ulugbek and his observatory

Observatory of Ulugbek He was the grandson of Timur, an established astronomer, a mathematician, a man of letters and an unwilling warrior. He was deposed and killed by his own son. His observatory was excavated in the early 20th century. Built in the 1420s it was the largest observatory of its times. He wrote a book cataloguing 1018 stars that was published in Oxford in the 17^th century.

Shahrisabz-The country is large, how large one realizes when one drives from Samarkand to Bukhara. It took us almost eight hours. On the way, we stopped at the birthplace of Timur, an oasis in the desert. In its time, it was the second capital of the Timurid Empire and outshone Bukhara. At Shahrisabz, we finally got to see some ruins. A very old city, more than 2700 years old, it was known as Kesh in the Middle Ages. All that remains of the Ax Sarai palace complex is the gateway. In its heyday, the portal was 50 metres high. The gardens also serve as a destination for wedding shoots.The tent like dome of the Dor As Siadat necropolis shows the Mongol influence.

Ruins of the Ax Sarai palace 

A wedding shoot

Dor As Siadat

I noticed that Uzbek men love being photographed with Timur, as if that increases their virility! The hero of Uzbekistan is undoubtedly Timur, a 14th century conqueror who married a descendent of Genghis Khan and whose armies killed an estimated 17 million people on their rampage across Central Asia. He is the Father of the new nation, although our impression of him gleaned from history books as a terrifying man with a ginger beard, lame leg and stooping stature have been cast aside for a more aesthetically pleasing portrait! The present day Uzbeks are simple, warm and friendly. Their gold encased teeth, especially of the older generation, flash in welcoming smiles frequently. They were disconcerting to start with but then one got used to it.

Our guide Madame Luna

Bukhara-If the Arabian Nights ever fired your imagination as a child and you dreamt of flying carpets, potbellied genies, bearded sultans and beautiful princesses, then this city is as close as you can get to your childhood fantasies! A poetic and spiritual city, it was once renowned as the centre of learning throughout the Islamic world. The old town with more than 140 architectural monuments, narrow alleyways, colorful bazaars under a covered network of domes, shisha joints, beer gardens and tea places is a compact ‘open air’ museum listed as a UNESCO heritage site, and always bustling with locals and tourists. It was a sacred town in the pre-Islamic era, and was probably an ancient temple area. The word Bukhara comes from the word Vihara, meaning monastery in Sanskrit. The Zoroastrians translated Bukhara to mean temple.

Samanid Mausoleum A structure made of intricately carved brick, dates back more than 1,000 years. It was only spared by Genghis Khan and his army of Mongol horsemen, because it had been inundated in mud from floods. Though it is a mausoleum it is open on all sides like a fire temple, has archaic corner columns, chains of pearls and protection with signs of magic squares, traditions associated with pre Islamic architecture.

Samanid Mausolem

 Kalyon Mosque and Minaret Legend has it that, when Genghis Khan was rampaging across Central Asia toward Europe, the towering minaret that keeps watch over the Kalyon Mosque complex in Bukhara was the only structure he didn’t destroy. This mosque and madrassa complex is one of the world’s most spectacular examples of Islamic art and architecture, with fine tiling and mosaic work, the two facades facing one another accompanied by the spectacular mud-constructed minaret. The Miri Arab madrassa, built in the 16^th century is a functioning madrassa reopened in 1945. It is one of the erstwhile centers of Islamic learning.

Kalyon minaret 

The bustling bazaars

 The Bolo Hauz Mosque and the Ark The mosque is a classic example of the Central Asian style of a winter building and a summer avian with ornamental ceiling and wooden columns. To appear taller each column is made up of two joined tree trunks. The Ark isone of Uzbekistan’s oldest structures. This 5th-century, walled fortress-town is right in the centre of Bukhara. It was once the residence of the emirs of Bukhara when it was an emirate state (from 1785–1920)

Bolo Hauz mosque avian ceiling 

The Ark

Lyabi Hauz is one of the popular watering places of the old town. It forms a harmonious architectural ensemble with a reservoir in the center, and was constructed by order of the Diwan in the 17^th century along with other reservoirs, for storage and irrigation.

An evening to remember at the Lyabi Hauz

Khiva-Bukhara to Khiva was another long seven-hour drive by coach. Allegedly, the city grew around the well Hewvakh, with tasty and cool water. The well was dug by the order of Shem, the elder son of Biblical Noah. Today one can see this well in the old part of Khiva, Itchan-Kala. It was already more than 2000 years old when it was destroyed by the Arab invasion. It is mentioned in the Zoroastrian book Avesta as Hvarizam. Its history is inextricably connected with the history of the legendary Khorezmshah’s State with its capital first in Urgench and later in Khiva when the former was destroyed by the river changing its course.

In the 10th century Khiva is mentioned as a major trading center on the Silk Road. All the caravans had a stop here on their way to China and back. The inner town known as the Icchan Qala is now an impeccably maintained world heritage site. The peculiarity of this is that it is a living open-air museum with 200 odd families are still living within the walls of the fortress. The clay walls of the fortress protected the city right up to the invasion of Nadir Shah in the middle of the 18^th century. The walls also did a good job of ensuring slaves were kept inside the old city! In medieval times, it was the flourishing center of the slave trade. On the outer walls, you will see graves, whose brave spirit is believed to protect the city. Among other interesting monuments is the Tash-Khaulior stone Palace was built in the 19th century and has three large yards connected with numerous corridors and passages. Its decoration is exquisite, with carved wooden pillars, stonework and the most intricate handcrafted majolica and mosaic tiles. It also features rooms known as aiwans, fully tiled and open to the courtyard. The palace contained a harem right up until the 1920s, which was guarded by eunuchs. There were also ceremonial and entertaining spaces as well as a trial yard where a court held its sessions, and a yurt tent in a courtyard where the Khan received his special guests.

Khiva Icchan Qala

 

Inside Khiva

Khiva Harem

Khiva Bazaar

We finally returned to Tashkent to board our flight back home. It was indeed a memorable trip down the Old Silk Road, interacting with a warm and generous people, admiring the local handicraft, the bold ikkat textiles, the pretty suzani embroidery work, the vibrant, soft-as-silk camel wool carpets (wool from the camel’s neck), tasting the local food and savoring the local produce. How can I forget the glittering gilt work, and the rich blues of the mosaics and tiles. Oh, yes the Uzbeks love Indians, and Bollywood films, Bollywood songs, and Shahrukh Khan!

Prajna Sen

Consultant

AGA Admin