Diannemurray's travel blogs:
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We explore the fabled cities of Uzbekistan
Entry 8 of 13 | show all | print this entry |
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UZBEKISTAN
Uzbekistan is another country we knew little about.
By the start of the 19th century the entire region was dominated by three weak, feuding Uzbek city-states - Khiva, Bukhara and Kokand. Later in the century all the khanates had fallen to the Russians. Russian domination continued until independence in 1991, with Islam Karimov elected as its leader. However parties with a religious platform were forbidden to take part in the election, so he had no real opposition. Under its constitution Uzbekistan is a secular, democratic presidential republic, but apparently the reality is quite different. There is very little open dissent due to control of the media, police harassment and imprisonment of activists.
Around 85% of Uzbeks claim to be Muslim, although only around 5-15% are practising, and mosques (with a couple of exceptions) are not permitted to broadcast the azan (call to prayer). The religious connection was weakened during the Soviet era. As well, open attendance at mosques invites harassment by government agents.
Soviet rule forced collectivisation of the agriculture and a massive shift to cotton cultivation, which has had dire results for the rural population, and the Aral Sea.
Tuesday 24th June Uzbekistan border - Khiva
Meet our guide, who seems pretty good,speaks good English, and greases the path through customs. We only had one English language copy of the custom form, so took a long time for everyone to copy the sample. Paul flirts with trouble by being over friendly with, and patting, the border German Shepherd, but gets away with it.
US$1 = 1300 sum (at bank)
US$1 = 1350 sum (black market)
Only about an hour to Khiva, through irrigated farmland, with small towns. A fair few rice paddies beside the road and a lot of cotton fields with water flooding the channels between the rows.
Do a fair bit of threading through narrow streets to find our Caravanserai style hotel (Arqonchi) in the old city,
right inside the main wall. We have organised to have a communal $5 meal in the hotel later, so get a shower and out to look at the town in the cool of the evening The town is stunning with beautifully restored mosques and medrassas, and a massive truncated minaret, fully tiled. Take sunset photos from our roof, and then down for dinner. Tables are set up outside in the cool, and look great, heaped with salads, fruit etc etc. Have a good meal with traditional foods. Certainly a good introduction to Uzbekistan.
Reasonable night's sleep in spite of a rattling, ineffective a/c unit.
Wednesday 25th June Khiva (Uzbekistan)
Early start for breakfast in the hotel and 9AM start of the city tour, with our guide, at the entrance gate to the walled city (Ichon Qala) with the map, and Unesco plaque. As it turns out later this is where we lose Fulvio, but everyone assumes he was never there, as he frequently does his own thing.
Khiva certainly existed by the 8th century as a minor fort and trading post on a side branch of the Silk Road. It grew from there, but in 1740 was wrecked by Nadir Shah of Persia. By the end of the 18th century it was rebuilt, and its slave market was the biggest in Central Asia.
Buy photo tickets, and look at the outside of the Muhammad Aminxon medressa (1851-1855) which is now a hotel, and was a prison for five years in Stalin's time.
Visit the residence (Ark) of the Kahns, Kuhna Ark, then Muhammed Rakhim Khan Medressa. On the way watch a woman making bread for a nearby hotel (not for sale to the likes of us), visit a woodworking shop, see multi-position intricate book rests made from one piece of wood, pestles, and walking sticks. At the silk carpet workshop we see skeins of wiry raw silk, straight off the cocoon, and soft treated silk which has had the glue (which combined the fine strands) washed out. The young women making carpets are a lot older than we would have expected.
We visit the Pahlavon Mahmud Mausoleum, for a famous wrestler and leader, look at the tallest minaret in town, then visit the Juma Mosque, which is a low-rise building with a forest of pillars supporting a timber and earth roof. The pillars are all finely carved, tapered toward the top, and reduced at the bottom to sit on felt washers on top of metre high stone pediments. There are 218 columns, 6 from the 10th century, the rest from the 18th.
Next we visit Tosh-Hovli Palace (Stone House), built 1832-1841), with a harem for 4 wives and 50 concubines. The exterior rooms are all tiled, mainly in blue, the interior rooms are plainer, as they are for winter, and the walls would be hung with carpets.
Looking at our photos, the highlights were tiling on the walls, carved wooden doors, intricately carved wooden columns and ceiling timbers, lavishly decorated ceilings, and the buttressed, brick clad city walls.
At the end of the tour, end up in the market where the guide tees up a set black market rate, and we change $US100 ,others all change something. The money man is carrying a plastic shopping bag full of banknotes. MP buys an European power board for 4000 sum. Have lunch at a nearby restaurant with most of the group, then back to the hotel for rest.
Arrange to go with the guide for a 5PM climb to the watch tower on the Kuhna Ark, and take photos all around. This, like most things we have done today, costs. Only the mosques seem to be free.
Afterward, walk right around the city walls, climb the wall at the west gate, walk through some of the back streets, but find the city does not look particularly "lived-in".
Try to arrange a small meal at the hotel, but end up with almost the full production of salads and trimmings, then limb to the hotel roof about 8.30 for sunset photos. Dianne still having very restless sleep, and Murray has diarrhoea, which is not improving. Since our lunch of take-away meat thingos a few days ago, more and more of the group are getting sick.
Thursday 26th June Khiva- Bukhara
Leave Khiva (which we have thoroughly enjoyed, although we've been told it's the lesser of the three main tourist cities of Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand) at 8am, and head out of town through irrigated farmland, then
into drier land before coming to large canals and then the bridge over the massive Amu-Darya River, historically the Oxus. Now been travelling for a couple of hours, and see sign saying still 470km to Bukhara. It's going to be a LONG day.
Into dry land, coming upon a large canal with a good flow in it, then into very dry desert, with some high ground. See large water bodies off to the right, turns out to be the Amu-Darya, with Turkmenistan on the far side, and, according to the guide, hogging most of the water. Stop for lunch at a sun-blasted restaurant on a bluff
overlooking the river, with temperatures in the high 30's. Crack out DP's watermelon, and everyone gets stuck into it, after our wedges of samosa supplied by the hotel. Back on the road again -flat, very dry, very boring, and very hot.
Get back into irrigated land, with flood irrigated cotton, paddy fields close to Bukhara.
Into town on wide divided roads, then into the narrower roads in the shadow of the old city walls, Stop at our flash looking hotel, Caravan, about 5.30pm.
Out to look at the city in the "cool"of the evening, taking photos of the major landmark buildings, medressas, mosques, minarets, old market buildings. Reach the ornamental pools, Lyabi-Hauz about dinner time. Have a look at the ancient mulberry trees, open air restaurants, and very basic perimeter water fountain, which is not operating. Decide on the north one of the three restaurants, and order a very cold large coke, a good aubergine and tomato salad, and a sliced beef/potato/tomato dish. Think it is a dish for two, but get two dishes. Too much for the two of us, but not bad. Took most of our ready cash at 17,000 Sum. Used the internet, then back to the hotel for a good night's sleep in our good beds, with good sheets, and a quiet a/c unit which works. Dianne took a sleeping tablet, and successfully broke the habit of waking every 1-2 hours during the night. The heat and non-stop travel is starting to tell on us.
Friday 27th June Bukhara
MP has been visiting the loo frequently, so decides to miss breakfast and try a stopper.
Out at 9.am, for a city tour with our guide. Find two older natural gas-powered minibusses outside, but a more flash diesel one turns up and we all get into it. Drive to Samani Park, and walk through to the Ismail Samani
Mausoleum, a 10th century monument. It is small, with an original exterior of textured brick, and a more recent brick dome.
The building looks different on each side, due to the angle of the sun on the bricks. Inside the building, the structure is intricate, with spaces between the internal arches and the outer wall, and a variety of bricklaying patterns. The tomb itself is very ugly, in plain brick with typical flat ends and a peaked roof.
We move on to the Chasma Ayub Mausoleum , built over the spring created by THE Job of Bible fame, striking his staff on the ground.
Next to it is the new Imam Ismail al-Bukhari memorial complex.
On to the 1718 Bolo-Hauz open air mosque, behind a pool, with an impressive decorated facade, and an open pavilion of timber ceiling supported by long, intricately carved and decorated timber pillars. Mosque staff are busy rolling out long carpets for the Friday prayer session.
Some information on Islam and the State. While not banning worship, they make sure that they know who is going to Mosque and for how long, by putting in their own mullahs. State workers who want to get on shouldn't be seen as too devout. It is also forbidden to make the call to prayer, with a few special exceptions. The trouble in the Fergana Valley is all about suppression of over-zealous Muslims. There are eight active medrassas in Uzbekistan now, and they are controlled by the State.
Close by is the 1927 Russian water tower, now disused. It is made from two oppositely wound hyperboloids of straight steel angle to form a curved structure. similar to the tower above Prague. Looks a bit like an Eiffel structure. Has a scary looking steep spiral staircase, and an even scarier builder's construction lift for paying sightseers.
We cross the main road to the gate of the Ark, and squeeze past a big group of locals in the narrow passage to the top. Hopefully get some good photos of the locals.
The area is known as Registan - (Regi = sand, stan = place) The whole thing is mud walls, faced with brick, and filled with sand. An Ark is a residence, in this case of the Khan. A khan is a ruler who is a descendant of Ghengis Kahn. If a ruler is not a descendant of Ghengis Kahn, he must be a so-called descendant of Prophet Mohammed, in which case he is called an emir. This is where the two British officers, Stoddart and Conolly, were executed in 1842. The building dates from the 5th century, and was occupied right up till 1920, when 80% of it was destroyed by Russian bombing.
Take photos of the decoration and structure of the highly decorated Juma (Friday) Mosque, and the Coronation Court, plus an interior of the museum, and exterior shots of an interesting lion sculpture, trying to get colourful locals in the shot.
Outside, take photo of the walls on the way back to the hotel where Dianne changes into cooler gear, and gets her water cooled neck band.
From here we headed down our street to the major landmark structures, minaret and domes. Have a look in the front of the Miri Arab Medrassa, but it is a working medrassa. One of these was used for training Soviet spy mullahs when they had Middle East ambitions.
Spent a lot of time, and shot a lot of photos in the Kalon Mosque, which was a hollow square with a tree in the middle, surrounded by 4 rows of arched galleries for the faithful to pray in the shade. The mosque was richly decorated with tiles on the facades, white painted in the galleries, with good view from the main courtyard portal back to the green domes and Kalon minaret.
From here to the trade dome of the jewelers, then the Abdul Aziz Kahn Medressa which was old (1652) and unrestored, with the broken pomegranate style of portal decoration, and the stylized image of his torso, with a moustache and sunglasses. It is now a woodcarving museum.
Next stop was the 1417 Ulugbek medressa, with an unusual twisted snake tiled edge to the portal, followed by a master craftsman workshop for finely crafted very sharp folding knives, offset scissors, novelty scissors. Showed us a scrapbook of a visit to Oxford as part of a craft delegation.
We passed through the trade dome of the hat sellers, very important as in the old days, a man without a hat had to be a criminal, and could be stoned.
The next point of interest was the Maghoki-Attar mosque, set at the 12th century ground level of the town, well below current ground level, with a 9th century facade, and 16th century dome. It is now a carpet museum, so didn't go in.
Stopped for lunch at the 1620 Lyabi-Hauz, a plaza built around the pool, where we ate last night. The mulberry trees are very old, one is dated 1477. The pool is surrounded by mosques and medressas.
Walk back to the hotel via the back streets, get lost in the "hutongs", but finally find a landmark and escape.
. Back at the hotel, Jim is sitting on the footpath, surrounded by tools and the new, hopefully improved, sound system from the truck. Back down town later for a very unsuccessful internet. MP walks 2 km down to the commercial area and back while DP fails to send a private internet report which has a lot more juicy details about the trip.
Dine at a different restaurant at the pool, once again Dianne has coke, aubergine salad and french fries. MP has only bread and some of DP's fries. This turns out to be a good strategy, as those in our group who had the shashlyk here almost all got sick.
Come home by a more direct route, listen to BBC TV (the only English station) and read till late.
Where I stayed:
Arqonchi Hotel, Khiva
Hotel Caravan, Bukhara
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