I PASSED through Kyrgyzstan’s western border with dozens of sun-baked men and women shuffling along beside me. The men wore dark colours and thick boots, while the women were best viewed from behind sunglasses, lest the garish colours and sequins render one blind. I was on my way to the eastern part of Uzbekistan known as the Fergana Valley, once part of the ancient Silk Road. My first stop was the small town of Andijan. A pretty place in its own right, it will always be remembered as the site of the 2005 massacre of pro-democracy protesters by the government, with hundreds thought to have been killed. The incident and the subsequent exodus of refugees into Kyrgyzstan has put a considerable strain on Kyrgyz/Uzbek relations, and led to the EU imposing an arms embargo, though the previous year the British ambassador Craig Murray was allegedly relieved of his post by the British government for criticising president Karimov’s appalling human rights record lest access to Uzbekistan’s gas and mineral reserves be blocked.
After a stroll through the tree-lined streets I enlisted one of the hundreds of “shared” taxis and set off for my next stop, Fergana city. My fellow passengers, two teenage girls, struck up a conversation with me, which was slow and painful on account of my poor Russian. They were on their way to their friend Monica’s house, and invited me along as she had studied English at university and didn’t get to meet many native speakers. She was now a housewife with a one-year-old boy. Interestingly her parents were magicians, and the evening was spent with Monica and her mother regaling me with stories of their performances around the Middle East in the 1980s and ’90s.
The next day they took me to see the still-functioning circus in the nearby town of Kokand. The acrobats, with clothing and piercings that would not have looked out of place in a punk band, must have raised an eyebrow or two amongst the conservative locals. Kokand was once a major religious centre in Central Asia, though only a handful of the old buildings remain. The most impressive structure in the town is the former palace of the khan, who was forced into exile in 1874. The entrance looks like a yawning mouth, the drawbridge like a big lolling stone tongue. The thick walls hide beautiful courtyards and a small rock garden. Monica’s mother revealed that she was descended from the khan’s sixth concubine (the busy man had four wives and a 43-strong harem), and had been told only a few years before by a cousin. She, naturally, gets in for free.
After bidding farewell to my new friends, I went to the capital Tashkent, the fourth-biggest city in the former Soviet Union. It is a typically drab Soviet city but it is peppered with interesting statues, in particular that of Tamerlane, or “Timur the Lame”. Descended from Genghis Kahn, he was born near Samarkand in 1336 and became one of the greatest rulers of Central Asia. His domain stretched from Turkey to India in the last half of the 14th century, and his offspring founded the Mogul (a corruption of Mongol) empire in India. The Moguls were renowned for their architecture, particularly domed “onion” roofs, w
hich can be seen throughout their former realm, the most famous example being the Taj Mahal. As with most “heroes”, Timur is far more revered in his homeland – flowers are still placed by his statues and mausoleum – than in those he subdued, where he is viewed as a tyrant and a pillager. Not too surprising if you consider his idea of fun was to cut off the heads of those he conquered and put them on display. Rough estimates put the death toll of his 40-year reign at 17 million.
The reason the majority of people visit Uzbekistan is to see the ancient cities of Samarkand and Bukhara. These cultural and intellectual centres remained hidden from much of the Western world until the “Great Game” played between Tsarist Russia and Imperial Britain. The term, popularised by Rudyard Kipling, refers to the period of exploration and espionage in the 1800s when the two powers vied for the mysterious and uncharted deserts and mountains between their empires.
Timur made Samarkand his capital with the Registan square at its centre, flanked by three colossal domed medressas (Islamic schools). About 200 students would have lived and learned in each school, now given over to trinket and carpet sellers. Unusually, one of the medressas depicts huge snarling beasts that look lik
e tigers – Islam forbids the representation of living creatures. These were where some of the greatest mathematical and astrological minds studied, including Timur’s grandson, the ruler and famous astronomer Ulug Beg. Ulug Beg’s star maps of the 1420s are considered some of the most accurate ever written, and the remains of his enormous observatory lie on the outskirts of town. I decided to go there, passing a cemetery en route. I was stopped by an elderly couple, surprised by my lone trek, who insisted that I went with them into the cemetery to look at the headstones. They were on their way to pay their respects to family members’ graves. They took me to an area on a hillock that overlooked the city and showed me the resting places of their mother, father and brother. “I will be over there,” the man chuckled as he pointed to a plot. A mullah approached and had a brief conversation with the couple. Before I knew it, the four of us were praying and chanting in a ritual over the graves as the woman wept loudly. I figured my best course of action was to look at the ground and mumble a bit. Afterwards I thanked them for letting me join them in their private moment, and I wandered back in to the old city. Dazzling blue tiles, hectic bazaars and minarets jutting authoritatively into the skies as the call to prayer rings out are a heady feast for the senses that catapult you back to the days of the Silk Road and a golden age.
Bukhara is Central Asia’s holiest city and produced Avicenna, the father of modern medicine, and Rudaki, the Persian Shakespeare. Full of beautiful mosques, medressas, mausoleums and stone pools, this oasis is exactly the place of wonder its name conjures up. It is also known in British minds as being the last stand for one of the Victorian era’s legendary spies, Arthur Conolly.
Around 1840 a British agent named Colonel Charles Stoddart went to see the megalomaniac Emir of Bukhara, despite being advised not to, to try to bring him onto the British side during t
he war with Afghanistan. The emir, peeved at the lack of gifts or a letter from Queen Victoria, threw him in the notorious “bug pit” in jail. Conolly arrived about a year later on a rescue mission, but was thrown into the pit too. In 1842 the emir had them march out to the front of his citadel, or ark, to dig their own graves before being beheaded.
No creepy-crawlies remain, only shabby mannequins and money thrown in by tourists. The ark is virtually intact, its impenetrable walls scorching in the sun. It offers a fantastic panorama of what is left of Bukhara’s azure skyline after the Soviet invasion.
I stood on the battlements looking down onto where Conolly and Stoddart had lost their lives, and at the dozens of tourists wandering around. The journey to Uzbekistan may be less perilous today, but it is certainly still as exotic as it always has been.
After a stroll through the tree-lined streets I enlisted one of the hundreds of “shared” taxis and set off for my next stop, Fergana city. My fellow passengers, two teenage girls, struck up a conversation with me, which was slow and painful on account of my poor Russian. They were on their way to their friend Monica’s house, and invited me along as she had studied English at university and didn’t get to meet many native speakers. She was now a housewife with a one-year-old boy. Interestingly her parents were magicians, and the evening was spent with Monica and her mother regaling me with stories of their performances around the Middle East in the 1980s and ’90s.
The next day they took me to see the still-functioning circus in the nearby town of Kokand. The acrobats, with clothing and piercings that would not have looked out of place in a punk band, must have raised an eyebrow or two amongst the conservative locals. Kokand was once a major religious centre in Central Asia, though only a handful of the old buildings remain. The most impressive structure in the town is the former palace of the khan, who was forced into exile in 1874. The entrance looks like a yawning mouth, the drawbridge like a big lolling stone tongue. The thick walls hide beautiful courtyards and a small rock garden. Monica’s mother revealed that she was descended from the khan’s sixth concubine (the busy man had four wives and a 43-strong harem), and had been told only a few years before by a cousin. She, naturally, gets in for free.
After bidding farewell to my new friends, I went to the capital Tashkent, the fourth-biggest city in the former Soviet Union. It is a typically drab Soviet city but it is peppered with interesting statues, in particular that of Tamerlane, or “Timur the Lame”. Descended from Genghis Kahn, he was born near Samarkand in 1336 and became one of the greatest rulers of Central Asia. His domain stretched from Turkey to India in the last half of the 14th century, and his offspring founded the Mogul (a corruption of Mongol) empire in India. The Moguls were renowned for their architecture, particularly domed “onion” roofs, w
hich can be seen throughout their former realm, the most famous example being the Taj Mahal. As with most “heroes”, Timur is far more revered in his homeland – flowers are still placed by his statues and mausoleum – than in those he subdued, where he is viewed as a tyrant and a pillager. Not too surprising if you consider his idea of fun was to cut off the heads of those he conquered and put them on display. Rough estimates put the death toll of his 40-year reign at 17 million.The reason the majority of people visit Uzbekistan is to see the ancient cities of Samarkand and Bukhara. These cultural and intellectual centres remained hidden from much of the Western world until the “Great Game” played between Tsarist Russia and Imperial Britain. The term, popularised by Rudyard Kipling, refers to the period of exploration and espionage in the 1800s when the two powers vied for the mysterious and uncharted deserts and mountains between their empires.
Timur made Samarkand his capital with the Registan square at its centre, flanked by three colossal domed medressas (Islamic schools). About 200 students would have lived and learned in each school, now given over to trinket and carpet sellers. Unusually, one of the medressas depicts huge snarling beasts that look lik
e tigers – Islam forbids the representation of living creatures. These were where some of the greatest mathematical and astrological minds studied, including Timur’s grandson, the ruler and famous astronomer Ulug Beg. Ulug Beg’s star maps of the 1420s are considered some of the most accurate ever written, and the remains of his enormous observatory lie on the outskirts of town. I decided to go there, passing a cemetery en route. I was stopped by an elderly couple, surprised by my lone trek, who insisted that I went with them into the cemetery to look at the headstones. They were on their way to pay their respects to family members’ graves. They took me to an area on a hillock that overlooked the city and showed me the resting places of their mother, father and brother. “I will be over there,” the man chuckled as he pointed to a plot. A mullah approached and had a brief conversation with the couple. Before I knew it, the four of us were praying and chanting in a ritual over the graves as the woman wept loudly. I figured my best course of action was to look at the ground and mumble a bit. Afterwards I thanked them for letting me join them in their private moment, and I wandered back in to the old city. Dazzling blue tiles, hectic bazaars and minarets jutting authoritatively into the skies as the call to prayer rings out are a heady feast for the senses that catapult you back to the days of the Silk Road and a golden age.Bukhara is Central Asia’s holiest city and produced Avicenna, the father of modern medicine, and Rudaki, the Persian Shakespeare. Full of beautiful mosques, medressas, mausoleums and stone pools, this oasis is exactly the place of wonder its name conjures up. It is also known in British minds as being the last stand for one of the Victorian era’s legendary spies, Arthur Conolly.
Around 1840 a British agent named Colonel Charles Stoddart went to see the megalomaniac Emir of Bukhara, despite being advised not to, to try to bring him onto the British side during t
he war with Afghanistan. The emir, peeved at the lack of gifts or a letter from Queen Victoria, threw him in the notorious “bug pit” in jail. Conolly arrived about a year later on a rescue mission, but was thrown into the pit too. In 1842 the emir had them march out to the front of his citadel, or ark, to dig their own graves before being beheaded.No creepy-crawlies remain, only shabby mannequins and money thrown in by tourists. The ark is virtually intact, its impenetrable walls scorching in the sun. It offers a fantastic panorama of what is left of Bukhara’s azure skyline after the Soviet invasion.
I stood on the battlements looking down onto where Conolly and Stoddart had lost their lives, and at the dozens of tourists wandering around. The journey to Uzbekistan may be less perilous today, but it is certainly still as exotic as it always has been.
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