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UPDATE:   07 October 2006

Samarkand, Uzbekistan
The ancient "Silk Road" city of Samarkind...

GUEST REPORTER:  Todd Drummond, a native of Auburn, Alabama who has spent most of his adult life living in Central Asia.

Uzbekistan, January 2006

I consider myself fortunate to have had an opportunity to live and work in Uzbekistan. It is a beautiful and fascinating country. I first visited Samarkand in 1997 while serving as a trainer of new Peace Corps Volunteers in Gulistan, Uzbekistan, and returned again with my wife Natasha in January of 2006. During the intervening years, many improvements had been made in the "tourist infrastructure" of Samarkand but few tourists were flocking to Uzbekistan by 2006, primarily due to the recent tension in relations between the Karimov government and western countries. In May of 2005 the Uzbek authorities opened fire on demonstrators in the Uzbek city of Andijan and many sources estimate between 400-750 people were killed. The official government death toll is around 180 and the authorities claim that "terrorists" were to blame for the deaths. Indeed, the demonstrations were triggered by a prison break, led by a small group of armed militants. What happened next however - what events actually triggered the shootings- is subject to interpretation. In short, the west's call for "an independent investigation" of these events has been ignored by the Uzbek government to this day and relations with the west (especially the US) have chilled considerably.

From November 2005 to March 2006 I worked in Uzbekistan for the American Councils for International Education. Since I left Uzbekistan, our organization, along with many others, has unfortunately been shut down. The US government's critical stance toward Uzbekistan since the Andijon events led to the closing of many US government funded NGOs and projects. Nonetheless, if you are not taking a principled "anti-Karimov stand" based on his authoritarian style of governance, it is still relatively safe to travel in Uzbekistan, assuming that you can get a visa.  

[Photo at left: Ancient scientists inside Ulugbek Madrassa]

Before the recent political upheaval, perhaps what Uzbekistan was best known for was its remarkable cultural and architectural heritage as home of the great "Silk Road Trade Cities" of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva. The pictures here were all taken in Samarkand in January 2006. As Samarkand is indeed the "Pearl of Central Asia" when it comes to architecture, this photo collection is long on straight lines, geometric shapes, ornate tile work and calligraphy - and short on everything else! Including other motifs would not have allowed me to do justice to the splendor of Samarkand's architectural beauty. Even these photos don't do justice to Samarkand - you have to really experience it to get "the full picture."  

[Photo at right: Bibi Hamin Caligraphy]

While Samarkand has a long history, most of the significant city monuments we see today are from the "Timurid period" from the late 14th century until the end of the 16th century. Samarkand served as Timur the Great's (Tamerlane, conqueror of much of the eastern world) capital in the late 1390s and early 1400s and is also known as a medieval Islamic Renaissance city in which Avicenna, Ulugbek, and other mathematicians, writers, astronomers, miniaturist painters, and philosophers lived and worked. One of the first observatories ever built, complete with telescope for viewing the cosmos, was built in Samarkand by the astronomer Ulugbek in 1428. While the modern Uzbeks are a Turkic people, these ancients cities developed and thrived at a time when intellectuals of the region ascribed to a thriving Perso-Islamic culture. Looking at photos of Samarkand you are reminded of similar structures in cities like Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif, Isfahan, Tehran, Tabriz, and even Baghdad. While many of the great political and even some literary figures of the period were Chagatay Turks, Farsi was the literary language, alphabet and primary source of cultural inspiration. Alisher Navoi, "father of Uzbek literature," wrote his major works in both Farsi and Chagatay Turk (or Uzbek - depending on your politics). In the late middle ages, there was no Uzbek "nation-state" in Central Asia and many of the "Persofied" Turkic cultural elites moved from city state to city state, working and residing in several places like Herat, Bukhara or Samarkand at different stages of their lives. This movement of cultural elites and ideas, sometimes freely - sometimes by force, led to a fairly uniform architectural style and similar tastes in literature and culture in much of the region - at least among the educated. 

[Photo above left and below right: Bibi Hanim Mosque, 1404]

Like most significant architectural and archaeological sites in the region, most sites of note in Samarkand are mosques, madrassa complexes, mausolea (mazars)or fortresses. Housing and other civic structures in medieval Central Asia were built from a kind of clay brick which tended not to survive earthquakes, wars, heat and time. Many of the main sites are now in a "state of restoration" or are in desperate need of some such attention. Much of "the modern city" built under Soviet rule is also in a state of real disrepair. In recent years, the Karimov government has invested in restoring many of the ancient sites that could potentially bring in more tourists to the region.

Many of the medieval mosques and madrassa are primarily beautiful facades with little remaining "inner core." The blue-tiled Persian decorative style that characterizes Central Asia, Iran and Afghanistan is best seen in the Registan complex consisting of three major structures (Tillikori Madrassa and Mosque, Sher Dor Madrassa, and the Ulugbek Madrassa), the Gur Amir Mausoleum (burial place of Timur the great – "Tamerlane"), the Bibi Hanim Mosque complex, and the Shakhi Zinda mausoleum complex. Great architectural works were started under the Timurids (end of 14th beginning of 15th century) and some of the key structures date from that time, but there are also madrassa and mosques from the 16th and 17th centuries as well as some earlier Sassanid structures (in Bukhara for example) from as early as the 11th century, though these are few and far between today.

For the non-specialist, the striking features of medieval Central Asian architecture are the beautifully shaped blue-tile, round cupolas, the intricate brick and tile work with Arabic calligraphy, and geometric and floral designs. Tall brick minarets often flank two or four sides of the main complexes. Some of the religious buildings either did not function during Soviet times or served as "museums to atheism." One of the more interesting characteristics of Samarkand’s Registan is the façade of the Sher Dor complex (1619-36). The depiction of animals and humans in Islamic art is rare (due to the belief in the sacrilege of this practice), yet we see human faces, gazelles, and tigers all on the front of one of Samarkand’s trademark buildings. One explanation for the depiction of living beings on an Islamic complex is that earlier belief systems still influenced the region at the time of construction. Long before Islam came to Central Asia, nature and the natural world played an important part of the belief systems of the local people. Buddhism and Zoroastrianism had roots here long before Islam. Evidence of the importance of folk beliefs and the power of natural world (the Sky God of "Khan Tengri" for example) can be found in the fact that shamans (in the steppe at least) were respected people who could "communicate" with the natural world and some current practices and beliefs of the Uzbek, Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz can be ascribed to such pre-Islamic belief systems. In short, the type of Islam that developed in the region was perhaps a "synthesis of many belief systems," not simply an adaptation of a stricter and perhaps more severe form of Islam from the Arabian peninsula.  

[Photo at left: Cupola and tower at Sher Dor]

Samarkand is indeed an architectural wonder along the ancient Silk Road and is a must see for visitors to the region. While time, the Soviet period of "development" and now "post-Soviet stagnation" have taken off much of the "luster from the Pearl," Samarkand is still a fascinating place and the Uzbeks and Tadjiks that inhabit the city, are for the most part genuinely hospitable and proud of their ancient heritage. Walking onto the Registan complex, where three of the main architectural wonders stand, I never failed to have what I call "a Grand Canyon" or "Taj Mahal moment." That is, the irresistible urge to start snapping pictures from each and every angle, regardless of how many photos I had already have taken. Thank god for digital cameras! Like the Grand Canyon and Taj Mahal, as the light, time, and perspective all change, so does the view and you just can't seem to get enough pictures: in a word, very inspirational.

Samarkand, and Uzbekistan in general, is still an ideal place for "adventure travelers" who will not be too put off by lack of amenities and occasional travel hardships. Like other parts of Central Asia, Uzbekistan is still little visited by westerners due to its location. It is still possible to "have all the splendor to yourself." And what a shame it is that more Americans are not exploring Uzbekistan. We were sad to say goodbye to Uzbekistan but know that we will be back to explore again in better times. 

[Photo at right: Cupola of Bibi Hanim Mosque, 1404]

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