Uzbekistan to Turkmenistan

Sat. 02 October

Hello everyone, we left Samarkand a little disappointed with the pristine restorations but still in love with the mystery of unrenovated sections of Bibi Khanym Mosque in our imaginations. Our driver, Safir tore up the highway that was in relatively good shape to the ruins of Timurlane in Shakhriabz. Timur was born on April 9, 1336 in a village near here. Shakhrizabz was called Kesh and was the center of his family's power. The monuments and tombs have been restored and are big and impressive. The drive across the Kyzylkum desert was very pretty. Sands change color and support all kinds of little shrubs and trees. I appreciated the waves in the sands and the little dunes, evidence of the winds. Life and death is in these sands for the goats, sheep and people who hover in small, poor villages along the road. Water is so precious and lies in life-giving canals.

Then onto Bukhara, population of about 255,000. This ancient desert town spanning thousands of years of history is focused around a central ground water pools, called hauz. Our hotel, the Kabir, was just opposite the Lyabi-Hauz, a plaza built around a pool in 1620. The plaza must have been an oasis for camels and caravans, and now has a sort of carnival atmosphere with colored lights, tourist shops and Uzbek music at top volume. I must say that there were more than a few interesting carpets and bags laid out to trap me. I was dragged away, kicking and screaming. We visited the many mosques, bazaars, medressas, minarets and of course the Ark, a royal town within a town. The Ark is Bukhara oldest structure, occupied from the 5th century right up to 1920, when it was bombed by the Red Army. Outside in front of the fortress is medieval Bukhara's main square, the Registan, a favorite venue for executions, including those of the British officers Stoddart and Connoly on June 24, 1842. Their dark, tiny jail cells were positioned under the animal pens. The cells are still very spooky and the thoughts of bugs and other vermin and animal droppings gave us the creeps. They might actually have been relieved to be ordered to dig their own graves and then get beheaded. According to the Lonely Planet, there was public outrage back in England, but the British government chose to let the matter drop. You can read more about the Great Game played out between Russia and Britain and the spy work of journalists and explorers. The highlight for us in Bukhara was discovering the Ismail Samani Mausoleum, completed in 905 AD. This is the town's oldest Muslim monument and probably, the sturdiest. What impressed us was the intricate brickwork. Every bricklayer in the world could take inspiration from the 18 different patterns in this baked terracotta brickwork. Honestly, it is awe-inspiring. The patterns change character with the sun's shadows and looks different at each glance. As we had 4 days in Bukhara, we visited the Samani Mausoleum at 3 different times of the day, just to catch the magical play of light. We got quite friendly with the lady selling tickets and guarding the museum and in the end, I guess that she considered us pilgrims and didn't charge us entry. The Kabir hotel was very centrally located but we were the only guests. We had lots of time to buy watermelon and borrowed knives from the kitchen. By now, we were "shashlik-saturated". These kabobs are made mostly with mutton (not lamb) and are cooked to death over open flames. Only the chicken shashlik are left very raw in the middle (ugh). So you can imagine how excited we were to find a terrific little restaurant called Minzifa. After several visits, we made friends with the waiters, the cook, and the guys working there.

We walked around the Jewish section of Bukhara, visiting the two surviving synagogues and the cemetery. One Rabbi told us that Bukhara's Jewish community used to be about 10% of Bukhara's population but now, these are only about 200 Jews remaining in Bukhara. At cemetery, we met a guy from Queens, NYC. He told us that most of the Bukharan Jews have emigrated to Israel or to NYC. He has a few relatives still in Bukhara and was home to visit his father's grave. You might want to read about Bukhara's Jews. There have been Jews in Bukhara since the 12th Century and there evolved a unique culture with its own language, Bukhori, which is related to Persian but uses the Hebrew alphabet. Bukhara's Jews still speak this language as do about 10,000 Bukharan Jews living around the world.

October 6, 2010 Khiva, population 50,000. Khiva was most famous for their slave caravans, barbaric cruelty and terrible journeys across deserts and steppes surrounded by wild tribesmen. The drive from Bukhara through cotton fields and fruit orchards was quite tame by comparison. The historic heart of Khiva is preserved and retored in its entirety. The old city enclosed in crumbling clay brick walls is like a living museum. It sort of reminded me (not Stefan) a bit of other old cities - centers preserved but without many real people living in the center, maybe a bit like Venice or Salzberg. At night, colored lights spotlight each of the buildings and gives the whole city a weird spooky feeling. I was glad to have had my headlight with me. Until Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva we hadn't met many tourists and few tour groups. However once in those major sites, we met groups from Europe and Australia and many of the restaurants catered only to the groups. At one place, called the Khiva Restaurant, we talked the waiters into letting us eat dinner there and the 3 course meals were great. The densely packed mosques, tombs, palaces, caravanseris, alleyways and at least 16 medressas are beautifully restored and each houses women ticket takers, cum entrepreneurs selling every sort of hand knitted socks, scarves, and other kitch. (Rest-assured, we didn't buy a single thing and none of you will be burdened by these kinds of souveniers). We climbed the Juma Minaret for a nice view. We found daily life in Khiva just on the other side of the walls. There were markets and bazaars  buzzing with the mystique, bustle and squalor that we savoured. We discovered a somsa-maker and went 3 times to feast on her oven-baked, meat-filled dumplings. The ovens are big rounded, white clay "boobs" with a fire burning from the bottom. Just where you would expect a nipple, is a big hole and the woman has to quickly paste the raw buns (or bread dough) onto the hot oven walls. After a few minutes at very high heat from the flames below, she peals the perfectly cooked somsas off the oven wall and into our plastic bag. We walked around the markets with grease dripping off our chins. It all looked pretty clean and we didn't get sick. On our last day, we climbed walls at the West Gate late in the afternoon. We had a splendid view in the dying sun, over the fortress and residence first built in the 12 Century. After 3 days in Khiva, staying with a family at their guest home, the Shakhrezada, we drove to Nukus.

October 9 Nukus,population 230,000 and capital of Karakalpakstan, in the deltal of the Amu Darya river. The Karakalpaks are often the butt of "slow" jokes, much like the way Canadians refer to Newfies. This is a quiet, provincial town and we walked all along the tree-lined boulevards. We stayed at a hotel called the Zhibek Zholy, but in reality is spelled with "j's" so don't look for it on any city map. The hotel was very conveniently located, only 5 minutes walk to the Savitsky Karakalpakstan Art Museum. This elaborate, marble-fronted museum houses one of the most remarkable art collections in the former Soviet Union. It owns some 90,000 pieces that are rotated often. About half of the works were brought here in Soviet times by renegade artist and ethnoghapher Igor Savitsky. According to the Lonely Planet, many of the early 20th Century paintings, that did not conform to Soviet Realism were banned by Moscow, but found protection in these isolated backwater town. I found 2 Grigoriev paintings and almost wept. I doubly appreciated the works of art knowing that most of the artists were imprisoned, rehabilitated, or murdered simply for their artistic expressions.

From Nukus, we drove to the border with Turkenistan, letter of invitation and 150 USD in hand. The border crossing was easier than we expected and easier than the border between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Right from the border we found Turkmenistan to be more modern. Even though the completely ignored X-Ray machines blinked all colors, the facilities were more modern and the distance to drag the bags across "no-mans-land" was only about 300 M and the road was sort of paved. From Stan Tours, David's friend and colleague, Oleg met us and drove us to Konya Urgench.

Konye-Urgench population 15,000 is rural backwater town with empty plazas and the usual wandering livestock and bad roads that end in agricultural fields. However, the ancient state of Khorezm, located right along the Silk Road was the ancient state of Khorezm, an important oasis of civilization in the deserts for thousands of years.  We visited Nejameddin Kubra (1145-1221) Mausoleum and Sultan Ali Mausoleum. Kubra was a famous Muslim teacher and poet, who founded the Sufic Kubra order with followers throughout the Muslim world. He was killed by the Mongols and his head separated from his body. My what violent times those were!! We felt lucky to visit these ruins, parts still so beautifully decorated with painted tiles.

After a long afternoon, we drove south into the Karakum desert for a night in the desert at the burning crater. There are lots of stories about this crater. Some say that the Russians were drilling for gas in the desert and hit a big reserve that some how started to burn. Right now, this a big deep hole in the sand and it is burning deep and all around. It is huge and as you get close to the edges, it is hotter than hell. There is no smell, no sound, just the sight of leaping flames. It was Quite the sight at night in the dark! From a little hill behind which we camped, the flames roared away and presented a vision of hell. Gotta say it impressed us as a "journey to the center of the earth". At the crater, we met a couple from Toronto, also camping with Stan Tours. We have met lots of local people and tourists from Europe, Belarussia, Siberia, and parts of Russia and the former USSR that I had never heard of. It was nice to chat briefly with "people from home".

Since then we have been spoiling ourselves in the mecca of all cities, Ashgabad. You simply cannot imagine the grandeur of this city. Destroyed in 1948 by an earthquake, this city has been entirely rebuilt by mostly French architects and the reconstruction continues every day and I'm sure that the city map changes drastically every year. At first, after visiting very poor villages in the desert, this city is a real shock. When driving into the city, every driver is required to wipe down his vehicle so as not to dirty the city. (We met some Aussies travelling in a Dragoman Bus, and they had to get out of the bus and wash it down completely). There are more white palaces with columns and gold tipped domes that you can imagine! The streets are perfectly paved, there is no garbage or graphitti anywhere. The streets are tree-lined and even though this city is in the middle of a desert, there are fountains and parks on every avenue. Maybe they have used Dubai as their role model city!

After all of the highly restored ancient sites we fell in love with Merv, "Queen of the World". Merv stood alongside Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo as one of the great centers of Islam. Before Genghis Khan laid waste to the great city and slaughtered its population, Merv had been a melting pot of religious faiths and ethnic groups. Merv was known as Margiana or Margush in the time of Alexzander the Grat. It reached its greatest heights druing the 11 Century. There were 3 big cities build in the area and we enjoyed wandering through the dusty, archeological sites. The oldest of the 5 Merv cities is Erk Kala, an Achaemenid city dating from the 6th Century BC. We sat on the highest point of this very old cite and thought of the Zoroastrians, Nestorian Christians, Jews and Buddhists who lived and worked together harmoniously afrom 250 BC to 226 AD.

But long before Merv raised the first tower, Bronze Age villages were assembling along the Murgab River with the greatest of these ancient settlements with Gonur Depe being excavated in 1972 by Viktor Sarianidi. He considers Gonur to be one of the great civilizations of the ancient world. The first settlements were agricultural and evidence dates these to 7000 BC with current excavations dating to 3000BC!! The sites were slowly abandoned when the Murgab river changed course.  The Turkmenistan government has a very different approach to ancient ruins. Turkmen prefer to excavate and preserve rather than Uzbekistan that is really into restoration and sterilization. We met the famous Greek Russian archeologist, Viktor Sarianidi, who discovered these ruins in the 70's. He is now over 80 and still out there on the site, of course with an equally famous, but much younger female Russian archeologist. It was a very special honor to meet him. I will treasure the moment as much as I still remember meeting Mary Leaky in Kenya. Making this visit even more magical, there were dozens of camels strolling and chewing their ways around the Gonur Depe ruins and the site was simply extraordinary. Our flight to Almaty was cancelled so we have an extra couple of days here in Turkmenistan.

Right now, we are in brand new Turkish department store called Yimpas. Excalators and glass elevators are a novelty. The internet cafe is in the middle of a bowling alley and we are surrounded by excited families using Skype. Everyone wants to get a word in so, screaming is coming from all directions, including the bowling alley.

We will spend a few days here, fly to Almaty for a day and then onto Urumchi, Xinzhang China. With love to all, Corine & Stefan