Travelog for: Knopf

The first thing I noticed in Uzbekistan after trading money was: I am rich!

For 50 Euro I got this stack of money.

Apparently, 1000 sum is the biggest bill here and it equals about 40 Euro cents at the moment. (And it really does, since a beer is about 6000 sum etc.) And most people do not have bank accounts and paying with a card or check isn't done so people really can sleep in their money here. Imagine going to buy a car...

The second thing I noticed is that Uzbekistan, at least the East, is very green now in spring.

After an exhausting 24h we reached a real highlight: the Gur-Emir mausoleum in Samarkand.

Madrasas used to stand on both sides of the mausoleum, now only their foundations are left.

There were some tourists but not too many of them to really appreciate the beauty of Tamerlan's mausoleum.

To top it all the sun did us the favour of coming out and lighting up the colors in some great late afternoon light.



When we got out we got a look at it in the evening light which might be even better.

The mausoleum is from the 14th/15th century. It was originally built for Tamerlan's grandson but whe was buried here as well as one of his mentors.

Our first real day in Samarkand started with panpackes filled with ground meat or cottage cheese for breakfast and then a trip to the Registan, a big place in Samarkand with a madrasa on 3 sides. A fourth was planned but never built which leaves us this beautiful view. The are not in use anymore and most of Samarkand's souvenir shops are to be found in the firmer student quaters.


Tilya-Kori Madrasa (17th century):




From the courtyard you can reach the golden mosque:

The stones on the floor are deliberately uneven so everybody would have to enter with their heads bowed.

Ulugh Beg Madrasa (15th century):


And its courtyard with a view of the small 2 story student quaters:


Sher-Dor Madrasa (17th century):
view out the front towards Ulugh Beg Madrasa:



What used to be a "shopping center" behind the madrasa:

After visiting the Registan we ambled thorugh the generous pedestrian zone to the Bibi Xanom mosque, the biggest mosque in Central Asia. It was built for Timur's favourite wife Serai-Milk-Xanom. (Bibi Xanom means old queen)
Main portal:

Side portal:


The story goes that Bibi Xanom wanted to speed up the contruction in order for it to be ready when Timus returned from a campaign. In return for making the impossible possible, the master builder demanded to kiss her once. When Timur returned he found out about the kiss and while the master builder fled, the queen was to be pushed off the highest minaret. However she demanded to be allowed to wear all her silk dresses and was thus saved, because they functioned like a parachute.

Inside the complex (that's not the main portal, it's the main entrance to the actual mosque on the inside) in front of a big Koran holder:


There were problems witht he static because the building was too big for the materials and was built too quickly. (within 5 years) Then people used the old buildings as source of building materials over the decades and this mosque still needs more work to be restored than the other buildings we've seen around here.




For lunch time we visited the bazaar:

Next we visited the mausoleum complex Shohizinda. It's a place of pilgrimage and on this Sunday many pilgrims from Uzbekistan were here, some even brought a chicken to be sacrificed.



The older mausoleums are in the middle of the more modern graveyard.
First we had to go up these stairs:


You can see the outline of many different mausoleums:


There are more open and more narrow places.






Again, there'S a story behing this complex and it being a place of pilgrimage:
Qussam ibn Abbos, the 'Living Ruler' or 'Shohizinda', a cousin of the Prophet Mohammed was killed by infidels in the 7th century while he was praying by cutting off his head, but he didn't actually die but took his head under his arm and descended into earth through a well, where he continued to live in paradise. Supposedly he was buried here, but excavations proofed that the grave is actually empty. 

Today takes us to she house of fashion designer Valentina Romanenko. She works with colorful silks, inspired by the history of Uzbekistan:




Her house is very nice with lanterns made of dried pumpkins, decorated with chillies against the evil eye:

Next on our itinerary was a visit to the Imam Al Bukhari complex.




Imam Al Bukhari was a Sunni scholar who wrote one of the major anthologies about the life of Mohammed in Sunni tradition. He died in 870 outside of Samarkand after being exiled from Bukhara. His grave was only found in 1958 when a prominent Lebanese visitor to the USSR wanted to visit his grave.The Communist Party officials had to enquire at teh academy of sciences and started a big search all around Bukhara and eventually Samarkand. The current memorial is from 1998 and was built with international contrubutions.

We used the afternoon to walk around Samarkand. The big avenues center in an intersection with a statue of Timur in the center.

Here's the former Intourist hotel of Samarkand:


The Ruhabad mausoleum


Behind the mosque and the Registan

Tasting the wines of Uzbekistan

(As much as I like the country so far, the wines I do not like too much, very very sweet...)

Here I feel like I've been taken back to Switzerland! But I am in the Pamir mountains. You can see the car convoy with our drivers. There are no car rentals in Uzbekistan.

We are going via the mountains to Shaxrisabz, the birthplace of Amir Timur.

leaving Samarkand region

looking forward

This is the only thing that is left of Timur's summerpalace, the Oq Saray.

This portal alone must have had twice its current height (about 38m) while the palace was about 300x600m big.
Here it is from the back:


We also visited K'ok Gumbaz mosque:

The inside is painted and looks like wall paper. Even though it was recently renovated on the inside, because of lack of roof renovations, you can already see the water damage.

Our journey to Bukhara led us through the Kizilkum desert.It is probably a good idea to come here in spring!

We made it to Bukhara.
Here's the first highlight of the city: the Samanid mausoleum from the 10th century.


Job's fountain, supposedly the water form the well inside cured many diseases. We didn't try it but as it'S supposed to have lots of iodine, the woman witht he very thick neck in front of us might actually profit from it.



Bolo Hauz mosque from the 18th century:





Craftsmen making decorative plates of metal and tar:

The citadel Ark with the emir's throne 'room':








The center of Bukhara with the great minaret which was also a kind of light house to guide the caravans and a watchtower. It belongs to Kalon mosque next to it, the second biggest mosque in Central Asia. ON the opposite side is the still active Miri Arab madrasa where boys play ping-pong int he yard.






There are 3 main covered bazaar in Bukhara, each for a different trade, coin makers, jewelers and money traders:

Here I am relaxing in our hotel in Bukhara. It is a small and familiar hotel in the old part of town with a typically bleak and unprepossessing exterior and this nice inner yard with typical Uzbek furniture: where people sit/lie down/eat and could spend nearly all their lives. We saw many of these outside houses when driving through the villages and most houses have inner courtyards where people spend a lot of their days from spring to fall because while the winters bring snow, there's not a whole lot of rain in this country.

The nice man from the hotel saw me trying to relax on this huge thing and immediately provided me with a toyvoyager size version. How nice of him!

Another covered bazaar. Bukhara is of course famous for carpets, silk stitching (many blankets and table cloths have traditional tree of life themes) and some other crafts.



Another of the typical crafts here is puppet making. This workshop was opened with help of the UNESCO to show the typical craft involving papier mâché. The hand puppets are partically very finely worked with earrings, weapons and armor.


You can see Ali Baba and the 40 thieves. Some faces were inspired by prominent personalities in real life:




The Madrasa Nadir Devon Begi was actually supposed to be a caravansary. When it was nearly finished, the Khan  sommented, that it was quite a beautiful madrasa and since a Khan is always right, the building because a madrasa, eventhough it lacked the typical big school room and had the big doors to fit camels instead.


Hodscha Nasreddin, something like the Turkish/Central Asian Till Eulenspiegel, if you are from a German speaking country, a trickster about whom there are many small anecdotes in different area where he plays tricks on the mightier and richer people.


In the evening we listened to saome music and enjoyed a beer: