Adventures with Julia

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Our hotel was full last night for the first time and the staff was clearly not prepared for so many people. When we went to breakfast there was a room full of Central Asian women in traditional dress piling everything in sight on their plates. There was very little for anyone else to eat except yoghurt and cold cereal and the staff did not have more to put out. Thankfully the yoghurt is good and we made due. As we walked out we could see multiple plates of bread, cheese, fruit and lunch meats piled high in front of them. Jenia guessed they were not used to see so much food free for the taking.

Once settled into our car, a Korean Hyundai, we began the 5 hour, 280 kilometer, journey on the Royal Road to Bukhara. It was not in as good condition as the Golden Road to Samarkand so I was not able to work on the computer or even read much. We enjoyed looking out the windows at the flat and fertile landscape, not unlike the Central Valley in California. We saw mostly cotton and wheat fields as we had on the Golden Road. We passed through a couple of provinces between the two cities and a number of villages and small towns. We stopped at a ceramics workshop, but did not buy anything and we paused at an ancient roadside caravanserai to take a photo We also stopped at a gas station and learned that cars in Uzbekistan run on compressed natural gas or methane, gasoline or diesel. Stations are available for each of these choices throughout the country, but not at one location. There is an official price for each kind of fuel, which bears no relevance to the actual price at the pump and both prices will vary from day to day. In any event it is not cheap as it is in Turkmenistan.

Uzbekistan, we learned, is one of only two countries in the world that is doubly land locked, whereby two countries have to be crossed to get to an ocean. The other is Liechtenstein. That is part of the difficulty in exporting products. We also learned that Santa Fe, New Mexico has been a sister city to Bukhara since the Soviet era. The exchange continues to this day, with Uzbek artisans being invited to attend an exhibition in Santa Fe every year. Surprisingly, our driver Raffcat has been to the US twice and Jenia has been several times.

Jenia told me the ceramic cups I bought from a vendor at the Registan in Samarkand the day before, were from a place called Rishtan in the Fergana Valley, which is east of Tashkent. Later we found the same cups for less than half of what I paid. Oh well.

We arrived in Bukhara in 4 1/2 hours and went directly to an outdoor tea house for lunch. The place was packed with locals. We had a pasta first course and a beef stir fry second course plus the best bread we have had since arriving in Central Asia. It was crunchy and had great flavor. Then we went to our new lodgings, which are in the heart of the pedestrian part of town. We had to walk a couple of blocks to reach the entrance, which faces onto an alley in the heart of the old Jewish quarter. Once through the door of the Salom Inn, we found ourselves in a small and charming court yard surrounded by a two story house with just a few rooms. Ours is on the second floor. It is a touch rustic and dark, but all the necessities are present, the beds are good and the location is superb. After a few minutes to get settled, we were introduced to our local Bukhara city guide, Makhsuma, and immediately started our afternoon walking tour at the end of the alley.

At the end of the alley is a large square called Labi Haus, which appropriately means “Lips of the pool” as there is a pool in the middle that occupies about a third the square. On one side of the square is Nodir Divan Begi Madrassa (1622). At the top of its tile covered portal are 2 huge, beautiful birds, two dogs or pigs or unicorns and a painted face inside a sun star. It is so surprising to see animals and faces in muslim buildings that I can’t help noticing that they jar my sense of appropriateness and I find them disturbing rather than appealing. Such work may have been an attempt during the 17th century to explore new ideas. The building was originally built to be a caravansary, but became a madrassa housing 80 students. Now it is used by craftsmen and vendors. The interior includes both brick and mosaic tile work that creates a very pleasing affect.
In front of the madrassa is a large bronze sculptor of a legendary humorist riding a donkey, named Khodja Nasreddin Afandi, who looks a lot like Sancho Panza and behaved like Robin Hood. Every time we looked at the statue there were kids sitting on the donkey with Khodia and parents taking photos.

On the opposite side of the pool is the 17th century Nodir Divan Begi Khanako, which was both a mosque and a hostel for wandering dervishes. Today there is a large gallery inside. The portal boasts beautiful tile work that exemplifies the advanced understanding of geometrical forms referred to as girikh. There are two basic shapes, discovered, or perhaps I should say uncovered. by current western scientists, which they call kites and darts. When laid together in different ways, they make up the elements of each form in a tile pattern. The effect is most pleasing to look at without necessarily knowing why it is so appealing. Scientists on the began developing more and more complicated patterns down through the centuries until the art form was perfected. We read an article on the subject and have found ourselves looking closely at the mosaic tile work to see if we could discern the two basic forms and were delighted to find that we could. It has made looking at each building more interesting for me.

On the side between the madrassa and the Khanako is a large outdoor cafe on the edge of the pool There are mulberry trees and fountains all around as well as shops and another madrassa. The place is so inviting that the whole square is crowded all day long and well into the evening with locals as well as tourists.

Once we finished seeing everything in the square we continued west along a pedestrian pathway passing many vendors and several caravansaries, also full of vendors. In ancient times, one of the caravansaries catered to hat sellers and another to tea merchants. As Bukhara was a major crossroad during the 6th through the 19th centuries, there were many caravansaries in the city catering to individual products or to specific nationalities such as the Chinese and the Indians. At that point we parted from Makhsuma for the day and walked slowly back to our hotel, checking out several of the crafts along the way.
After a nice dinner of greens and chicken in our hotel, we wandered around the square enjoying the pleasant weather and watching people. We wandered into an antique fabric gallery and found several things we liked, but were not ready to buy. It was still early, but we were ready to call it quits.

Monday, May 6, 2013

After a small breakfast in our hotel courtyard, we met up with Jenia and Makhsoma and Rafcat for a full day tour of the ancient Bukharan sites. We saw an unusual 10th century mausoleum for Ishmail Samani, founder of the cultured Samanid dynasty, who completed the process of independence from the Arabs. Originally built in the shape of a cube with a round dome using baked bricks in a basket weave pattern that is classic Sogdian architecture, it was beautifully restored in 1930 by Soviet specialists. There was no colored tile work, yet I liked it better than many other grand buildings for its simplicity and understated elegance.

Then we saw a memorial to the theologist, Al Bukhoriy, who traveled the Islamic world collecting stories, called Hadis, about the prophet Muhammed. He collected over 600,000 Hadis into 99 books. His memorial is built in the shape of a crescent and a holy book and is close to the 12th century tomb of his teacher, which contains what is reputed to be the spring of Job. The 99 books of Hadis are considered second only to the Koran in importance to muslims.

Then we visited the Arc, which is a citadel or fortress beginning in the 4th century BC. What we see today was built during the 18th to 20th centuries according to a layout from the 16th century. THe fortress includes a prison with a “bug pit”, a 15 foot deep and 12 feet in diameter, circular pit where prisoners were kept alive, but miserable. Two British officers involved in the Great Game between Russia and Britain, Stoddart and Connoly, were kept here for 2-3 years in the mid 1800‘s before the Emir finally executed them. The place also contained the Coronation Hall where the emir greeted people including the unthinking Stoddart, who rode in on a horse breaking all the local rules of etiquette.

From there we visited, Bolo Khauz, our first mosque of the day and an outdoor one with 20 columns at that. It will hold 3400 people at Friday services, which start at noon with an imam giving a speech. At 1:00 pm is the call to prayer, which can only be heard if you are near the mosque. At 1:10pm people start to pray. The broadcast call to prayer was silenced during the Soviet era and has remained quiet since independence.

For lunch we ate at a very large restaurant, called Magistral, that served the popular dish called plov. Jenia said this was one of the best places for plov around so, we were happy to join the many locals chowing down plates full of a mixture of rice, shredded beef, raisins, carrots, onions and juice. It was very tasty and easy to see why locals like it. I went behind the scenes to watch the mixture being scooped out of a huge cauldron such as the witches in Macbeth used. The men plating the food were using their bare hands and I could only hope they were clean. A tourist restaurant this was not.
After lunch we drove to a large square called Poi Kalon where we began our afternoon walking tour in the old part of the city. Here we saw what was probably the world’s tallest building (158 feet) when it was finished in 1127. Called the Kalon Minaret, it was the only structure spared from destruction by Genghis Khan, who was so impressed that he ordered it to be spared. Each band of carving is cut deeper then the previous one so each is distinct from the ground looking up. Near the top is a single band of turquoise tile, thought to be the earliest example of glazed tile work in Central Asia. Also in the square was the Mir-i-Arab Madrassa, which was one of only two in the Soviet Union allowed to function and still does. It has very photogenic galleries of of simple white columns. Nearby, the first madrassa in Central Asia (1417), was built by Ulugbek three years before he built the more impressive one in Samarkand. There were other buildings we saw about which I have no energy to write or wish to bore you.

We continued walking along pedestrian pathways toward our hotel, passing caravansaries, street vendors and tea houses. Locals and tourists were everywhere. We hear English being spoken, but rarely by Americans. We stopped at a few miniature painting vendors, silk embroidery vendors and carpet vendors to see what was available. Back at the hotel, we relaxed and cleaned up for dinner. Jenia drove us in his own Chevrolet to a steak house where Mark had a great filet mignon cooked perfectly–rare. I had a delicious large green salad and mushroom soup. We stopped at a pastry shop after dinner and bought a pastry to go with tea back at our hotel. Before going to bed, we joined the throng out in the square at the end of our alley. Although it was almost 10pm, there were many small children playing and running around.