My first impression of Tashkent (pronounced ‘Toshkent’) was what I saw out of my taxi cab to the hotel from the airport at about 5 in the morning - wide open clean streets. When I went walking later on during the day to orient myself with the city, the impression did not change.
As I walked around two things immediately struck me. The city was ridiculously clean (that was an impression I carried with me throughout my stay in Uzbekistan) and the people (especially the women) were extremely smartly dressed.
The centre of town is the ‘Amir Temur’ square with a large horse-back statue of Timur the Lame (which replaced one of Karl Marx). Usually known as Amir Temur in Uzbekistan, he is the national hero here. Born near Samarkhand in the 14th century he considered himself to be a descendant of Genghis Khan – one of Temur’s ancestors was married to the grand-daughter of the great Khan. Today, Temur is mostly remembered for his sacking and massacres at Isfahan, Baghdad, Damascus, and Delhi (the latter in 1398 when apparently his army killed over 100,000 people). But his contribution as a patron of the arts and a military genius is often overlooked. He was responsible for bringing artists to his capital Samarkhand from all over the world as he endeavoured to make Samarkhand a grand city. He used to plan his military forays years in advance and used ingenious techniques such as sending camels with burnt hay on their backs to cause confusion in the enemy lines, or growing food on the routes which he intended to take on his campaigns. He is also credited with developing a form of chess (Tamarlane Chess) with many extra pieces such as camels and giraffes. He was also responsible for popularising Kurash (wrestling). Of course he had a very strong India connection – apart from the sack of Delhi – he was the great-great-great-grandfather of Babur, the founder of the Mughal dynasty.
I made a couple of obligatory visits to a few museums. First stop was the Amir Temur museum which is dedicated to the history of the Temurid dynasty (founded by Temurlang). The History Museum of the People of Uzbekistan is a nice two-storied building that traces the history of this region from the earliest times till today. There was even a photo of President Karimov with our Manmohan Singh jee. But the most interesting museum I visited was the railway museum. To get there from my hotel I had to take the metro which was an experience in itself – the metro (the stations apparently were also nuclear bunkers) was built in the 70s and each of the stations is a work of art with marble, mosaics, and tiles. Since each station is different from the other (one will have pictorial representation of stories by Alisher Navoi, the other would have beautiful chandeliers), one could ride in the metro all day and go through all the stations and one wouldn’t be bored!
Anyway, after an open mouthed journey through a couple of beautiful metro stations, I got to the Railway Museum. The matronly lady, while giving me the entry ticket, asked me “Pakistani? Iranian? Iraqi?”. The moment I told her ‘India’ she said, “Hema Malini is Indian”. The Railway Museum has around 50 different locomotives from the Soviet Era. Some of them are open to the visitors and one can climb in to have a look (or take the obligatory photo).
Tashkent was virtually destroyed in a massive earthquake in 1966. There is a pretty nice monument built ten years later to commemorate the rebuilding of the city after the earthquake. 88% of the population in Uzbekistan is Muslim (though very liberal) and most of the sights in Tashkent are either Madrassahs or Mosques. These buildings are very well restored and preserved – the minarets in Uzbekistan are different from what I’ve seen anywhere else – with beautiful blue / green tiles and some of them shaped like smokestacks. The Khast Imom complex is a great pleasure to walk through – there is a huge mosque (Hazroti Imom Mosque), and Madrassah (Barak Khan Madrassah) and a Library Museum that houses a copy of one of the oldest known copies of the Qu’ran (dating back to the 7th century – from the very early days of Islam).
From Tashkent we moved to the ancient city of Khiva. There were three major Khan-ates in Uzbekistan (Khiva, Korkond, and Bukhara). Khiva was the last to fall to the Russians in 1873. Khiva’s main sights are in the Ichon-qala (inner fort) and this part of town is like an open air museum with beautifully tiled Mosques, Minarets, and Madrassahs. The city is enclosed within walls, with four main cardinal gates. And within this city is another fortress (the Kuhna Ark) – which is complete with a Mosque, Harem, mint, and jail. There is a watchtower from where one gets a nice view of Khiva and its stunning minarets.
Khiva’s signature minaret is the Kalta Minor which was begun in 1851 (the Khan of Khiva wanted to be able to see Bukhara from this minaret) but never got completed as the Khan died grinding the construction to a halt. Beautifully tiled in blue and green it looks a factory smokestack. The Juma Mosque is an interesting place to visit – it has over 200 wooden columns and a beautiful minaret.
Apart from the tourists who throng Khiva there are lots of wedding parties – the newly-weds go to the Pahlavon Mahmud Mausoleum to seek the patron saint of Khiva’s blessings (this 14th century saint started off as a wrestler hence Pahlovon). In Khiva one also sees lots of Surnattoy (circumcision) parties – the boys are all dressed in heavy robes with silken caps.
I had a surreal experience in Khiva when I was exploring the back alleys. One really old lady stopped me and asked for help with her mobile phone – she said something in Uzbek which I, naturally, did not understand. Then she thrust her mobile in my hand and asked me to sort out whatever problem she was having with it. Obviously the mobile characters were in Cyrillic and I was unable to help. But she would take none of my apologies and continued to ask me for help. Sadly, I couldn’t.
From Khiva we moved to the Ellik Qala (“fifty forts”) region which is barren and desert-like and has around 50 (duh?) sand castles from the 3rd-4th centuries AD. We visited a few – Toprak Qala and Ayaz Qala. There was a nice yurt camp near Ayaz Qala where we were forced to take a longer-than-anticipated break because the batteries of our bus needed charging. Killing time with beer and vodka and stunningly beautiful surroundings is not too difficult. I even tried my hands at an old Russian van. In that barren area, with yurts and camels strategically placed, I was reminded of my days in Mongolia.
We then moved to our yurt camp for the night. Again we got a 360° view of the desolate background which was lit up by the setting Sun. A campfire, with beer naturally, under the beautifully starry sky followed that was very very memorable. Though the same could not be said for the night as there were millions and millions (I’m not joking) of mosquitos.
On our 10 hour road journey to Bukhara, we encountered a narrow stretch (just wide enough to allow traffic to pass) when 2 trucks scraped each other and their respective drivers had a nice long fight and refused to budge. That was when our driver got into action and went and shouted (and I mean SHOUTED) at the two drivers to move their butt. It was funny how quickly they suddenly forgot their quarrels and squirmed into their buses and moved on.
Uzbek music was playing on the bus and suddenly the guide said that he had some Indian music and played “Kal ho na ho”. Certainly a high point for me (even though I don’t like Shah Rukh Khan!).
More from Bukhara.
PS: At the hotel I was staying in in Tashkent, the Under 16 Indian football team was also staying – they were playing in an Asia qualifying tournament. Seeing these boys from all different parts of India, I was reminded me of the film Chak-de.
