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Thursday 2004-06-17 - Shakhrisabz, Uzbekistan
Healing water
After a night of tossing and turning (I keep losing my ice bottle when I turn around) we have to get up early for breakfast at six: president Karimov will visit Bukhara with other leaders from the region (among them president Putin of Russia) and the city will soon be hermetically closed: we have to be out before that! Although our target today is Samarkand, we won’t go straight there but via Shakhrisabz, another city that was once on one of the branches of the old Silk Road where there are some nice historical sites. The two-and-a-half hours we get for lunch and site seeing is too short to see everything (especially at my current snail’s pace) but it’s worth while.
Together with Carla I go to one complex of mosques and tombs along the main road; when I was here three years ago. the buildings were closed while they were being restored and I could see only the outside; the restoration is finished now. The mosque (Ku’k Gumbaz Masjidi, built 1434-1435) is of a very special style: inside, there are only tiles on the lower walls, and above that all decoration on walls and ceilings is painted: mostly blue and white with gold accents (here and there replaced by yellow but the gold is real). The decorations are very refined and I’d never seen this style before. Across the beautiful courtyard are two tombs side-by-side; Gumbasi Saidon Maqbarasi, built in 1437, has the same type of decorations; the other tomb next to it is older (Shayx Sham Siddin Kulol Maqbarasi, 1373-1374) and has plain white walls. A friendly girl leads us around — not that she wants to be a guide or even earn anything: she studies philology but merely wants to practice her English a bit. One of the tomb stones in the Gumbasi Saidon mausoleum has a small depression in the top, highly polished by many hands since the water that’s standing in it is supposed to have healing qualities, she tells us. I take her at her word and put a few drops of it on my foot.
Behind this complex (where we also buy a few souvenirs at the stands in the courtyard) is another one, in rather worse repair but with a nice, shaded courtyard. A few men sit around in the shade; one of them, with a long white beard, deaf and nearly blind, is 120 years old, the others tell us. I can take a picture of him, he doesn’t mind; I doubt he’s really 120 years old (I doubt he quite understands my question), but he’s definitely very old. Then it’s time to (slowly, slowly) walk back to the bus.
Thursday 2004-06-17 - Samarkand, Uzbekistan
Evening light
At 4:30 we arrive in Samarkand, in Mr. Furkat’s pleasant family hotel: a shaded courtyard with fruit trees and seats with fresh fruit (small apples, apricots and prunes all from their own trees) and nuts on the tables — a real Uzbek tradition — and free coffee and tea. And it’s at a very short walking distance from the Registan complex making it an ideal location to stay in Samarkand. Carla and I first walk to the Chorsu cafe, on the corner of Tashkent street and just around the corner from the hotel, for a (draft) beer on the terrace: this is my favorite place to sit and watch people in Samarkand where mainly locals come to eat, drink and sometimes play a game of chess, and many people walk by on the way to and from the bazaar.
After that, we stroll to the Registan complex, just now basking in beautiful evening sunlight, where we enter (without buying a ticket) through one of the ‘secret’ back entrances to make pictures. A watchman approaches us — not to chase us away but to tell us we should climb the minaret (we decline) and feel free to take pictures now; and if we want, we can come back early in the morning (between 5 and 6) and will get in for free, too, he assures us, so we can take pictures in the morning light. Like last time, I take a lot of pictures, it’s very beautiful in this warm evening light.
