The silk road
I have wanted to see central Asia since I first read about Marco Polo and now I am going there! My flight to San Francisco was not until 2:30 but I got tired of waiting and got to the airport over two hours early. In San Francisco I find out that there are different lounges for first class and business and of course I walked past the business lounge and had a long walk back. At least I got some steps for the day. I did not get the aisle seat I had booked on Turkish Airlines, but there was plenty of legroom. A guy in chef whites, complete with toque, came by to take the food order. The food was quite nice and I managed to get some sleep on the 13 hour flight.
We landed in Istanbul about 5:30pm and my bag was the first one to hit the carousel. It was a zoo outside but I quickly found the hotel shuttle. Driving in we past an extensive stretch of the old byzantine city wall, 1500 years old and still standing. The Nayla Palace Hotel ($80 a night) was tiny but the staff was very helpful. The room was freshly redone in Ottoman ornate style. It was smaller than tiny. After settling in and charging my phone, I found an ATM and went looking for something to eat. The Platanium Cafe was very comfy and close. I had an assorted meza (appetizer) plate with at least 10 different yummy things, two drinks and tip; $15. I may gain weight while I am here.
Istanbul
I decided to take it easy on Wednesday. I wandered up to the hippodrome, the remnants of the old Roman horse race track that was used for 1500 years, until the late 19th century. I went thru the Blue Mosque, which was undergoing major restoration, so there was not much to see. I got to the museum of Islamic Art and bought a museum card that covered 12 museums, $20. The museum was beautifully laid out and divided into each of the Islamic kingdoms from the 9th thru the 19th centuries. Beautiful objects and history that we hardly ever learn. From there I visited the Aya Sofya, built in the 5th century. The 400 foot diameter concrete dome is still amazing, again major restoration going on. Just outside there was a nice open air cafe. I had a Doner Kebap (like a gyro plate) and a huge serving of sweet watermelon, $8. After a nap and some emails I went to dinner at The Old House, two blocks away, It was breezy so I opted to eat inside, should have worn a sweater. I started with veggie boregi and got roped into buying a bottle of Turkish wine which was amazingly good. My main was grilled, whole dorade with salad. I normally do not order desert, but the fig and walnut dessert was irresistible. The whole thing came to $45, but the wine alone was worth more than that.
Thursday was bright and sunny with the temperature in the 70’s so I walked the two blocks to the Topkapi Palace first thing. This is probably the top sight in Istanbul. I wandered thru the four courtyards and the harem before the crowd got too large. It was as beautiful as I remembered in spite of all the restoration work going on. I went thru the Aya Irini, the first orthodox church in Constantinople, but there is not much left to see. After a nice lunch of Imam Bayildi (stuffed eggplant) and Greek salad, $6, I headed to the Chora museum known for its frescoes and mosaics. Half of it was closed off for renovation but the part that was open was amazing.
I met my good friends Ayhan and Gulchin at the tea shop across the street. We were going to go to another museum close by but it was completely closed for restoration so we walked down to see some of the ancient wall. At one place there was an old palace built into the wall and it was being restored. When we got to the bottom of hill we took a taxi to the residence of the patriarch of the orthodox church. While most Greeks left after the war in 1922, there was still a significant population until 1965 when most of the remaining people left for Greece. The surrounding Fener neighborhood was charming and we meandered for a few blocks. Eventually we came to the Bulgarian Orthodox church which was prefabricated out of iron in Austria and shipped here late in the 19th century. It was lovely and you would never guess the whole thing was iron. By then it was rush hour and taxis were scarce but we finally got one to Eyup where we took a gondola up to a scenic overlook on the Pierre Loti hill, and had tea while viewing the Golden Horn, the famous waterway that was the eastern edge of the old city, From there we walked to the Karakoy pier and caught the Golden Horn water bus which zigzagged across the waterway making several stops. We got off just past the Galata bridge, crossed the bridge on foot to the Hamdi restaurant for a traditional meal of Mezes and Kebap. We drank lots of Raki and ate way too much so I needed a taxi back to the hotel The driver got completely lost, so I just got out and walked the last few blocks. A great day with wonderful friends capped with a terrific meal.
Friday I took it a bit easier after doing 12 km on Thursday. I took a back street down the hill to see the original retaining wall for the hippodrome built in the 4th century. After they demolished the hippodrome they built houses on it. From there I wandered some back streets looking at the neighborhoods. Eventually I got to the museum of science and technology in the Islamic world. It was truly educational. It backed up to Gulhane park which was huge and very pleasant. Lunch was at the Aya Sofya spa restaurant. Dolmas, tabbouleh, and tea $6. The hotel moved me to a larger room and Ginny arrived at five. We had a light dinner back at Platanium, $25 for two with a bottle of wine.
Saturday we went to the archaeology museum early. Only about half of it was open but it was quite good. It was my eighth stop on my $20 museum pass. Lunch was at a little cafe called Kosk. In the afternoon we decided on a two hour Bosporus cruise, $25. We got on the shuttle van and waited. Then we drove to the Galata bridge where the boat was supposed to be, but we just waited for more people to get on the van, Then we crossed the bridge and crept thru stop and go traffic for 25 minutes to a different dock. Unfortunately they cut so much out of the advertised tour, it was only an hour on the boat and more than that on the shuttle van. We later found out we could have taken the tram to the dock, and done the tour in Turkish for $6. Dinner was at the Sultanahmet Fish house, whole grilled fish, wine, appetizers and dessert $45. On the way back to the hotel we picked up four huge figs and a persimmon for a dollar. We stumbled across an alley with wall to wall restaurants and stopped for a nightcap. Only one place knew about Visne, a sour cherry liqueur, they did not have it but went up and down the street until they found a bottle so the could sell us two drinks. They take great care of their customers in this town.
Sunday was clear and sunny, just like every other day. We deciphered the tram, lots of locals helped us, and headed to the Dolmabahce Palace. This palace was built in the mid 1800’s in a European style with a prime location right on the Bosporus. Surprisingly they only take cash, $15 including the tour of the harem. It is totally rococo and very crowded. The harem tour was less crowded and an easier scale to absorb. You could spend most of the day there as there is also a crystal gallery, a clock gallery and a couple of other things. We had to check out by two, so went back to the hotel and then had a late, large lunch. We returned to Kosk restaurant, as they had been so friendly the day before, and tried the Testi Kebap, which is cooked in a sealed clay pot. The pot is brought to the table, flaming and opened, absolutely delicious. As before they gave us a huge puffy pita and some free mezes. With two beers we were stuffed $30. The van that took us to the airport drove part of the way down the sidewalk.
Kyrgyzstan
The flight to Bishkek left at 9:30 at night and, with a three hour time change, arrived at 5:30 in the morning. We were in bed shortly after seven am and by eleven the hotel was calling for us to check out? The first night was on us and the next three nights were part of the tour but they did not seem to get it. Eventually we got out and had a delicious lunch at Bukhara, $19.
There was a silk road trading post here in the 13th century but it was long gone by the time the Russians came in the 19th century and founded the city, At that time the stans were made up of three kingdoms, Khiva, Bukhara and, Kokand. In the 1920’s the soviets divided them up into the five stans we know today. Bishkek is a city of broad boulevards and pleasant parks. The are no old buildings. The traffic is like rush hour all day and well into the night.
The rest of the group arrived at 0 dark thirty on Tuesday. We gathered around noon and went to lunch. The group were from all over the states and have traveled extensively. In the afternoon we visited some government buildings and learned some history especially about the Soviet era, Dinner was in a imitation yurt village. The food had lots of fresh vegetables but could have used a little more seasoning. After dinner there was a performance of traditional music.
Wednesday was again clear and sunny. We drove up into the Ala Archa national park for a short hike. The mountains are spectacular and we met a few red squirrels who were very friendly. Then we went to a three part memorial to the 1917 revolution, the Stalin purges, and the overthrow of the corrupt dictator in 2010. After lunch we toured the most boring bazaar ever. Dinner at Vanilla Sky was delightful and they had a sax player. We had two soups, appetizer, and two drinks, $13. After four nights the hotel had still not fixed the bedside lights.
Friday we loaded up and started driving east. We stopped for a thrilling game of goat dragging, where two teams try to capture the carcass of a headless goat and put it in their goal. The game was preceded by some horse wrestling and other horse skills. Final score 3 to 2. The young men were having a great time and mugged for the camera. Then we visited the ruins of the ancient city of Balasagun, founded in the 9th century. The highlights were the restored Burana Tower (originally 46m now 24m) and the Balbals, figurative gravestones.
Lunch was at the house of a retired local history teacher. He started feeding the Balasagun archaeologists and then figured out there was money feeding tourists. One course was called five fingers, and was pasta cooked in beef broth and served with meat. It was surprisingly delicious, as were all the appetizers. As we reached Cholpon-Ata we stopped to see a boulder field (morain) with ancient petroglyphs. We stayed at a resort on the shore of lake Issyk-Kul. The resort was originally built by the soviets but has been upgraded. However the seat on the commode was not attached. We called and maintenance came and glued it back on but that lasted about an hour. Walking down to the pier gave a wonderful view of the sunset. The lake is the second biggest alpine lake in the world and over 2000 feet deep. It is mildly saline as it has no outlet, and is non potable for humans. The water level has risen over the years and they have discovered 10 ancient cities under the waters.
Friday we drove way too much to see way too little. About two hours out, we stopped to see a demonstration of eagle hunting. They use golden eagles and even hunt wolves with them. I had seen this in Mongolia so it was nothing new. We then drove to Karakol to a museum dedicated to Przhevalsky a Polish/Russian explorer who lead several expeditions to central Asia in the late 19th century. Lunch was in the home of a Uygur woman who had been kidnapped to be a bride 36 years ago. After lunch we saw a Russian Orthodox church built in 1869, all wood with no nails, so it could withstand the many earth tremors.
Everywhere we look there are snow capped mountains. Kyrgyzstan has four peaks over 24,000 feet. The countryside has an isolated majestic beauty. The towns look like lower middle class anywhere. The gasoline is cheap so the traffic is awful. Every place we have eaten has had wonderful tomato and cucumber salads and good soups. Thankfully we are only being served local food. The whole group seems compatible and everyone has traveled a lot, so they do not ask a lot of dumb questions, or the same question over and over.
Kazakhstan
Saturday we headed to Kazakhstan, a long boring drive. We stopped at kitchistan for lunch. It was so tacky that Caesars in Las Vegas looked tasteful in comparison but the food was good. The border crossing was tedious and just like an old movie with long lines of people shuffling thru dusty buildings carrying bags of belongings, but we had no issues. We finally got to Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan 10 ½ hours after we boarded the bus, ugh. I bought a bottle of wine at dinner but no one wanted any, so I did what I had to and drank the whole thing. When I went to pay they did not want to take a credit card. They said $37 US. They did not like the two 20’s I gave them so they said $35. They did not like my other two 20’s so they decided to take my Visa and I wound up paying $16. The wine was from Georgia (the country not the state) and was not bad. The Kazzhol hotel was really first class and I slept like a log.
Kazakhstan is land locked and the 9th largest country by area. They have lots of oil and the Russian cosmodrome. The president for life decided he wanted a brand new capital so they built one called Astana. Almaty is ABC (another big city) with wide streets, pleasant parks and about 2 million people. A majority muslim country whose two biggest holidays are orthodox christmas and pagan new year (the vernal equinox) They are multi ethnic and multi religious. The economy seems pretty good. The city has a smog problem but it also has great skiing.
Sunday we started at independence square, which was quite nice. There was the hand print if the president for life in bronze and if you put your hand in it and made a wish it was sure to come true. Then we went to the national museum where they had an incredible collection of ancient gold burial artifacts. There was also a room where the Russian archaeologists had recreated the heads of ancient hominids from the skulls that had been found. From there we visited the orthodox cathedral, the WWII memorial, and the museum of folk musical instruments. Generally there is not much to see in the modern city of Almaty. Lunch at the smiles cafe was lamb kebabs which were fantastic.
Turkmenistan
The three hour flight to Turkmenistan left at 2am. Not much sleep before, during or after. Oh well, beats traveling by camel. The airport was brand new, beautiful, empty and huge. Usually only one plane arrival at a time. We walked almost a mile by the time we got to the bus. The guards in the airport are very short with big hats. They even do a retinal scan on you as part of the automated passport screening. The terminal building is built like falcon in flight, quite striking in the early morning.
Ashgabat, the name is redolent of ancient caravans and exotic spices. The reality is a bit different. Turkmenistan has huge reserves of gas and oil and a president for life. It is referred to as the North Korea of central Asia and the third most repressive country in the world. The entire city was destroyed by earthquake in 1948. Since 1991 they have been building white marble buildings at a furious pace. Every building looks like a monument. The roads are eight lanes wide and scarcely traveled, speed limit 30mph. It looks like a cross between Las Vegas on steroids and Pyongyang. They are building a city for 10 million but only have a population of one million (only 6 million in the whole country), so most buildings are empty. The construction is all done by French and Turkish companies. There are police everywhere and they stop cars and people just to check their papers. Internet access is possible but not by phone and many sites are blocked.
Retail businesses cannot put up signs. Everyone is encouraged to drive a white car. All the busses and trucks are white. Most of the women wear long caftans that are often highly decorated. If a woman wears a head covering that looks like a cross between a turban and a fez, it means she is married, but if she wears a skull cap or nothing she is single. However, the dresses are often magnificent. The head garb is coordinated and the look can be stunning. There are hundreds of local Turkmen cleaning, polishing brass, sweeping the boulavards with homemade brooms and even hand scrubbing the white lines in the streets, for $300 a month. Our hotel is white marble outside and the lobby is very grand. The room looks like an old Motel 6, residential door, lights burned out, no outlets.
Monday the high was 90 and we started late. Lunch was at a restaurant with no sign, no name and no address. The interior was very nice. The food was cooked at a grill in the center of each table but customers were not allowed to touch it. It was tasty but took two hours. Afterwards we visited the ruins of a 15th century mosque. Now people go there to sacrifice animals in hopes of getting wishes granted. Afterwards they cook the sacrifice for the family and give the leftovers to the poor, The mosque was destroyed in 1948 the earthquake. We were going to go to the bazaar but it is closed on Mondays.
Tuesday we visited Nisa the home of the Parthian Empire in the 3rd century BC. It became a world heritage site in 2007. Only 30% has been excavated and parts are being reconstructed. It was mostly adobe bricks. It was destroyed by an earthquake in 10 BC. After that we went to the village where the first president for life was born. The mosque was the most ornate I have seen but instead of verses from the koran it had verses from the first president’s book. His mausoleum was there too, and equally ornate. After lunch we drove past more monumental buildings, including a carrera marble enclosed ferris wheel, and visited Independence Square with many huge statues of obscure heroes of Turkmenistan. Dinner was supposed to be filet mignon, but it was cooked beyond all recognition. At least the veggies were edible. They wanted to charge me the equivalent of $20 in the local currency for a glass of wine, a beer, and a vodka. I offered to pay in dollars and the price came down to $5.
Wednesday I got up at 4:30 for a private tour of Gonur Depe and Merv. The domestic terminal had four gates and was packed with people. It was a 45 minute flight to Mary. I was stuck in steerage and the guy in front of me had already put his seat back before I got there. My guide, Arslon, did some trading and I moved to the exit row. The Mary terminal was also brand new with lots of marble, but only a one hole bathroom.
We were soon on the road, 30 minutes of good road, an hour of bad road, and an hour of rough four wheel driving across the desert to Gonur. We stopped along the road for samas (meat pies with onion) and some bread for lunch. Next we had a small detour to see the ruins of a 12th century Nestorian church, completely unrestored. There were goats grazing on top of the ruins, sheep out back, cows in the next field, a herd of camels just down the road, and one lonely donkey. Lastly we stopped to buy watermelons right out of the field.
Gonur Depe was a bronze age city until the river changed course. The electric line we had been following ended at the caretaker’s house. Some of the structures have been reconstructed, but most of what was excavated is just sitting in the open and deteriorating. The original discovery was by a Russian/Greek archaeologist in the 1970’s, The site is huge though only 30% has been excavated. They had a piped sewer system 4300 years ago! There were buildings over two of the excavations, one with a horse skeleton, and on with mill stones and chariot wheels. Everywhere you step you are walking on pottery shards. I wandered through the ruins for almost two hours before we broke for lunch. Lunch was a good salad, mystery meat, cold fries and hot tea. The guide and driver said bread and watermelon for dessert was real Turkman food.
The drive back to Merv seemed easier, maybe because I dozed off. Merv dates from at least the 6th century BC and was visited by Alexander the great. Thru the 12th century it was a major center of learning and philosophy in addition to its place on the silk road. It rivaled Baghdad and Damascus in both size and importance. In 1221 the son of Genghis Khan took the city and butchered all men, women, and children. Some historians say a million people were killed in the immediate area. The last of four walled cities to occupy the site was razed in 1789. Some of the ruins are dramatic, but except for a restored mausoleum most are a bit sketchy. Many of the site were not open due to restoration work. By this time my imagination was running wild in times long ago. We drove on to Mary and visited a Russian Orthodox church and then went to a small cafe. It was a local fast food place and their specialty was fitji, a meat pie baked in a small tart tin. Mary has more marble buildings on the main street, including a magnificent library that my driver said no one ever uses. I finally got back to Ashgabat at 10 pm. Mean while Ginny had bought seven ounces of beluga caviar for $15 at the Russian market, OMG that would be over $1000 in the states.
Friday we flew to over the Karakum (black sand) desert, Asia’s hottest and driest, to Dashoguz and had the worst lunch at a hotel that looked like Vegas and we were the only ones there. Never eat in an empty restaurant, most of the group got sick, but I only ate the salad. The road to the border with Uzbekistan was in poor shape so we bounced as much as drove. We came to the first gate and a guard got on the bus the check our visas. Since we were a group, the bus was allowed to drive the next 700 meters before we got off. No porters. We dragged our belongings to the next checkpoint where everything was x-rayed, and our temperature was taken. They poked around in the first couple of bags and then waved us to visa check. There they finger printed us, and took three pictures. Once past that hurdle we had to drag our bags another 500 meters across gravel and sand that might have been a road once. There were a few abandoned cars with bullet holes in the side. Then another Turkman guard again checked our visas. Finally 100 meters of pavement brought us the the Uzbek border station. Again with the temperature check, x-ray, metal detection, passport and visa check and more pictures. It took 90 minutes, mostly trying leave Turkmenistan. However one of our group showed a high temperature so we followed his ambulance to the hospital. He said they treated him nicely and we were on to dinner at our hotel shortly.
Uzbekistan
Now we were in the autonomous Karakalpakstan Republic and bouncing along toward Nukus. Nukus had been a closed city and the headquarters of the USSR chemical weapon testing and development. We did not think there was much to see there except the Igor V. Savitsky museum of art. They had an excellent ethnographic collection and 16,000 Russian and Uzbek paintings from 1918 to 1934. They survived Stalin’s purge because of the remoteness. The collection was jaw dropping. The art was comparable to the impressionists of the same period in western europe. Two hours was only enough for a brief survey, unfortunately they did not have a catalog for sale. Lunch was in a local woman’s home nearby. Following out meal there was a short but delightful concert of local folk music. On the road to Khiva we saw in the distance a Zoroastrian sky burial site. We arrived late and dinner was a mediocre buffet. The lunch from the day before hit Ginny and most of the others. That evening my back was killing me from all the bouncing, so I had a massage, $30 for an hour, by an excellent soviet trained masseuse. The soviets took massage as a serious branch of health treatment and trained the best masseuses.
Uzbekistan is the most populated and westernized of the Stans. There is a huge US airbase, and everybody takes dollars. None of the women wear a headscarf except the very old. English is widely spoken and school children come up to you to practice their English while one of then videos the encounter as a class assignment. It seems to be quite prosperous and open. When Genghis Khan came thru in the 13th century, he destroyed everything, so there is not much from before that time.
Saturday was overcast with a very few sprinkles. My friend Ginny was sick as a dog and stayed in bed all day. Most of the group had some kind of intestinal distress, fortunately our guide had plenty of the local remedy, activated charcoal pills and then one to plug you up. The old walled inner fort, dating from the 8th century, was directly across the street. This really looked like the silk road. We spent the morning wandering past street vendors, thru alleys, palaces and madrassas. The buildings dated from the 8th to 19th centuries. If there had been camels and donkeys it would really feel like the silk road. I cannot put into words the sense of the ancient past that suffused the whole city. Lunch was forgettable but dinner, on the terrace of a local cafe, was quite tasty with some grilled shashlik. Since we were going to be in this Stan for 10 days, I withdraw a million Uzbek Som ($120) which made me feel wealthy carrying that much cash.
Monday we headed out on a long bus ride across the Kyzyl Kum (red sand) desert to Bukhara. The main east west highway is mostly crumbling two lane asphalt. It was so bad that sometimes the driver went on the shoulder instead of the road. We stopped a couple of times to let the goats cross. We made one stop where they were selling melons and giving samples. They were super sweet so we bought two different kinds. We stopped at an oasis for lunch where they were grilling lamb kabobs. We brought everything else. It was delightful eating under the trees, especially the melons. We made a couple more innocuous stops as we bounced and lurched to Bukhara, maybe traveling by camel could not be any worse. The Amelia hotel looked like a dump on the outside but was beautifully decorated in caravan style on the inside. Dinner was in a local house, the dinner show was quite nice and the food was quite poor.
Tuesday we did a tour of Bukhara starting with the Ismoil Samonty mausoleum built in the 9th century. An amazing example of many different styles of brick work, set in a large pleasant park. Then we visited a mosque modeled on the 40 pillar mosque in Iran. It had one of the nicest interiors I have seen, Shia mosques qre fancier than Sunni Mosques. The highlight of the morning was visiting the Ark Citadel, a vast fortress built in the 5th century. And used as a fortress until 1920. It encompassed a small town and had several worth while exhibits. Lunch was at Chinar and the soup was a Russian specialty with pickles in it, delicious. Unfortunately the rest of the meal was blah. In the afternoon we did a walking tour of the old city, old synagogue, market, madrassas, thoroughly interesting and educational. Dinner was on our own and Ginny and I ate at Lyabi Hauz beside a small pond. Dinner was wonderful, samas, soup, half kilo of roasted lamb and a surprisingly delicious bottle of Uzbek red wine, $20 for two.
Tuesday we stopped to meet the chairlady of a small district of five villages. She explained her role and how things worked in local government. She was obviously very self confident and had a real presence. Then we went to spend time with a local family outside of the city. Some of us helped prepare the lunch; several kinds of dumplings (steamed, fried, and baked in the tandoor), bread, salads, an unusual kind of pilaf with lamb, and homemade marshmallow. The others played in the garden and fed the sheep. It was fun to interact with the three generations of the family and the lunch was quite good. I did learn some tricks for making dumplings that I will use. On the way back we stopped to meet Golibjon’s family (our guide) and see his home, which he was remodeling. The economy must be doing well as there is construction everywhere, especially single family residential. The buildings are concrete frame with brick infill and then plastered. We were stuffed so dinner was just soup, bread, and wine.
Wednesday we got back on the bus headed to Samarkand. Along the way we stopped at a sardoba. These were built every 40 km (a days trek) along the caravan route along with a caravansary (inn). They are a domed structure dug down into the water table to provide water for the caravans. They are mostly gone and this one was reconstructed, I am amazed by how many tourist busses there are. They seem split between Europeans and Asians. This is the new hot place to see. We got to Samarkand late afternoon, beat up from the rough roads, again. Samarkand is 2700 years old and now the second biggest city (700,000) in Uzbekistan. The traffic is awful, the drivers aggressive, the rules of the road mere suggestions.
Thursday we toured Samarkand which has stunning reconstructed monuments. It was the capital for Timur, known as Tamerlane in the west. Our first stop was Registon Square with three madrassas built in the 15th and 17th centuries, One was built by Timur’s grandson as a science institute. He was a noted astronomer of his day. The buildings were mostly rebuilt in the Soviet times. Then we visited the largest mosque in central Asia and then the Bazaar, noted for dried fruit After lunch we visited a necropolis with several dramatic mausoleums. Dinner was in a private home. The four daughters all spoke perfect English and one was studying to be a doctor. She spoke six languages and taught Japanese on the side. The food is starting to feel like just fuel and is pretty nondescript.
Friday was our day off, hurray! Ginny and I got a late start and found an ATM, the one in our hotel was broken. It only gave US $100 bills but you could get $5000 at a time. As we wandered down the main drag we came to a coffee shop and had cappuccinos. $2.50 for two with tip. This was the first real coffee since Istanbul. There has been only instant or tea. We visited some craft shops but did not find anything that grabbed us. It was nice to be away from the group, they went on a hike in the nearby hills. After lunch we visited the tomb of Timur. The Europeans liked him because he fought the Ottomans, but he actually was much more brutal than they were, building pyramids of skulls of those he slaughtered. His tomb was magnificent. The soviets opened his tomb in 1941 and inside his sarcophagus was the inscription “Whoever disturbs my tomb will suffer an invader worse then I” Three days after they opened the tomb, the Nazis invaded Russia.
Early Saturday we were off to Tashkent in the bus. I was the last one on an got stuck in the back, ugh. It was a boring ride but we arrived around 2 pm. We walked around for a bit and bought tickets for the opera that night. Our guide, who talked about the government in the first three Stans, was strangely mute about his home government. The opera house was beautiful and very old school. They were doing part of Il Trovatore. The music was great and the staging was quite good. The singing sounded like noise so I asked some of the people who liked opera, and they said it was atrocious. Afterwards we walked to the Ogni Tashkenta for a late bite. The lentil soup was delicious.
Sunday we went to visit another mosque and madrasa. The highlight was the oldest complete Quran dating from the 8th century From there we went to the Chorsu market. It was huge, clean and quite interesting. The massive meat hall had no smell. There was a food court section that was serving a cold horse meat and noodle dish that did not look very interesting. We then took the subway, 15 cents, and the stations were almost works of art. The trains however looked like the 1950’s. The stations doubled as fallout shelters like in Moscow. The cafe we wanted to go to for lunch was being dismantled and loaded on a truck so we went back to the Ogni Tashkenta. They wanted us to pose for a photo with a statue of and old man seated at a table. Two soups and two beers, $6 with tip,
After lunch we went to the history museum which covered the stone age to 1989. I tried to go to the national art museum but misread the map and wound up at the national art gallery which was quite contemporary. There was an installation called G-20 that looked like an empty room. But when you looked at the ceiling there were shoes on the luminous ceiling, like they were walking all over you. Then I visited the Amir Timur museum which was informative and I even learned that one of Tamerlane’s descendants built the Taj Mahal. Dinner was at a local restaurant featuring Pike-perch cooked in a pouch with vegetables and was one of the best meals of the trip.
Tajikistan
Monday we loaded up on the bus and headed for Tajikistan. Two hours of boring drive got us to the border. There were two check points for each country and we walked over a mile but at least there were porters for the luggage. We boarded a smaller bus and got a local guide who sounded like a soviet tourist guide. We arrived in Khujand for lunch and visited some monument and then, Arbob Palace, a smaller reproduction of the winter palace in St. Petersburg. They were rehearsing for a visit by the president, who has ruled since before independence. Tajikistan feels like it is still a Soviet Socialist Republic. Marriages can only be after 6pm so nobody leaves work early The party can only last three hours and only 150 guests. There is a $10,000 for violating the rules. “This is good because it is controlling people.” per our guide. The Name of the KGB has been changed to National Security but we were assured that the program was still the same as before.
Our hotel was a bit of a dump but the staff was very solicitous. The maid even hugged and kissed Ginny after she brought us new pillows. We needed a drink so I asked at the desk and a nice man walked me to an obscure cafe to buy a bottle of Georgian wine, $10. The cafe owner spoke perfect English and had been to Boulder, Colorado to help set up the Dushanbe Tea House there. Dushanbe and Boulder are sister cities. Dinner was in what looked like a wedding hall. The salad and borscht were good but the main had some mystery meat that looked like it had been cooked for days. I gave mine to the bus driver who inhaled it. I ordered a vodka and got about 4 ounces for a dollar.
Tuesday was cold and blustery. Our first stop was the Independence monument complete with elevator to the top viewing platform, but it was too cloudy to see much. There are many imposing monuments in Khujand, including several to the great patriotic war (WWII). Like all former Soviet capitals there are wide tree lined boulevards and multistory concrete apartment blocks. Khujand even has a new 13 story building just for the people with “high intellegence”. Then we stopped briefly at a large statue of Ismoil Somoni, founder of the Samid kingdom in the 10th century. We saw his mausaleum in Bukhara. Then we walked thru a pleasant park, with classic Tajik music blaring from loudspeakers 24/7, to a small museum that purported to represent all of Tajik history. As we walked past the Pushkin Opera House we saw a group of goons standing in front of the restaurant we were going to for lunch. It happened that the local governor liked to eat there too and they were his eight man security detail. Lunch was terriffic, a salad of lightly pickled vegatables, soup, and some of the best lamb of the trip. Afterwards we visited the local bazaar which was unremarkable.
Tuesday the clouds were breaking up, but they had dumped the first snow of the season on the mountains. So we abandoned our bus and loaded up into several 4×4’s forming our own caravan. Our first stop was Istaravshan, the location of Cyropolis, established by Cyrus the Great in the 6th century BC. It was farthest east that Alexander the Great came. There was a recently constructed fort, reflecting no specific period, that is used for public events, on the top of the hill. The town has been a center of artisans and trade for 2700 years and we visited two craftmasters still plying the ancient methods. One made combs out of walnut wood and the other made knives. After lunch in the home of our local guide’s father, we head up into the Pamir mountains.
I dozed off for a bit and woke up in a three mile tunnel. The tunnel was 30 feet high and there were a few dim lights at the top. We emerged from the tunnel into a snow covered world of jagged peaks and steep scree covered slopes. Tajikistan is 93% mountains, some of the highest in the world, and half is over 10,000 feet. Our drivers thought it was the grand prix, they were passing on curves, hills, in tunnels and blind curves inside unlit tunnels. This was necessary as most of the huge trucks were crawling at 5 to 15 mph. The roads were dusty, unmarked, no guard rails, and steep. Trucks were broken down in the middle sometimes. We stopped at a group of stands selling mostly nuts and dried fruit that felt like another time. Five hours after lunch we rolled into Dushanbe and our hotel, Atlas. When we ordered wine at dinner they sent someone out to buy a bottle at the local store, $10, from Georgia.
Thursday was sunny and warm. We went to see another statue of Ismoil Somoni backed by a giant arch topped with a gold crown, and then wandered thru a nice park with a multitude of fountains which were mostly working. The archaeology museum had a 42 foot reclining buddha, but not much else of interest. The Palace of Nowruz is the most gaudy thing I have ever seen anywhere in the world. It started out to be the world’s biggest tea house but the president appointed himself chief architect and things got strange. The meeting rooms are more ornate than any european palace with lots of bling on top of that. Many mirrored rooms, elaborate inlaid floors, extensive large scale lapidary work depicting historical events, ornate furniture, intricately carved wood work, immense chandeliers, monumental staircases, and on and on. Construction cost and ownership are confidential. We visited the artisan who did the lapidary work (they called it mosaic) in his studio and some of his work was like paintings. After a tasty lunch at a Turkish restaurant we visited a private museum of traditional musical instruments. The owner and a couple of his friends performed for us with ancient instruments. I passed on seeing another food bazaar.
Dushanbe, like many of the capitals in the Stans, was an obscure village when the Soviets created these five countries. That way, the capital owed its existence to Moscow so there was no opposition. It is now a city of 1.2 million. The mayor is the son of the President. There has been only one president since the end of the civil war in 1994. There are pictures of the president everywhere, billboards, on buildings, in offices and stores, he is watching. Lonely Planet described the new architecture as a melange of Roman triumphalism and cheap futurism and I could not come up with a better description. Oddly the Soviet era buildings are the nicest I have seen, and well maintained too. For some reason they see no reason to have a consistent riser height in a flight of stairs. This feels more like the third world than the first four countries. Children are not allowed to go to mosque, church or synagogue until they are 18 years old, probably a good thing.
Our final day in the Stans was minimally interesting. We visited the American Council where they help Tajik students who want to study in the US. They send 40 high school juniors to the US for a year each year. The new national museum was not much and starting to crumble already. The Ismaili center was part of the Aga Khan’s sect of Shia Islam and quite interesting. They said they had no threats but had a high fence, armed guards, and metal detectors. Lunch was “ploff” rice, carrots and mystery meat, blah. And our flight to Istanbul was at 5 am, ugh.
Istanbul and home
In Istanbul we stayed at the Armada hotel where I stayed in 2005, my first time in Istanbul. It was a beautiful day so we walked to the Grand Bazaar which was more organized than I remember and Ginny bought some trinkets. Then we had a communication issue, Ginny thought we were going back to the hotel and I thought we were going to the Galata Tower neighborhood. The tram was like a sardine can and we got off just across the Golden Horn and walked down to where the water bus docked. We rode up the Golden Horn and back before returning to the hotel. Dinner was at Sur Balik, looking out at where the Bosphorous opens into the Sea of Marmara. We had marinated anchovies and grilled octopus to start and then lufer (a turkish fish) for me and sea bass for Ginny, amazingly good. With a bottle of wine and baklava it was $115 and well worth it.
Sunday we flew home. Five weeks, six countries, six flights in Asia, 2000 miles on fair to very poor roads. The most physically demanding trip I have ever done, but one of the most intellectually stimulating too. The only thing of note on the flight home is that you no longer have to go thru customs in the US, just passport check.
History in brief
In the 6th century BC Cyrus the great expanded the Achaemenid empire from Persia into central Asia as far as Cyropolis just south of modern Khujand. Zoroastrianism became the dominant religion of the area.
Alexander the great conquered the Persians and reached Cyropolis in 329 before turning south into India. His empire fractured after his death but the Greek-Bactrian empire in central Asia lasted over 300 years.
The Parthian empire started in Persia and lasted from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century AD eventually subsuming both the Seleucid empire and the Greco-Bactrian empire. Their calvary was known to inflect major defeats on the late Roman empire.
The Sasanian Empire succeeded the Parthians and lasted until the 7th century AD. It was the last great Persian empire. In 605 they started a decades long war with the Byzantine empire that ended in a draw but drained buth empires of money and people.
The Arabs invaded central Asia in the late 7th century, converting everyone to Islam. The Sasanian and Byzantine empires offered little resistance. The Sasanian empire was completely subsumed and the Byzantine empire was greatly reduced.
Ismaili Samani founded the Saminid kingdom in Bukhara in the early 10th century. Eventually he attacked Persia but made limited progress.
The Mongols invaded in the 13th century. They mostly killed everybody and destroyed the towns they conquered. Consequently there are few historical structures predating their invasion.
Timur (known in the west as Tamerlane) is a hero in central Asia as his capital was Samarkand and that area flourished during his reign. There were considerable mosques, madrasas and palaces, which remain today, built during his reign. Science, philosophy, Islamic studies and the arts flourished under him and his immediate successors. He was romanticized in the west because he fought the Ottomans who were attacking eastern Europe. The areas he conquered were mostly sacked, looted and the inhabitants massacred. He was known for building pyramids of the heads of those whom he slew. He wiped out the Nestorians, the major christian branch in the east. In central Asia the Timurid empire only lasted a few generations but the branch in India became the Mughals and lasted into the early 19th century. One of them built the Taj Mahal.
After Timur and an unsettled period, central Asia became three kingdoms, Khiva, Bukhara, Kokand. The Russians took these over in the mid 19th century as part of the Great Game.
The people in the area were early and enthusiastic supporters of the Bolsheviks. In the 1920’s Lenin divided the three kingdoms into the five countries we know today and they became SSR’s, part of the Soviet union.
In 1991 all five declared their independence from the USSR and became republics headed by a “president for life”. Kyrgyzstan over threw their first president and then his successor. Now their president can only serve one 5 year term.