Seeing the Monuments in Samarqand and Local Adventures

 

Samarqand is by far the most tourist-oriented place I've been on this trip. It seems pretty wild to me that I just rode through the desert of Uzbekistan and somehow happened upon this ancient capital city. Amir Temur, a central figure in ancient Uzbekistan is represented all over the city, and his mark, and the mark of the Temurid period that he started, is indelible.

Amur Temur's burial site and mausoleum

He believed that he was the heir apparent to the Mongolian Empire, and in the late 1300's he ran a brutal military/genocidal campaign to try and regain some of the previously-held Mongolian territory. This resulted in a large land area, covering the lucrative silk road trade routes from China, and west through modern-day Turkmenistan. Samarqand was the capital. The region itself is marked by incredibly intricate mosaic structures, whose construction were overseen by his wife.

I put together a program, that I only managed to partially complete in the two days, but enough to get an idea and visit some of the larger sites.

The first was the Gur Emir, the mausoleum housing Amir Temur himself, as well as some other influential figures from that time. As with all of the buildings, the entrance, walls and ceilings are covered in small mosaic tiles, carved and creviced surfaces and bright paintings, resulting in dazzling patterns and, most likely, steeped in symbolism. There is not a lot of information available in English, so I followed along with some of the Wikipedia articles that I could find. 

The carved walls and arches of the Gur Emir

Afterwards, I went to Bibi Khanum Mosque, it was here that I noticed a pattern. Inside these ancient structures, there is some information posted about what is there. But there are also a lot of small vendors tucked away in small rooms. In fact, most parts of these buildings are accessible, but the rooms and underground areas, aside from the primary rooms, are just tourist shops selling a variation of similar Samarqand tourist things. It's not that the items aren't nice or interesting, I think it's more that I expect souvenirs to be in some sort of "gift shop" at the exit to any attraction, and not integrated into the attraction itself.

The Bibi Khanum Mosque

To stave off being alone the whole time, I went onto the Couchsurfing app, where they have a "hangouts" section with other travelers looking to spend some time together. I connected with a Kazakh/Russian guy who was staying at a hostel nearby, Vladimir. He invited me to lunch with some other people he had met at the hostel and we met up at a traditional Uzbek restaurant and sat on a tapchan. Everyone spoke English, which was a reprieve - there was Vladimir, a Dutch guy and an Indian guy. Vlad was on vacation from Russia, while the Dutch and Indian guys seemed to be on some kind of permanent travel bender. They were both digital nomads working in marketing and software, respectively. They chatted about traveling to certain countries and comparing their ability to collect visas like trading cards.

People inside a prayer space at the Registon

In the evening I went to the Registon - I was across the street after all - and paid to enter. I was there for a couple of hours, until after sunset, and I didn't even get a chance to go into all three structures. Each one is vast with large courtyards behind the giant arches. The courtyards are filled with, you guessed it, tourist shops. But I spent so much time admiring the mosaics and carved wooden doors that I didn't have time to discover the entire area.

 Moon over the Registon

Here I met up with another Couchsurfer, Jamal, a Somali-British student. He was just starting out his world travel adventures at 20 years old. But hanging out with him showed me an interesting perspective that I had not previously considered, and that was the experience of black people in Uzbekistan. He had even read up on the topic before deciding to come and told me that he hadn't necessarily experienced direct racism, but he was seen as extremely exotic. In the 2 hours that we were hanging out, no fewer than 10 individual people and groups came up, asking to take a picture with him. I asked if it was usually like this and he said that today was "a little more calm."

As if this weren't enough in a single day, Sherzod, who I had met the previous night at dinner, called me and said he would pick me up from the Registon in 15 minutes. He rolled up in a white Chevrolet with a friend of his and we drove out into the suburbs of Samarqand to Chashma. We went to a large, traditional restaurant with 6 more of his friends, with some of whom he had attended the same international language school, so about half of the table spoke English. The restaurant was situated directly on a river, so it didn't feel so hot. Since they seemed to know the owner, a steady stream of food began to pour out of the kitchen and onto our table. Barbecued meats, rice, various sorts of salads, soups, mint-infused water, melons and watermelons.

At the river restaurant in Chashma

All of the English speakers lived abroad at this point - aside from Sherzod, one other also lived in London, and another lived in Dubai. They also explained that they were all ethnic Tajiks, despite living in Uzbekistan. In fact, most people in Samarqand and the surrounding area of Tajik and do not even speak Uzbek, it is simply the result of the way the borders have been drawn and the diaspora of ethnicities throughout history. However, not a single one of them had ever been to Tajikistan, despite the fact that the border is less than 30 miles away.