uzbekistan: samarkand

My train from Bukhara to Samarkand was modern and clean, and departed on time. An hour and a half later, we arrived on time in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Since my arrival time was so early, and Samarkand was another city with an out of the way train station, my accomodation sent someone to pick me up from the train station.

Since my arrival was so early, and I already knew my departure would be early as well, I'd arranged with my accomodation to have breakfast my first and second mornings, and not the last morning. Breakfast was quite a spread, a buffet version of the meal I'd been served in Khiva.

Despite this being a proper hotel I realized that the wifi wasn't very good. It was basically the same as I'd experienced in both Khiva and Bukhara. 

In other words, wifi in Uzbekistan is not great as a whole.

Samarkand is an old city, a really old city. Historians have noted it was conquered by Alexander the Great in 329 B.C. During the heyday of the Silk Road trading route (that ran from the Mediterranean to China,) Samarkand was one of the more important cities. It was also a center of Islamic scholarship and theology, and those remains are what people remember most of Samarkand.

I started my sightseeing with a statue of Amir Timur, a conqueror from centuries ago. The statue is in the middle of a traffic circle, and is big. From there I kept walking along the street that takes visitors right next to the most memorble sights of the city. I walked right past the Registan, knowing I would be back later to explore more. I did pause for a moment at the viewing platform. The Registan has several huge buildings around an open square. 

As impressive as they are now, I can only begin to imagine what people back in the day thought as they moved around the city.

I turned onto a pedestrian road, which took me to my next sight. I stopped briefly in the Jewish Cemetery. The community is no longer as big as it once was, but the cemetery is worth seeing.

Further along this road was the mausoleum of Islam Karimov, the first president of the modern country of Uzbekistan. It looks far more modern than other mausoleums, but the style is similar to others of the city.

I walked all the way to an old observatory. It was originally built by Ulugbek, in the 15^th century. At the time it was considered one of the best observatories of the Islamic world. Modern visitors find it unique because most of the mechanics are underground. Granted, there aren't many remains of the observatory, and if you're somewhat scientifcally challenged like I am, it wasn't completely clear how the whole thing worked. Oh well. There was a small museum in the area, describing the guy who built it, and his interest in science in general.

The museum also sold postcards, of course I bought plenty. (Far too many, as it turned out.)

From the observatory, I walked around a long way to the entrance of a place called Shah-i-Zinda. It's a grouping of mausoleums, from as early as the 9^th century. There is an entrance fee, of course.

The entire area of Shah-i-Zinda is stunning. The direction of the sun makes a big difference in how it comes out in photographs. In front of each building is a sign that says who is buried there, as well as architectural things to notice of that particular mausoleum. 

The names didn't mean anything to me, and I only paid attention to the architectural notes in terms of appreciating the art of each building.

There is a LOT of blue tiling, in various shades. In each of the buildings you can see the tombs, or at least the covers of the tombs. The interiors were completely covered in tiling, in intricate designs. I could've wandered for hours, even though the area isn't huge.

I continued my walk by circling back around to the mausoleum of Islam Karimov. While I was there I realized prayers were being sung for him constantly, the melody was somewhat haunting. The actual tomb of the man is quite small.

A long city block away, I walked through the city market, a large area. Like other city markets I've seen, vendors were grouped by type. There was an area for produce, dairy, bread, etc...

I walked back in the direction of the Registan, again passing it by. I kept going and got to my last sight for the day: the mausoleum of Amir Timur. While I was exploring Uzbekistan, and reading information, I found several spellings for his name, so I'm not quite sure in what I've written.

As I think I've written previously, Amir Timur was the leader of an empire. He was born in the 14^th century, and eventually was the leader of military campaigns across a wide swath of what is now Central Asia.

The name of the mausoleum is Gur Emir, (wikipedia tells me it is Persian for Tomb of the King,) it's big, and stunning. As I'd already seen around the country, there was a heap of blue tiling in various shades, in various designs.

I paid my entrance fee (sigh) at the gate, then walked in. There is a garden area in the inner courtyard, from which you can appreciate the front facade of the mausoleum building.

I entered the main building, and was stunned. The entire room is decorated in shades of gold. There is a chandelier, which lights up the gold, making it even more memorable. Whoa. It's not a big room, but the way it is decorated makes it clear someone really important is buried there.

When I left Gur Emir it was right around sunset. I walked back to my hotel, picking up food along the way. It turned out to be too much food, but that's a lifelong habit of mine.

The next morning I had another fabulous breakfast, then started walking. This time I walked to the Registan, found the ticket office, and paid my fee. It's a large area, with three big buildings on the sides of the open platz. The fourth side is open, and is where every iconic photo is taken from.

The buildings on the platz are all old madrassas. When you see them it's easy to understand how geopolitically important Samarkand used to be in this part of the world. They're massive, with more intricate mosaic tiling for decoration.

Walking through the entrances of each building was a bit of a letdown. As I'd see in other cities, there were vendors inside the various areas of the building. The vendors sold similar items, and all of them being in there takes away from the historical value and looks of the building. I'm not sure where I would prefer all these vendors to be, but in the individual rooms of what used to be a religious school just didn't seem right.

In the middle of the middle madrassa was a stunning mosque. I walked in and actually said 'whoa' out loud. Another room with stunning decoration, blue and a lot of gold. Just wow. After wandering through the Registan for a while, I opted to go back to the hotel for a little while.

After a nap, I went out for another walk. This time I went to another large mosque complex in the city. 

This one was for Bibi Khanum (another name with many spellings depending on who is doing the transliterating,) who was said to be the favourite wife of Timur.

I had to pay another entrance fee, which was irritating me to no end at this point. I was not a fan of continually paying entrance fees, I'd rather a single ticket cover the entire city. Argh.

I wasn't able to go inside very much of this complex, so paying the entrance fee was even more annoying. This complex was originally built rather quickly (relatively speaking, of course,) and never held up as well as other buildings in the city. It went into total ruin for a while, and at least one earthquake caused more damage during the centuries. Wikipedia tells me some work was done to fix it up during the Soviet years, but I was less than impressed.

After leaving this complex I went back to the city market, as it was nearby. This time I walked through all the aisles, making some purchases. It took some time, and when vendors saw me they were calling out to catch my attention.

Some of those calling out for my attention were beggar women, all carrying children. At times I want to give them something, but if I do, I know the pressure to give more will never end.

On my way back to my hotel I stopped at a grocery store to see if there was anything I wanted, there wasn't. I also stopped for ice cream, with sprinkles. When is ice cream not appropriate?

The next morning a taxi picked me up and took me to the train station. Goodbye to the most visited city in Uzbekistan.

uzbekistan: tashkent

It took me a while to decide where I wanted to go for my 'spring' holiday, I finally settled on Uzbekistan. Since I am American, that meant I had to get a visa before getting on the plane, which was not fun. Finding information online as to how to get the visa was a bit confusing, as there are different rules for different nationalities, (of course,) different fees for different nationalities, (of course,) and I think differing procedures depending on which country you're in when you apply. Sigh.

For me, after asking several people, I found out that I did not need a letter of invitation, thank goodness. I had to use a link online to fill out an application, then print that out and take it to the local Uzbek consulate. (Note, the consulate is not the same as the embassy, and I didn't know this ahead of time.) I got lucky when I arrived at the embassy, as someone asked why I was there, and when I said I wanted to apply for a tourist visa they said it should be done at the consulate then walked with me to the consulate. 

Then the guy helped me get through security, and showed me where to go in the consulate. Then he got the people who were taking their lunch break to step out of the office to accept my application. In other words, it took me about 15 minutes total to apply for my visa. I'd heard horror stories of people waiting for hours, so I was thrilled. I was told to check online to see the status of my application, and come back when it was confirmed.

I went back to the consulate a week later, paid my $160 (lucky Americans have a higher fee than other nationalities,) and passed over my passport. The guy at the window (I had to wait this time, but only for 40 minutes or so,) put the visa sticker in the passport and sent me on my way. YAHOO!!

Getting to Uzbekistan was easy, I had a direct flight each way to the capital city of Tashkent. The flight arrived in the middle of the night, which was not so awesome, especially as the airport in Tashkent is not a major world airport. 

I found a chair, but it wasn't comfortable, and was close to the exit door, so it was rather cold.

When morning rolled around and an exchange stall opened up, I exchanged $100USD. This gave me 815,000som, a pile of money. I could easily be a millionaire in Uzbekistan :)

Tashkent is a modern city in an ancient country. There was an earthquake in 1966 which destroyed most of the city, so what is there now has mostly been built since then. 

A few buildings survived, but hundreds of thousands of people were made homeless, and a couple hundred people died.

I walked out of the airport and found a bus stop to take a local bus into town. I'd already downloaded a local map, and marked the location of my hostel on the map, which made everything easy. I only had to walk a little from the bus stop, and was able to check in immediately.

I spent a few hours in the hostel charging my electronics, figuring out what I wanted to see in the city, and figuring out the local time. (Uzbekistan is two hours ahead of Moscow.) This hostel had separate male and female dorms, and they were across the building from each other. I don't know about the male dorm, but each bed in the female dorm had a curtain that could be pulled across the bed, creating total privacy. Also, each bed had double plugs, which was also fantastic.

My first stop of the day was the main train station of the city. It wasn't nearly as fancy as I thought it should be, considering it was the main station of the capital city. Oh well. Across the street was a memorial for something, though it was written in Uzbek so I had no idea. To cross the street to get to that memorial I had to go through the walkway under the street, which had exits leading to several streets on either side of the main street.

As I walked, I saw at least three buildings with giant murals on the sides. I miss seeing these in Moscow, as I got used to seeing them in Kyiv. I walked through a park, but it wasn't very pretty as the trees were naked. (It was the middle of winter, and all the leaves that had fallen during autumn had been swept away.)

Eventually my walk took me past a Polish Catholic church. This surprised me, as I knew that Uzbekistan is mostly Muslim. 

At first the church appeared to be closed, but I found an open door on a lower level. As the church was made of stone it was quite cold inside, but the windows made it feel light and airy.

Near the church was something called Eco Park. I don't know how eco it was, but I liked the specific walking paths, and managed to avoid getting run over by the bikes not staying in the bike lanes. In this park was an 'I love Tashkent' city sign, of course I took a photo.

Eventually I got to what passes as the city center in Tashkent. The state hotel (I assume) called Hostel Uzbekistan was one of the most boring buildings I've ever seen. I really hope the interior was better than the exterior. Across the street was a massive, white government building. There were gates and guards, so I didn't get too close.

In the middle of this area was a giant statue of Amir Timur, a conqueror who lived mostly in the 14^th century. He was the founder of the Timurid empire in Persia and Central Asia. Uzbekistan is right smack dab in the middle of this part of the world.

Not too far away was the state history museum. There was an entry fee of 6000som, and they wanted 10,000som for permission to take photos! I opted not to pay the fee, out of sheer stubbornness. 

I understand the idea of making money, but prefer they just add a little to the entry fee for everyone, and don't charge an extra photo fee. Also, I have a sneaking suspicion that tourists are the only ones hit with that fee, not locals who come to the museum. 

The building in which the museum is located used to be a mosque, and is still absolutely gorgeous. The center atrium is huge, and there are several large mosaics to see. Absolutely lovely.

Along one hallway was a series of paintings, each of a leader in the Timurid dynasty. Since I didn't know anything about the history of this part of the world, it didn't help me to learn who was the son of who. Each painting had the name of the leader, as well as how/when they died. The one that made me laugh said the guy died when he "fell into the abyss after falling out of his pigeonry."

After leaving the museum I ended up at a park, one that is probably a whole lot nicer in spring or summer. With the empty trees, the park seemed a bit sad, especially as there was no grass, just benches and sidewalks and naked trees. Along one sidewalk many artists had set out paintings for sale.

Independance park was across the street from this mini park. Now this was a proper park, with an entrance gate and everything. 

Inside Independence Park I found an eternal flame, complete with a WW2 memorial. This memorial was pretty incredible, and unique. Large 'pages' had been created, and hinged to walls. Each page listed names of those who had died.

Continuing my walk brought me to the building of the ministry of agriculture and water resources, a ministry doing a terrible job. 

Uzbekistan is mostly desert, and yet the main crops it grows and exports are water intensive. The procedures taking place over decades have taken so much water that the Aral Sea in the west of the country has shrunk almost into nonexistance.

I also passed the circus building, which has what I think of as a 'typical Soviet' architecture. (Typical Soviet circus architecture, that is.)

As sunset started, I walked past a mosque, one of the few buildings that survived the earthquake. As it was originally built centuries ago, that meant there were heaps of gorgeous mosaic tiles all over the front. Beautiful.

At this point I was getting tired and hungry. I ended up buying some snacks from a street stall, all of them fried. I'm not all that sure what I ate, but they tasted good :) Who doesn't love fried food?

On the way back in the direction of my hostel I passed Hotel Uzbekistan again. At night it looked slightly better than in the day, as videos and photos were being shown against the building. Very cool. I did wonder if you could see the lights if you stayed in one of the rooms, as that would probably be rather annoying.

I decided to walk all the way home, which ended up being a lot longer of a walk than I'd envisioned. Ooops. By the time I got back to my hostel I was truly tired, and somewhat cold. I slept well :) 

The next morning it took me longer to get going that I wanted, but that's life. Maybe I could just blame it on me still being on Moscow time?

As I walked this day I passed a statue of Taras Shevchenko, the national poet of Ukraine. This surprised me, since I don't know that the two countries have much of a relationship these days. Or maybe the statue is from Soviet times, when all the Soviet countries sortof worked together, and sortof viewed themselves as a single entity.

Another surprise was a bust of Yuri Gagarin (the first astronaut/cosmonaut.) This was in another random park.

Eventually I got to my first sight of the day, a monument to Islam Karimov, the first president of the Republic of Uzbekistan. His statue was in the scientific and enlightenment memorial complex, which was surrounded by a fence and a security gate. I had to go through an xray check to get in!! Karimov is still very much in the minds of the Uzbek people, as he passed away in just 2016.

On the way to my next sight, I passed city workers sweeping water out of the street. I'm not sure why, but it struck me as something different. I'm pretty sure we don't have city, state, or federal employees in the states who sweep streets.

My next sight was another park, Alisher Navoy park. The front of the park is basically a giant platz in front of a theatre. I love the architecture of the theatre, I'd call it Soviet style. Behind the theatre was a sports stadium.

Finally behind all that I finally got to the green section of the park. I climbed up stairs to get to the statue of Alisher Navoy, it was under a cupola of sorts. There was a fence around the statue, so I wasn't able to get as close as I wanted, oh well. Since I wasn't visiting during high season I was the only one there.

From there I walked to a big market, called Chorsu Bazaar. That is the name given to what turned out to be quite a large area. It's a local market, with a LOT of vendors. I got the impression there is an official area of the market and an unofficial area just outside, with vendors selling the same things.

I could've bought pickled things, dairy foods, meat from a variety of animals, cooking oils of various types, fresh produce, ready made food, etc... 

Basically, I could've bought almost anything involved in the world of food. In the main building there was a second floor, where all the stalls were selling nuts and dried fruit.

After seeing all the food but not having any way to travel with it, I found a small cafe. I initially went in because I saw the employees placing uncooked dumplings in a steamer, which just looked neat. When I went in I saw people eating so I told the waitress I wanted what they had. YUM.

After walking out of the cafe totally stuffed, I went to find a metro station. I'd heard and read that the metro stations in Tashkent are worth seeing, so I wanted to see for myself.

I don't remember where I heard that the metro stations in Tashkent are worth seeing, but that place/person was totally right. I rode the length of one of the metro lines, (there are three,) stepping out of the train to see each of the stations. Trains seemed to come every ten minutes or so, something like that. My favourite stations were Alisher Navoy and Kosmonatav.

I finally exited the metro system from the station closest to the location of my hostel, and walked the remaining way home.

The next morning I was up really early, as I had to catch a cab back to the airport.