“We travel not for trafficking alone;
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned:
For lust of knowing what should not be known
We take the Golden Road to Samarkand.”
— James Elroy Flecker
Hi from Samarkand! This is, sad to say, the last destination on my epic Silk Road Odyssey before I head back to Tashkent to go home. Hard to believe, with all the places I’ve seen and all the distance I’ve covered, but this is quite literally the end of the road for me — at least for now.
Not so for the caravaners and merchants in the Silk Road days. For most of them, Samarkand was a temporary stop; a crossroads between different trade routes and a key stop connecting China to the west. Samarkand today is Uzbekistan’s second-largest city, and was once the capital of Tamerlane’s empire.
Along the Golden Road
We set out this morning from Bukhara, stopping before leaving town for one more sightseeing stop at the Chor Minor — a four-domed madrassa built in the 1800s that’s quite picturesque. According to legend, the four domes represented each of the four daughters of the man who built it, and he was unable to choose a favourite so he made four domes that were each unique but all equal in beauty. According to history, it’s more likely that he simply saw similar constructions in India and copied them. At any rate, we were able to walk up a short spiral staircase to the roof and get a nice view of the local neighbourhood of Bukhara.
From there, it was time to hit the road to Samarkand. We drove along through industrial and agricultural land, seeing farmers and machinery as we sped by on the highway. We drove through small towns and villages, and lots of dusty empty stretches of roads surrounded by fields. If the road wasn’t exactly golden, it wasn’t too bad; just a few stretches of bumpy under-construction highway near the end.
We made a stop off at the Raboti Malik, a caravansarai that was built in the 14th century by Tamerlane and served as a sort of free trade zone in the Silk Road days. There’s a water reservoir building just across the street. As it happens, the area still serves as a free trade zone; Uzbekistan has an agreement with South Korea, and there’s a small cargo airport nearby where electronics and other goods are brought in, assembled locally and sold at competitive prices. The Silk Road lives on, just using more modern means of transport than camels.
We had lunch at yet another outdoor teahouse and then got back on the road, arriving late afternoon in Samarkand.
Folk Festi-Fail
We were meant to head to our hotel, just off the Registan, and check in and do some sightseeing in the area and get dinner at a cafe.
However, our plans were a bit thwarted. See, there’s a big international folk music festival taking place in Samarkand at the moment. It’s the sort of timing that would be one of those happy coincidences that sometimes occur during travel in any other place, like, say, Estonia. Or, y’know, really anywhere else.
But, this is Uzbekistan. Which means that festivals aren’t for attracting tourists and inviting local people. Nope, here, festivals are strictly for government delegates and VIPs, and everyone else is turned away. Not only turned away, but actively blocked from even getting near the area by road closures, national security-enforced shop and cafe closures, and what seems like every police officer in the country (and there are a lot of them; this is a police state, after all).
Today was the festival’s opening ceremony, which meant that the President and other big officials are in town, which means that there are police in uniforms every fifty feet or so, trucks and buses blocking the ways, and nobody can get anywhere near the place. Never mind the fact that a folk festival would be just the sort of thing that, by all rights, should bring in tourism and revenue to the area. But that’s not how they think about it here.
The Montreal Jazz Fest, this ain’t.
So, after Rustam tried and failed to talk our van’s way past two roadblocks, we unloaded our bags and walked the last few blocks to the hotel. We had to walk around the back way through the local streets, since the front way from the Registan was blocked off to pedestrian traffic, too.
Tamerlane’s Tomb and Pizza
After checking in, we walked over to one of the main attractions of Samarkand: Amir Timur’s tomb. The Gur-e-Amir, as it’s known, is a large mausoleum and madrasa complex that houses the tombs of Tamerlane, two of his sons, two of his grandsons, and his former teacher. It’s extremely picturesque both outside and in, and makes for some nice postcard-like photos.
After that, we set out to find some dinner. Most of the cafes and restaurants in the neighbourhood were closed due to the festival (quite the opposite of back home, where they’d be raking it in during festival season) and the streets were deserted. We did find one student-type eatery that was open near the university, so we decided to eat there. It was actually perfect; they served up pizza, burgers, and drinks served in 50s-style glass soda bottles. I haven’t had much western food since coming on this trip at all, so I didn’t feel too guilty about my pizza, which wasn’t half bad.
We walked back to the hotel via the Gur-e-Amir complex again to see it all lit up at night and take a few more photos. That was allowed. What wasn’t allowed was to take pictures anywhere else. Historical monuments, yes; stuff going on in the 21st century present day, no. Samarkand’s main area is actually very pretty all lit up at night, especially with the added flags and lights in place for the festival. Unfortunately, you’ll have to take my word for it. It seems a bit of a waste for them to have gone to such expense to decorate the city, only to forbid anyone from photographing it. But again, this is Uzbekistan.
We walked back to the hotel, and now I’m sitting by the open window in the room trying to catch a few notes of the festival music wafting in. It’s very faint; we can just barely make it out. I’ll have to check YouTube later to see what’s taking place just a couple of blocks away, I suppose.
It all makes me think that Samarkand could be a really cool festival city, if only people were allowed to attend.