ARARE TREASURE
Intrepid travellers will be rich Hly rewarded by enthralling Uzbekistan
YOU don’t go to Uzbekistan for the food or the boutique hotels. Perhaps not even for the weather, though it’s scorching in summer. It’s bright and crisp with clear blue skies when we are here, and people seem to agree that it’s best to visit in spring. you’re miles away from the sea — this is one of only two doubly landlocked countries in the world — and surrounded by f i ery neighbours, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan.
No, you travel to Central Asia’s alluring middle for the history. To pass along the legendary Silk Road, gaze at the tiled mosques, domes and madrasas (religious schools) and marvel at a country with such a varied cultural make-up that everyone looks different. Though the warmest hospitality is a constant.
Uzbekistan has an extraordinary, often gruesome history. And it isn’t entirely out of the woods yet.
President Islam Karimov, a dictator in every thing but name, has held power here for 21 years and has a murky record over human rights. you won’t hear a word said against him, no matter how you phrase the question.
The country was part of communist Russia from 1924 to 1991 when it became independent. The totalitarian hangover lingers in the municipal buildings and large blank-faced hotels. Even the vast plov centre in the capital, Tashkent, has a comrade-friendly atmosphere.
This is the place to eat plov, the national dish. It is cooked outside by men using enormous stone cauldrons filled with oily rice, beef or lamb, with boiled eggs to garnish.
It won’t suit every stomach. In 1899, Lord Curzon, then Viceroy and Governor of India, advised travellers to Central Asia to take tinned spam and their own pillow. Still sound advice (if you like spam). But at only around £2 a plate, plov is cheap and popular.
Tashkent, a seven-hour flight from London with no- f rill s Uzbekistan Airways, is a modern metropolis. Even the old town looks spanking new, having been heavily reconstructed in recent years, though the 16th century mosque and mausoleum will give you a taste of what is to come.
Getting around the city is easy by tram or Tube. The underground is the only one in Central Asia — crowd-free and heavily decorated. The feeling of space is mirrored above ground in a city with room to breathe. Independence Square, formerly Lenin Square, is huge.
Tashkent’s big Soviet landmarks are a useful backdrop for wedding parties, who congregate for photos in front of strident statues to war heroes or earthquake victims.
Marriage i s hard to avoid in Uzbekistan: wherever we go, there are brides cosseted amid a frenzy of netting.
In rural Boltali, almost a day’s drive from the capital, we hear a modern tale of romance. One newly married couple met on the phone. He dialled a wrong number, she picked up, 27 days later they met and agreed to wed. The bride shows us her trunk of traditional veils. Here, women appear in 12 different outfits to greet well-wishers after the big day.
Tashkent is a jumping- off point for the historic cities of Samarkand and Bukhara. This is Great Game territory — the term coined by Kipling for the British and Russian espionage, which was played out across Central Asia.
SAMARKAND is accessible in less than two hours by train. Curzon described it as the ‘greatest city in the Asiatic.’ The settlement dates from the 6th century BC, but is best known as Tamerlane’s stamping ground. He is Uzbekistan’s hero — and one of history’s most fearsome characters. During his reign in the 14th century, he conquered Iraq, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Mesopotamia, Georgia, Syria, Turkey and Egypt, killing hundreds of thousands along the lon a la 199 of h ists to H an blo sid beh T rea dea An ‘Wh un ter f ou aft op in US T rul —T gra res th ma
e way. Tamerlane’s palace no nger exists, but his mausoleum is andmark. It was gilded inside in 96 to mark the 660th anniversary his birth. Groups of Uzbek tours come here to pay homage and pray. His skeleton was exhumed in 1941 d archaeologists f ound the oody war hero was lame on one de and every bit as terrifying to hold as his deeds suggest. The inscription in his grave ads: ‘ When I rise from the ad, the world shall tremble.’ nd inside the casket the words ho ever opens my tomb shall leash an invader more rrible than I’ were und. Two days ter his grave was pened, Hitler vaded the SSR. The gentler ler Ulug Bek Tamerlane’s andson — is sponsible for eyawning adrasa, which sits opposite the mausoleum. Ulug Bek was an astronomer and his observatory, built between 1424 and 1429, plotted the co-ordinates for more than a thousand stars.
Outside this daunting complex is the Jewish quarter and sprawling market. Bread, which differs in every town and village, is sold from prams, and piles of dates, dried apricots and halva decorate the stalls. Women wear headscarves and the men, cosy-looking dressing gown-style coats. Winter is unrelentingly cold. Luckily, Bukhara, a six-day journey by camel (you can still see where they re-fuelled en route) from Samarkand or three hours by car, is the place to buy very warm hats. Not everyone will approve of the furs on offer, but there are shaggy sheep hats, too.
Ancient Bukhara feels more like a working city, though the great mosque is silent and barely in use. A shame, because Bukhara was once said to be so holy that the daylight here radiated upwards, rather than down, and illuminated the heavens.
The Ark, where Arthur Connolly and Charles Stoddart — the unfortunate British military men and Great Game players — were imprisoned and killed in 1842 is closed for renovations on my trip, so I don’t see the infamous bug pit where they were interred.
Those Great Game days might be long over, but there is still something strange and wonderful about Uzbekistan. It might not be your average holiday, but if you have a thirst for the history of adventure, this is the place to come.