11.07.2009: digressions on the square

First tip for travel in Uzbekistan: never trust the green man. After all, he’s so little … who would let someone that size tell them what to do? Certainly not the average Central Asian male driver (and nearly all of them are male – driving is widely considered to be a man’s domain here, which of course is part of the problem).

Having learned this lesson on our first evening in Samarkand, via a couple of near-death experiences at intersections, we decided to stop for ice cream on our way up to Registan Square. It was more about relaxing and escaping the heat and traffic than it was about the actual ice cream, though we were looking forward to that too.

A young Turkic-looking woman with beautiful sepia-brown skin took our orders and invited us to sit at a table. While we waited for her to scoop ice cream into bowls, we people-watched. But it wasn’t the usual kind of people-watching, because most of the action was going on behind the counter. A guy in his mid-20s had turned up, accompanied by a friend (or maybe a brother) and two middle-aged women. One was probably his mum, the other an aunt. The man also had a drill, on the end of which was the largest drill bit I’ve ever seen. It looked like he might’ve borrowed it from the Swiss government after they’d finished using it to put highway tunnels through their mountains.

These five – including the girl who was ‘serving’ us – started discussing something intensely, pointing at the drill and making lots of “Do it like this” type gestures. Next thing we knew, the guy had climbed a ladder and was aiming his enormous tool directly at the wall behind the serving counter. And then …

Drrr-zhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrr!!! Mmp Mmp zhiiiiiiiirrrrrrrr!!!

… brief silence …

Zhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrr!!!

… short pause ...
(family members yell advice)

Hnnniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrriiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

Oh good. A peaceful, relaxing half hour in a café. There’s nothing quite like it.

For a while our waitress seemed completely caught up in the excitement of concrete being worn away by spinning metal, but then she got a bit bored with it. She decided, therefore, to turn up the TV, since that would cover some of the noise. Result: the sound of Swiss mountains being hollowed out, combined with R’n’B music playing at nightclub volume. Mmmm, that ice cream was looking tastier and tastier.

Then Sepia Woman finally remembered that she had customers. She got out three bowls and lined them up on the counter. I was watching the drill and thinking “Are we going to get a layer of wall plaster in our frozen milk-fat?” But the bowls seemed to be out of range – just. We finally got our ice cream, and ate it in silence, knowing that it would be futile to try and talk over such an incredible cacophony.

Afterwards the girl with the great skin brought us our bill, and apologised very politely. “Sorry for the loud. In here is very hot”, she said, pointing to an air conditioning unit that was sitting in a corner. So that was the reason for the noise. They wanted to install an air conditioner – during business hours!

Welcome to one of the world’s oldest cities. And guess what? You’re in luck, ‘cause after 2,750 years, it’s almost finished ;-)

Of course, if I were to say that the word “Samarkand” carries a certain mystique with it, that would almost be a cliché. But for some reason it’s true. I’m not sure why, but to me it’s always been one of those cities that never seemed quite real ... or if it was, it would be more like an outdoor museum than a real, working city. The thought of actually going there would’ve struck me as completely meaningless before I lived in neighbouring Kazakhstan – like if someone came up to you and said “I’m going to space. D’you wanna come?” Of course I’d love to, but the very idea would seem a little abstract and unreal (though I’ve always liked the physicist Fred Hoyle's take on that. He once said “Space isn't remote at all. It's an hour's drive away ... if your car could drive straight upwards.” What a wonderful thought.)

Anyway, I never seriously considered coming to Samarkand up until about two months ago, when it suddenly struck me as … how can I put it? … a ‘surprise possibility’. And now, bizarrely, I seem to be here. Weirdness.

As it turns out, Samarkand is one of those cities which jars you at times with ear-splitting noise and mad urban momentum, then minutes later throws you an incredible architectural spectacle that melts away the tension and replaces it with complete awe. The historical monuments, old and new (but especially the old ones), are just mind-blowing. And while some streets bustle with commerce, construction and commuting, others are quiet enough to make you hyper-aware of any sound you make. There’s loads of green space as well, which is essential given the intense 40-degree heat. But all the parks and tree-covered boulevards also add an air of spaciousness and calm amid the clamour … except when, like so much else, they’re being dug up by workmen..

Our doomed ice cream break was a great example of how Samarkand tends to bounce you between extremes. Having escaped the drilling sounds, we picked our way along a street littered with construction materials and headed for the aforementioned Registan Square (which I’ll tell you about in a sec). After crossing an unlit road with no lane markings, Ladas and Range Rovers screaming in from all directions, we found ourselves standing at the top of a short concrete stairway and looking down over the low-lit square, scarcely able to believe our eyes. We’d all seen pictures of this on tourist websites, but in the flesh it’s simply overwhelming. The only noticeable sound was the excited babble of some children who were taking turns to slide down the stairway banister. Other than that, all the noise, heat and dust seemed to have disappeared. There was just us, an open square, and about eighty-four squillion majolica tiles, arranged into three enormous monuments of majesty that gleamed blue and yellow under the floodlights.

A bit about the Registan (although I’m aware that some of you already know the deal, and a few of you have been there). This is sort of the Vatican Square of Central Asia (though not exactly), and it’s often said to be the #1 must-see place in the region. On three sides of the square stand utterly enormous Madrassas, the first of which was built in the early 15th Century by the city’s ruler, Ulugbek (who I’ll rant about soonish). The other two were added later. Together they make up the most impressive educational ensemble you’re ever likely to see – a kind of jewelled Islamic super-campus.

To explain in a bit more detail, let me employ some second conditional constructions (purely for the other English teachers out there ;-)

Here we go. If …

a) your university had three main buildings, and
b) viewed together, they were monumental enough to make almost anything this side of the Pyramids of Giza look rather sad, and
c) almost every square centimetre of wall space on campus was covered with intricate mosaic designs, and
d) every morning you entered your lecture hall through an archway at the back of a half-domed terrace that stood over 100metres high, and
e) the half-dome was designed to look like the roof of a limestone cave bristling with stalactites, commemorating the story of Mohammed spending 40 days in a cave in the desert, and
f) you’d graduated from uni over 200 years ago,

… then you’d probably be able to say “I got my qualifications at the Registan in Samarkand”.

Before I continue my rant about this incredible architectural monument, I want to digress … which I’m sure will surprise you about as much as finding a raisin in your muesli. Ooh, and I also want to turn up the volume on my CD player. Wait …

Yep, that’s better. Ok, let’s digress.

In this part of the world you hear the names “Timur” and “Tamerlan(e)” quite a lot – in fact, one of my closest Kazakh friends just recently told me that she wanted to call her son Tamerlan. They’re actually variations of the same name, which belonged to one of Uzbekistan’s great rulers of the 14th-15th Centuries. I think I mentioned before that, at its peak, his empire was the third largest in the world, after that of Chingiz Khan and … er, some other frisky go-getter of the time. I don’t remember who it was now. But anyway, this is why most cities in Uzbekistan feature an enormous statue of Timur somewhere in a prominent place, like Amir Timur park in Tashkent (where the triumphant horse-riding hero replaced poor old Karl Marx after independence was declared in 1991).

Timur’s rule was the usual bloody conquest, involving an awful lot of murdering folk and stealing their stuff, along with rape and torture and cruelty of the kind that seems to be the major leitmotif of history. (For some extreme examples, consult your ‘Holy’ Bible – look for the bits that begin with “And God said unto them, ‘Go now and do X”. Charming fellow, the old war god Yahweh.)

Thing is, though, this kind of conquest often seems to set the stage for a period of cultural advancement. It’s an uncomfortable truth, I guess, but when some bloodthirsty warlord goes out into the world and smashes/burns/kills things, he usually brings back cultural treasures, new knowledge and … well, some smart people. It happened a bit like that in Sweden, from memory*. There you had a couple of King Gustavs in a row, running about maniacally with their armies, playing with gunpowder and sticking metal into people, but after them came Queen Christina, and she had a novel idea**. It went like this: “Hey guys, now we’ve got all this art and all these brilliant people, we could have a cultural renaissance”. And that often seems to be the formula – Mr “I want to be a Mighty King/Emperor/Emir/President” sets out on a great orgy of theft and killing (sort of like a customised package tour with a ‘British Museum meets the Manson Family’ theme), then a perceptive child or grandchild comes along, inherits the empire and goes “Hey, wait a minute! Look at all the cool things we can do that don’t involve burning people’s houses down then signing them up as taxpayers!”.

Or, y'know, words to that effect.

And so it apparently happened in Uzbekistan. The ‘Great Hero’ Timur took the Give Us All Your Stuff And Die package tour, and afterwards his sensitive and educated grandson used the spoils of war to make a scientific/cultural revolution. This grandson was called Ulugbek – the guy I mentioned before. His rule brought on some amazing advancements in art, science and all that funky stuff, which changed not only Uzbekistan but also the world. And yet, I bet you’ve never heard of him, right?

My suggestion: go to Samarkand. In the Ulugbek Madrassa on Registan Square, the man himself gave lectures on astronomy and mathematics. Imagine the modern-day equivalent of that: “Today we have advanced calculus with Professor Snark at 11, then after lunch there’s trig with Professor Stodge, and then at 4 o’clock we’ve got a seminar called ‘Black Holes: Beyond the Event Horizon’ with Professor … er, sorry, with President Obama”. How bizarre would that be?

Anyway, you go inside the Registan and you can see the halls where thousands of young Muslims gathered to sharpen their minds in all matters spiritual, earthly and in-between. And they’re extremely sumptuous and beautiful places, fitted out with the latest teaching aids of their day. In one corner, a gold-toothed policeman sits breaking flat bread with a couple of staff, while you wander around looking at lesson materials on every subject from anatomy and astronomy through to traditional methods of pottery-firing.

Oh, and if you’re lucky, another member of the police force will come up to you and look threatening for a few seconds, then offer to let you climb the minaret for five dollars. That’s an experience in itself – the reconstruction inside this part of the Madrassa is far from complete (after an earthquake virtually destroyed it a hundred years ago), so just to get to the base of the tower you basically have to climb through rubble. Then you go under the police tape and ascend a steep, winding staircase, sweating like a shredded cabbage in a covered pan, and poke your head through a tin grate to see … well, actually you can see pretty much the whole of Central Samarkand. It’s frikkin’ amazing.

But I haven’t told you the best bit about Ulugbek yet. Across town from the Registan is his observatory, where he built the first ever sextant. Yep, that’s right … he invented it. Or at least, his hand-picked and hand-captured team of superbrains did. Ulugbek used to head up there at night and do his calculations, which yielded the co-ordinates of over 700 stars, 94 cities of the known world, and … get this … the first accurate calculation of the length of one year. Yep, that’s right: this guy you’ve never heard of was the one who worked out that it takes us 365 days to go around the Sun. Amazing what these non-European types fail to get credit for, isn’t it?

The sextant was buried and lost for about 300 years (Samarkand was completely uninhabited for a good portion of the 19th Century, if you can believe that), until a Russian archaeologist found it in the early 20th.

Actually the guy who found the sextant is a different kind of hero altogether, one of a breed which I’d never heard of before I moved to Kazakhstan. I like to call these guys the “Men of The Stans”. They were Russians, mostly scientists by profession, who journeyed south from their homeland and devoted their lives to exploring and recording the wonders of Central Asia. Many of them died in the course of their travels. I’ve come across a few of these guys now, and their life stories are absorbing. There’s something truly romantic and admirable about what they did, and I feel extremely lucky to have learned a little about their inspiring deeds and such.

Anyway, as I was saying, it was a Man of The Stans who found Ulugbek’s sextant. Now he’s buried beside the surviving quarter of the giant machine, which stands about three stories high. Personally, I think that’s kinda beautiful.

I’ve got lots more to tell you about the amazing city of Samarkand, but I feel like it might be a good time to take a break. Hope you don’t mind. I’ll resume my ramblings soon. Meanwhile ... take care and don’t be a stranger :-)

Anthony.

(*Disclaimer: my memory is crap. Also, it’s nearly ten years since I was in Sweden. Therefore, if you know anything about Swedish history and you’re reading this part thinking “Wait a sec, that’s not how it happened!”, please feel free to correct me either privately or in my guest book.)

(**At least it was novel for Sweden.)