‘Where did you travel?’ many of our friends asked us in disbelieve. ‘Why do you go there, what is there to see?’. The short answer would be:
*the people* *historical Silk Road cities Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand* *the Aral Sea*
The Aral Sea used to be the fourth biggest lake in the world. But in the last 50 years this lake is shrinking, because all the inflowing water was diverted to irrigate the arid plains to grown cotton.
Over two weeks and 3300 km, we travelled first by airplane, then by 4x4 car and at the end by train. Our journey started in the capital city Tashkent from where we flew to Nukus. With a 4x4 off road car we drove to the Aral Sea. The roads were in poor condition. Constantly we swirled right to left to avoid cracks, bumps and ruts. Our driver had to slam on the brakes repeatedly to avoid deep potholes. He seldom shifted above third gear. When the tarmac ended and we drove through deeply rutted gravel tracks, we covered on average 25 km/hr.
““The Aral Sea is one of the planet’s worst environmental disasters” ”
This otherworldly terrain was rough, largely empty with sparsely shrubs peppering the ground. The landscape was flat and the ground covered by a white film of salt. The desert stretches out to the horizon where once the seabed of the lake used to be. The bright sun almost stung my eyes. We reached Moynaq, an abandoned harbour at the Aral Sea. The only place worth visiting was the ship graveyard. Rusting hulks lie stranded on the brown sand. Many people have scratched their names on the bows. Were we now also disaster tourists?
Our car driving on the bottom of the Aral Sea
Ship graveyard at the former port town of Moynaq.
After a lunch break with tea, bread and soup, we continued our journey to a yurt camp on the shore of the remains of the Aral Sea. It was hard to believe in this hot desert was once an inland sea. After driving three hours I finally glimpsed a dark blue line in the distance: the Aral Sea. This endorheic lake is salty, contaminated with pesticides and other toxins from the Soviet era (they used to produce biochemical weapons here during the cold war). I saw two shrimp fishermen collecting spawn of the only living animals (Atemia shrimps) in this water. They were fully wrapped in cloth to protect against the dust and cold. I thought about how resilient people are. Even in this godforsaken place, hundreds of kilometres from any civilization, they can make a living.
Summer temperatures reach +40 C, in winter these drop to -45 C. It was autumn and the nightly temperatures dropped to 6 C. We slept well in our yurt, keeping warm under thick blankets. The air was dry and dusty, constantly blocking our noses and irritating our eyes.
Doing the dishes at an eatery in Moynaq
On the ‘beach’ of the last remaining waters of the Aral Sea. The water is not suitable anymore for swimming due to contamination with pesticides and other toxins
Our yurt to stay overnight
Our camp in the early morning
Making coffee to start the day
Ready to leave the camp and drive to Khiva
The next morning we drove to Khiva, crossing another 300 km of unhabituated desert. We passed a 13th century graveyard of nomadic tribes, a deep canyon and the 12th century ruins of a caravansary (an inn with central courtyard where travellers stayed overnight). A Christian graveyard marked an abandoned settlement of Russian exiles. Stalin deported opponents of his regime not only to Siberia, but also to Uzbekistan. Those poor people survived here by catching fish from the lake until the last fish died. They were indeed environmental refugees.
After three hours driving, we stopped on an abandoned airstrip, next to an oil workers settlement. Soviet-style buildings were going to ruin, sands drifted on the street. A school looked like a haunted house. The windows were broken and the paint was peeling. Boys played football on an impoverished pitch. A godforsaken place. On the horizon we saw the flares of a gas compressor station. We passed more than 25 derricks and saw markers of underground pipelines crossing these vast plains. This is the autonomous region of Karakalpakstan, home of a distinct ethnic group. On their land natural gas is explored, but the revenues go to capital Tashkent dominated by Uzbeks. Our driver made it clear to us that the local Karakalpak people did not want to accept that. Just a few weeks earlier, a state of emergency was declared in this region as protests against the central government erupted. Have we witnessed a potential future conflict about natural resources like gas and water?
Gas exploration: drilling tower
An abandoned graveyard marking a former Russian exile village. Stalin deported his enemies to this godforsaken place
An abandoned Russian Orthodox church
Berry, Pamela and Francien on the ridge of a canyon at the bottom of the Aral Sea
The city of Khiva dates back to the 8th century when it was an important commercial, cultural and intellectual centre on the Silk Road. It was here that Al’Khwarizmi invented Algorithms and Algebra. We should all be grateful to this guy here, because without this, modern technology would not be possible!
Entering the city centre (Ichan Kala) was like going back hundreds of years in time. From here, the Khan's ruled the Khorezm for 400 years. Blue domes and slender minarets decorated with mint-green tiles and the mud city walls dominated the skyline. Today people still live inside the city walls in mud houses. Most of them work as tourist guides, in restaurants and hotels. The extreme dry desert climate helps to preserve old structures. We sat inside the 1000-year-old Juma mosque and saw that most of the 218 intrically carved wooden pillars were still the original one’s.
At the crack of dawn I jogged around the city walls. I was impressed by its size. These mud walls are two km long and 12-metre high with semi rounded towers and four gates. I was all alone as the villagers started their day. I crossed a square which until 1917 was the biggest slave market in Central Asia. (30.000 slaves built these walls)
Driving from Khiva to Bukhara we followed the ancient northerly Silk route through windswept plains with only stubs of shrubs. I saw Chinese flags in front of a greenhouse complex and Chinese contractors making cement for a new highway: they are indeed re-building the new Silk Road.
The ancient mud city walls of Khiva
The Harem of the Khans. They kept up to 16 concubines. On our journey we saw blue ceramic mosaics everywhere. The blue colour signifies heaven
Juma mosque with some 1000 year old wooden pillars
Khiva
Roadside eatery between Khiva and Bukhara
The cotton fields were omnipresent
Roadside market on the road to Afghanistan
In Bukhara we experienced daily life centuries ago. People lived in low light brown mud brick houses with flat roofs. Trade domes, 16th century madrassa, hammams, and mosques, some never renovated. We sat down at a water pond fed by irrigation canals used for ablution. There was one caravansary for dervish people. I smelled dust, spices, cheeses and incense.
‘The sound of this ghijak resembles that of a violin’ the shop owner told us ’ and my family has built these for many generations’ he proudly continued. Ancient crafts like these and others like carpet making, gold embroidery and woodcarving are still being practiced. Family clans headed by a craft-master are still able to continue their trade and sell to tourists. Strolling through those narrow alleys of Bukhara, I felt the history of the place, trying to imagine how those travellers on the Silk Road lived.
Madrassa in Bukhara
17th Century synagogue in Bukhara. There used to be religious tolerance with a thriving Jewish community. Today there are only 400 Jews living in Bukhara
Musical instrument craftsman demonstrating a whistle instrument
Leaving our hotel in Bukhara
Francien, Berry and Frank boarding the high speed train to Samarkand
The Soviet Union has left its mark on this country. In the cities we saw sober and spartan architecture like Hotel Uzbekistan in Tashkent. The Metro stations in the capital have each one theme and are beautifully decorated like the stations in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Russian is the second official language and the Cyrillic alphabet is used.
We received registration cards each time we checked out of our hotels which we kept in case the police wanted to trace where we had been traveling. 'No picture, no picture' our driver said when I made a picture from a bridge crossing the Amu Darya river. Big brother was watching us!
Much to our delight, the Soviets built a good train system. We used the high-speed trains between Bukhara, Samarkand and Tashkent. Boarding those trains was easy, they were punctual and comfortable.
Every now and then, you and I witness's something never to forget. In Samarkand, Regisan square was such an experience. It is the iconic postcard sight of this country, going back to the 9th century. The square is surrounded by three madrassa with blue and turquoise domes and rectangular entrance portals with lancet arches. Four ceramic mosaic covered minarets towered as huge sentries. I stood in the middle of the square taking it all in. It is difficult to capture the splendour in words, but the simplest truth is: one of the most impressive historical sites I have seen on my many travels!
Our guide Victoria talked fast, sometimes started the next sentence before finish the previous, but there was a lot to talk about. Without guides like her we would never have found the places we visited. She also showed us the Ulug Bek observatory. It was a half underground quadrant built in 15th century for astronomic sciences. Back then Samarkand was the most advanced astronomical centre in the world. Impressive for the way they measured latitudes, planet movements and distances to the moon and sun.
We concluded our visit to Samarkand at its Necropolis, a pilgrimage place where the cousin of Mohammed was buried in a mausoleum. His tomb was a simple white block. A few minutes I was alone in a chamber decorated with ceramic mosaics, adjacent to the sarcophage. A humbling experience thinking how devoted Muslims from across the world worship this place.
Lunch with our friendly guide Victoria in Samarkand
Pamela, Berry, Francien and Frank in front of the Registan in Samarkand. Stunning historic buildings
Madrassa in Samarkand. These were universities starting in 15th century
Mausoleum of Qutham ibn Abbas, the cousin of Mohammed in Samarkand
I was struck by the many different facial and body features of the people. The taxi driver who picked us up from the airport had a rounding shaped face, the hotel receptionist had a V-shaped face and the friendly waiter who brought us straws to drink our beer with had a square face. Gazing at the people passing by while waiting for our train we saw people with big eyes, others had tiny squinting eyes. A group of women entering a madrassa in Samarkand had big jaw bones. But most people had flatter faces, small noses and dark hair and eyes.
Men were wearing their traditional skullcaps, the tubeteikas. Most elderly women wore traditional gowns and headscarves. But we also saw many wearing modern western trousers and shirts. History met modernity when we sat in a coffee shop in Samarkand, which could be anywhere in the world: we just admired the ancient Registan and minutes later sipped coffee, used the Wi-Fi to check on our e-mails and watched young people working on their PC.
The people did not smile much and seemed to be abrupt. But on the other hand, when we had lunch in Hotel Uzbekistan in Tashkent, there was a family in the restaurant dancing to loud local music. One of them came to our table and gestured that we should join them. We did and all family members cheered us on. They loved to have pictures taken and it turned out to be a jolly lunch.
In all towns we repeatedly watched brides and grooms parading in the streets with relatives and friends, taking pictures, singing and dancing. They celebrate weddings richly and cheerfully. We saw many wedding couples making pictures, surrounded by singing and dancing family members. However, many couples looked grumpy; shouldn’t this affair also be joyous for them? One of our guides, Mezina, told us that her marriage was arranged by her parents, and that is still normal practice in Uzbekistan. Most brides had met their future husbands only a few times and would move in with the family of the groom. ‘Often it is difficult for the bride to get along with her mother-in-law who are often dominant and sometimes even abusive.’ Mezina said.
One evening we had dinner in a local restaurant in Samarkand. People ate a lot of meat and 'Non', the Uzbek flatbread which has a long tradition and tastes very good when fresh from the oven. There was also a lot of dancing going on. The music was deafening. We watched a bride who met her own family that day for the first time 40 days after her wedding-day. It was a big occasion for the families to celebrate and that is what they did. Here again, we spontaneously were invited to join the dancing. We were the only ‘foreigners’ in the restaurant and felt welcome.
Dinner in restaurant in Samarkand
A parade of a bride and groom with their friends and family in Bukhara
Men praying in an open air mosque in Samarkand
Just a picture with friendly local tourists in Samarkand
All info on the Internet about this country could not prepare us for this experience. We saw a multi-cultural country in which different ethnic groups speak Tajik, Uzbek, Russian and Karakalpak. It is blessed with stunning historic sites and natural resources like gas. But the later and the irreversible destruction of the Aral Sea have the potential to trigger future conflicts.
Nevertheless, its landlocked isolation in Central Asia will ensure it will remain an off-the-beaten-track destination for travellers.