Sunday, August 29, 2010

Samarkand

John (his American name) had lived in the States for about seven years when the recession hit in South Florida. Then his uncle (shades of Rugby) convinced him to come back home to get in on the ground floor of the new booming tourist industry here in Samarkand. Uncle then conveniently had an old gutted out house that John could buy and completely modernize.

Now he had a B&B just minutes from the Registan. He led me down the side street to the place. The room was pretty nice; all the bathroom stuff seemed to work and the a/c certainly did. We agreed on a price of $85 for four nights, and I settled in.

By now it was dark, and I returned to the main drag to find some food. There was a semi-decent looking place with nice owners and only okay food. By the time the young girl came out all decked out in Uzbek finery and doing a five minute graceful dance, I was her only audience. When that non-hubbub died down, I noticed a larger hubbub starting across the street.

I went out and there was the most godawful sound and light show going on. With horrible poetry in English. And I was probably the only English speaking person who was in its range. I crossed the street to the Registan.

Let me explain the Registan, which is Samarkand's greatest claim to fame. There are three rather large courtyards fronted by three enormous facades facing each other on three sides of a square. Viewed from the fourth side, even at night and with horrible lighting, it was pretty awe inspiring. I sat there for all fifty minutes of horrible poetry.

Then I sauntered over to a small open air ice cream stand, where I bought three scoops for 40 cents. Uzbekistan is incredibly inexpensive. Then I crossed the street to the supermarket, bought some cheese and bread, and headed back to the room.

The next morning John and his Uzbek ladies served up an incredibly large breakfast. I would need to be fortified for a day of sightseeing in the heat. Off to the Registan I went.

In the daylight the buildings were of course that much more spectacular. Not quite Moghul, not quite Persian, totally exotic. With their blue tiled domes and facades and minarets, just about everywhere I looked there were perfectly framed pictures. My camera went click and click and click. The courtyards inside weren't as monumental as the false front exteriors, but they were very aesthetically balanced. Most of the small rooms were occupied by small tourist shops womaned by small Uzbekis. I walked a bit, sat and contemplated, walked a bit more, sat some more. I am not easily impressed. But I was very impressed.

Finally it was time to head on out, and I proceeded to the next major site, a large mosque from the same era. I strode along a pleasant, wide, white concrete pedestrian way with upscale (for Uzbekistan) stores fronting it. Some have criticized President Karimov for prettifying the area too much, but--although I certainly enjoy old, rundown buildings--I happened to find it all tastefully done. After all, the original builders certainly intended their places to look clean and snazzy. And it's kind of culturally imperialistic for us in the West to tell the Uzbeks how they're supposed to like their national monuments.

Many Uzbek women walked by in their Friday go-to-mosque finest. I paid my entrance fee to this mosque, (not a working one), oohed and ahhed, and snapped some more pictures. After I exited, close by was a pretty huge bazaar area, which was bustling with a lot of Friday shoppers.

Then it was about a km to the third major site/sight, a lineup of about fifteen mausaleums at the edge of a giant cemetary that Karimov had just finished refinishing. The effect of the light brown stone, extravagant blue tiles, and bright sunlight was dazzling.

I walked back to the Registan marveling at what a world class tourist experience this was. Right up there with the Taj Mahal and St Sophia's in Istanbul. And President Karimove had worked so hard on it. But the irony was that it's almost impossible to get here. And it's even more almost impossible to get a visa. So for now you can eat your hearts out, Decadent Yuppie Tourist Scum.

Uzbekistan is so inexpensive that I still hadn't used up the $80 in sum that I had gotten at thoe border. But now I had to change some more money. The official rate is 1600 to the dollar, but
everyone changes on the 'black market', which is basically any hotel, restaurant or business. I went to last night's restaurant, where I traded one crisp new 100 for 210 1000s.

I couple of hours later I was back at the restaurant. This time there were no dancing girls, and I had to endure a truly dreadful attempt at a pizza.

John not only served up one of the world's best B&B breakfasts, he also had wifi. So in the morning I could not only dawdle around eating blintzes and burfee, but I could Skype the wife. See if the Phillies won. Check out how freaked out Paul Krugman was. All the important stuff.

Around 11 am I got it together to go do some more sightseeing. When I got to the Registan I turned left and went about half a km to see the fourth major attraction, Timur's mausaleum. (For those of you not buffed on your Central Asian history, Timur (or Timurlane) was a local boy from the 1400s whose capital was Samarkand and who conquered everywhere from Delhi to Istanbul.) Once again a large area in front of it had recently become a beflowered and befountained plaza. Once again I was not offended, but found it rather pleasant.

This was the last major historical monument. I continued walking into the 'Russian', modern, part of town. Samarkand is actually a city of almost half a million, and like every other Soviet creation consists of broad tree lined boulevards, long, wide, four or five story buildings, and a surprising amount of greenery that nonetheless always ends up looking and feeling pointless and boring. But I actually kind of liked the whole place.

And I got real excited when I found an honest to good honest and good Italian restaurant. For the first time so far on the trip there was some truly yummo food.

Then a meander back to the B&B. Turn up the a/c. Take a quick shower. When I went back outside twilight was a'coming. And John asked me if I wanted to join him and his family for dinner. I was glad to accept.

The Uzbeks are all Muslim, and most of them seem proud of that. But 80 years of Communism had eroded a lot of their traditions. For instance, even though they don't drink nearly as much as Russians, beer and spirits are sold everywhere. And almost nobody observes the Ramadan fast. But they do still enjoy the big overdone nighttime meals which are a large part of the Ramadan ritual.

And when John had said 'family' he hadn't just meant mom and dad and the wife and kids. There were well over a dozen men seated crosslegged around a low table. That was for the chai and appetizer part. Then we all moved over to regular tables, where there was bread and soup and more chai. The Uzbeks are like Turks in that they come across as shy, but are actually pretty warm and eager to please. Seated next to me was one of John's young cousins, who had actually just won the lottery. The green card lottery, that is. In a few days he was flying to Florida to move in with John's brother. He was pretty excited, yet still shy.

The Uzbeks, like so many third world people around the world, just absolutely love America. Granted, it is a vision of America that isn't necessarily grounded in reality. But the first question they invariably ask a foreigner is if they are from America. 99% or them aren't. So when I tell them that I am, they are so damn delighted. Of course, then I have the responsibility of patiently enduring all their questions. When I don't speak Russian or Uzbek and then don't speak English.

In John's cousin's case, he did have a basic English grounding. But it was mostly book learning. So now I had the responsibility to talk as much as possible with him so that he could practice English in the real world.

I was happy to accommodate. But I had been careful to fill myself up on soup and bread, knowing that there would be little vegetarian gnoshing when the main courses came in an hour. So right before that I excused myself and retired to my room.

(The women, by the way, were having their own party in another area. I know that the fact that traditional societies tend to do that is always presented as odious and somehow oppressive. But here's how it works: Men tend to be very devoted to their wives and children. But the plain fact is that at get togethers in every culture men usually like talking politics and sports with other men; women like talking children and men with other women. Traditional societies just don't pretend otherwise.)

In my younger days (say, three years ago) I would lead as action packed a travel life as possible. This is not because I couldn't stop and enjoy myself. It was that I was enjoying myself so much that I couldn't stop. But now that my fast descending decrepitude is asserting itself, the trick is to hold back so as not to overextend. So I had planned to sit around Sunday and do nothing. But at 10:45 I decided to go on that day trip to Shakhrizabh, about two hours away. I walked up to the Registan, where hopeful share taxis were waiting, and a guy snagged me. He still had two more seats to fill, and I gave him until 11:30. At 11:29 he had found them and we took off.

We passed a flat landscape of fields and vineyards and orchards for a while, and then started climbing over the sort of brown, slightly bushy hill/mountain that you would see in Sonoma or Napa County. A lot drier and rockier on the other side. And then we were there.

This was Timur's hometown, and is where he had his giant palace. All that was left of it now was a 130 foot tower. Intimations of mortality again as I was spiralling up the 104 high stone steps. Even worse when I was coming down. I realized that my only hope was that Medicare will still exist in a few years so I can get that knee replacement surgery.


I then wobbled along on my damaged knees about a km to where there was another blue domed, blue tiled mosque and mausaleum. My thermometer read 100 degrees, but it's always a couple of degrees high. Sunday market day was happening all around me.

It was actually a fun small Uzbek town experience, but now I had to return. I stopped a marshrutka that said 'Kitob' (in Cyrillic) and rode the 10 km back to that small city. Where I quickly got a share taxi back to Samarkand.

There was nothing to do now except, eat, sleep, stuff all my crap back into my bag, and go.

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