The cold trickle of a shower at the (otherwise lovely) Hotel Zarina was soon forgotten as we went on our sightseeing tour of Samarkand. The madrassas and mausoleums and other Muslim holy sites are truly a wonder of the world. Ryan (the tallest in the quartet) looked like an ant standing in front of the large arches. It's incredible that such structures could be built without cranes, some as early as the 12th century. The decorations are even more amazing. Everything is covered in intricate floral and geometrical patterns, and the giant domes are a bright rich turquoise, a color associated with the heavens.
(One of the mosques belonging to Bibi Khanum Mosque in Samarkand)
We also saw the remnants of a huge sextant built by Ulugbek, a very progressive ruler and grandson of a national hero Amir Timur (aka Tamerlane). Ulugbek used the sextant to calculate the length of the year to within a couple of minutes of the modern calculation!
(in front of Bibi Khanum Mosque in Samarkand)
Our guide, Anwar, was very educated in local history and told us a story at every site. My favorite was the story of the mosque of Bibi Habib. The favorite wife of Amir Timur, she commissioned a huge mosque as a gift to her husband while he was away on a military campaign. After a while, she realized that her husband would soon be home and that the mosque was not complete. When she demanded that the mosque be completed as soon as possible, she learned that the architect had fallen in love with her and refused to continue work unless he could kiss Bibi Habib! Being a loyal wife, she refused, offering other women and riches instead, but the architect refused to compromise. After days of agonizing, Bibi Habib relented, desperate to have the mosque completed. She turned her face away when the architect kissed her, but still the kiss was so passionate that it left a mark on her cheek. When Amir Timur returned to Samarkand, the first thing he noticed was the new huge and beautiful mosque, and the second thing he noticed was the mark on his wife's face. Anwar said that there were two endings: the first was that Amir Timur refused to forgive and had Bibi and the architect thrown to their deaths from the tower. The second was that the architect, being a clever man, made himself wings, while Bibi asked to put on every dress she owned before being thrown to her death. Thus both survived.
In the afternoon, we had a short concert at a beautiful Georgian church which had been converted to a gallery. I don't think any of us had ever played on such beautiful seats! Each chair was covered with a brightly colored, hand-embroidered Uzbek sheet. It was so striking! The rest of the room was decorated with paintings, ceramics, textiles, and flowers. It was so nice to play in a venue so steeped in all art, not just music. One of the young concertgoers was the daughter of a painter who worked at the gallery, and after the concert she showed me her mother's paintings.
(concert in Samarkand)
We did our last bit of sightseeing at the Registan, an incredible ancient square. One of the buildings in this compound is decorated with tiles depicting tigers. It is forbidden in Islam to depict live beings so this is the only instance of animal decoration we saw. Apparently it was done during a more secular time.
After we looked around, Susie and I started hightailing it for a busy café where we might be able to get some food for the road, but Anwar stopped us and said we should not risk our foreign stomachs on this place. He recommended another place where we bought enormous shashlik sandwiches (skewered grilled meat) for a dollar each.
(one of the splendid madrassahs in the Registan in Samarkand)
It was so dark on the way to Tashkent that when we got out of the car we were blown away by the thousands of stars and the clear view of the Milky Way.
- Michelle
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