Over 15 days we traced the core of the Silk Route within the cocoon of Uzbekistan (population 37 million). Without giving you a doctoral dissertation on Timurid tile painting, I am going to create 5 posts, each detailing one city, putting enough desert dust in your pockets to lure you to visit the bazaars and architectural wonders yourself. The journey felt like moving backways through time.
This post starts with Tashkent: the gateway Capital and most modern city in Uzbekistan
Similar to most trips, I was invited to give lectures at the national pathology meeting (Ipsum Laboratories sponsored me), drawing scholars and practicing pathologists from more than 1,200 hospitals all over Central Asia. It was a three-day conference, including dinners and cultural celebrations, along with a day of consultations. Three million people live in Tashkent, the capital, extensively rebuilt after a 1966 earthquake destroyed large swaths of the city.
Who wouldn’t get lost and go partly crazy shopping in the sprawling labyrinth of stalls and shops that comprise the Chorsu (meaning crossroads in Persian) Bazaar. A massive, turquoise tile-domed market is in the center, alive with the sound of cleavers chopping horse, cow, and sheep into various cuts of meat, blended with the savory aromatics of mounds of spices, while dried fruits and nuts spill onto the floor from counter stacks. Ceramics, carpets, silks, embroidery, and even cake decorating supplies fill hundreds of stalls, with vendors eager to bargain with you for the best deal—at a discount especially for you. Thousands of ceramic plates are decorated, painted, and glazed in workshops—and we couldn’t resist adding a few to our bags.
I learned how to make “non” (Uzbek bread), with the traditional stamping of the center before it is baked in tandoor style ovens.
I learned how to make “non” (Uzbek bread), with the traditional stamping of the center before it is baked in tandoor style ovens.
Nearby was Magic City, a “Disney-esque” theme park, including an aquarium and dancing water fountains.
Inspired by the grandeur the Moscow Metro, the busy Tashkent Metro was opened by the Soviets in 1977. The stations are magnificent underground museums, engineered with the dual-purpose of withstanding magnitude 9 earthquakes and/or nuclear blasts, but designed as underground palaces with mosaics, granite, marble columns, and futuristic modern art, lit by gleaming thematic chandeliers. Photography was prohibited for security reasons, but enforcement is lax.
Opening in March of this year, the Khast Iman Islamic Cultural Complex is a gleaming modern façade, yet the interior is modeled and decorated to match the various periods depicted. Named for the 10th century imam Hazrati, whose mausoleum anchors the complex, the artifacts and historical objects are nearly countless, including Buddhist, Zoroastrian relics, and Silk Road coins, but it is the Uthman Quran that is one of Islam’s most revered relics: a 650 AD, deer-skin manuscript traditionally believed to be dripping in the blood of the assassinated Caliph Uthman. The adjacent grounds have a Madrasah (school, largest of 23 in the city) and mosque, completing the spiritual center of modern Uzbekistan.
Independence Square developed as Uzbekistan separated from the USSR in 1991. There are several statues reflecting pre-Soviet and Timurid heritage, with storks and globes signifying symbols of peace and rebirth. It was a lovely park, filled with flowers and mulberry trees, with 6 streets converging upon it. No experience in Tashkent would be complete without a visit to Besh Qozon, a restaurant serving over 60 different types of plov, the traditional rice based national food. The restaurant serves thousands of people a day, with the chefs cooking in 3-ton kazans (cauldrons) over open flames, using rice, chicken, beef, kazy (horse sausage), carrots, garlic, raisins, and fragment spices. Walking through the kitchen was quite an experience, with the open fires spewing out more heat than any kitchen I cook in.
Beautiful photos and interesting narrative.
Fascinating destination, Lester!