Samarkand. Now we
were getting into the classic Silk Road, the names reverberating with
legend. Sadly the weather was still not
in our favor, the skies dark with the threat of rain. I am sure I shared with my fellow travelers
the desire to see these old cities and their monuments beneath the flawless
blue skies of the travel posters.
Our first stop was Gur-E-Amir Mausoleum, Timur’s burial
place. This is one of the most visited
sites in Central Asia, probably so that people can guarantee the old murderer
is still dead. The dark skies begat
strong icy winds that seemed fitting somehow, until the novelty wore off. There were a few dozen other visitors braving
the cold, a good number of them (male and female alike) asking to pose for
photographs with me. This had happened
quite few times over the past few days, and strangely it was only myself and
one other fellow who were asked, every time.
The attention was quite fun, today made more ridiculous by the felt hats
(his with the sad droopy ears of a basset hound) that he and I had bought as
protection from the chill. Yet we were
just a sideshow to the magnificent structure rising behind us, the tiles and
domes a bright blue that wasn't diminished in the least by the grey above.
A shade of blue equal in brilliance could be found a short
drive away at Ulugbek’s observatory, it a spiraling mural behind a proud statue
of the man. This grandson of Timur
proved a better astronomer than ruler, and was particularly shortsighted in not
foreseeing his eventual murder by his son (who in turn was killed by a group of
amirs, limiting the Timurid dynasty to a mere century.) Despite Ulugbek’s constant reaching for the
heavens, the madrassa he founded here was more earthbound, lacking the towering
domes and minarets common to the style, and of a hue more akin to the swirling
sands. The real masterpiece was just in
front, a large tube-like structure that crawled up this man-made hill like the noborigama kilns of Japan. Entering the tube was like climbing into a massive
sextant, the parallel grooves burrowing three stories downward.
Old Samarkand itself too is subterranean, as the Mongol
invasions of the 13th century obliterated it completely. (It was
Timur, surprisingly, who rebuilt the city just to the west, serving somewhat
like Shiva in bringing creation out of destruction.) The Afrosiab kept a 7th
century fresco that depicted a Sogdian king receiving dignitaries from as far
off as China. Yet the deserted hillocks
and dusty plain outside betrayed little of the great city that had dazzled
Alexander 1700 years before.
After lunch, our group went on to a carpet factory, but LYL
and I decided to go to our hotel and rest, the street in front so pockmarked it
was like multiple speedbumps. Though the
rambling traveler in me hates to admit it, it was pleasant to catch up on the
world after three days without wifi.
Dinner beckoned eventually, a perfunctory meal served in a somewhat
sterile, oversized banquet room. But the
highlight of the evening was a good night’s sleep, in a room that refused to
move.
The sky this day too was bleached out, the surface of The
Registan, not to mention my spirit damp with rain. Nonetheless it was a majestic sight, these
three madrasas staring each other down a square that had once served as
marketplace and execution ground. The
age of each of these structures was betrayed by their inability to stand up
straight, none more so than the minarets, and a shoddy Soviet reconstruction
job did little to prevent them from leaned in odd directions as if blowing in
the wind. But despite the imperfections,
their beauty was mesmerizing, little doubt since Timur had deliberately brought
here any artisans that he had captured during his wide raids. Even the poor
weather couldn't hide the intricate detailed of their facades, of lions and
blue onion domes. The inner courtyards
were all flanked by doorways that led to shops now occupying the former student
cells. In one, a musician demonstrated
his merchandise, playing each and every instrument with perfection. Here again I found my own personal Silk Road,
one defined by music, the sounds overlapping across cultures.
Most impressive to me was the Tilla Kari Madrasa, the most
weathered of all, but whose solid gold interior froze me for a good ten
minutes. Each and every madrasa or
mosque I had visited so far had not failed to stun me, their colors hypnotic,
with the intricacy of their spirals, the honeycomb geometry of their
stalactites, the flawless slope to the ceilings. It made it worth it I suppose to sit through
all those seemingly useless algebra classes back in school, to be able to stand
beneath these domes and marvel at their perfection.
We followed a long promenade toward the central market. Sunday strollers smiled and meandered with
little regard to destination. I
paralleled one old man, beard stretching toward his chest, his posture and
spectacles marking him as a scholar. I
wondered his view of life, the political and social changes that had determined
his life trajectory. Yet he pottered on.
Likewise, what changes had been seen beneath the domes of
the Bibi Khanym Mausoleum, itself curling with gravity toward the earth? The interior was a ruin and off-limits,
bricks strewn about where they fell.
Despite this, sellers peddled their wares in some of the less dusty
corners, perhaps a spillover from the larger, bustling market next door. I gave this a skip, having earlier spied a
shop advertising coffee. After a week of
instant coffee on the train, the strong ground of Arabian coffee nearly took
off the back of my head.
This all focused my attention on the ride to come, along the
streets of new Samarkand. There were
many signs here for avocat, the legal
profession apparently quite lucrative.
There was one store called Papa Jobs, which appeared to repair Apple
computers. On one corner, a man gave a
handful of money to a babushka. A
towering mansion looked constructed as if by a child, its owner constantly
building and adding to it in a childlike lack of self-control. And as the road took us more and more into
suburb, there was a marked increase in fish sellers
We arrived at a quiet estate on the outskirts of town, the
compound a handful of buildings made of earth and barely hewn tree limbs. A waterwheel jutted from one wall, its
spindly arms pounding sticks of mulberry into pulp to be used as paper. It all had a delightfully quiet dignity, a
place of repose after a week in near motion.
This motion propelled us again back to the old city, for a
visit to Shah-i-Zinda, the part of Samarkand that I had most wanted to
see. This place too was reminiscent of a
noborigama kiln, each tomb the size of a small mosque, climbing side by side up
the slope toward the ancient city. A trio of old women clad in black set the tone
for the visit, sitting upon a bench at the base of the hill, opening their
palms toward the sky, toward the old teachers, toward God. Yet further up was spoiled somehow, mainly by
the number of tourists clustering in the narrow confines. I hadn't really been bothered by tourists on
this trip, as the scale of things thus far (as true for the work of Christianity
as for Islam) had been large and momentous, the body given space by the open
courtyards, the eyes pulled heavenward by the pitch of arch and dome.
Nowhere else was this as true as during a return visit to
The Registan, this time at night. The
madrassas simply hung in the air against the dark, their surfaces miraculously
devoid of any color but for a brilliant white, minarets holding up the featureless
black sky. It was if encountering the
gates of heaven itself.
On the turntable: Dean & Britta, "13 Most Beautiful"
No comments:
Post a Comment