Our Bukhara Experience

Bukhara is one of the three most important cities along the Silkroad, in this country. It lies in between Samarkand (which is 5 hours by car form Tashkent) and Khiva, 3 hours flight into the desert, nearer to the Aral sea. And it has always had a crucuial role, due to its many sweet waterponds (important in the middel of the desert) and its strategic location.

Since we‘ ve been in Samarkand we know a lot about the history of this country and of all the peoples moving in, conquering and deserting it . Our main source is the marvelous book I happened to buy just before leaving (at amazon.com):  “ Uzbekistan, the golden road to Samarkand”

Once upon a time there was a Sogdian empire of Persion origin from about 700 BC till 700 AD. They already had irrigation, fountains in the cities and a sewage system! Which we didn’t even have in Amsterdam in the 16^th century yet!  There was a highly developed civilization with contact in China, India, Turkey; witnessed by remains of frescoes. The copy on the right is a bit too colourful, but otherwise a just representation. All sorts of religions existed together, the Zoroastrians most prominently.

In 329 BC  Alexander the Great remarked, when seeing its capital Samarkand, after his famous crossing of the river Oxus (now the Syr Daria, the river which is the southern border to Afghanistan and Turkmenistan) that the city was even more beautiful than the stories told. Samarkand in that time was known as Marakand, and its remains, now called Afrosiab, lay a bit outside of the present town. So we explored the eroded claybrick ruins of the old city and the city walls, which originally were 15 kms long.  

Notice the shape- it looks very much like the now restored citadelwalls of Bukhara, further down!

Around 640 AD the Islam was brought here (to Transoxiana as they called it) by no one less than the cousin of Mohammed himself. It was a rough time! Either you turned Moslim or died, or at best became a slave. The city of Bukhara held out the longest of all but had to succumb in 709.

After the Arab empire weakened, a true Golden Age followed under the Samanyid rulers from 900- 1100, attracting the finest intellectuals of the time. The irrigation networks were expanded, the population of Bukhara grew to 300.000, more than in soviet times, and Bukhara had the biggest library of the Islamic world.

Below: the now restored wall of the Citadel of Bukhara, the city within a city where the Emir resided. Bukhara is now a Unesco heritage. 

 All this to be disturbed by invasions, first by the Turkoman around 1100, then in 1220 by Dhengis Khan with his fierce Mongol fighting force.

The once beautiful city of Bukhara was razed to a level plain. Everything was demolished, apart from the beautiful Kalon(Grand tower, to the right, detail directly below),  the mausoleum of Ismael Samani -at that time hidden in desert below,  and the Magok–I-attari Mosk.

Each of these buildings  have a remarkable architecture, and decorations, still without colours, but made by a variety of brick patterns.

Interesting to discover are the very old culture symbols like the circles ( the Zoroastrian sun) Swastika, th flower of life, and the yin-yang symbol.

Around 1500 Abdullah Khan reunited the Uzbek clans and prepared the gound for Bukhara’s 2d golden age.  Craftsmen abducted from Herat (Afghanistan) fuelled a flowering of decorative arts and the city began to take its present shape.

To the left a Caravanserai: notice the entrance being high enough for laden camels to pass through!

To the right is another mausoleum, mainly beautiful from the outside. The picture at the bottom shows the cupola of one of the Mosks from the inside.

Around 1600 Bukhara boasted 150 madrassahs(schools) and 200 district mosks. The picture below shows the inside court of one of the Madrassahs. I think you could compare its role and impresiiveness at that time to a university like Oxford and Cambridge, or a big monastery. Each student had his own cell.

Between 1600 and 1800 there was a strong decline, as overland routes withered since the Dutch, British and  Portugese were operating a succesfull sailing route to the spice islands and China.

Actualy the soviets did improve a lot for the country, if only to restore the same rights for men and women.

Birdwatching tour in Uzbekistan 6-11 May

As May is the best season for bird watching,  Jelleke chartered a tour operator, experienced in  bird watching tours, to guide us around Bukhara and Samarkand and along the road to Tashkent to the various spots where we would be able to see the various birds that are passing or breeding in this country. Towards this purpose Rob took up a week holiday, even though this will be substracted from the vacation in the Netherlands this summer.

We visited different areas ( habitats or ecosystems): the Bukhara wetlands, the Kyzyl Kum desert, the Kattakurgan reservoir, the Tachtakaracha Pass (mountains) and the Zerafshan State Reserve (Forest).

Our guide was Katya Filatova, a young Uzbek biologist with a specialization in ecology. Including the ubiquitous common mynahs, magpies and sparrows our birds list included some 60 different species by the time we got home.
The images that follow are taken from internet as Jelleke’s camera (Sony Cybershot from the black market in Ethiopia) is not able to provide the required detail.

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Most common here:

1.Common Mynah,the same one that nests under the roof next to our bedroom window, making an lot of noise, usually found in housing areas.

2.European Roller, sitting on electriciy lines everywhere: a beautiful blue flash when seen flying away. We even found them sitting near their nest, a hole in a clay escarpment.

Most unexpected 1:

Rose Coloured Starling (spreeuw in Dutch) ,

Most unexpected 2.

White Winged Woodpecker,

A beautiful sight when flying: all white wings!

 Most flashy 1: European Bee Eater,

Most flashy 2: 

Red crested Mallard, in the wetlands,
see next picture.

Most elusive 1: Turkestan Ground Jay (not seen). Living in the desert, feeding on insects.

Most elusive 2: Nightingale.
But we heard many, singing the stars out of the sky in the forest reserve.

 

12-04-29 the day before our Queens' birthday

Blog april 29th, 2012

A lot happened in the past 2 weeks. Of two of my best friends their mothers died. Two other friends got some quite emotionally disturbing treatments, and some had their 35^th wedding party!  And my sister ‘celebrated’ her early retirement, which is a courageous thing to do, as - I realise all too well!- she had to consciously stop being part of a societal system.

 
 And all the while I realize how connected I am with each of them, even though I am at a great physical distance and can’t be there with them physically. It is the connection we have through knowing each other so well, through love and telepathy…. supported by this amazing internet, which allows for emailing, skype and cheap telephoning. As if the internet gives body to the unspoken thoughts and feelings and threads.

At the same time  I experience how important it is to express one’s feelings into words, into storytelling. It appears to be so structuring and so healing! Just accidentally (?) I read an article in ODE about this, scientific research even proves it: writing a quarter of an hour daily into your diary builds up structurally more immune cells into the body and has a relaxing psychological effect, more than when you don’t write!  

Storytelling is not only an old cultural tradition from the past when common people couldn’t write and read. It is a gift everyone possesses and it is something you should do.

Telling your story makes you become  more of the unique person you are. And that is what I am doing right now; write now!    I am writing the book I always wanted to write about the living examples and the importance of rehabilitating feed back systems in agriculture and food production. It gives me quite a lot of purpose to live actually and it is THE story I have to tell! 

Meanwhile, I had some of the most beautiful pictures printed in the photoshop here, to put on the wall in our appartment they are and they look beautiful!

Wild tulip hunt

Both the tulips and the hunt were wild!

In our guidebook I had read that there are fields of wild tulips in the Chimgan Mountains. Tulips originally growing in Turkey (and Iran, Jordan, and imagineably also here) have only been exploited by the Dutch. Last week, when we were in Chimgan,  indeed along the road youngsters were selling tulips that seemed torn from the earth, and already wilting in the warm sun. Then, they couldn’t tell us where to look.

Luckily, upon my request, my Uzbek teacher Muqaddis organized a family outing. The deal being that we paid for his efforts and the transport by minibus (the driver happened to be a student

in irrigation) and that his family would come along, and would prepare Plov (like Pilav) , the national dish, and ...that he would help us find the tulips.

It was lovely weather and in a week’ s time the hills had turned all shades of green, lovely.

We stopped at a roadside honey seller, who was looking rather vagabond, living in an old  trailer that wouldn’t have misstood at the north-eastern shore of Hawaii; the guy had a leathery face from the sun and from living outside and bore alcohol on his breath. We had tea there (chai or choi as they call it there) from the only two cups available, with honey! Made in a real samovar.  Lesson learned: to rekindle your samovar, take off the chimney pipe, put a rubber boot over the outlet and pump it up and down so that it functions as a billows, ash blows out at the lower end, your coal start glowing and within no time there is fresh tea.

We started out on a grassy hill that reminded me of " the sound of music" , the location where they start learning the do-re mi. families picknicking under a tree, and children trying their kites.

But soon we came to a steep edge and yes, the tulips were visible deep down the gulley’s.

We made a move around, but it remained steep and slippery in the heavy red clay.

Sweating in the strong sunshine and diving under thorn bushes we managed to get there and discovered at least 6 different types of tulips and some other interesting species.

After 1,5 hour we were back and the plov was ready! We had a real Sunday lunch on a picknick cloth under a big tree, the way it should be! (and we had brought a 1 liter bottle of beer).

Continued on a winding road to the chair lift (especially for the 12 and 21 year olds) and made the obligatory pictures. On the way back the lake showed itself quite differently from last week, with a clear sky and reflections. Then to the tea house (with the clean toilet!), all very relaxed.

Home at 8:30 pm, but the 9-11 supermarket on the corner sold some still warm French bread, so with a glass of good local red wine and some real Dutch Emmentaler cheese J we relaxed at the end of a great day.

Outing to Chimgan mountains April 7th 2012

Excursion into Chimgan mountains, the foothills of the Tian Shan massive.

With car and driver Alisher (through Adventours travel agent) we drive 1,5 hours northeast of Tashkent, where a narrow leg of Uzbekistan is squeezed in between Kazachstan (to the N) and Kyrgistan(E). It actually is a steep valley and catchment area of the river Chirkir, which provides water in a huge reservoir near the town of Charvak. We drive up towards Charvak along the river, passing the town of Chirchik, famed for its chemical works (they make fertilizers).

First we pass the lower hills with lots of flowering fruit trees on their slopes, beautiful! Though a lot of erosion is visible on those loess soils, as there are no trees or vegetation and they are trodden by sheep and cows. The rivulets show that clearly as they are brown with the soil they carry. Robert tells me that all irrigation canals in this country get stuck with those sediments. They do clear those canals, but then leave the very valuable soil in heaps on the edge, for the wind to play with.

We drive up a winding road into the mountains, and make a stop in order to find the fields of wild red and yellow tulips that should be there.  We can’t find them, but do discover some lovely Alpine spring plants. 

It is getting colder, windier and rain clouds gather. At Chimgan, THE winter sports centre of Uzbekistan, we take the chairlift which goes halfway up the Chimgan mountain(3.300 meters) for an amazing view. The ski slope is still visible as a 3 kms. long white serpent of snow going down the slope.

Up there on a stony outcrop we discover a Rock bunting, the only bird we see apart from Crows and Magpies, and one wagtail, a little later.

On the way back we have a beautiful view on the (indeed stunning blue) reservoir. As the guide book says: Arab visitors are surprised to see their fellow Muslims revive the primitive tree worship of Zoroastrianism, for locals festoon the branches of the trees with strips of cloth marking their wishes. 

All is well that ends well:  we have a warming  green tea with lime at one of the traditional restaurants, before returning to Tashkent, where it is hot ( 24 degrees C) and oppressive; the thunderstorm comes in the night.   

Springtime in Tashkent

Since March 30 we have a sudden outburst of spring here. Of all the dead looking trees some are unexpectedly and all of a sudden covered in pink/rose blossom, almond trees perhaps, ‘ falling in ‘ spring?? Even the greyest soviet-style buildings cheer up!

Springs’ energy in the air made Robert ‘s hands itch for a vegetable plot or back yard to do at least something with plants. Luckily I had been introduced by Lily tot the only local market where they sell plants, Oloy Bozori so Robert and I went there on Saturday. His not so high expectations were pleasantly met with quite a variety of home grown seedlings, in between which we found one, yes one, Hibiscus and one Fuchsia.

We are now the proud owners of both, and they are being tended on top of the air conditioners just outside our windows.

On Saturday afternoon we visited the carpet trader we had met at the intercontinental exhibition of arts and crafts, at his home. That is what people do here, they sell from their home as shops are too expensive to rent. Internetsale is coming up fast.

Anyway, we ended up with four carpets that make our apartment look real chique and on top of that do fit in our small Renkum home. Meike sent us the measurements of the only spaces where they might fit, so now we only have to ship them some time in 2015.  We’ ll  worry about it by then.