Melons and massacres in the Fergana Valley

From Khiva I made the journey back eastwards to Tashkent by train from Urgench. It was a slow, trundling overnight journey of almost twenty hours, but my sleeper compartment was relatively comfortable. Much of the journey took us across the bleak landscape of the Kyzylkum Desert. I had planned to have supper in the restaurant wagon. My host in Khiva had told me that, as this was a domestic, Uzbekistan train, there should be no trouble getting a meal. By contrast, he said, on the international trains from Russia all the food had gone long before the train reached Urgench. But my companion in the compartment had other ideas. To my surprise, when he entered the compartment he automatically started speaking to me in Uzbek. Was it not clear from my appearance that I was a foreigner? I felt quite pleased with myself. Once he understood, he seemed delighted, repeatedly shaking my hand and clapping me on the back. I was slightly dismayed when he produced a pair of two-litre bottles of beer which he insisted on sharing with me. The idea of a long booze-filled journey was not especially appealing. It could have been worse; he didn’t have vodka. He then produced a nan loaf of bread (the typical Central Asian loaf, known to Russians as a lepyoshka) and a pot of beef stew. Eating was with the hands. I was a little disconcerted by his habit, as host, of taking pieces of meat between his fingers and offering them to me. But it was tasty, and I was grateful.

Back in Tashkent for just a single night, early the next morning I made my way to the place where shared taxis set off for the Fergana Valley. There are trains from Tashkent to Fergana, but they pass through Tajikistan, and I did not have the necessary double-entry visas. The road over the mountains, through the narrow strip of territory that links the Fergana Valley with the rest of Uzbekistan, is a good, fast road. But for some reason buses are not allowed along it. On this occasion I waited several hours before the taxi had enough passengers to depart. Driving through the pass into the Valley, there is a big checkpoint, looking very much like a border post, at which IDs are checked, and at which all foreigners entering or exiting the Valley have to be registered. It was a formality, but, handing over my passport, it felt like I was entering a different country.

Fergana does feel different, distinct. The Valley, in fact a large plain surrounded by mountains, is divided up among three former Soviet republics, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, their borders twisting around each other crazily, breaking up the natural unity of the Valley and cutting off its different parts from each other. Fed by tributaries of the Syr-Darya River, it is the most fertile region of Central Asia, quite different from the mountains, desert and steppe that predominate elsewhere. It is the most densely populated part of Central Asia too, and accounts for a large share of its agriculture. Through millennia of shifting boundaries, Fergana’s unity had been maintained until the Soviet period, when Stalin, as commissar for nationalities, sought to impose a national division on to Central Asia that had never been known before. But the different nations were jumbled up, and could not be neatly parcelled out among the newly created republics. It mattered less during the Soviet period, when they were all united within the one overarching union. But since the breakup of the Soviet Union, it has brought no end of tension, especially between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Despite the overlaying of national identities on the former Khanates of Central Asia, strong regional identities remain important, and have been the key to understanding political divisions in all the Soviet successor states of the region. In Uzbekistan, the Fergana Valley is regarded with suspicion by the Tashkent elite, which has resulted in violent confrontations. Among the distinctive traits of the Valley is its conservatism, and greater piety. It has also been a breeding ground for Islamist militants. The founders of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which was active in Tajikistan during its civil war in the 1990s, and alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan, came from the Fergana Valley. The movement was largely destroyed along with the Taliban during the US-led invasion in Afghanistan in 2001, its remnants scattered, some of them taking refuge in Pakistan. While there has in recent years been little evidence of any Islamist threat in Fergana, it has nevertheless suited the Karimov regime to brand any manifestation of opposition in the Valley as extremist.

The Khan's palace, Kokand

My first destination in the Valley was Kokand, the former capital of the Kokand Khanate, which in the 18th and 19th centuries had ruled over eastern Uzbekistan, including Tashkent, as well as bits of southern Kazakhstan and much of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Kokand does not match its one-time rival, Bukhara, for fine architecture and historical monuments. This is partly because of the extensive destruction that accompanied the Bolshevik crackdown in 1918 on the so-called ‘Kokand Autonomy’, a rival to Bolshevik rule, during which many thousands of the city’s inhabitants were slaughtered during a three-day orgy of rape and destruction by the Red Army. Among old photos from the early 20th century in the museum in the former Khan’s palace, there is one that shows the destruction of the medressas in Kokand at that time.

It rained during most of my short stay in Kokand, but still I trudged around the old city, seeking out the remaining historical buildings. The Khan’s palace sits in a park on the other side of the main thoroughfare that bisects the city centre from the maze of streets that form the old town. It was built in the early 1870s, just as Kokand was succumbing to Russian rule. Following the Russian seizure of Tashkent in 1865, Khudayar Khan was forced, in 1868, to accept vassal status vis-à-vis the Tsar. But in 1875 just a couple of years after the completion of the palace, a rebellion drove him into exile. His replacement by his anti-Russian son prompted the Russians, the following year, to abolish the khanate and bring it under direct Russian rule, as part of Russian Turkestan. The palace has been partly restored, and now houses a museum. Interiors are richly decorated with elaborate geometric and floral patterns. The harem was demolished by the Russians in 1919.

The Narbuta-Bey Medressa, Kokand

Among the few remaining medressas (there were once 35 in Kokand, and hundreds of mosques), the Narbuta-Bey Medressa, having been closed by the Bolsheviks, was reopened after independence, only to be closed again in 2008. It has an imposing façade, reminiscent of medressas in Bukhara. Built at the end of the 18th century, craftsmen from Bukhara who had been taken captive in warfare between the two neighbouring khanates were brought to work on its construction. An elderly man appeared at the entrance, and showed me around. Having visited many disused medressas in the region, it was interesting here to peer into one of the cells leading off the courtyard, which had been restored. Sparsely decorated, there was a platform at the back of the room where students would have slept, on the floor a carpet. The cells on the outside of the building, flanking the entrance, were occupied.

Behind the medressa is an old graveyard, including a couple of rather grand mausoleums where members of the Kokand royal family were laid to rest. Among them is Nodira, the wife of Umar Khan. When her husband died in 1822, leaving an heir who was still a child, Nodira took over as ruler, evidence that, in the Islamic world too, it was not doubted that women were no less capable of ruling than men, even if it was never publicly acknowledged. Nodira was most notable as a poet, considered one of Uzbekistan’s greatest. She wrote in both Uzbek and Tajik. Under her, Kokand became a centre of the arts. She remains a hugely popular figure in Uzbekistan, and Nodira is a popular girl’s name. She appeared on a postage stamp issued after Uzbekistan’s independence. Her son, Madali Khan, extended Kokand’s borders to their furthest extent, but his expansionism brought down the wrath of Nasrullah Khan of Bukhara, who had executed the two British emissaries, Stoddart and Conolly, that same year. In 1842, Nasrullah captured Kokand, and had Madali, his brother and Nodira all put to death.

The old town, Kokand

From Kokand, I continued eastwards to Andijan, not far from Osh, across the border in Kyrgyzstan, which I had visited the previous year. This time I decided to go by bus. Kokand’s bus station is right by the Dekhon Bazzar, with its busy little workshops, men hammering out pieces of metal into the desired shapes, rows of stalls selling nan bread, towers off water melons, and piles of grapes, oranges, olives and figs. I bought my ticket, in fact just a little slip of paper with something the seller had scribbled on it. And then I waited. Someone offered me a seat. Men came and chatted to me. Where was I from? Which football team did I support?

Then the colourful little bus pulled up, and we all piled in. Apparently the scrawl on my ticket included my seat number, but the numbers on the seats did not go as high as mine, and in fact any idea of reservations was a nonsense. Everyone took whichever they could. The friends I had made while waiting took care of me, and I was given a seat. As we trundled out of Kokand, more and more people piled in. Soon the bus was crammed full with people from the villages along the way, together with the provisions they had bought in the town. Some stood, others sat on their bags. It was all immensely cheerful. However crushed and uncomfortable, people laughed and joked and offered round pieces of fruit and biscuits, as if it were all a big party. The ticket seller, who had to push and shove his way around the bus, joined in the fun, joking as he went. He also spoke a little English. When he translated my humdrum answers to his questions about myself, my home, the ladies around us hooted with laughter. I smiled uncertainly, not knowing what he had told them about me.

There are many good things about Andijan. First of all, the hotel I stayed in was terrific; a big, comfortable room, a swimming pool, and a marvellous breakfast, all for a very modest price. The thing I enjoyed most of all was the melons. Fergana is famous for them. Andijan’s most celebrated son is Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire. Born in Andijan, he succeeded as ruler of Fergana near the end of the 15th century, at the age of 12. At 15, he conquered Samarkand. However, facing rebellions, he ended up losing both Andijan and Samarkand. His fortunes later rose, as he captured Kabul and ruled Afghanistan before moving on to the conquest of India. But it seems he never ceased to lament the loss of his homeland, or of Samarkand, the capital of his ancestor, Timur. In his memoir, the Baburnameh, Babur wrote repeatedly of the delights of melons. He knew what he was talking about. I have never eaten more delicious, juicier, sweeter melons than those I ate in Andijan. Other fruits were excellent as well. The figs were wonderful.

The Eski Bazaar, Andijan

I hopped in a minivan to go to the old town, clustered around the sprawling Eski (‘Old’) Bazaar, one of the most inspiring in Central Asia, with its piles of produce, the rich bounty of Fergana’s fertile land. I ate there two or three times during my stay. Everything seemed tasty. The salads were wonderful, the tomatoes sweet and delicious. It is something that had struck me before in the Fergana Valley, during stays in Osh, in Kyrgyzstan, as well as Khujand, in Tajikistan. The food is good in Fergana. It is typical, simple Central Asian fare, laghman, manty, shashlik and the rest. But somehow it is better, tastier, fresher. The chaikhana I frequented during my stay was bustling with life and colour. Each time I received a warm greeting, and a cheerful sense of fun as we tried to work out what I should eat. I found Andijan delightful.

A chaikhana, Andijan

Since 2005, the name Andijan is associated with something altogether more negative, the massacre that took place there in May of that year. The violence of the security forces, the huge over-reaction of the authorities, speaks volumes about the regime’s paranoia, its fear of its own people. Concerns about the oppressiveness of the regime had been growing for some time. Uzbekistan had acquired strategic importance for the United States and its allies following the invasion of Afghanistan. From 2001 to 2005, Uzbekistan hosted a US military base, which was used in supporting its operations in Afghanistan. The importance of this trumped human rights concerns. Things changed after the massacre. The Americans departed at the insistence of the Uzbekistan government following US criticism of the bloodshed in Andijan.

In 2004, the British ambassador in Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, had been forced to resign following his outspoken criticism of the country’s human rights record and what he saw as the tolerance of it by the US administration of President George W. Bush. In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, he had said that "there is no point in having cocktail-party relationships with a fascist regime". Murray fell out of favour with the UK Foreign Office. He was removed from his post in Tashkent, and agreed to resign from the diplomatic service the following year. Whatever the reasons for his falling out of grace, his case illustrates the dilemma faced by diplomats (and international organisations) when they have to maintain relations with a distasteful regime. Unlike many, Murray chose not to dodge that dilemma.

The backdrop to the massacre was the trial of 23 local businessmen, who the authorities, with precious little evidence, accused of Islamic extremist activities. Specifically, they were accused of membership of the Akromiya movement, inspired by an imprisoned mathematician, Akrom Yuldoshev, who in the early 1990s had written a pamphlet calling on businesses to pool resources for the common good of society, in line with Islamic principles. More likely is that they were caught up in a power struggle following the purge of a long-serving Andijan governor. In a country submerged in corruption and cronyism, the arrests may have been part of a crackdown on businesses not under the thumb of the authorities. When the trial began in February 2005, protesters gathered outside the courtroom, their numbers gradually swelling over the following weeks.

Matters came to a head following the arrest on 12 May of several protesters and relatives of the accused men. The next day, armed men attacked the prison, releasing the 23 men as well as several hundred others. Several prison guards were killed. The armed men also seized Andijan’s government administration building, taking several senior officials hostage. They tried but failed to take over the headquarters of the National Security Service. Their principal demand was the resignation of Karimov. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the trial, this was clearly a serious criminal act, an act of rebellion, to which the authorities had to respond. But the violent and indiscriminate nature of their response was beyond all proportion to the threat they faced. The massacre came not long after the colour revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine. Perhaps the example of those exercises in popular will impelled Karimov to such a fierce response in Andijan. Perhaps he thought the US-led ‘war on terror’ gave him cover for such violence against his own citizens.

During 13 May, protesters continued to gather on the central Bobur Square. That evening, the square was sealed off and security forces attacked the crowds, according to witnesses firing indiscriminately. The numbers of victims are disputed, but several hundred were killed, including children. The government blamed Islamist extremists for the violence, but most of the dead were ordinary civilians. Thousands of panicked people fled for the border, seeking refuge in Kyrgyzstan. The crackdown did not stop there. Following the events, many journalists went into exile. Several international NGOs and media organisations were forced out. Uzbekistan’s already sham democracy had been snuffed out, all pretence gone. This was now a regime whose legitimacy derived from brute force.

Since the events of May 2005, Bobur Square has been renamed Navoi Square, after Alisher Navoi, the great 16th century poet. The statue of Babur that had stood there has been moved (it is now close to the hotel where I stayed). A big open space, criss-crossed by major roads, there is nothing to indicate what happened there. All is now peaceful, no obvious sign of tension. A gang of colourfully dressed women tilled over the earth on a roundabout at one end. The people of Andijan went busily about their work. They smiled happily. They were welcoming and hospitable to the visiting foreigner. But it cannot be imagined that the events of 2005 have been forgotten. The scars are surely there.

Khiva

Onwards from Bukhara there were no more comfortable train journeys. To get to my next destination, Khiva, in western Uzbekistan, it was back to shared taxis. First of all an early-morning minivan ride to a car park on the edge of Bukhara, where the taxis wait for passengers. On this occasion there was no problem finding one that was ready to leave. To my irritation, I knew I was being charged above the normal rate, but the driver was having none of it. So he gathered up the other passengers, and we set off on the long journey across the Kyzylkum desert to Urgench, where the driver helped me find another taxi for the thirty-minute onward trip to Khiva. The drive to Urgench was at break-neck speed, the road sometimes disappearing under the desert sand. At one point we broke down, but after some quick tinkering beneath the bonnet, off we went again.

Urgench is a modern, nondescript Soviet city, with nothing to tempt a visitor to linger. Like most visitors, I passed through quickly. Arriving in Khiva, I was set down by the massive crenelated walls of the old walled city, the Ichan Qala. Walking through the western gate, I got my first view of the narrow thoroughfare that passes through the old city from west to east, in the foreground the fat, squat, truncated Kalta Minor Minaret, further along the tall Juma Minaret. One of the most striking things about Khiva is the variations in colour at different times of the day, as the sun hits the old buildings from different angles. In the mid-afternoon sunshine at the western gate, the turquoise tiles of the Kalta Minor Minaret are, by the glow of the evening light, transformed and contrasted by the rich golden hues of the geometric designs circling its bulk. The minaret, begun in the mid-19th century, was never completed, work abandoned after the death of Mohammed Amin Khan. The prodigious size of the base of the unfinished minaret hints at the ambition of the departed Khan, who, it is said, had wanted to build a tower so high that he could see all the way to Bukhara. It would also have overlooked the Kuhna Ark, the Khan’s residence, including the harem, which may have been among the reasons his successors left it unfinished.

The Kalta Minor Minaret, in evening light

Below its minaret, the Juma Mosque, built in the 18th century, consists of a large space covered by a flat roof, held up by more than 200 of the intricately carved wooden columns that figure so prominently in traditional Central Asian architecture. While most of the columns date from the 18th and 19th centuries, a few are thought to be much older, some possibly from the 10th century, having been salvaged from demolished medieval buildings. Amid the dimness, shafts of sunlight beam through holes in the ceiling creating islands of brightness, enlivened by potted plants. It is a cool and beautiful refuge from the baking heat outside.

Inside the Juma Mosque, Khiva

Further along from the Juma Mosque, past the elegant 19th century Allakuli Khan Medressa, is the east gate of the old city. Leading to the gate is a long, gloomy passageway, with niches in the walls. When I visited, some of these niches were occupied by souvenir sellers. But in the 19th century, a very different kind of trade went on here, as this was Khiva’s slave market. The slaves were held in these niches to be inspected by prospective buyers. Khiva’s was the most important slave market in Central Asia, fed by the marauding Turkmen slavers who menaced the surrounding deserts, robbing caravans and carrying off unfortunate men, women and children from remote outposts and encampments, or even fishermen on the shores of the Caspian. A great many of the victims were Persian, but some were Russian. As with Bukhara, the freeing of Russian slaves was a pretext for St. Petersburg’s ambitions in the region. Captain Nikolai Muraviev, a Russian envoy who made the perilous journey to Khiva in 1819, was much moved by the pleas of Russian slaves as he was led through the streets of the city, more especially given that there was nothing he could do for them, beyond reporting on their plight when he returned from his mission.

The former slave market, Khiva

Russia made several attempts to take the city before it was finally overcome. In 1717, Peter the Great sent an expedition to Khiva, his interest having been piqued by an offer from the Khan some years earlier to become Peter’s vassal in exchange for his protection. The mission went badly wrong. The Khan had in the meantime changed his mind. When the 4,000-strong Russian force, led by Prince Alexander Bekovich, a Caucasian Muslim who had converted to Christianity, arrived, after a gruelling journey, the Khan greeted them warmly, and then, having persuaded them to divide up their force, the better to be accommodated, had them slaughtered, just a few spared in order to carry word of the disaster back to Russia. The boastful Khan sent Bekovich’s head to his counterpart in Bukhara, but the Emir sent it back, declaring he wished no part in such a perfidious act.

At this time, Russia’s frontier was hundreds of miles to the north and west of Khiva, across baking hot desert in summer and frozen wastes in winter. Just reaching Khiva was a major endeavour. In 1801, another expedition, of 22,000 Cossacks, set off from Orenburg at the behest of Tsar Paul with the notion of reaching India by way of Khiva and Bukhara, and driving the British out of the subcontinent. It was madcap idea. They had little idea of what lay ahead of them on the route. They made it perhaps halfway to Khiva when a horseman caught up with them, informing them that Paul had been assassinated, and that the newly installed Tsar Alexander had called the whole thing off.

A third attempt, in 1839-40, also ended in disaster. This campaign was a response to Britain’s invasion of Afghanistan. A force of over 5,000 men, with a baggage train of 10,000 camels, led by General Vasily Perovsky, set off from Orenburg in November 1839, but faced with exceptionally harsh winter conditions and the loss of half the camels, they were forced to turn back in February. They made it back to Orenburg in May, having lost 1,000 men and most of the camels, without ever having engaged Khivan forces.

As Perovsky set about his abortive mission, two British officers reached Khiva from the south, with the aim of freeing the Russian slaves and depriving St. Petersburg of its pretext for moving against the Khanate. Captain James Abbott travelled alone, in Afghan dress, from Herat, in Afghanistan. His arrival was greeted with suspicion. But the Khan was sufficiently worried about Perovsky’s advance to agree to free the Russian slaves in his realm if the Russians halted all military operations aimed at Khiva and agreed to release Khivan hostages held in Orenburg. Abbott set off on the long journey to St. Petersburg, where he hoped to deliver a letter from the Khan to the Tsar. He was soon captured and robbed by brigands, and his men were carried off for sale into slavery. He had a lucky escape, however, when an envoy sent from Herat to look for him managed to impress on his captors the gravity of their mistake in molesting a man carrying a letter from the Khan.

The old town, Khiva

In the meantime, another British officer, Lt. Richmond Shakespear, arrived in Khiva. News of the disaster that had befallen Perovsky’s army had by now reached Khiva, but the Khan was still worried. After long negotiations, he agreed to release all the Russian slaves in his domain into Shakespear’s care, and provided an escort for their journey to Russian territory. For Shakespear it was a triumph. He described how the freed slaves were ‘very grateful, and altogether it was one of the pleasantest duties I have ever executed.’ He was much feted in Russia, and was received by the Tsar in St. Petersburg. But gratitude in official Russian circles was privately matched by irritation that a Briton, who was naturally, and not inaccurately, assumed to be a spy, had pulled off such a feat.

Khiva finally fell to a three-prong Russian advance in 1873. The desperate Khan sent out an envoy to offer unconditional surrender to General Konstantin Kaufman, the Governor General of Russian Turkestan since the conquest of Tashkent in 1865. Tashkent had been the first major Central Asian city to fall to the Russians. Samarkand and Bukhara had fallen in quick succession, and now it was the turn of Khiva. Kaufman refused the Khan’s offer until he was in the city, having first turned his artillery on Khiva’s walls, at which the Khan fled.

Inside the Tosh-Halvi Palace, Khiva

Khiva is the best preserved of the old towns of Central Asia, if not as enchanting or as beautiful as Bukhara. The massive bulk of the restored walls of the Ichan Qala are still intact. Unlike the Ark in Bukhara, Khiva’s Kuhna Ark is well preserved. But the architectural gem in Khiva is the Tosh-Halvi Palace, finished in 1841. It is a warren of rooms and corridors opening out on to bright courtyards, surrounded on the first storey by shady galleries, intended to catch any breeze in the summer heat. The courtyards are decorated with the usual intricate patterns of tiles. Two of them contain platforms on which yurts would have been placed, for the comfort of the once nomadic Khans and their extended families. Such a building bears witness to the accomplishment of Central Asian civilisation even as the modern world in the form of the advance of Imperial Russia was closing in.

Following the surrender to Russia and acceptance of the status of a protectorate, in some ways Khiva thrived. Indeed, in the last decades before the Bolshevik takeover there was something of a construction splurge. Mohammad Rakhim Khan II, having surrendered to the Russians, built the large medressa that bears his name, across from the Khuna Ark. He reigned until 1910. The Islom-Hoja Medressa and its fine minaret were completed in 1910. Islom Hoja, who had commissioned the medressa, was Grand Vizier during the reign of Mohammad Rakhim Khan. He was a liberal and a moderniser, who opened a European-style school and a hospital, and brought the telegraph to the city. But his reforms brought him into conflict with conservatives, especially among the clergy, and he was assassinated in 1913, with the tacit approval of Mohammad Rakhim Khan’s successor, Isfandiyar Khan. The medressa’s architect was buried alive.

The Pahlavon Mahmud Mausoleum was rebuilt in the 19th century, to house the tomb of the renowned 14th century poet and philosopher. In 1913, it was taken over by the Khivan royal family as their mausoleum. Inside the tiling is especially lovely. In the main chamber is the tomb of Mohammad Rakhim Khan II. In a small side chamber, pilgrims kneeled in front of the doors looking in upon the tomb of Pahlavon Mahmud, quietly whispering their devotions. In the main chamber the pilgrims offered money to a prayer leader, and, kneeling on a rug, with a plate of bread in the middle, their hands cupped in prayer, listened while he recited.

Travellers to Bukhara

From Samarkand I continued by train to Bukhara. A great political, cultural and religious centre through millennia, Bukhara’s many historical monuments have been restored less assertively and more sensitively than those of Samarkand. Although much has changed in the past one hundred years, it is nevertheless possible to get much more of a sense of the old city wandering around its streets and lanes, than is the case in Samarkand. Much has yet to undergo restoration at all. Like Samarkand, Bukhara is attracting more and more tourists, but it is as yet far from overwhelmed. For me it was the most beautiful, the most atmospheric city I visited in Central Asia.

Bukhara was the capital of the Persian Samanid dynasty in the 9th and 10th centuries. The intricate yet beautifully simple mausoleum of Ismail Samani, the founder of the dynasty, is in stark contrast to the scale and bombast of the monuments of Samarkand. In general, Bukahra’s architecture seems to express elegance, beauty and the sense of quiet peacefulness that is so often evident in Islamic design, rather than the power and awe that the great buildings of Samarkand seem to have been built for. But this impression might in part be due to the restoration and rebuilding of recent times, and the redesign of the old centre of Samarkand.

The Kalon Minaret and Mosque, Bukhara

The Kalon minaret, standing at nearly 50 metres, was built in the 12th century under the rule of the Turkic Karakhanid dynasty, which supplanted the Samanids. Circled by concentric rings of geometric patterns, the tower tapers towards the top before opening out into an elaborately decorated gallery. It is said that when Genghis Khan conquered the city in 1220, he was so impressed by the tower that he ordered that it be spared when much of the rest of the city was destroyed. The minaret was once also known as the tower of death, as criminals were for centuries executed by being hurled from it. Fitzroy MacLean, then a young diplomat serving at the British embassy in Moscow, visited Bukhara in 1938, and wrote how executions in this manner, having ceased after 1870, had again been practiced in 1917-1920. MacLean travelled widely in Central Asia and the Caucasus, doggedly trying to evade his NKVD shadows. He wrote about his experiences in his memoir, Eastern Approaches, which also covered his time with the SAS in North Africa and as an envoy with Tito’s Partisans in Yugoslavia. He described Bukhara, where he slept in parks during his stay, as an ‘enchanted city’, rivalling ‘the finest architecture of the Italian Renaissance.’

Down one side of the Kalon minaret there are lighter patches, where the damage done by Boslshevik artillery in 1920 was repaired. In the 1870s, The Emirate of Bukhara, which covered a large territory, including Samarkand, became a Russian protectorate, but retained broad autonomy. When the Bolsheviks first tried to take control of the city in 1918, the last Emir, Alim Khan, had them slaughtered, along with several hundred Russian Bolshevik sympathisers in the city. But it was a temporary respite. In 1920 a stronger Red Army unit under General Frunze arrived, storming the Ark, or citadel, leaving the Emir to flee into exile (he died in 1944 in Kabul).

The Mir-i-Arab Medressa, Bukhara

Below the Kalon Minaret is a 17th century mosque of the same name, which replaced an earlier mosque destroyed by Genghis Khan. Used as a warehouse in Soviet times, it was returned to its intended use in 1991. Inside, a large open space is surrounded by arched galleries. It is said it can fit 10,000 worshipers. Opposite the mosque is the Mir-i-Arab Medressa. Unusual among the numerous medressas in Uzbekistan, this one is still working, and visitors were not allowed beyond the entrance foyer. I listened from there to the students at prayer. Later I looked in at the courtyard, laid out in the typical pattern, with arched alcoves all around, on two stories, where the students live and study, all richly decorated with blue and gold tiles.

Unlike in Samarkand, in Bukhara the historical buildings are surrounded on all sides by the old town. Wandering around its dusty streets there are several unrestored medressas and mosques. Bukhara had once been noted for its numerous pools, which were used for drinking and washing. They also spread disease, and were mostly drained after the communist takeover. But there are a few left, including the Lyabi-Hauz (‘around the pool’ in Tajik), a plaza around a pool, shaded by mulberry trees, some of them very ancient, which is the heart of the old town. Richly tiled medressas fronting on to the plaza cast their reflections in the pool. Where once old men sat drinking tea and playing draughts in the shade of the trees, now there are restaurants frequented by families, as well as by tourists. One afternoon I sat in the shade of a tree by another pool in a less frequented part of the old town, overlooked by a medressa and a mosque, with a smaller version of the Kalon Minaret. Boys played around the pool, diving into the water from the steps. The oldest medressa in Bukhara and all Uzbekistan is the Ulugbek Medressa, built in 1417, unrestored, but with much of its intricate tiling still intact.

The old town, Bukhara

In the narrow streets close to the Lyabi-Hauz is the Jewish Centre, comprising a small synagogue and school. This is the old Jewish quarter, once a ghetto, but with few of its Jews left today. Daniel Metcalfe had written about Bukhara’s Jewish community in his 2009 book Out of Steppe, about his travels among some of the endangered minority groups in Central Asia. He had pretended to be Jewish, discovering his family roots in Bukhara, in order to gain an entrée to this dwindling people. Spotting a man about to enter the Centre, I asked if I could have a look inside. The synagogue itself is small and simple. He told me a bit about the Bukharan Jews. Only a few hundred remain today, most having left as the Soviet Union broke up, for Israel and America, and some for Europe. At the time of the communist takeover there were several synagogues in Bukhara, but only two are left now.

Jews have a long history in Central Asia, some say going back well over two millennia. They have their own language, Bukhori, a dialect of Tajik. In the heyday of the Silk Road, they had thrived, playing an important role in the trans-continental trade. After the discovery of the sea route between Europe and Asia, the Jews of Bukhara went into a long decline that mirrored that of the Silk Road itself. Once a great centre of Islamic culture and learning, Central Asia became a vast, remote and little-known desert. In Bukahra, trade and intellectual enquiry were replaced by ignorance and religious intolerance. The Jews faced persecution and pressure to convert to Islam. Yet somehow they survived. The first synagogue was built in 1620. Before that, it is said that Jews shared the Maghoki-Attar Mosque, praying there in the evening, after the Muslims had finished their devotions. This is the oldest mosque in Bukhara, a mixture of the 12-century original and 16th century reconstruction. The holiness of the site long predates the arrival of Islam. Beneath the mosque, archaeologists have found the remains of a 5th century Zoroastrian temple.

In 1843, Bukhara was visited by an eccentric German Jewish convert to Christianity, Joseph Wolff, who had travelled widely in Asia, the Caucasus and North Africa in search of the lost tribes of Israel. Wolff, having settled in England, had become an Anglican Priest. He travelled to Bukhara in the hope of helping two British officers, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Stoddart and Captain Arthur Conolly, who had been held captive there. In fact the two men had already been executed by the time he arrived. According to Wolff’s account, he avoided the same fate only because the Emir, Nasrullah Khan, found his clerical attire hilarious and laughed uncontrollably at the sight.

Sir Alexander 'Bokhara' Burnes

Conolly is said to have coined the phrase the ‘Great Game’ to describe the 19th century struggle between Britain and Russia for influence in Central Asia. He was a noted player of the game, having undertaken a journey from Russia through the Caucasus and Central Asia to India in 1829-31. Perhaps the most famous of all the Great Game players was a Scot named Alexander Burnes, an officer in the army of the British East India Company. An extraordinarily talented linguist, fluent in Persian, Hindustani and several other oriental languages, Burnes undertook his travels in local garb, and was at ease in the manners and customs of the people of the region. In 1832, he made a journey from India, through Afghanistan, and up to Bukhara. Burnes became fast friends with the Koosh Begee, or Grand Vizier of Bukhara, but he never met Nasrullah Khan, who had succeeded as Emir five years previously. In Britain his exploits made him a hero, and earned him the epithet ‘Bokhara Burnes.’ He was showered with honours, and granted a private audience with the King. Burnes was later one of the first casualties of Britain’s disastrous retreat from Afghanistan, cut down by a mob in Kabul in November 1841.

Stoddart had been sent to Bukhara to reassure the Emir about British intentions in the invasion of Afghanistan, as well as to try to persuade him to release the Russian slaves in Bukhara, and thus remove a potential excuse for a Russian attack. He was also supposed to sound out the possibility of a treaty of friendship between Britain and Bukhara, whose main aim, as always in the Great Game, would be to forestall Russian influence.

When Burnes had visited Bukhara a few years earlier he had gone to the slave market, describing how ‘the feelings of a European revolt at this most odious traffic’ (it was not long since Britain had outlawed the Atlantic slave trade). He also discreetly met a Russian slave, said to be one of 130 in the city, who had been seized by slavers at a Russian outpost at the age of ten. After 15 years in captivity, the man acknowledged that he was well treated by his master, but said he longed to see his native land. While publicly professing Islam, crossing himself he told Burnes he remained a Christian in his heart.

Stoddart’s mission to Bukhara went wrong from the outset. Unlike Burnes, who had been careful scrupulously to respect local customs during his visit, Stoddart ignored Bukhara’s protocols, riding through the city to the Ark, although non-Muslims were expressly forbidden to ride a horse in the city. A bluff soldier, Stoddart was no diplomat. When summoned into the Emir’s presence, rather than performing a symbolic act of obeisance, as urged to do by a court usher, Stoddart struck the man. Nasrullah Khan had him thrown into prison, into the notorious vermin-infested ‘bug pit’. The unfortunate Stoddart remained a captive for the next three years, some of the time under relatively comfortable house arrest, at other times in the Emir’s frightful gaol, depending on the whim of the capricious despot.

The Ark, then and now, Bukhara

I visited the gaol, the Zindon, close by the Ark, now open to the public as a rather gruesome museum. The bug pit itself, a deep, squalid brick hole, is still there, with a couple of wretched-looking stuffed human dummies completing the grim scene. Bizarrely, the floor of the pit was strewn with money, as if it were a wishing well. I could hardly imagine a more unlikely place to look for good fortune. For the men who languished there, including Stoddart, it must have seemed like Hell.

The Ark itself, with its thick walls, is still impressive. It was severely damaged when Frunze stormed it in 1920, supported by aerial bombardment. Apparently the royal apartments were in a bad state of disrepair even before that. Its entrance is flanked by twin towers built in the 18th century. Across from the Ark is the intricately decorated Bolo-Hauz Mosque, built in the 18th century, where Emirs once worshipped.

Conolly’s mission was no less ill-starred than Stoddart’s. He set out with big plans to persuade the three khanates of central Asia, Khiva, Bukhara and Kokand, to unite against Russia and to abolish slavery. He also hoped to secure the release of Stoddart. Burnes had warned that there was little chance of persuading the khans, longstanding rivals, to unite, but Conolly had not been deterred. He was well received in Khiva and Kokand, but found no interest in his proposals. Indeed, Kokand was about to go to war with Bukhara. So Conolly set off on the final stage of his mission, to Bukhara. His initial welcome by the Emir appeared cordial, but his prior visits to Khiva and Kokand had confirmed Nasrullah Khan’s suspicions that he, as well as Stoddart, was a spy, in cahoots with his old enemies. Furthermore, the Emir was peeved that he had not received a reply to a letter he had sent some months earlier to Queen Victoria, who he considered to be his equal. Conolly joined Stoddart in the bug pit. What finally did for them was the news of the catastrophic British retreat from Kabul in January 1842. The British, it appeared, were not to be feared. On a June morning in 1842, Stoddart and Conolly were led out onto the Registan, the great square in front of the Ark, filthy, ragged and half-starved. Their graves had already been dug. First Stoddart, and then Conolly was beheaded with a large knife.

The stories of Stoddart and Conolly, of Burnes and other adventurers of their ilk, had long captivated me. Peter Hopkirk opened his masterful history of The Great Game with an account of the execution of Stoddart and Conolly. As I walked across the wide space in front of the Ark, now empty, the bustling market that old photos reveal once stood there gone, I thought of those two hapless, ill-prepared, yet courageous men, their remains presumably still somewhere beneath my feet. I have taken part in numerous overseas missions, working for international organisations, some of them in Central Asia. Nowadays we have elaborate security backup, constant communications with headquarters, and security rules that prohibit us from doing anything that might put us at risk. In truth, international workers are sometimes still killed, despite all precautions; several have died in recent years in Afghanistan. But how different are the experiences of the modern traveller to those of the early pioneers, men like Stoddart and Conolly who set out on journeys lasting several months, across little known lands, risking attack by brigands and capture by slave traders, far from any possibility of help, never knowing what their fate might be when they reached their destination. What effete times we live in by comparison.

A journey to Samarkand

Ever since as a teenager I read a magazine article about Samarkand I had dreamed of one-day going there. The very name seemed to conjure up a place of wonder, almost of legend, the magnificent buildings, the great centre of Islamic culture and learning, one of the marvels of the world. When Alexander the Great conquered the city, the capital of the Sogdian Empire, known to the Greeks as Marakanda, he is said to have exclaimed that everything he had heard about it was true, except that it was even more beautiful than he had imagined. Marco Polo described it as a splendid city. Nowhere calls to mind the romance of the Silk Road as much as Samarkand. It changed hands several times before its conquest by Ghengis Khan in 1220, which was followed by significant destruction. But 150 years later the city was reborn as the capital of Timur’s Empire. As he wrought devastation across the Eurasian continent, Timur, or Tamerlane, pillaged his conquests and brought back great minds, architects and artists to build the city whose remnants we still marvel at today. The romanticism of Samarkand in the western imagination was evoked in the 1913 poem by James Elroy Flecker, The Golden Journey to Samarkand. Flecker was born in Lewisham, close to my own south-London home. The poem’s sentiment expresses the purpose of many who travel. And Samarkand had long seemed to me one of the most enchanted of destinations.

We travel not for trafficking alone,
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned.
For lust of knowing what should not be known

We make the Golden Journey to Samarkand.

My journey was less romantic. I arrived by rail from Tashkent on a smart, fast, comfortable train. Samarkand’s railway station is a few miles from the city centre, and I hopped into a public minivan for the journey into town, which passed through the broad, straight avenues of the modern part of the city. My accommodation was in the old town, close to the Registan, a great open space fronted on three sides by huge, mosaic covered medressas. Meaning ‘Sandy Place’ in Tajik, the Registan was once the commercial centre and bazaar. On one side, the oldest of the three is the 15th century Ulugbek Medressa, named after Timur’s grandson and successor, a great mathematician and astronomer, who is said to have taught here. The other two were built in the 17th century. The Sher Dor (‘Lion’) Medressa features what look like two leopards or tigers over the entrance, although they are supposed to be lions. In between them stands the Tilla-Kari (Gold-covered) Medressa.

Ulugbek Medressa, Samarkand

There is no doubting the splendour of the Registan, the sheer impressiveness of its scale. The space between the three medressas was covered with raised platforms when I was there, to form a stage. There were light systems attached to scaffolding. Apparently there was to be an international folklore festival. It very much spoiled the scene. Much was done during the Soviet period and since to restore the medressas, a controversial work, involving rebuilding as much as restoring. Once the Registan must have been the heart of the city. But now it has been deprived of its surroundings, its context, obliterated by the planners of the 20th and early 21st centuries. These great buildings now stand out like sore thumbs amid the wide open spaces, the broad avenues of the modern town. The former intimacy that once characterised the Registan, the hustle and bustle of the marketplace, the life of the city that once was, could be seen in old photographs. The black and white pictures show that the buildings were crumbling, but the city they depict had a soul that has now gone. For all their magnificence, the three medressas look forlorn, mere museums, sites on the tourist trail. No longer the romantic city of the imagination.

Much the same could be said for other historical sites of Samarkand. The huge Bibi Khanum mosque, named after Timur’s wife, was originally built with the help of craftsmen and elephants brought by Timur from his campaign in India. Badly damaged in an earthquake in 1897, it was later heavily reconstructed. In the interior courtyard is an enormous stone Koran stand that would have been about the right size for the Uthman Koran, now in Tashkent, which is said to have been brought to Samarkand by Timur. The mosque sits on a recently laid out, broad tree-lined avenue. Close to the entrance is a signpost directing tourists to Samarkand’s various sites. Like the Registan, the mosque stands on its own, outside of any context or setting, a stage on the tourist trail through Samarkand. Impressive in its size, but somehow not satisfying.

Shah-I-Sinda, Samarkand

A little way off from the Bibi Khanum mosque, beside a busy highway, is the Shah-I-Sinda, the Avenue of Mausloeums. The narrow avenue leads up a hill, with fabulously tiled tombs on either side. After controversial heavy restoration work in 2005, much of the mosaic work is not original. But it is beautiful. The heart of the complex is the shrine of Qusam ibn-Abbas, a cousin of the Prophet Mohammed, who is said to have brought Islam to the region. There had been a shrine here long before the time of Timur, and the rest of the mausoleums came later, as Timur and Ulugbek buried their family members here. Shah-I-Sinda is a place of pilgrimage, and as such more of a living place than some of the city’s other tourist sites. Pilgrims far outnumbered tourists when I was there. Local people came to pray in the mausoleums, leaving small offerings of money on the tombs. Most important is the shrine of Qusam ibn-Abbas, the ‘tomb of the living King’ after which Shah-I-Sinda is named. In the beautifully tiled interior, a prayer leader led pilgrims in their devotions. As I was leaving Shah-I-Sinda, I looked into a little courtyard next to the entrance. A group of devout young men had just slaughtered a sheep, and were looking very pleased with themselves.

Some distance away, beyond Samarkand’s bazaar, is the Afrosiab Museum, around which are excavations of Marakanda, the early city of Samarkand. The centrepiece of the museum is the remains of a 7th century fresco depicting the Sogdian King Varkhouman receiving foreign emissaries riding on elephants, camels and horses.

Statue of Ulugbek, Samarkand

Continuing in the same direction, you come to Ulugbek’s observatory, the remains of which were discovered early in the 20th century. In the 15th century it was one of the finest in the world. Now all that remains is a portion of the track along which the vast sextant once ran. Using this observatory, Ulugbek produced the most important star catalogue since Ptolemy, correcting many mistakes made in earlier catalogues. At the site of the observatory there is also a small museum to Ulugbek’s achievements. The exhibits stress the wide influence of Ulugbek’s work, which, among others, was translated into Latin by the noted Oxford orientalist Thomas Hyde and published in 1665. His influence spread east to China as well as west to Europe. This is a reminder that in the middle ages Central Asia, and in particular Samarkand, was at the centre of scientific enquiry. Sadly, the observatory was destroyed by religious fanatics upon Ulugbek’s death in 1449 (he was beheaded at the order of his eldest son). Today Uzbekistan’s government uses Ulugbek to extend awareness of the country’s rich history around the world. Three years earlier, I had seen a bust of Ulugbek in a park in Riga, a gift from Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov during a visit to Latvia.

Gur-E-Amir Mausoleum, Samarkand

Perhaps the most striking of Samarkand’s monuments is the Gur-E-Amir Mausoleum. Among those interred there are Timur, two of his sons, and two grandsons, one of them Ulugbek. The richly tiled building has also undergone significant reconstruction. Under the high blue dome, a simple dark jade stone marks the tomb of Timur in the crypt below. To one side of it is the simple marble stone that marks the grave of Ulugbek. While I was there, a group of bearded men came in and prayed by the tombs. This might seem peculiar, that the butcher of millions should be accorded almost saintly status. For Timur is now revered in Uzbekistan. At the entrance of the museum at Ulugbek’s observatory, a plaque contained the following words: ‘The history of Central Asia during the reign of Amir Temur and the Temurids is inscribed in the general history of world civilisation as one of the brightest periods of its development.’

Timur's tombstone, Samarkand

Not far from the Gur-E-Amir Mausoleum is a statue of a seated, regal looking Timur. In 1941, his tomb, as well as that of Ulugbek, had been opened. It was confirmed that Timur was indeed lame, due to an injury in his youth. Using his skull, his face was reconstructed, so we have a fairly good idea what he looked like. His tomb was said to have been inscribed with the words ‘When I rise from the dead, the world shall tremble.’ As I sat looking at Timur’s tombstone, it was Ozymandias, king of kings, from the poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley that came to my mind. The mighty ruler, the terror of the world, now a broken black tombstone. But still, sitting in that room, in that presence, it was hard not to feel awe.

A few days in Tashkent

Travelling up from Khujand to Tashkent proved quite straightforward. A taxi up to the border, and then a bus on to the Uzbek capital. There was a bit of a wait at the frontier. I was ultra-careful filling in the customs declaration, in two copies, before entering Uzbekistan. I had been given to believe that I should not miss off anything. I carefully listed the different kinds of pills I had – just the usual things that travellers carry, painkillers, pills for upset stomachs; also reading material, including a couple of magazines, laptop, ipod, cameras, they all got listed with their estimated values. Of course, the customs official did not know English, and I struggled to mime each of the items on the list. He was plainly irritated that I had gone into such unnecessary detail.

Next I had to change some money and find transport up to Tashkent. As I left the border post, taxi drivers descended on me, offering to take me for large sums of dollars, and assuring me there were no buses for Tashkent. But there was a bus stop not fifty metres away, sitting on the long straight main road that led away over the dusty plain towards Tashkent. At the bus stop there was also a shop, where a jolly lady exchanged some of my dollars for Soms, and told me that buses went by all the time. This was my first experience with Uzbek money. Thick wads of tatty low-value notes (there are no high-value notes), bound up with elastic bands, stuffed in envelopes. Uzbekistan is one of few countries left where there is still a black market in currency, and the rate is sufficiently better than the official rate to make changing money at official outlets highly unappealing. Soon a bus pulled up. What a difference from Tajikistan. Proper public transport. A normal, comfortable, air-conditioned bus.

Tashkent was my base during my stay in Uzbekistan. From there I set out westwards for Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva, and then eastwards to the Fergana Valley. A big sprawling city, baking hot in summer, for a short visit Tashkent does not have much to charm. The main centre of Russian Turkestan from its conquest by the Tsarist Empire in 1865, Tashkent has two faces, a modern city with monumental squares and gardens, and an older, traditional city, with dusty streets and plain walls concealing the shady courtyards and family lives behind them. It still contains a significant Russian population.

Timur, Tashkent

Much of the city was destroyed by an earthquake in 1966. In recent years, the authoritarian President, Islam Karimov, in power for more than 20 years, since before the end of the Soviet Union, has overseen the remodelling of the city centre, a testament to his own aggrandisement, with its parks, monuments and ornamental gardens. When I was there, in baking summer temperatures up into the mid-40s, it all seemed rather empty and sterile. Elsewhere, in the bazaars and the popular restaurant streets, the city was bustling, but not here in the great new centre of the capital. The central Amir Timur Square is dominated by a statue of Timur, or Tamarlane, where one of Marx had stood until 1993, and before him Stalin. Timur, whose capital was at Samarkand, is now a national hero in Uzbekistan. The square had been shaded by old plane trees until they were chopped down on Karimov’s order in 2010. Before then, apparently, old men had sat in the shade of the trees, playing chess. It must have been a cooler, pleasanter and altogether more human place. Now Timur sits alone astride his horse on the parched square, with just a few visitors briefly braving the heat to take a few snaps.

I was staying close to the sprawling Chorsu Bazaar. In among the vast galleries, filled with traders selling all kinds of fruit and vegetables, herbs and spices, I was after a very particular commodity, cash. In Tashkent, the Chorsu Bazaar was the place to buy Uzbekistan currency from black market traders. I changed money in other towns in Uzbekistan, but I found it particularly nerve-wracking in Tashkent. I had read online about how and where to change money, including official websites with dire warnings that changing money on the black market was illegal, and that stiff penalties could result if caught. What made the exercise difficult in Tashkent was the pervasive presence of policemen, in their green uniforms and little peeked caps. A police officer stood at each entrance of every metro station; more of them often loitered inside. In the market, they were all over the place, strolling around.

The money changers were not hard to spot: men holding carrier bags homed in on foreigners. The transaction was not all that speedy. I had been told what the going rate should be, and usually I had to haggle briefly to get it. But the most time-consuming part was counting the great bundles of cash. Receiving wads of 100 1,000 Som notes, tied up in elastic bands, I usually counted one pile, and if it was OK, accepted the rest without counting. The amount I received was not always exactly right, a 1,000 or two either way. But more or less, it was correct. But as I counted, I was always worried that a policeman might home into view at any moment. A couple of times, as I emerged from Chorsu metro station, a money changer was there, offering me a rate, in full view of the policeman standing over the entrance. I didn’t know, but I couldn’t help wondering whether it were not some kind of entrapment, enticing me to break the rules and pay the price. I declined.

I had never before been in a place where the police were so omnipresent as Tashkent. They no longer harass foreign visitors as I had read they once did. Tourism is now encouraged. In Uzbekistan foreigners may only stay in registered hotels or guest houses, and must receive a small slip of paper at each place to prove it. As required, I carried them with me all the time. If asked, you have to be able to produce a slip for each night since you arrived in the country. And you have to present them at the airport on departure. I was only once asked to show my documents by police, at a desk inside a metro station, where they also looked through my small rucksack. They were polite and correct. But still, the sense of being always under surveillance and control was unsettling. It is a mark of the paranoia of the regime, its insecurity and fear of its own people, heightened since the Andijan massacre in 2005, when Uzbek troops fired on protesting crowds. I was only in Uzbekistan for three weeks. For the people who live there the heavy police presence is a constant reminder of the limits of freedom in their country.

Not far from the Chorsu Bazaar, by the circus, is the national food restaurant, a temple to Central Asian cooking. Entering the great big hall of a place, you pass huge cauldrons filled with different national dishes. Outside, shashlik sizzles on charcoal stoves. Gathered around a large table, a couple of dozen ladies in white overalls prepare various dishes, laughing and joking all the while. While in Tashkent, I ate there every day.

Barakhan Medressa, Tashkent

The most important surviving historical site in Tashkent is the Khast Imam complex, the centre of Uzbekistan’s Islamic community. Dominating the complex is the vast Hazrat Imam mosque, built in 2007 at the initiative of President Karimov, and flanked by two towering 54-metre minarets. But the complex also includes important historical buildings, now restored, including the 16th century Barakhan Medressa. The smaller Muyi Muborak Medressa, also built in the 16th century, is named after the ‘sacred hair’ of the Prophet Muhammad, which it is said to contain. It also houses a library of rare manuscripts, most notable of which is the 7th century Uthman Koran, believed to have belonged to Islam’s third Caliph, and to be the oldest Koran in the world. The enormous tome may have been brought to Samarkand by Timur, before being carted off to St. Petersburg by the region’s Russian conquerors. Lenin had it sent it back to Tashkent as a gesture of goodwill.

Travels in northern Tajikistan

I travelled back from Khorog to Dushanbe by the southern route, following the Panj river along the border with Afghanistan before turning north through the Kulyabi region, home region of Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmon. The Kulyabis had emerged victorious in the civil war of the 1990s, which was more than anything a war among regional clans for power. How often did I hear from Pamiris, who were on the losing side, the resentment of the power of the Kulyabis, who had taken the fruits of their victory in jobs and opportunities? It was a long, but pleasant journey. Among the six other passengers were two English-speaking Pamiris, one of whom turned out to be the nephew of a Pamiri friend in London. We stopped, for lunch in Kala-i-Kum, a quite palatable plov (pilaf), known here as osh, and then again in the afternoon, when we gorged ourselves on juicy melons.

Istaravshan old town

After a day in Dushanbe, doing laundry, eating Indian food and drinking cappuccinos, I set off to northern Tajikistan, from where I would cross into Uzbekistan. The journey took me over mountains and then down into the Fergana Valley, where Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan meet. My first stop was a night in Istaravshan. I stopped there because it is said to have the best preserved old town in Tajikistan, a taste of what was to come during my travels in Uzbekistan, but without tourists. First of all I looked for a hotel. What I found was pretty awful; a basic room with no running water. The owner brought me a bowl of hot water to wash. Istaravshan has a vibrant market, as well as some fine historic buildings. The sprawling old town is much like so many in the Muslim world, dusty streets with blank windowless walls, hiding the life within, the courtyards, gardens, families. For the outsider strolling along these streets, there is little to see.

Abdullatif Sultan Medressa, Istaravshan

At the Hazrat-i-Shah mosque I saw for the first time the wooden pillars and bright, intricately painted ceilings that I would see in mosques around the region, in Khujand, Khiva, Kokand and Andijan. The beautiful designs appear to represent Islam as a joyful religion, so different from the harsh austerity that often appears to epitomise Islam in much of today’s world. As worshippers poured out of the mosque after prayers, one of them stopped to talk to me. He told me how Istaravshan was the most historical town in Tajikistan, with more important monuments than nearby, larger Khujand. He pointed out the monumental gate on the nearby hill, overlooking and dominating the town. The gate had only been built a decade before, to mark two and a half millennia since the town’s founding. The hill is the site of an ancient Sogdian fortress, which was stormed by Alexander the Great. Alexander named the city Cyropol. In the midst of the old town is the 15th century Abdullatif Sultan Medressa. Well restored, the high blue-domed building, covered with intricate mosaics, is typical of the region. Still a working medressa, there was no one about as I wandered around.

From Istaravshan, I headed north on the short journey to Khujand. This is Tajikistan’s second city, and its most developed and most prosperous. My hotel had a good bathroom and internet access. Known as Leninabad during the Soviet period, much of Tajikistan’s Soviet-era elite came from here, although the city has an Uzbek majority. It also has a reputation as a centre of intellectual life.

Sheikh Massal as-Din Mosque, Khujand

During my stay, Khujand was impossibly hot, in the mid-40s. Walking outside in the heat of the afternoon was almost unbearable. Khujand is an old city. It is the site of Cyropolis, founded by Cyrus the Great of Persia, and of Alexandria Eschate, the easternmost outpost of Alexander the Great’s empire. At the heart of the city are the remains of the earthen walls of the tenth-century citadel. At the other end of the town centre is an impressive bazaar, with a vast 1950s hall fronted by an ornate arch whose style echoes that of numerous medressas in the region, an apparent attempt to adapt the religious architectural heritage to the secular communist state. Across a wide open, sun-drenched piazza is a mosque, mausoleum and medressa complex, in the process of being expanded; the religious heritage is making a comeback. Again I was struck by the beautifully carved wooden pillars and the brightly painted ceilings.

As I struggled on through the fearsome heat, to my great surprise I came across a statue of a she-wolf suckling two little boys, Romulus and Remus surely. But what could they be doing in Khujand. I later read that a painting of the wolf and children had been found at an archaeological site near Istaravshan, with a Latin inscription, apparently a link with the classical past going back to Alexander the Great’s conquest.

The Wakhan Valley and Eastern Pamir

Despite its remoteness, the impressive remains of ancient fortresses strung out along the Wakhan Valley suggest that it had once been important, worth holding, worth defending. By the late 19th century, this strip of land jutting out between the Pamir mountains and the Hindu Kush had assumed strategic importance in the last phase of the Great Game between the Russian and British Empires. The agreement they reached divided the valley, so that nowadays its northern slopes are in Tajikistan, while the southern side is in Afghanistan. The river that forms the border between the two countries broadens out in this wide valley, its shifting streams meandering around islands in the middle. It is a sparsely populated region, most of its people on both sides of the border speaking Wakhi, one of the Pamiri languages.

I started my journey along the Wakhan Valley in Iskashim, a small town on the Panj river. There was a particularly good guesthouse there, by the standards of the region. It was simple, the rooms very basic (one of the other guests complained of bed bugs, which thankfully I was spared). The best thing was that there were nice, modern bathrooms, with clean showers and running water all day, with good water pressure. Also the food was good. There were a dozen or so guests the night I spent there. We sat and chatted after dinner, over green tea. Many were adventurous souls. A couple of teenage Americans had cycled from Bishkek, in Kyrgyzstan, travelling the Pamir Highway from Osh, and then down the Wakhan. Their hair was long and unkempt, their faces burned and ruddy from the sun. But they were very cheerful. They were planning to cross over into Afghanistan. Others too were planning to cross the border. That part of northern Afghanistan, the Wakhan Valley and Badakhshan, was reckoned to be pretty safe, free from Taliban.

Just up the road from Iskashim there is a bridge across the river, an official border crossing. I had hoped to make a quick foray across myself. There is a weekly market across the bridge, in the middle of the river, but on the Afghan side. Visitors can go to the market without the need of an Afghan visa, just leaving their passports with the police on the Tajikistan side. Unfortunately the market was closed while I was there. There were lots of rumours as to why. One was that Taliban had been there, unlikely in Tajik-dominated north-east Afghanistan. The more probable explanation was a typhus outbreak. Disappointed, I headed off up the Wakhan.

Khaakha fortress, Wakhan Valley

For this journey I had decided to hire a car and driver for a few days, a nifty little Niva. There were lots of places to stop along the way, and using the Chinese minivans would have been impractical. First stop were the sprawling ruins of Khaakha fortress, thought to date from the third century BC. The much eroded walls and turrets blend in with the brown dust and rock of the hills, but still manage to look impressive, standing on the slopes above the river, looking over to Afghanistan. I had read that soldiers were based there, supposedly to counter drug smugglers, and that visitors should be wary of taking pictures. Travellers in recent years had written of bad experiences, of being shaken down at gunpoint and robbed. But I was all alone as I explored the ancient fortifications. There were signs of recent inhabitation, paths marked out with stones and what looked like it might have been a parade ground. I walked gingerly up to the highest point of the fortress, where there was a small cluster of recent buildings. But they were all empty.

Yamchun fortress, Wakhan Valley

That night we stayed at the home of the guide who had earlier taken me up the Bartang Valley (he was travelling with a group up to Kyrgyzstan). First we went to bathe in the Bibi Fatima hot spring, named after the daughter of Mohammed. Men and women used the spring alternately, in half-hour shifts. A little cave has been built into the rock face, holding the hot spring water which streams down from above. It is said to be popular with women hoping to become pregnant. Nearby is the Yamchun fortress, the best preserved in the region, sitting high above the valley, with splendid views across the Wakhan to the snow-capped Hindu Kush mountains beyond. It is only a short distance across the narrow strip of Afghan territory in the Wakhan to the border with Pakistan.

Across the Wakhan Valley

Back at the homestay, my host, the father of my former guide, pointed to the village across the broad river on the Afghan side, telling me its name, as well as those of other villages up and down the river. The people there speak our language, he told me. I asked if he knew them? Yes, we know them, he replied. Do you go over there and visit them, I asked? No, it is an international frontier. We’d be shot. He explained that when the river was low, they would go down to the banks and shout across to each other. A century ago this had been one community. These people would have traded with each other, married each other and shared each other’s celebrations. But by an agreement between Russia and Britain, about which they were not consulted in the least, an international frontier sliced through their land, cutting them off from each other.

Travelling east along the Wakhan Valley, we stopped at a museum dedicated to the 19th century Ismaili mystic, Mubarak i Wakhani, housed in the sage’s reconstructed home. His tomb is on the hill above. A little further on, above the village of Vrang, is a Buddhist stupa. The 12 year-old who showed me the way up spoke excellent English. Where had he learned to speak so well? In his school, he told me. He could also speak Tajik and Russian, as well as his native Wakhi. As we approached the monument, he showed me how to pick up a handful of pebbles to place there, an example of the easy-going approach to religion among the Muslims of the region. In the rock faces around the site there were numerous hermit caves, now unoccupied.

Continuing along the valley, we passed the remains of another ruined fortress by the bank of the river on the Afghan side. Perhaps Marco Polo looked upon this fortress as he passed that way in the 13th century. Then there was another of the roadside shrines, as usual adorned with the great curling ibex horns, and with rocks placed in the niches, the offerings of passers-by. A little further on I made the steep, strenuous climb up to the fortress of Abrashim Qala, the Silk Fortress. According to legend it had been covered in silk. The views from the fortress across the valley and the mountains beyond are stupendous. As I arrived, a group of children minding some sheep ran to greet me. A couple of boys were very eager to show me the fort. One of them tried to sell me some stones he claimed were rubies. I was often offered rubies by children in the Wakhan Valley. I was once offered one for 20 Somoni, around three Euros. On this occasion, the supposed rubies were not even red, just common rock crystal. The boy seemed slightly crestfallen when I pointed this out. But the Pamir region has been renowned for its rubies since ancient times. We had driven by the Koh-i-Lal ruby mine, near Iskashim.

Our journey up the Wakhan ended with a night in Langar, before we headed up over the 4,344 metre Khargush Pass. Opposite the meeting house in Langar is the mazar (mausoleum) of Shoh Kambari Oftab, who is said to have introduced Ismailism to Langar. It is a simple building, with inscriptions in Persian and a profusion of ibex horns. Afterwards, I drank beer with the Khalifa, the spiritual leader of the village, who spoke a little English, and a few other local men. Especially welcome, because it was unexpected, was the hot shower at the Khalifa’s house. It was a terrible shower. The water pressure was minimal; it was necessary to crouch down as low as possible in the grotty, rusty old bath tub. But it felt wonderful.

Salt lake, Eastern Pamir

After Langar we left the Wakhan Valley and continued up the Pamir river. It was a very different landscape, dry and sparse, with little vegetation. At one point, we passed camels across the river on the Afghan side, watched over by a couple of men. Below the Khargush Pass was a military checkpoint, which we passed without difficulty. And then we were in the uplands of the eastern Pamirs. For me this was one of the most striking landscapes I have seen, very different from the damp fertile valleys of western Pamir, and beautiful in a very different way. Dry, bleached plains, crusted with salt; bare lakes set off against snow-covered peaks, devoid of vegetation except for little clumps of colourful plants that cling on, squeezing whatever little bit of moisture they can out of the parched ground. And a profusion of birdlife.

We crossed over the Pamir Highway, the Soviet-era military road, built in the 1930s, linking Osh, in Kyrgyzstan, with Khorog, via the plateau of Eastern Pamir. Then we reached the village of Bulunkul, a dry, dusty wind-swept little place, a different world from the villages where I had stayed in the Wakhan Valley. Here, many people, men as well as women, covered their faces with scarves, not because of their Islamic faith, but to protect them from the swirling, throat-clogging dust. This is a Tajik-speaking village, and our hosts here were as hospitable as any I visited in Pamir, to the extent of their meagre resources. The supper was simple, but what was most exciting for me was that I was offered yak yoghurt, thick, rich and delicious. There were a couple of buckets of it in the corner of the room where I slept. Unfortunately I did not see any yaks, although my driver assured me they were around.

The climate up here was much different from what I had experienced in western Pamir, the temperature dropping close to zero at night. It was a small house. The family, three generations of them, all stayed in one room, snug and toasty with a wood fire and a television. My driver opted to spend the night with them. I had the other room to myself, and it was cold. This was the one night during my stay in Pamir when I snuggled into my sleeping bag, in addition to the provided eiderdowns piled up on top. It didn’t matter. I went to bed early, and was up at dawn to go for a wander in the beautiful early morning light. Before I went to bed, I sat outside the house and watched a group of village boys play volley ball, cheered on enthusiastically by the girls (cheered is hardly the word; it was more like a joyful screaming, finishing in fits of laughter).

Bulunkul

The village of Bulunkul is set at one end of a wide plain, surrounded by bare brown hills. Walking away across this plain, the dry ground of the village soon gave way to green, marshy land, scattered with reed-surrounded ponds. Little birds with long bills nest in the reeds, diving and swooping around after insects, or, as I approached, holding themselves stationary in mid-air as they shrieked out a loud, harsh warning. I had to choose my path carefully. A wrong turn, and I was quickly surrounded by impassable bog, and had to retrace my steps. The next morning I skirted around the edge of the boggy plain in order to approach the lake at the opposite end from the village. As I came closer, I discovered what was perhaps the reason why the village was at the dry, dusty end of the plain, and not nearer to the water. Close to the lake I endured an attack from some of the most aggressive, determined mosquitos I have encountered. The lake was picturesque, the surrounding hills shimmering in its reflection, and birdlife all around. But it was hard even to raise my hands to take a photo, as swarms of insects immediately attacked the exposed skin.

Leaving Bulunkul, we re-joined the Pamir Highway, following the Gunt Valley back to Khorog. The fast-moving river, surrounded by snow-covered mountains, is more inhabited in its lower reaches. Just before Khorog is a monument to the building of the highway, the first ever vehicle to make the trip.

Gunt Valley

Strung out along the Gunt River, hemmed in by mountains, Khorog was my base during my stay in the Pamirs, from where I set out on my tours of the region, and where I rested in the relative comforts of the modern world, hot showers and flush toilets, internet cafes and ATM machines. I found Khorog a pleasant enough little place. The shady central park, renovated with the help of the Aga Khan Foundation, and overlooking the river, had a pleasant café and was a relaxing place to while away an afternoon. Khorog is the administrative centre of Gorno-Badakhshan. It has government buildings, banks, universities, and hospitals. It also has a rather good little museum. I was given a personal tour by the lady who sold me my entry ticket. Exhibits included the first piano to be brought into the Pamirs, lugged over the mountains by Russian soldiers a century ago for the daughter of the garrison commander. It was the Russians who made Khorog the regional centre it is today. The museum has many old photos of Russian soldiers fraternising with local people.

Unfortunately, I spent some of my time in Khorog visiting a Pamiri friend who had come down with tuberculosis since returning to her home country. The hospital was depressing testimony to the hardships of living in a poor country, squalid, shabby and rather smelly. There was only one lavatory on a floor with several dozen patients, and no shower. Thanks to the Aga Khan Foundation, it had the medicines my friend needed to get better, although she had very little faith in the ability or qualifications of the doctors. The Pamirs are a beautiful region, and no doubt burgeoning tourism will being greater prosperity, even despite the corruption and dismal governance that undermine even the meagre advantages Tajikistan possesses. For the visitor, experiencing the quirks of the local transport, the basic conditions of so many homes, the poor roads, it can all seem rather picturesque. But a visit to the hospital in Khorog was a reminder of how hard, how humiliating it can be for those who cannot leave, for whom poverty and poor facilities are their day-to-day life.