The Afrosiyob train to Bukhara

March 13, 2024

High-speed trains (1) run from Taskent, the Uzbek capital, to Samarkand and Bhukara. The railway station at Samarkand is rather elaborate, adorned with crystal chandeliers and stained glass windows. 

The landscape to Bhukara was gently undulating to relatively flat, looking fairly green on this late winter day (2). Goatherds led their flock through the winter pastureland. Passing one farmstead, a dog came sprinting from the house toward the train. One would think he would be used to the trains running behind the house. Bhukara railway station is a long way from the town (3), more than 10 kms.

Like Samarkand, Bhukara's heyday was during the Timurid period (beginning c. 1400 C.E.) Only two structures survived the sacking of the city by Ghengis Khan: the Ismail Samani Mausoleum, and the golden minaret. Legend has it that the conqueror lost his hat when he craned his neck to see the top of the minaret. So impressed was he by the height that he ordered the minaret be preserved from destruction.

Modern Bhukara is smaller than Samarkand, so the old city is less hemmed in by the modern city. Strolling past markets, madrassas, minarets, and mosques, I admired the distinctive blue glaze on many of the walls and domes topping buildings in the old city. As in Samarkand, many of the historic buildings here were moldering ruins rebuilt in the 20th century.

The old fortress (Ark) lies just west of rhe old city. The mosque inside the fortress (4), supported by wooden columns, is richly decorated and contains a small museum of Arabic calligraphy. An ecology museum here has an exhibit on the Aral Sea, which has withered away to less than 20% of its size since 1960 due to diversion of the inflow for agriculture. The area is now known as the Aralkum desert. Walking the fortress parapets offers fine views of the city, both old and modern.

Furthest west is a modern urban park that contains a pre-Ghenghis Khan Mausoleum. Here, I encountered a couple speaking English; he was Afghan, she was Lithuanian.

Back in the main square at sunset, two muezzins sang out the call for prayer, starting at two different times from different mosques, the sound sonorously echoing off the walls.

(1) Relatively high speed, between Samarkand and Bhukara the train just travels at under 160 kph (about 100 mph). Not bad for North America, but slow for Europe. The trains are called Afrosiyob, after the ancient name for Samarkand. The train sets come from Spain. 

(2) Spring is the the rainy season here.

(3) The airport is actually closer to the city center than the railway station.

(4) Entering the mosque a local woman asked me: Italiano? So far this trip, someone has also guessed I waz Slovakian.

A clear morning in Samarkand

At the train station

Afrosiyob high-speed train bound for Bhukara

Grade crossing 

Arrival at Bhukara

Times to pray today at small mosque

View of Mir-i-Arab Madrasa from the back

Souq/Marketplace

The Golden Minaret. Note the ubiquitous Chevy Damas in the foreground

View of Kalan Mosque

The Mir-i-Arab Madrasa, still an active school

At the Kalan Mosque

Fingerpost sponsored by Coke. 

The Ark of Bhukara

The mosque at the Ark

Detailed Quran Calligraphy, c. 1,000 C.E.

View from the Ark walls

View of modern mosque to the North

Ismail Samani Mausoleum

Last light

Crescent moon over the mosque. I considered coming back later with moon lower in the sky (and thus closer to the mosque dome) to get a better shot. The moonset bearing was not conducive, plus the increasing clouds, and a very early train departure tomorrow dissuaded me.

The sleeper train to Khiva

March 14, 2024

Up very early for a 4:25 a.m. train heading west to Khiva (1). The train was about 1/2 hour late and the passengers joining the train here (mainly British and Italian travellers) waited in the cold rain. I settled into my first class sleeper compartment (2), labeled Пюкс (deluxe) on my ticket. Bed linens and some teabags awaited my arrival. Settling in, I fell asleep to the gentle swaying of the train as a steady rain mixed with sleet pelted the windows.

I awoke with the sun a little over two hours later to a landscape transformed. The train had left the rain behind, there was not a cloud in the sky, and we were surrounded by the Kyzylkum (red sands) Desert (3). Soon a man appeared selling warm savory cheese-filled pastries and coffee. The train click-clacked along through a vast sea of sand, with no humans or habitation visible for miles. 

After 5 hours or so, suddenly there was some green and the train crossed the Amu Darya River (5). Forming the border with Turkmenistan, the river had been out of sight to the south for a while. The border jogs south of the river here, with a pocket of fertile territory, known as the Khorezm Oasis, belonging to Uzbekistan. Khiva is on this oasis, and the train followed the branch line south from Urgench.

While an ancient city, most of the current structures in Khiva date to the late 1800s, during the Khanate of Khiva period (4). The compact city was fairly quiet on this late winter's day (high 30s°F). Wandering about, I poked into the Khan's Palace (6), rich with blue and green mosaics. A yurt in a courtyard was the official place for business, reflecting the Khan's heritage on the Asian steppe.

At the fortress, I encountered some British travelers whom I had chatted with while awaiting the train in Bhukara. They said that the Islam Khoja minaret was open for climbing. The stairs were steep and narrow with no railing, so I often used my hands on the stairs. Arriving at the top 100 feet above the street (with a touch of vertigo), I enjoyed the fine views over the city and the plains stretching south into Turkmenistan. 

(1) There are two trains a day; one at 3:52 a.m. and the next at 4:25 a.m. Similar time clustering appears on the schedule from Samarkand to Bhukara. I'm sure there is a reason to structure the schedule this way, but I do not know what it is.

(2) A splurge costing more than twice the price ($26) of a third class seat ($12).

(3) My phone still said we were in Romitan, that it was 34°F and snowing. Romitan is just west of Bhukara, and was presumably the last time the train was anywhere near a cell tower.

(4) Russia controlled the territory beginning in 1873, leaving the Khan in place as nominal ruler, much as the British had relied on local rulers in India. The Soviets ended the practice (a), establishing the short-lived Khorezm Soviet Socialist Republic, which was subsequently divided between the Uzbek and Turkmen S.S.R.s in 1924.

(a) The last Khan, Sayid Abdullah, was exiled to Ukraine. He found work as a guard at a mine, dying in the Ukrainian famine in 1933.

(5) Rising in the mountains near the Tajik/Chinese/Afghan border conjunction, the river flows west, petering out in the desert before reaching the Aral Sea due to irrigation diversions 

(6) I was supposed to have purchased a ticket granting entrance to the walled city and the various buildings and museums within. Because I was staying inside the walled city, the hotel shuttle had circumvented (b) the normal, pedestrian entrance to the city at which a ticket is purchased.

(b) This also explains why the driver went from the station (east of the city), then north, then west, then south to gain access to the vehicle entrance in the southeast corner of the city, actually rather close to the station.

The train arrives at Bukhara on a cold, rainy morning

Пюкс (deluxe) sleeper cabin

The samovar

Sunrise in the desert

Empty steppe

Good use for the samovar

Crossing the Amu Darya, entering the Oasis of Khorezm.

Arrival at Khiva. The steam is from the samovar

The distinctive Kalta Minor Minaret 

The Ark/Fortress of Khiva

Ruts in stone road from carts

Madrassa

Mosaics inside the Khan's Palace

Yurt exterior

Detail of the yurt door

The yurt where the Khan held court

Wall painting at the Khan's Palace

At the Ark/Fortress of Khiva

Islam Khoja minaret

View from the top of the minaret

Statue at city entrance

Statue at base of minaret

Fann Mountain lakes, Tajikistan

March 11, 2024

The car arrived at 8:00 in the rain. The forecast for Panjikant was better: just clouds. The guide from yesterday (Fayo) was already in the car. He is ethnically Tajik, his parents having moved from Dushanbe to Samarkand in Soviet days. He did not want to miss a chance to visit Tajikistan (1), especially with someone else covering the transportation cost. For my part, I got an Uzbek and Tajik speaking traveling companion; a win/win. 

Forty kms down a broken, pothole strewn road had drivers swerving in all directions. "Those drivers must think they're cats with 9 lives" Fayo said to me (in English) and the driver (in Uzbek). I assumed we would switch cars at the border. "No, the driver crosses all the time; it should not take long." We got out of the car and crossed on foot. Oddly enough, I had to show Fayo where to go a couple of times (2), as we cleared immigration and customs. While he is local, I have a lot of experience with border crossings. 

As we waited for the car on the Tajik side (3), Fayo grew impatient. He was making mental notes about possible tours and was calculating out loud the cost of using two different cars in the two countries. I was not fussed, I was enjoying the local scene of people coming and going, including Tajiks holding flowers and balloons who had come to meet family at the border. Eventually (4), the white Chevy (5) appeared, and the creaky metal gate opened (6).

Our first stop was the archeological dig at Sarasm. While the entrance gate was grand, the digs were underwhelming. The small museum may have been better without a power blackout; we used our phone flashlights to read the signs. 

On to Panjkant to see the ruins of the old city. Lots of dirt mounds, trash and wind driven sleet suggested we move on. At the central market, Fayo reminisced about coming to the market as a kid: "it hasn't changed at all" (7). Finding an open restaurant (8), we grabbed some lunch before heading to the Fann Mountains (9).

The Chinese have mining operations in the mountains (10), with heavy machinery sharing the dirt road with the car. On the road up to the mountains, we passed goat herds, villages where people wear traditional Tajik dress, and we even saw a small landslide cascading down a mountain up a side valley. I knew Fayo was my companion, not my guide, because he was taking as many pictures as I was. As we ascended the mountains we left the rain behind.

Our destination was a series of lakes high in the mountains. While there are 7 lakes in all, time limited our visit to the lowest three. The first lake we encountered (the last in descending order) was a beautiful shade of blue. Ascending further, I noted to absence of a stream or brook between the lakes. "The water flows underground, which is why the lower lakes are cleanest," Fayo explained.

Back at the border at outbound Tajik immigration, I ventured the traditional greeting "asalomu aleikum" (11), producing a wide smile from the immigration officer. Waiting for the car, the rain mixed with snow, and we drove back to Samarkand in the gathering darkness.

(1) After posting some pictures from Tajikstan, his friends were surprised he was not home. "Why miss a chance to travel when you can?" he told them. I understand the sentiment.

(2) For example, you enter the outbound Uzbek immigration building where it says "Exit" because you are leaving (exiting) the country. 

(3) Both outbound and inbound customs checks involve thorough searches of the cars, including a check of the undercarriage by a customs official in a trench under the roadway.

(4) Loss of electrical power at the border crossings did not speed the process.

(5) I was surprised that a substantial majority of the cars in Uzbekistan are Chevies, most of them white. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Daewoo opened a car factory in Andijan, in the far east of Uzbekistan. GM took over in 2004, making Chevy the local car brand (and subject to much lower purchase taxes).

(6) The Uzbek side had formidable gates and thick rails protruding from the ground at an angle that would impale a car trying drive through. These are lowered when cars are cleared to pass.

(7) For a number of years, the border between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan was closed. As a result, Fayo did not see his maternal grandfather (living in Dushanbe, the Tajik capital) for over 10 years.

(8) Ramadan began on Monday. During this holy month, Muslims fast during daytime hours.

(9) We chatted companionably about our families. Showing him a picture of my wife, he replied: "I married a beautiful woman too (a) even though I'm ugly. We're just alike."

(a) His wife-to-be was a neighbor of his sister's father-in-law. She was helping out at a party he attended. Soon, he just happened to be outside her house in his car many mornings when she needed a ride to University.

(10) Unable to repay Chinese loans, the Tajik government granted mining concessions instead.

(11) Derived from the Arabic meaning "peace be with you." Shalom in Hebrew has the same Semitic roots.

Statue at Saracm Museum, illuminated by the phone.

Diorama at Sarasm

Ruins of Ancient Pajikant

The Bazaar

Keeping the spices dry

On the road up to Fann Mountains

First Lake

Climbing up from the first lake

Second lake

Third Fann Lake

Bilingual Tajik/Chinese sign

Back in Uzbekistan as the rain changed to snow