Samarkand Day 3

 Walking tour attempt two. Stopping at the ATM on the way makes me feel like a baller, you can pull out a million som here. Waking up to an ATM and pressing the 1,000,000 button just feels so cool.

I met up with the tour group at the Amir Temur Mausoleum. In addition to myself, I’d brought along the Irish couple I met in the check in line at Istanbul airport. We were being joined by a family from Indonesia, English is the best language for them to get tours in here. The Mausoleum is large and beautiful. Amir Temur oversaw a vast empire and the majesty of his tomb echoes this. Like the rest of the sites in the area, it has been restored lovingly. Not to perfection. I hate when a 600 year old building looks like it just finished construction, it just looks silly. The artwork is breathtaking and is a fine example of Islamic geometric art at work.

I mean, come on

The guide shares a mythical story. Stalin sent a team of goons to crack open the tombs in search of gold. Amir Temur’s tomb had an inscription effectively communicating that anyone who did so would suffer immensely for it. Two days later the Second World War reached Russia. One of these people, Gerasimov, took the bones of Amir Temur and other famous Uzbeks back to Russia so he could approximate what they looked like when they were alive. After some years, the Russian government returned the bones. Hairy.

We walked next to Registan Square, a huge display of architecture and craftsmanship. Here was a mosque and madrassas, the equivalent at the time of universities. The structures are massive and exhibit a requisite level of craftsmanship.

Closest I’ve come to a uni on this trip

Our next stop was the Bobby Khanym mosque, the same one I saw on my first day. The guide expanded my knowledge with older photos showing how the area looked in the last days of the Silk Road. What it now a sweeping boulevard lined with tourist tchotchke shops was then an extension of the nearby Siyob Bozor. Merchants in tents conducting lively business.

We ended the tour at the oldest mosque in Central Asia and Shai I Zinda necropolis, a complex of tombs basking in the glory of an Islamic hero. Being by this point well in need of lunch, the Irish couple and myself went back to the bozor in search of something to eat and settled on sharuma, the local take on doner kebab. Thicker meat, yoghurt sauce.

I bid them farewell as they attempted to scrounge for train tickets (they sell out fast here) and I had to do more carpet shopping. Back to the factory to settle more of this order and send some photos back to California. There’s a lot to iron out. The soivineer shopping continued with a trip back to the Soviet tchotchke shop from yesterday. A friend from home asked for something with Stalin’a face on it, there was nothing of that sort to be found. I suppose that desalinization may have been the end of plastering his face everywhere. I also returned to a camera shop near Registan Square which had an array of Soviet cameras gleaming in the window only to be told that they were not for sale. Damn.

I woke up from my afternoon nap feeling less than amazing. Not sick but coming down with something. Unfortunately this meant that dinner would have to bless if a dietary risk. I’m still a recovering vegeterian and this is a meat heavy county. Anything I eat is going to be hard on me and I can’t get sick before traveling to Tashkent tomorrow. I went to Platan, which I knew nothing about but is among the most revered restaurants in the city. They initially told me they were full up for the night but were able to accommodate me in a private dining room where a party of students was sharing a meal together. I sat down in the corner of the room at a table for one next to their long table. I started reading the menu and felt eyes on me. One of them came up to ask me where I was from, I keep getting surprised by how uncommon it is to see someone who even looks like me here. When I answered they were more surprised still. I finished dinner with more of the fantastic local bread and got to try some of the wine here, it’s fantastic stuff and a shame you can’t get it in California. The best red I’ve had since leaving Rome.