Notes from Silk Road Samarkand, and Goodbye for a Bit
While so many seem to dream of Bukhara, I connected more with Samarkand when I travelled between the two last year. The city drew me back last week, which feels like full-circle
The “Silk Road” has only existed for a few years. Back in the golden age of these cities, there wasn’t a Silk Road- there were many. In terms of history, it’s only really accurate to talk about the “Silk roads”. As much trade was done in these cities with Vikings and Indians to the north and south as between “East and West”. Between China and Europe, there were many routes connecting them, journeys shaped by trade, seasons, and a thousand other factors.
The silk road of today is a tourist route, and only came into being when Uzbekistan opened up to tourism. The must-see cities are spread out in a convenient line, running across the compass- Khiva, Bukhara, Samarkand, Tashkent. Most people start in Khiva, and travel across Uzbekistan by rail, imagining that if they swapped the modern high-speed train for a camel, they would be doing what traders had done for thousands of years.
Though not particularly accurate, it is a convenient way to build an itinerary, and although there is plenty else to this country, I’d agree that with limited time, visiting these cities will allow you to at least get a taste of Uzbekistan (both literally and metaphorically).
Of the four cities, everyone has an answer to which is there favourite, though this mostly comes down to which one they have the closest family ties to. After that, though, preferences are surprisingly nuanced.
Khiva is older and more well preserved. Tashkent is the most vibrant and “authentic”, if by that you mean where the most people live normal lives, indifferent to tourists.
It’s between Bukhara and Samarkand that people will make you choose. They’re the two most “silk road” places- gorgeous, tiled domes of blue and yellow, ancient mosques, madrasas and caravanserais, each witness to thousands of years of travel.
When I visited both during my first trip to Uzbekistan, I connected instantly with Samarkand. Bukhara, not so much.
This comes as a surprise to many, not least to me. Bukhara probably should appeal to me more. A city of learning, a place of mystery and inquiry, and on paper less touristy. It still has an “old town” of winding streets and traditional courtyards, some of which are still lived in. The Registan, on the other hand, the ancient heart of Samarkand and revered religious school, used to be surrounded by winding streets and filled by a bustling bazaar, but is now a walled off, pay-to-enter empty square, surrounded by a manicured park and with a light show at 9pm each night during high season.
One night in bed after work in Tashkent, more than a year after I first visited the two, I found the words to explain why I preferred Samarkand.
I am reading Land Beyond the River, a book in 2003 written to tell the story of a country more closed off than North Korea. Though now a vibrant and progressive country, many of the cultural veins still pump through this nation.
When the author came to the inevitable comparison between Samarkand and Bukhara, she came down firmly on the latter’s side. Most of the book (or at least, as far as I have got through so far) focuses on Bukhara- the “seat of central Asian scholarship”, a “flowering” city. It was a place of progress, of radical thought. It saw an enlightenment that puts the European one to shame- advancing it not only by centuries but also in the breadth and depth of learning. Bukhara was the home of some of world history’s most ahead-of-their-time scientists, towering figures such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Mirzo Ulugbeg.
Samarkand, on the other hand, is “very much an earthly city”. Earthly- that was why I loved it there
It was a place where great men and conquerors such as Timur (Tamerlane) immortalised their memory with bricks and spilled blood, a type of history which never really appeals to me. Its landmarks are monumental, designed to commemorate great lives lived and lost by leaders, and to project power and corrupt religiosity.
Nowadays, these still impressive monuments are now dotted just around the city. They’re tourist attractions, ancient sights broken up by busy roads and souvenir shops.
This discontinuity, though, lets the earthliness breaks through. What is as impressive as the monuments themselves is that they have survived at all, despite the fact they are decaying before your eyes. The people in whose names they were built have already turned to dust. They are monuments to another history, a lsot time, which the modern city lives with and around.
Despite its Disneyland like façade, then, if you try to connect with the city itself, you find a grounded one. Sure, if you only come for the landmarks, you only see the Disneyland, and it leaves many people cold.
My favourite time in Samarkand is sunset. The flocks of birds nesting in its rafters come our from the bricked up cracks between its crumbling tilework, and bring new life to the mosque named after Timur the Great’s most beloved life. The tourists have left, the bazaar next door has closed, and the air begins to cool. This monument to love and loss stands mournfully, an island of its own time, which has already seen its own sun set
Across a busy dual carriage way and past the Shakri-Zinda tomb complex, and even starker reminder of the life and death of cities lies- the ancient city of Afrasiab. The “original” Samarkand, once a thriving trading hub in its own right, it was destroyed by the Mongol invasion in the 13th century and now is little more than a set of trenches and the odd vague shadow of a house.
This empty, little visited but vast patch of earth, lies at the heart of the modern city. I say modern, but though the shopping centres and wide streets are undoubtedly new, the ancient monuments cast a shadow, a constant reminder that this too will one day surely turn to ruin.
Next door to Bibi Khanum is the Siab Bazaar, where traders corner visitors with their stunning pottery, vibrant textiles or pungent spices, as they have for thousands of years. Except this century, the visitors are tourists. Last century, they were Soviet soldiers. Before that, Russians, and only then the Silk Road travellers.
There you can buy breads and teas that can only be found in this city. It is said that the famous Samarkand Non cannot be made anywhere else, because the air of the city is the most important ingredient. I’d be inclined to agree, but only because I don’t want to try it anywhere else.
When the son of a Samarkand household goes off to war, or this century to work in Russian, they take a bite of Samarkand non. It lasts so long, this hardy bread, that they should be able to continue eating it when they return. Even the food is testament to that sense of loss which comes with the ancient circles of life.
Samarkand lives in its place on earth and in time. I felt Bukhara trying to reach for the heavens, as its famous intellectuals did. Maybe I wasn’t in the right frame of mind at the time, but I couldn’t see the stars that Mirzo Ulugbek mapped at his observatory. In Samarkand, you can keep your feet on the ground and stomach full with history you can touch and a cooler air you can breathe.
In Bukhara, on the other hand, you have to try to feel how the city reaches to the heavens.
Speaking of the atmosphere- I am writing this at 2am in Tashkent airport, a week after returning from a weekend in Samarkand. The trip felt like coming full circle, going back to a place I new I love for a purpose (a long run) took the tourist out of me a bit. Also speaking of the atmosphere, I’m flying to Baku to COP29. I doubt I’ll have much time to sleep and eat, let alone write this newsletter- you’ve probably already noticed the frequency drop as we prepared. So I’ll be in touch when I’m back, towards the end of the month. I’ll be dreaming of earthly Samarkand whilst there- I hope you can too.