"Charming and Nauseating"; Samarkand, Uzbekistan. April 11, 2016

Today we leave the lovely, compact but dramatic Bukhara for Samarkand. We stopped first at the Summer Palace, or properly known as Sitorai Makhi Khosa.

One guide book I read called it "charming and nauseating" and that about sums it up. Or as our guide said, "The Emir mixed things that maybe shouldn't be mixed."

This place was built by the Russians for the last Emir Alim Khan in 1911. The Ark, which we saw yesterday, used to be the primary residence, but at the end of the 19th Century, the emir and family were moving around a lot and becoming a modern, more Russian-centric entity....and you can see it in the crazy architect and interior decor.

The peacocks in the garden squawked as the rain started to fall, and we made our way to the harem quarters. Outside the harem was a pool along with a viewing platform. Rumor has it that the Amir would sit on the platform and watch his naked concubines bathing below, and he would toss a ripe apple to a lucky lady and she would be bathed in donkey's milk (the Emir liked the smell) and taken to bed.

When the Soviets came, they apparently took great pleasure in "liberating" the harem.

Peter Hopkirk quotes M.N. Roy:

"The storming of the harem took place under strict vigilance and nothing unpleasant happen. The begums, of course, behaved like scared rabbits, but the sight of e husky young men scrambling for them must have made some impression on them. Able-bodied young men seeking their favor was a new experience to women whose erotic life could not be satisfied by a senile old man. At the end it was a pleasing sight - the secluded females allowing themselves to be carried by proud men"

I think this might be overstating things a bit, and reflecting an author's own erotic fantasies, but there you go.

It was a long bus ride to Samarkand, over bumpy concrete roads. Good bathroom stops here will run you about 1,000 in local currency. Which is about 20 cents if you use the black market exchange rate of 5,000 som to the dollar. The official rate is about 3,000 to the dollar. The biggest bill here is a 5,000, so that means that everyone is carrying loads of cash. I exchanged about $40 when I arrived, and got a two-inch stack of 1,000 bills in return. Lunch runs about 25,000 som - about 5 dollars. It is a very affordable place to travel once you get used to counting out loads of cash. That's twenty-five bills if you only have 1,000 som bills.

The hotel is very close to the Registan - the famous square that is bordered by madrasahs on three sides. It was just getting dark, so I decided to pop out and go look at the square, and bumped into a fellow traveler doing the same. So we walked over and found the bluest, turbulent sky - the perfect backdrop for the brilliantly lit madrasahs.

Many things in Samarkand have been restored (and totally rebuilt), which can be controversial. But when I walked onto the Registan and saw this brilliant madrasahs lit up, my feelings swung towards being very pro-restoration. If these had been left as ruins, or continued to crumble, who would that serve? This way, we get a very clear picture of the former grandeur of this city. It was a showpiece, and maybe that should continue.

Ulug Beg Madrasah