Samarqand

19/08/09

It’s not every day that you succeed in arriving at a destination that has inspired your imagination and the entire trajectory of a massive voyage, a place that will help to draw links between the Mongol steppe and the jungles of India. And when you do finally arrive, it’s not so likely that you will find the very epicentre of that place gutted, and turned into a maze of tacky souvenir stalls with corrupt police all over, blowing whistles and shouting directions in Russky.

Unfortunately that is exactly what I found upon arrival at Samarqand. I travelled through the desert to this dusty city, the capital of ancient empires with a history spanning the last three millennia. What’s left today are some scattered monuments built after Chinggis razed the city to the ground around 1220. The blue domes are every bit as magnificent as they ever were after extensive restoration by the Soviet, and later, the Uzbek governments. Unfortunately, they are found in the midst of a giant construction zone that affects almost every street and building in the city.

The powers that be have erected an enormous stage in the middle of the Registan’s ancient courtyard, in preparation for a dance spectacular that will take place in a week for the benefit of package groups. There is a large control booth obstructing the view and there are frames with lights hanging everywhere, such that they poison every picture. The place is open only in the afternoons under a searing desert sun.

It’s not all bad. There are many other monuments to the glory of Allah which are much quieter and allow more unfettered access. Among them are Shah-i-Zinda, a complex of mausoleums with magnificent tile work and plenty of domes and arches, and Bibi-Khanym Mosque, with its 35 metre high gates that dwarfed me as I entered the flower filled courtyard. I proceeded on and found myself in a cool chamber under a colossal dome with shafts of light filtering through the screening. There was no one else there, and I stood looking up, taking in the scope of the building.

Unfortunately, there is not much else to report, other than hassles trying to purchase an Uzbek SIM card (they don’t want it falling into the hands of the terrorists). I have developed a variety of strategies that I employ to avoid police and spent a great deal of time wandering the streets in search of food. The city is not terribly interesting and what is lacks in character, it makes up for in dust. Upon return to the guesthouse I am covered in a layer of grime that accumulates as I make my way from site to site.

I am headed to Bukhara next, having cut the time I intended to spend here in half. This promises to be both difficult and uncomfortable, as train tickets are hard to procure, and the buses fill up with massive babushkas carrying equally massive sacks of crap from city to city. The road ahead poses even more obstacles, including a potentially insurmountable roadblock in that the train to Moscow passes through Kazakhstan, then Russia, back through Kazakhstan, and finally into Russia for good. This necessitates visas that I simply don’t have and one that I can’t get now, not having foreseen the problem all those weeks ago in Hong Kong when I made my application. The solution is to fly, which will require me to rent a wheelbarrow in order to transport a ridiculous number of banknotes to pay for my ticket.

The other option is to pay on credit card, but this is one place where the black market money changers truly offer a much better return on exchange than the official bank rate, sometimes greater than twenty percent. Hustling on the black market sounds like a real pain in the ass. It is. Worth it however, particularly when you are handed massive bundles of cash and sit counting hundreds of bills worth about a quarter each. It’s something that I certainly don’t look forward to as the guys are hard to find and as a result a single transaction can kill an entire afternoon.

It has been nothing but problems and police checks ever since I entered this crazy country, and it promises to continue until I find my way out. I can’t believe that I am looking forward to arriving in Russia on account of the efficiency and organization that it will inevitably provide.