Samarkand, the Jewel in the Crown

Samarkand, Uzbekistan

The name Samarkand evokes images of a magical and mystical city, the most famous city on the Silk Road. Even Alexander the Great called Marakanda the most beautiful city that he had ever seen (and conquered). The capital of innumerable empires, It recently celebrated 2750 years of documented habitation. Absolutely no one wanted to miss today’s tour but there was a GI bug making its way through our group. Thankfully, loperamide and antibiotics saved the day. It was not all bad – an educational opportunity surfaced. For many of us, it was our first experience using a squat toilet. Today’s Itinerary: Afrosiab, the ancient site of Samarkand. The Afrosiab museum houses a collection of archeological items detailing Samarkand’s long past. The most exciting part of the collection are frescoes from the 7th – 8th century that were found on the palace walls Mausoleums for women and Russian cemetery. Shah-i-Zinda is composed of multiple mausoleums that were built to hold the remains of noble women at the site of an ancient cemetery. These gorgeous, blue tiled architectural gems are absolutely breathtaking. They lead up to a modern Russian cemetery with a plethora of black granite slabs featuring realistic engravings of the more recently dead. Bibi Khanum Mosque and Central Market. There was a chance for a little shopping when the city’s largest market and mosque were visited. Registan Square: The jewel in the crown of the jewel in the crown is Registan Square. Once the ‘town square’ of ancient Samarkand, this iconic space is defined by an ensemble of 3 madrasahs (schools) oriented to face each other. One of the highlights of the day was meeting a group of university and college students who were hanging out in Registan to practice their foreign language skills. These clean cut and ambitious young men were a mixture of college and university students. Many had just finished their first year of English. Despite having such a short time to learn the language, they spoke amazingly well, asking a number of questions and seeming to comprehend all of our answers despite the mixture of American, Canadian and Australian accents. Andre kept the French boys busy. They were University students who had undergone 2 years of intense French language training and were completely fluent – they even corrected Andre on proper verb tense (not embarassing at all!!). The evening’s dinner included a dance party. A few members of the group got dragged up on the floor by a very enthusiastic Russian man and they made the best of it.