Samarkand. Day 15

 Another day in Samarkand. looking at the map, most of the places so far have been in a fairly small area. So old buildings and narrow lanes (usually no footpaths and deep, leg-breaking drains). So it was good to go a bit further into the suburbs, if only to see that they look much like suburbs everywhere else (often small shops and clearly not wealthy, but not dirty or rubbish-strewn either).

All our stops today had a steady flow of buses, so are clearly on the standard tourist circuit. First stop was a 'tourist village' where they demonstrated silk paper-making. Something I had never known existed and so have never been interested in. The most entertaining part was that it was mostly water-powered, with water wheels and related thing. Essentially it's not silk, it's mulberry bark which is scraped into thin sheets, soaked and pounded, then pressed and dried like felt. It was a pleasant and unremarkable hour.

Assorted paper things

Second stop was the observatory of Ulugbek. Essentially a 15th C ruler who built an extremely large stone quadrant (4-5 stories high) to measure the length of a year. They got it right to within about a minute of the current accepted measure. When the ruler fell out of favout it was mostly demolished and buried. More interesting than the paper, but less to see.

The third stop was the necropolis. Actually an avenue of mauseleums running up a hillside that have accumulated around the claimed burial place of a cousin of Mohammed. Many of the tombs are now unidentified.

After this we went to a domestic house with a largish courtyard where the family provided a traditional meal of plov (as previously described meat, rice, carrot)(despite Lynn's fears definitely not horse meat, they're adamant on that). This was pleasant and not quick, so occupied much of the afternoon.

You're always made to do stupid stuff like this.


Comments

  1. Dad18 September 2026 at 03:43

    Oh No!!
    How could you?
    Dressed like some Uzbek nomads.
    But, as you say, sometimes tourists have to do some corny touristy things. I guess that you had to pay for the pleasure.
    Lovely spring day here.
    Dad

    ReplyDelete

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