Train to Tashkent

After two days it was time to move on, so we a train in the afternoon to Tashkent.
We found two seats in kupey with some uzbek women who live in Kazakhstan. 

We soon made friends in the restaurant car.

Uzbek women in kupey watching the TV program above the seats.

Samarkand architecture

Some administrative building and a hotel that occupy the void in the city center.

Samarkand miscellaneous

Bazar

Plov
The best plov I had in the central Asia was at our hotel in Samarkand. It is hard to find good plov in restaurants as the preparation takes several hours. Afterwards you need as long too digest.

Some impressions

Dance Performance
We had the chance to assist to an incredible dance performance. A moment to be staggered - and to recover from the hot day in an air-conditioned space.

Samarkand - other major tourist sites

Gur-e-Amir is the Mausoleum for Timur, his two sons and two grandsons. It plays an important role in the history of Persian architecture. Timur himself ordered the construction in 1404 for his grandson but was interred there after his death one year later.

The octahedral building is crowned by an azure dome. The impressive interior is magnificently decorated.

Around the Mausoleum there are walls built as screens to hide the adjoining neighborhood.

Bibi-Khanym Mosque
After his Indian campaign Timur ordered this gigantic mosque named after his wife. IT was completed between 1399 and 1404. The project was too ambitious for construction techniques of the time and
fell slowly into ruins over the years before collapsing partially in an earthquake in 1897. Reconstruction began in 1974 under the soviets and is still not finished.

Ulugbek's Observatory
In 1428 Ulugh Beg built an enormous observatory, a three story high building including a sextant with a radius of 36 meters built underground to protect it from earthquakes. It has only been discovered in the 20th century and can be visited. An ugly platform retraces the perimeter of the former building. 

Samarkand - Registan

The Registan was the heart of the ancient city and still is in the center today.
Formerly the square was occupied by a bazaar as old pictures show. Today tourists occupy the space.
It is framed by three Madrasahs. The Ulugbek Medressa to the west was built in 1420. The  two other Madrasahs were ordered by by the Shaybanid Emir Yalangtush. Sher Dor Medressa, to the East and finished in 1636, is an imitation of the former one. It decorated with tigers (or lions), which is very rare for an islamic building. Tilla-Kari Medressa to the north was completed in 1660.

There were restoration works going on in one of the side wings of Sher Dor Medressa. As we learned the missing patterns on one wall were just copied from the opposite side.

Samarkand II

Samarkand is another important city on the Silk Road. As the second largest city in Usbekistan it has around 600 000 inhabitants. It's foundation goes back to the 7th century B.C and has been the capital of different empires. The Mongols under Genghis Khan pillaged the city in 1220 and left only few survivors. In the 14th century Timur made it the capital of his empire and led to a period of prosperity. The famous astronomer Ulugh Beg lived and worked there. The city went into decline after the Sabyanids moved their capital to Bukhara in the 16th century. It came under russian rule in 1868.The railway reached the city in 1888. In 1925 it became the capital of the Uzbek SSR but was replaced by Tashkent in 1930.

Tashkent has a very distinctive city structure.In the heart of the city is a big void with the Registan in the East and adminitrative buildings in the West surrounded by green spaces. West of it the city extension built by the Russians, with it's radial street layout. East of it is the old town with its narrow streets and court yard houses. In the North-East lies Afrasiab, a now deserted hill that was occupied by the first settlements from the 7th century. Around this central part the city developped mainly to the west, east and south.