Amir Timur ruled via the puppet khans in the khanate kingdoms in which he managed to consolidate his power. This was because Amir Timur himself was not a descendant of the Genghis Khan. Without this lineage he could not become the Khan. He became qurkan to the Khan’s family, meaning the “son-in-law,” by his marriage with his chief consort Saray Mulk Khanum.

Saray Mulk Khanum, now known commonly as Bibi Khanym, meaning “the elder wife,” was the wife of Amir Timur’s predecessor, Amir Husayn of Balkh. After Amir Timur defeated and killed Amir Husayn, he married Saray Mulk Khanum, a daughter of Qazan Khan. She was a descendant of Genghis Khan.

Bibi Khanym’s Legacy

And this is the beginning of Bibi Khanym’s legacy in Samarkand. The group of monuments that bear her name originally consisted of three complexes. There was the madrasa, the Bibi Kanym Mosque, and Bibi Khanym’s Mausoleum. The Bibi Khanym madrasa was built to a very grand scale, but the structure was destroyed by Nadir Shah’s Persian troops when they invaded in 1740. By commissioning the madrasa, Bibi Khanym had intended to be the patron of education for Samarkand and the kingdom.

Bibi Khanym is the chief consort of Amir Timur. The fact that she had access to the resources required to construct these three significant monuments (the mosque was built during his absence in Samarkand when he raged his military campaigns) that were named after her already suggests her influence in Amir Timur’s royal court. She oversaw not only his harem but also the affairs of the state.

She had no issue with Amir Timur. In fact, even the second wife in seniority did not have issue with Amir Timur either. According to the Wikipedia, “it was the two Chingisid princesses’ personal qualities and pedigree that allowed them to develop such a prestigious dynastic position, since with Timurid consorts maternity was not in itself a path to power.”

There is an interesting story about Bibi Khanym’s effort to build the mosque. She had intended the mosque to be a surprise for Amir Timur upon his return. “The mosque’s architect fell deeply in love with her, and when she urged him to hurry to complete the work he demanded he be allowed to give her a kiss. The kiss left a permanent stain on her cheek; Timur saw it on his return and had the architect executed for his insolence. Legend has it that Bibi Khanym was beheaded too, but in fact she outlived Timur by four years” (Sophie Ibbotson).

There was maybe a twenty-minute walk from the Registan to the Bibi Khanym monuments. A point of somewhat lesser importance is the statue of Islam Karimov right by the Registan.

He was the leader of Uzbekistan even before the country’s independence, and he held on to power in an authoritarian regime until he passed away as recently as 2016.

The area had well-paved roads and nice storefronts. We saw these really cute Uzbek carved figurines. Although I wanted to take one home, there was limited room in my hand-carry so I had to pass.

The Monuments of Bibi Khanym

The Bibi Khanym Mosque

Built between 1399 and 1404, the Bibi Khanym Mosque fastens upon itself in an enormous ground. In its time, the Bibi Khanym Mosque was the largest mosque in the world. Even as compared to the three madrasas in the Registan, the Bibi Khanym Mosque is grand. The main portal hovers at 35 meters and its arch alone is 18 meters in diameter. Minarets stand in its corners.

The beautiful front portal is adorned with tile mosaics. The high drum and the structures beneath the dome show adornments of plain and glazed ceramics.

The most eye-catching piece on the compound is the enormous, one-meter wide Kuran. It lies open on a stone pedestal right in the center of the courtyard. Ulug Bek donated the Mongolian marble that supports the Kuran.

The interior of the Bibi Khanym Mosque does show the dilapidation that troubled the building soon after it completed. Yes, that means the building was in need of repairs during its entire existence, and for centuries. The structure did not bear the weight of Tamerlane’s grand vision for it. “Unsound foundations, ambition outpacing contemporary possibilities or simply undue haste” (Calum Macleod) caused the bricks to fall. It did not help that there were small earthquakes in the area. You can still see cracks on some of the structures.

In any event, there was significant effort to restore the complex and it is more than worthwhile to visit it. Suffice to say, that while it is certainly not as grand as the madrasas in the Registan, the Bibi Khanym Mosque was beautiful in its own right. Its story was itself a fascinating legend. It was my favorite spot in Samarkand after the Sha-I Zinda, which will be the sightseeing in the following day.

The Bibi Khanym Mausoleum

Bibi Khanym had a lavish burial that was atypical under Islamic traditions. Her body was exposed in the 1950s, and people found her wearing expensive jewelry in her coffin.

The Bibi Khanym Mausoleum is a petite brick structure. It is actually mostly new, with the upper parts only constructed in 2007. The open crypt itself was a structure of the 14^th century.

The Siab Bazaar

After visiting the Bibi Khanym monuments, we headed over to the Siab Bazaar, which is right next to the complex. I was very happy to see pomegranate juice on sale there, my friend and I each had one cup.

We also saw wonderful meyer lemons there. I have never had meyer lemons, in fact I had never previously seen them before either.

The Siab Bazaar is a wonderful spot to see local life. But it was dinner time and we headed on over to the Restaurant Labi G’or.

Dinner at Restaurant Labi G’or

We picked this restaurant because there are seats upstairs overlooking the street below. It was also very close to the Registan and we could watch the light show nearby when we were done at the restsaurant. There was this mouthwatering aroma from its open grill on the street, so we had a wonderful dinner there. The rating of this restaurant was actually not very high on Google review, but we liked our food. The fish shaslik was particularly good.

Sources

The Wikipedia on Saray Mulk Khanum.

The Wikipedia on Islam Karimov.

Sophie Ibbotson, Uzbekistan, Bradt Travel Guide (2020).

Calum Macleod, Uzbekistan: the Golden Road to Samarkand (2014).

There is speed rail in Uzbekistan.

We made it to our 7am train to Samarkand. About two hours later, we arrived in Samarkand. From the train station we took a taxi to Bahodir B&B, where we would stay for two nights until we headed out onto the next leg of the journey in the Nuratau Mountains.

As we went on with our tour of Samarkand, the level of sophistication and grandness of the sights would also progress, culminating in the final scenes at Sha-i-Zinda. But that is for a later entry.

The Gur-I-Amir

A Brief History of Gur-I-Amir

With excitement we headed out for our first sightseeing. From Bahodir we walked about 20 minutes to reach the Gur-i-Amir (meaning Lord’s Tomb, the Mausoleum of Amir Timur). Of the sights that we visited in Samarkand, Gur-i-Amir was perhaps more “down to earth” in its appearance as compared to others. Being the resting place for many royal members of the Timurid dynasty, however, the Gur-I-Amir’s interior was the grandest of all that I have seen in the places I visited this time in Uzbekistan.

Perhaps the key learning about Amir Timur at his mausoleum is the fact that this was in fact not the place of his own choice in terms of a burial. He had wanted to be buried in his hometown, Shakhirsabz, and in a single tomb. The Gur-I-Amir was actually built for his grandson in 1404. Muhammad Sultan, who Amir Timur had named as the successor, died preceding Amir Timur’s own death.

When Amir Timur died in 1405, his remains could not be carried to the mausoleum in Shakhirsabz due to snow. Therefore he had to be buried in Gur-I-Amir. Thereafter, the Gur-I-Amir became the site for dynastic burial. A few of the Timurid royalties, including Amir Timur’s sons Shah Rukh and Miran Shah, and his other well-known grandson, Ulug Bek, lied in rest here.

The Mystical Powers of Amir Timur Beyond Death

Amir Timur’s learned grandson Ulug Bek, who was a well-reputed astronomer, saw through the completion of Gur-I-Amir. He acquired a large plaque of jade from Mongolia. This piece of jade was rumored to be the largest one-piece jade in the world. This jade slab contains an inscription in Arabic, “When I Rise, the World Will Tremble.” It covered Amir Timur’s coffin.

The words felt like a mighty curse and history might have proven it so as well. According to Sophie Ibbotson, a Persian invader Nadir Shah took the jade slab to Persia in 1740. Thereafter all kinds of misfortunes befell him and his son, so severely that his advisors demanded that he return the jade slab to Uzbekistan.

On June 22, 1941, a team of Russian scientists exhumed Amir Timur’s remains for scientific inquiry. Within hours, the Nazis came into Soviet Union territory.

No matter how unbelievable these stories sound, Amir Timur possessing a strong postmortem spell of the spirit is perhaps not so surprising, given the strong will that enabled him to stare down the whole world with mounted archery.

Appreciation of the Architectural Features of Gur-I-Amir

In Ulug Bek’s time, the Gur-I-Amir was a complex “containing a madrasa (religious college), and a khanqa (hospice), around a walled courtyard with a minaret at each corner” (Moya Carey). By now, the mausoleum is restored, but the original school and hospice are no longer standing, although their foundations remain. The grand entrance portal was also the work of Ulug Bek.

When you look above the mausoleum, there is a “high drum with decorative facing beath a ribbed, pointed, azure blue dome 34 meters high” (Moya Carey). The high drum feature that lies beneath the ribbed dome is unique to Central Asia’s Islamic architecture. While the mausoleum, particular its azure dome, stands proud and beautiful on the outside, the interior will take your breath away.

The crypt that houses the coffins of the Timurid royalties is in a square. When we entered we came to face with a grand interior glistening all over with gold. It was amazing inside the crypt.

One can immediately observe the layers of craftsmanship that makes the interior dome. On the bottom layer lies a row of glazed tiles in geometric patterns. Then comes sections of tiles, perfectly-aligned in various patterns of blue and gold. An architectural feature that is worth mentioning here is the binna’I technique, whereby glazed bricks arranged in geometric patterns are placed within groups of unglazed bricks.

On top of that layer is a band of Arabic inscriptions. The lower walls then extend upward, “rising to a cornice of muqarnas (stalactite-like decorative vaulting)” (Moya Carey). Then you would eventually look up to see the dome, that rises to an interior height of 26 meters.

We wondered about the coffins. Of the coffins inside the mausoleum, most of them show a rather petite size (especially being thin) for men. Maybe they were mummies inside? But we would not know. Uzbek men do not strike us to be small in their stature.

An Unknown Tomb and a Mausoleum in the Making

We did not think twice when the guard of a newly-constructed (or possibly restored) mausoleum space invited us to see this not-yet-named mausoleum, right outside the back door of the Gur-I-Amir. Yes, we had to pay him to get in, but again there was amazing work on the interior inside.

However, no matter how beautiful the mausoleums are, they are the chambers of death. The guard told us that the identities of the two buried in the tombs of this crypt remain yet unknown. My friend came back out of the crypt saying that it was very creepy inside. One of the remains may have belonged to a woman.

A Bowl of Lachman Can’t Go Wrong

I became very hungry when I was done at the tombs. We sat down at Kafe Jasmin. With the aid of Google I managed to ask for a bowl of veggie-only soup noodle. The veggie Lachman was very good with no mutton gaminess.

The Bahodir B&B in Samarkand

I chose the budget hotel of Bahodir B&B because of its proximity to the soul of Samarkand. It lies just about five to six minutes by walk to the Registan. When you have been touring for a long day, you would just be glad that the hotel is steps away from the touristy spots. A point of some significance is that Bahodir is the name of the 17th century Mayor of Samarkand Bahodir Yalangtush, who was responsible for reconstructing the Ulug Bek Madrasa, which was lying in ruins then, and also building the Sher Dor Madrasa anew in the Registan.

The Bahodir B&B seemed to be a family-run business. The property has quite a few rooms. I particularly liked its homey patio, where people have breakfast and gather for chats.

We checked in to our bedroom, and it was clean. The budget hotel is a bit aged, and you can tell from its general conditions, but cleanliness was my primary concern. The only problem was its shower. We learned at night that the water came out in a trickle and it was very difficult to take a shower there. If we had learned earlier, we would have requested a change of the room.

That concludes our first morning in Samarkand. So far, the city strikes us as being the favorite for local tourists. It was shoulder-to-shoulder in many places.

Sources

Moya Carey, An Illustrated History of Islamic Architecture (2012).

Sophie Ibbotson, Uzbekistan, Bradt Travel Guide (2020).

Dominique Clevenot & Gerard Degeorge, Ornament and Decoration in Islamic Architecture (2000).

Time stopped at 5:23am, April 26^th 1966 in Uzbekistan. An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 on the Richter scale and a depth of 3-8 kilometers shook the nation and shattered the infrastructures of Tashkent. The damage was so extensive that it rendered 300,000 homeless.

One of the most determinative events of Uzbekistan in its 20^th century history was the great earthquake of 1966. Tashkent, being the epicenter of the earthquake, suffered the most severe damage. In Tashkent’s plans for post-earthquake reconstruction in 1968, the metro system was going to be a major addition in the city’s new infrastructure. The Soviets believed in good transportation systems that would boost its production capacity, and cities of over one million in population had metro systems. Tashkent’s metro was the first such infrastructure in Central Asia. Construction began in 1972 and the first line completed in 1977.

The Construction of Tashkent’s Metro System

Because the Uzbeks intend the metro system to be a bomb shelter in the case of bombings, the metro system was not open for photography until very recently, in 2018. It was fortunate that we were able to take photographs of the beautiful artwork inside the station when we visited.

Although built in the typical Soviet style, the metro stations were injected with some impressive creative elements. Many of the metro stops in the system are adorned with artwork, or other forms of in-station design. Some of them create a classic 19^th century ambiance in the station. Some are clean and modern. Others show a sense of the postmodern. The special stations stand clearly for the positive role of art in the urban space.

At the time when these artworks were installed, the idea itself was forward-thinking. Needless to say, the same in the Moscow metro precedes that of Tashkent’s. Moscow’s metro art is also much more elaborate. Unlike the grandiosity of Moscow’s metro art, Tashkent’s metro art is humbler but not less sophisticated. From these artworks a sense of vitality emanates, lifting the mood of an otherwise mundane, drab and perhaps typically cold atmosphere in Soviet-style underground, which at every turn expresses an old-fashioned sense of modernity. They were there as artistic expressions in a public space, the celebration of Uzbek history and culture, and not so much a show of national or ideological prowess. Well, at least no longer.

As such, the metro stations of Tashkent are themselves tourist attractions. It was also perfect for the rainy day that greeted us in our first day in Uzbekistan.

Each trip of the metro costs a flat fee of 1,400 SOM (price as of July 2023). You will receive a paper ticket, and you must scan the code on the ticket when you enter the station.

For ease of reference, I include here the touring map of the special stations. If you go through the metro system quickly, it is possible to visit all the special stations within two to three hours.

We probably went through some of them in an hour or so.

Some of my favorite metro art:

The art-adorned metro stations of Tashkent are all unique. Each of them has a specific theme and features the work of different artists.

Pakhtakhor Station

Of all of the metro art that we have seen, I like the one at Pakhtakhor Station the most. I like it for the characteristically Uzbek blue / teal theme. Beautiful mosaics line the walls of the station in colorful patterns. The pattern is supposed to show cotton, which was a major crop of Uzbekistan. Indeed, cotton is featured in more than one metro station.

Alisher Navoi

Alisher Navai was a Timurid poet, writer, statesman, linguist, mystic and painter. As a turkic he wrote (mostly) in his own Chagatai Turkic, and he preferred Turkic over Persian, which was in prevalent use in Central Asia during the 15^th century. His poetry was revolutionary for Chagatai literature. Finally, a whole region Navoi in Uzbekistan is also a tribute to him.

In the station, the bas reliefs depict scenes in one of Navoi’s literary works, Khamsa. They are five of the writer’s epic poems in Turkic. The sculptor Ahmet Shaymuradov spent four years creating these bas reliefs.

I include here an excerpt of Alisher Navoi’s poem, taken from Uzbekistan: The Golden Road to Samarkand:

Truthful speech is the wise man’s token.

But some truths wisely remain unspoken.

Learning is knowledge acquired in small portions,

As drops make the rivers that flow to the oceans.

Seek from others the knowledge they own,

Never rely on thy powers alone.

Gafur Gulom

The Gafur Gulom metro station is named after Uzbek writer Gafur Gulom. During the Soviet times, he was Uzbekistan SSR’s National Poet. The artist behind the stately columns in the station is S. Sultonmuradov. The artwork on the walls are very interesting, perhaps almost in the veins of the futuristic.

Chilonzor

Chilonzor features large, round and ornate chandeliers hanging from its ceiling.

The artwork of choice in the station are clay renditions of traditional aspects of Uzbek life, the rustic joy of farming.

Mustaqilliq Maidoni

Mustaqilliq Maidoni is the station that leads to the Independent Square of Tashkent, formerly Lenin Square. According to Angelo Zinna’s blog post, “The flooring is decorated with star patterns symbolizing the successes of Soviet space explorers.”

I certainly did not understand the significance of the patterns on the floor, as one would naturally be drawn immediately to the 19^th century-esque elegance that breathes in this station. Again, Angelo Zinna explains that the station was “built almost entirely with marble blocks coming from the Kizil Kum desert in Western Uzbekistan.”

Bodomzor

The Bodomzor Station began service in 2001 and perhaps that is the reason why its décor is in a notably different style as compared to the rest of the stations I have seen.

The station shows just lines that make some geometrical shapes. Along with the special lighting effect, these line create an ambiance that is so modern that it felt futuristic. It reminds me of a space station even.

Sources

Angelo Zinna, To See the Best Art and Architecture in Tashkent, Ride the Subway, Metador Network.

Calum Macleod, Uzbekistan: the Golden Road to Samarkand (2014).

The Wikipedia on Gafur Gulom Station of the Tashkent Metro.

The Wikipedia on Ali-Shir Nava’I, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali-Shir_Nava%27i

Uzbek Travel, About Uzbekistan, Transport, Metro.

Nadezhda Dukhovny, The Times of Israel, Ancient and unique Uzbekistan: Alisher Navoi.

Hyperallergic, A Tour Through Tashkent’s Art-Filled Subway.