Sue's Travels: Silk Road - 30 May 2009

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Silk Road - 30 May 2009 - Tashkent, Uzbekistan

We breakfasted in the hotel and got moving. Tashkent means “Servant City”. It was found around the 2^nd century BCE. By the sixth century CE it had become part of the Turkish Khanate. By the 8^th century,, it was taken over by the Arabian Empire. In the 14^th century Genghis Khan came through and destroyed the city. It was rebuilt in the15th to 16^th century by Tamerlane, which is why he is the national her of Uzbekistan. He was the grandson of Genghis Khan. The Russians took over in the 19^th Century.

Our first stop on the city tour was the opera house which used the same architect as was used for Lenin’s Tomb. In front of the opera house was a cotton boll fountain. I noted lots of signs in English. Most of the city is new as it was destroyed in the 1966 earthquake. 300,000 people were made homeless as a result of the earthquake. I noted that the Israeli flag flying outside the central hotel. There are 19 Universities and 43 Institutes of higher learning in Uzbekistan. Traditional Uzbek homes did not have any windows to the street; they all faced the inside courtyard. We next went to the Islamic center which was built by the government and completed in 2007. Included in the Islamic center is a madrassah, the tomb of Kafal Shashi, which means from Tashkent. There is a library which contains 300 out of the 600 pages of the original Koran. Tamur brought it from Basra to Samarkand (I think). When the Russians came, they took it to St Petersburg. It was returned for the Uzbek cultural museum, but was transferred to the Islamic center.

Hotel in Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Tashkent Opera House

Cotton Boll Water Fountain

Monument to 1966 Earthquake Victims - Our Guide Sanam

Date of Earthquake

And Time of Earthquake

Islamic Center built by government in 2007

Maddrassah

Islamic Center

Note: Repair work being done on the dome

Local women are friendly

Library - hold original copy of Koran brought from Basra by Tamurlane

Me in front of Minaret

Minaret

Storks on lawn of Islamic Center

Inside Mosque

Note Detailed Carving

Islamic Center

Bette walked by as I was shooting Stork

Stork

Feeding the storks

Friendly local ladies

We next took a ride on the Tashkent subway system. It was clean but their escalators run too fast. I had trouble getting on! Pictures in the subway system are not permitted. The subway system was built about 30 years ago with the copious use of marble. It cost 402 Sum, which is about 25 cents. We rode the subway to Independence Square.