The Golden Road

We travel not for trafficking alone,
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned.
For lust of knowing what should not be known
We take the Golden Road to Samarkand.

--James Elroy Flecker


Probably as a result of our brief and expansive history, pioneering national spirit, and geographic fortune ensconced behind the battlements of two vast oceans, we Americans tend to see history as the story of continual human progress. Perhaps no country on earth disabuses this notion like Uzbekistan. Formerly the home of fiercely independent desert khanates and glittering centers of global learning and culture, Uzbekistan today struggles to escape the crippling legacy of its Soviet past under the uncertain helmsmanship of a repressive dictator. Still, despite current realities, Uzbekistan offers the traveler an almost unmatched experience of enchantment, history, and sheer eye candy.


The Registan, Samarkand

We entered the country via the market town of Osh, in reality the commercial center of Uzbekistan's fertile Fergana Valley but deposited by a whim of Stalin just across the border in Kyrgyzstan. After clearing customs, we made our way toward the capital city of Tashkent through the Fergana's heavily irrigated cropland. As the hotbed of Islamist resistance to President Karimov's regime, the Fergana exports more than just vegetables to the rest of the country. The region made the news in 2005 when Uzbek soldiers reportedly massacred up to 1,000 peaceful protesters in the city of Andijon. It was quiet when we passed through, however, and we navigated through the maze of heavily armed military checkpoints to the capital without incident. We spent a few days in Tashkent waiting for visas and gawked at young nouveau riche Russian girls dancing on the tables in a neon-lit yurt-cum-bar. Finally, after taking in Karimov's version of the past at the propaganda-packed History Museum of the People of Uzbekistan, we headed south to Samarkand to see it for ourselves.



Samarkand's very name is synonymous with the Silk Road and the romance of the Orient. Even today, the remnants of its former glory took our breath away. We lost ourselves for days in sunlit courtyards and soaring chambers resplendent with blue tile and gold leaf.









Next, we made our way to Bukhara, the last of the Central Asian khanates to lose its independence. After fending off desert raiders and voracious czars and emperors for centuries, the proud city state even managed to hold off the Red Army for a few years before finally falling to the Bolsheviks in the 1920s. Today, Bukhara is a mecca for French tourists, full of tempting bazaars, atmospheric streets and charmingly dilapidated bed and breakfasts. We splurged on a room above the courtyard of a 19th century mansion and set out to explore the city.


The breakfast room at our digs


Bukhara from the ramparts of the Ark





Finally, our Uzbek odyssey took us to Khiva, another former city state once renowned for its barbarism and for holding Central Asia's largest slave market. When the Russians sent an expedition to free their slaves in the 18th century, the cunning khan invited the czar's soldiers to relax in comfort in local homes before having them all murdered in their sleep. We decided to lock our door at night.


The fierce warriors of Khiva


The Kalta Minor Minaret, Khiva


An Uzbek folk singer before her performance

Khiva was to be our last stop before striking out into the formidable physical and political wasteland of Turkmenistan, one of the world's least understood and most bizarre nations. We sent final emails, stocked up on cash and made our way to the border hoping for the best.


Ramparts of Khiva at sunset