From the sky, Urgench looks like it was lightly dusted with powered sugar. Desert and desolation sprinkled with a thin layer of birthday cake memories. It wasn't snow - it was salt. There was a sea covering this area at one time, and it left the land a salty desert. This particular area is dotted with small hearty shrubs and stubborn plants that survive despite all the sand.
The airport needed a good weeding, and everything looked a little dilapidated from the outside. But for anyone who might be traveling to Urgench, Ubekistan in the near future, here's a little tip from me to you: use the bathroom at the airport. We'd heard that there was only one, to jump into the queue as quickly as we could, and be happy with what we found there.
What we found there was paradise. Western style (although Asian style isn't a deal breaker for me), clean (and it smelled clean - which is really the issue), free toilet paper and soap. Heaven. Not to mention, it is really the only show in town until you hit the yurt camp for lunch (more on that later). T asked me once how I could be so quick in the bathroom. My answer is that I've been in a lot of bathrooms I wouldn't want to linger in, so I do my business and get the heck out of Dodge.
Then it was off to see some city ruins.
First stop was Toprak Qala. This was a city about two thousand years ago. A city made of mud, ready to be defended against outside tribes and invaders from other lands. Set on the steppe, there is a clear view from the top - plenty of time to spot those pesky invaders before they arrived on your doorstep.
I could make out the outlines of the original city, where everyone would live - palaces, places of worship, markets, all of it packed into this small, highly defendable, fortress.
These mini cities dot the landscape. Next up was Ayaz-Qala, appropriately named the Windy Fortress. The complex houses three forts, which date back to the sixth and seventh centuries. We hiked up to the top, to see the steppe in all its barren glory, but also got to overlook one of the smaller forts situated outside this highest position.
"Who wants vodka with lunch? It is very healthy, it kills germs and aids in the digestion." You don't have to convince me that vodka with lunch is a good idea. The lady who ran the yurt camp where we had lunch was a generous provider of the libations. Shot glasses were replaced with small tea cups, which were filled to the brim. Our guide said, "Don't smell, just drink, then eat!"
A quick word about how having vodka with lunch meshes with this area's Islamic beliefs, for those who might be wondering how the vodka flows so freely here when in say, Iran, you can only really get fruit-flavored beer substitute. We have the Russians to thank for this. As the Russians moved into Central Asia - and finally took it over to the extent that the countries were given artificial borders by the Soviets - they brought vodka, and it stuck. Islam in Uzbekistan is a little more loose than one might expect. No mandatory headscarves for women, no modest dress requirements. People go to the mosque, or they don't. But they all still enjoy their vodka.
So why did the Russians come here in the first place? There are many reasons: retribution for Russians being taken as slaves, the desire for a warm water port, it was on the way to India, the British were nearby, revenge for a particularly brutal and gruesome execution, and cotton (due to the American Civil War, Russia was was looking for a new supplier), among other things. Russia also had bad experiences in the early days - they were small and kept getting invaded and pillaged. The Mongols were the worst, attacking from the East, then the little European principalities would bite off chunks of territory while the early Russians were occupied with the Mongols.
From "The Great Game" by Peter Hopkirk:
“Crushed thus between their European foes to the west and the Mongols to the east, the Russian’s were to develop a paranoid dread of invasion and encirclement which has bedeviled their foreign relations ever since.”
“Rarely has an experience left such a deep and long-lasting scars on a nation’s psyche as this did on the Russians. It goes far towards explaining their historic xenophobia (especially towards eastern peoples), their often aggressive foreign policy, and their stoical acceptance of tyranny at home.”
However, the Soviets had a different take on things. I found this book at one of my stores, it is called: "Soviet Uzbekistan" English Translation from revised Russian edition, Progress Publishers 1973. First Printing 1973, Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
“The accession of Turkestan (the old name of the territory now occupied by the Central Asian republics) to Russia was a history-making event in the life of the Central Asian peoples. The political and economic decline in the feudal states of Central Asia continued in the latter half of the 19th century. At the same time the development of capitalism in Russia strengthened tsarism’s desire to expand its sphere of influence through the seizure and oclonisation of new territories, and it was inevitable that Central Asia’s economic potential combined with favourable natural conditions should have attracted Russian capital. In the sixties and seventies of the 19th century a part of Central Asia was united with tsarist Russia.”
“The socialist revolution in Central Asia delivered the Uzbek people from national-colonial bondage and the yoke of the bourgeoisie and feudals and created the conditions which enabled the territory to overcome its political, economic and cultural backwardness, and attain an unprecedented level of development of the productive forces and the florescence of culture, national in form and socialist in content.”
I particularly liked the "it was inevitable" part, as well as the "cultural backwardness" comment. All of that just so Russia could get its hands on some land and some cotton.
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