My favorite description of Khiva comes courtesy of Lonely Planet: "Khiva's name, redolent of slave caravans, barbaric cruelty, terrible desert journeys and steppes infested with wild tribesmen, struck fear into all but the boldest 19th century hearts. Nowadays it's a friendly and welcoming Silk Road old town that's very set up for tourism..."
Old Khiva is a perfectly preserved walled city that can feel a bit empty, until you start to feel that there is still a lot of soul and history in this place. Locals use to as a short cut to get across town, or to the market, and that helps offset the hawkers of fur hats and trinkets.
The Kalta Minor Minaret was started in 1851 by Mohammed Amin Khan. But he dropped dead in 1855 and it wasn't finished. Even though it is really just the base of something that was supposed to be grand, it has its unique look working for it. There is a poem on the top of the minaret that reads:
"This minaret was finished,
It reached the sky, it was so beautiful
Even the trees in the heavens,
Were just a shadow of this minaret."
So instead of calling it incomplete, they decided to call it good as is.
There is so much to see in this place, that it is easy to lose track of exactly what you've seen. Each courtyard seems familiar, but more spectacular than the last one.
The little city is full of palaces, harem residences, and spectacular tile work at every turn. The details are incredible, especially when you know what you are looking at. For instance, Zoroastrianism had been absorbed by Islam, but some symbols and signs came out in the in the tile work. The three tenets of Zoroastrianism (good thoughts, good deeds, good words) are symbolized by this:
During a break for coffee, I could not get over how beautiful the proprietor of the cafe was - she would flash this gold-toothed smile. I didn't want to be rude, but I really wanted a picture of that smile, so I asked her permission and she graciously posed for me, with a little gold-tinged Mona Lisa smile.
As we continued our wander, I couldn't help but recall some of the stories that Peter Hopkirk had written about in "The Great Game." I could easily imagine the place packed with people attending the slave market in some of the wide open spaces.
“The Russians had one further interest in this remote medieval kingdom. Over the years large numbers of Russian citizens – men, women and children – had been sold into lifelong bondage in the flourishing slave-markets of Khiva and Bokhara. Originally they had included survivors from the 1717 expedition, but they were now mostly soldiers and settlers kidnapped or captured by the Kirghiz tribes around Orenburg, or fishermen and their families seized by the Turcomans on the shores of the Caspian. Very little was known about their plight, for escape was virtually impossible. It was Muraviev’s final task to try to discover all he could about them….”
“He (Muraviev) was now anxious to leave Khiva before the winter closed in, as there was a risk that the warship which had orders to await his return might be trapped in the ice until the following spring. It was while the Khan’s officials prepared for their journey to Tiflis with him that the Russian slaves managed to smuggle a brief and poignant message to him about their plight….it read, ‘We venture to inform Your Honour that there are over 3,000 Russian slaves in this country who have to endure unheard-of suffering from hunger, cold and overwork, as well as every kind of insult. Take pity on our plight and lay it before His Majesty the Emperor. In gratitude we poor prisoners pray to God for your welfare.’…Young Russian males, Muraviev learned, fetched the highest prices in the Khivan slave-market. Persian males fetched considerably less, and Kurds least of all. ‘On the other hand,’ he reported, ‘a Persian female slave commanded a far higher price than a Russian one.’ Slaves caught trying to escape were nailed by their ears to a door, being too valuable to execute.”
The last stop for the day was a the mausoleum of Pahlavon Mahmud, otherwise known as the patron saint of Khiva and wrestlers. He was a poet-philosopher and an invincible wrestler in the land. He was honored in Iran, India and Pakistan. But one day he was set to wrestle a competitor in India. He was walking near a graveyard before the match and saw a woman crying in front of two graves. He tried to help her, and offered her money. She would not stop crying. She told him that her husband had been a great wrestler, but when he lost, the king chopped off his head. Then her first son was another great wrestler, but when he eventually lost, the king had also cut his head off.
Pahlavon Mahmud said, "Today you will get your wish." When the match time came they started to wrestle, and Pahlavon Mahmud eventually let the Indian win. It was his only loss. That's him lying down in the picture.
Pahlavon Mahmud was also known as a great liberator. The Khormian people had become the slaves of India. The king invited Pahlavon Mahmoud out hunting as his distinguished guest. Pahlavon Mahmud saved he king from falling off a cliff, and the Indian king said that as his reward, he could have anything in the treasury. Pahlavon Mahmud asked if he could put all the Khormian people inside the reward, if the king would free the ones who fit. The king laughed, saying of course, as this was impossible. So Pahlavon Mahmud asked for any animal skin, asking the king again to free any people he could fit inside the skin. Again, the king agreed, and gave him a bull's skin.
Now, unbeknownst to the king, Pahlavon Mahmud had been a clever rope maker. So he worked and stretched the bull skin until it made a strong rope. He then told all the Khormian slaves to meet inside the stadium at the same time the next day. Then Pahlavon Mahmud attached the rope to the entrance and ran around the outside of the stadium, and attached the skin rope ends together.
"Look," he told the Indian king, "All the slaves you have fit inside this one bull skin." The king knew he had been bested and agreed to free the slaves.
It is easier to crush the sky.
It is easier to spend one hundred years in prison.
It is easier to paint the sky with my blood,
Than it is to talk to the stupid man."
Pahlavon Mahmud (1247-1326)
The locals make pilgrimages here to ask for blessings and wisdom. There is a well in the courtyard of the mausoleum and we saw a bride and groom drink from it while their family and friends watched. Some of the attendants hammed it up for us while the bride and groom were inside the mausoleum.
Our day ended in a restaurant with some local musicians performing folk music. There were cute children dancing, and ladies decked out in jewelry and hats dancing...but the real star was the accordion player. Wearing the traditional wool hat, his incredibly long fingers ran up and down the keyboard side of the instrument, and every once in while, he would flash a gold smile that sparkled against his dark skin. He was obviously enjoying himself.
Comments
Post a Comment