We caught a bus up to Ulugh Beg Observatory (1400 SOM/~15p) and explored what remains of Ulugh Beg’s 15th century observatory.
There is little left except for the entrance and underground grooves of the quadrant which must have been massive!
Ulugh was an amazing astronomer like Ptolemy and Tycho Brahe and his works were published by Oxford University in the 18th century. There is a museum on site detailing his life and works. He was the grandson of Temur, a founding emperor of the Temurline Empire. When the line of power came to him on his father’s death he, apparently, didn’t lead in the valiant and victorious manner so expected of him (science and education were his passions) and after two years one of his sons had him murdered. And to drive home the point his son razed the three storey high observatory.
It was raining. We weren’t expecting it and although it was hardly of British proportions it was enough. We had coffee whilst it passed. I was quite amused by the size of their beer bottles - at least equivalent to 1L of water.
Next to do was Daniel’s tomb, he of the Biblical Daniel and the Lion’s den (he is buried in numerous places according to wikipedia). The only impressive part of this visit was the tomb. Followers believed that he was still growing and enlarged his tomb accordingly so that when he rose from the dead he’d be full height. The tomb is now 18 metres long.
The Museum of Afrosiab was worth visiting for its 2 m high painted frieze. The rest consisted of terracotta pots in various stages of re-assemblement, skulls and other bones and a Zoroastrian altar which looked remarkably like a toilet seat.
We next visited the Shah-i-Zinda necropolis. This was beautiful. As with other mausoleum sites a holy man is buried and then other eminent leaders are laid to rest there and/or erect memorials for their loved ones.
There are some pretty old mausoleums including the first seen use of mosaicing tiles in Samarkand.
The lace carved patterns are intricate.
As ever at these stunning sites, there are various visitors. Some are what I’d consider ‘travellers’ (like us) - those who visit a site with a guide or guide book and discover as much history about the place as they can. Others are pilgrims for whom these are important and personal excursions. The type of visitor I found irritating are the Instagram visitors - those who pose, pout and twirl in front of any grave or sacred site for the camera. They didn’t seem interested in where they were, just that they looked good in the resulting image. Perhaps on branding them too shallow, and everyone has different reasons for visiting a place, but without an explanation of your surroundings it is a bling only experience.
The rest of the afternoon was spent meandering the streets. A local supermarket unearthed a miscellany of fruit and veg, fizzy drinks but no water, pasta galore, cooked meats and empty bread shelves. It rained heavily this evening. That was certainly not forecast nor terribly Uzbek. However, being a true Brit, I’d packed my waterproof so we headed out to a local restaurant with Thai dishes too. It had good reviews and the menu had more than rice and fried veg for me but service and the food let it down. Ah well. One not to revisit.
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