8th June – Samarkand

Today we have a bus tour around this wonderfully restored ancient Silk Road city of Samarkand, with our first stop at UlugBek’s observatory, where he catalogued 1018 stars.

There is a great model of what it is thought the observatory looked like from Ulugbek’s notes.

There is a great map in the museum of the various Silk Road routes, showing Samarkand (Samarqand) on the junction of a few of them, which made it a very important city on the Silk Road.

Next we visit the supposed tomb of St Daniel (aka Daniel in the lions den), but it’s not the real tomb as this is in Susa in Iran.  Instead there is some earth from the real tomb site that is here in Samarkand, but it is considered a holy place for Islamic people to visit.

Next we visit the Jewish quarter & synagogue.

Next we visit Shohi Zinda street or street of the mausoleums dating from 14^th & 15^th centuries.

The first mausoleum we see is Shahi Zinda Ensemble which was built by Ulugbek on behalf of his son Abdulaziz in 1435.

The Shodi  Mulk Oso mausoleum was built in 1372 in honour of Amir Temur’s sister Turkon & her daughter Shodi Mulk.  The mosaic tile work in here is stunning.

The Shirin Beka Oka mausoleum built by Amir Temur at the end of 14^th century for his sister Shirin Beka Oko who died in 1385.  This mausoleum is much softer colours and has more paintings than tile work on the inside, than the other sister’s mausoleum.

The Kusam Ibn Abbas complex was built in 11^th -12^th centuries, it is a mosque & mausoleum of Kusam Ibn Abbas who was a cousin of the prophet Mohammad. He was one of the first missionaries of Islamic religion in Central Asia.

Next we visit the Bibi Khanym mosque that dates back to the 14^th & 15^th centuries.  It is largely unrestored and although the façade is in good condition the inside is crumbling somewhat.

We visit the main bazaar of Samarkand that sells mainly fruit & vegetables, but also anything else that you might need including beauty products, household items, items of silk and tourist souvenir’s.

After a lovely soup for lunch at a café, some local tourists approach us for a photo with them.  It still feels quite funny having our photo taken with total strangers who thank us profusely for the privilege!

We walk back to the main road to catch a taxi to our hotel past the Registan & the beautiful surrounding park & gardens.

On the way to the hotel we pass a huge statue of Amir Temur.

On our way to dinner tonight we pass the local war memorial to the towns people who have lost their lives.  There is a very moving statue of a grieving woman who may have lost her husband, son, brother or father in war. It’s a lovely way to pay a tribute to lost ones.