Khiva

Khiva, October 13, 2009

Arriving in Urgench by train this afternoon, we had a 45 minute bus ride to Khiva which is an old city in history and under UNESCO heritage. However, much like Warsaw, it has been destroyed numerous times, either by invaders or by fire or by earthquake. At least better than Warsaw, what we are seeing here will be several hundred years old and on occasion, the true age of many hundreds of years old.

We check into our hotel which was an old Madrassah or an old school or university for the Islam religion. This particular Madrassah has been used as military barracks and then was turned into a hotel. It is a beautiful place and quite large. It was warm outside but as soon as we walked into our room, it was marvelously cool because the walls are adobe and very, very, very thick. Did I say very thick? I meant it.

Out to take a tour and some photos. We have a local guide in each locale and ours met us at the gate to our hotel and gave us some information on its minaret which is unfinished. Rulers change, architects don't meet deadlines, cities are conquered so this minaret never was finished and subsequent rulers decided not to spend the money to finish it but it is the only minaret that is completely covered in tiles.

We walked outside the old city walls (again, old being a relative term). The bottom part of the city walls slopes outward. At one time, people were buried on these walls. This was during a time when the city was besieged by nomads from time to time and nomads didn’t like graveyards. It was believed that they would not cross through the graveyard to get into the city. Now there are a few graves left but not many and no one is buried there today.

Back through the gates and we each had to pay 5000 Zum for permission to take photos in Khiva. That’s about $3.50. Wow, so expensive (I remember having to pay around $15-$45 for each ROOM at Potala Palace in Tibet). This pass lasts for 2 days so what a deal in reality.

We go next to the prison or rather a room where the prisoners waited until they were called for their judgment and sentencing. There were drawings there of how different people were executed for disobeying some law that made the caliph angry. If a woman had done something bad, she would be put in this special sack along with wildcats (feral cats) and the sack would be beaten. She had to be put in the sack because during the beating, her clothes might come off or be torn away and none of the good Muslim men were allowed to see a woman besides his wife. And the cats were included because they were beaten too and while beaten, they would scratch the woman. Architects who didn’t complete their building project on time were impaled. However only one ever had this happen to him because he had two years to build a harem and he didn’t get it finished in that time. Men might also be buried alive, face down in the hole, for infractions against the rulers.

A keeper is on guard at each entrance to ensure that you have bought your ticket and paid for your way onto the grounds. These women are dressed in traditional Uzbek style and in many cases, have a mouthful of gold teeth. It seems to be a mark of beauty and wealth to have gold teeth in the front part of your mouth. Some of the people are quite happy to smile and let us take their photos while others back away and cover their mouths. And it also seems that each keeper of the gate has a "license" to try and sell any of their goods to the tourists as they come and go from the grounds.

Khiva has many, many old mosques, Madrassah, minarets, and mausoleums with some palaces as well. The total area protected is about 64 acres. We won’t be able to see but a portion of them. About 3000 people still live inside the city walls which are the protected area.

Next we went to a palace known as the Kukhna Ark. All of these buildings have magnificent blue tiled walls. In many cases, whole courtyards of tiled walls with tall wooden columns. Also in this palace was the throne room which holds a reproduction as the original throne, made of many kilograms of gold and silver, was taken to Moscow after a brief war and as the victors write the rules, they carried off the booty too. Uzbekistan is trying to get the throne returned to them but like the Elgin Marbles from Greece, now in the British Museum, it will probably never happen. We had the chance to climb to the roof of this building and while my legs are quite unhappy with the entire trip, I climbed anyway and the views of the city were fantastic. Many old buildings, minarets, domes, etc.

On to another Madrassah which again is no longer used as such but has been turned into a museum. And again many blue tiled walls. The decorations on some of the larger walls are spiral and it was believed that anyone who was having bad thoughts could stare at the spirals and it would calm them. Probably like hypnosis. The ceilings are wooden but also painted with designs. Most of the walls had Persian or Arabian writing around the top of them. Many of the tiled walls also have “bowties” which are left over from the Zoroaster religion. These original bow ties had three parts. It was to remind the Zoroastrians that they must have good thoughts, good words, and good deeds. And the reason for putting all the bowties into buildings was superstition. It was believed that anyone with green eyes was capable of having the evil eye. These bowties would ward off the green eyed person and were against the evil eye. Hmmm, my eyes are hazel. Does that count?

This particular Madrassah had 76 cells and would have had 2 students in each cell. The education was not paid for by the parents. It was state supported. They would have been housed and fed and would also study things like reading and writing and math as well as the Koran. In fact, in the front of one gate is a statue of the man who invented algebra. This man I like but show me a statue of the one who invented geometry and I’ll egg it!

Past a market where there are many of the same items for sale that I saw in Turkmenistan. At several points in the past history of Uzbekistan, they were overrun by the Turkmens. So an overlap is to be expected. At one time, many Turkmen still lived here but it is only about 3% now.

There is one lovely tall minaret close to the East Gate. This minaret definitely has a tilt to it. Our guide said it happened when they were upgrading for tourists and tried to build a toilet nearby. The tower tiled and they have not been able to fix it. We tried to make sure we were on the upside. This was attached to the Jummi Mosque. The Jummi Mosque has perfectly aligned columns of carved wood. It is just a museum now so we could enter without taking off our shoes. The columns are so well aligned that at a certain spot on the floor close to the prayer niche, you can see the perfect lines, diagonally as well. There is one particular column close to the front door that supposedly was brought to this mosque from India by a very strong man and this column has lotus blossoms around the top and a small figure of a man on the carving. It is also called the Friday Mosque.

As we are walking to our next stop, there is a couple of men standing of the upper courtyard of a Madrassah. In a couple of minutes a woman comes into the square and goes to join the men. Then they start shooting a music video and she is dancing for the man. He’s in a traditional coat but the effect is rather spoiled I think by his jeans, t shirt and tennis shoes. We watch her for awhile and then continue our tour to an old harem. This building is the one where the architect was impaled for failing to complete the building in 2 years time. The next architect was also given the command to complete the building in 2 years but he was able to show how hard the men were working and able to show a lot more progress at the end of two years so he kept his life.

Several of us climbed to the second floor of the harem to take photos again. It was quite a large building. The first part of it was the largest and was for the man with a couple of rooms behind his for his favorite wives or concubines. On the way back, a woman dressed in a dancing costume wanted to have us go into a room. We think she was trolling for a dancing show but we didn’t have time to pursue the matter. Another tour member and I asked to take her photo. She wanted 1 Euro and then 1 dollar and finally any Zum but when we said we didn’t have any, she relented and let us take her photo anyway.

Back to the hotel for a brief rest and then out to dinner. It had been described as eating dinner at someone’s house but it was actually a bed and breakfast establishment. We did have a very good dinner though for 13000 Zum or around $8. I had all I could eat and it was tasty.

Some of us plan to get up in the morning and go for a sunrise walk. I hope that I am able to get some sunrise over the city photos. They would be stunning.