Suddenly we caught a glimpse of painted minarets
trembling in the blue astringent fight and the great Madonna blue domes
of mosques and tombs shouldering the full weight of the sky among bright
green trees and gardens.
Laurens van der Post, Journey Into Russia, 1964
It is worth coming all this way for the Registan, the
most spectacular architectural ensemble in Central Asia and the center
of Samarkand since the Mongol invasion. When you see the three great madrasas
for the first time, rising petrol blue through the petrol fumes, it's hard
not to feel you have arrived somewhere significant.
Registan (pronounced with a hard 'g') means 'place of
sand' - it was strewn on the ground
to soak up the blood from the public executions that
were held here until early this century. This is where Tamerlane stuck
his victims' heads on spikes, and where people gathered to hear royal proclamations,
heralded by blasts on enormous copper pipes called dzharchis. But first
and foremost this was a market; a riot of stalls and stallholders' shacks
until Tamerlane had them flattened for his grand bazaar in 1404.
[back]
|
