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 Embedded
in the heart of Asia, surrounded by harsh deserts and high
mountains, Uzbekistan is the land where three awkward khanates mystified
and exasperated the two greatest empires of the 19 th century. It is the
proud, unpredictable heir to Central Asia's richest inheritance,
the legendary Silk Route cities of Samarkand,
Khiva and Bukhara. One is a fabulous monument
to the megalomania of Tamerlane; the others are citadels of Islam, conjured
from fragile oases and preserved by aridity and isolation. All three were
once imperial metropolises, and they can still work the magic. The luminous,
lowering Registan at Samarkand is nothing less than awesome. And if Bukhara's
Kalyan minaret stops you in your tracks, be assured it did the same to
Genghis Khan.
But Uzbekistan does more than take you back in time. Every
street corner and chai-khana bears witness to one of this century's most
fascinating cultural collisions. This is the country where Lenin and the
Prophet had their high noon, and Lenin lost his nerve; where Uzbeks have
always preferred skull caps and silk sashes to cheap grey European suits,
soft, unleavened lepeshka to brick-shaped Russian leaves; mutton shashlyh
to beef stroganoff and green tea to brown. Despite a cotton cash-crop fetish
in the corridors of power, the bazaars groan with melons, grapes and pomegranates,
and private tobacco crops hang out to dry along the roads of the Fergana
valley.
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