Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Hamkor¨Hotel¨
hoTeL $$
(
%
150 30 20; Babur 53; s/d US$50/70;
aW
)
Well located in the centre of the city, this
modern hotel boasts spacious rooms,
English-speaking staff and an abnormal
understanding of the needs of travellers.
Bosco¨
RUSSiAN $$
(istiklol 8; mains 8000-15,000S;
h
9am-9pm)
For
something fancier than
plov,
try Bosco,
which serves up good soups and a standard
menu of Russian classics.
of the Silk Road as Samarkand. For most
people it has the mythical resonance of
Atlantis, fixed in the Western popular imagi-
nation by poets and playwrights of bygone
eras, few of whom saw the city in the flesh.
On the ground the sublime, larger-than-
life monuments of Timur, the technicolour
bazaar and the city's long, rich history in-
deed work some kind of magic. Surrounding
these islands of majesty, modern Samarkand
sprawls across acres of Soviet-built build-
ings, parks and broad avenues used by buzz-
ing Daewoo taxis.
You can visit most of Samarkand's high-
profile attractions in two or three days.
If you're short on time, at least see the
Registan, Gur-e-Amir, Bibi-Khanym Mosque
and Shah-i-Zinda.
Away from the main attractions Samar-
kand is a modern, well-groomed city, which
has smartened itself up enormously in the
past decade. This process has involved
building walls around some of the less
sightly parts of the old town, which many
consider to have made the old city rather
sterile, blocking off streets that have been
linking quarters for centuries. While this
'disneyfication' of this once chaotic place is
undeniable, it's also true to say that Samar-
kand remains a breathtaking place to visit.
8
Information
Black market money changers can be found
outside eski Bazaar. head to
Asaka Bank
(Fur-
kat 2A) for MasterCard cash advances, while the
National Bank of Uzbekistan
(Navoi 42) takes
care of Visa cash advances.
8
Getting¨There¨&¨Around
Uzbekistan Airways
(wwww.uzairways.com;
airport) has four weekly lights to/from Tashkent
(US$37, twice weekly). The airport is 3km south-
west of the train station.
All public transport and shared taxis leave
from in and around the bus station. There are
plenty of rides to Fergana (marshrutka/taxi per
seat 10,000S, 1¼ hours; bus 5000S, two hours)
and Tashkent (shared taxi 30,000S, ive hours).
Marshrutka 33 travels from eski Bazaar in
the old town past Navoi Sq, Villa elegant hotel
and hotel oltyn Vody before passing near the
airport. Any marshrutka signboarded '
Ескй
Шахар
' ('eski Shahar' or old Town) goes to eski
Bazaar.
History
Samarkand (Marakanda to the Greeks), one
of Central Asia's oldest settlements, was
probably founded in the 5th century BC. It
was already the cosmopolitan, walled capi-
tal of the Sogdian empire when it was taken
in 329 BC by Alexander the Great, who said,
'Everything I have heard about Marakanda
is true, except that it's more beautiful than I
ever imagined.'
A key Silk Road city, it sat on the cross-
roads leading to China, India and Persia,
bringing in trade and artisans. From the 6th
to the 13th century it grew into a city more
populous than it is today, changing hands
every couple of centuries - Western Turks,
Arabs, Persian Samanids, Karakhanids,
Seljuq Turks, Mongolian Karakitay and Kho-
rezmshah have all ruled here - before being
obliterated by Chinggis Khan in 1220.
This might have been the end of the
story, but in 1370 Timur decided to make
Samarkand his capital, and over the next 35
years forged a new, almost-mythical city -
CENTRAL UZBEKISTAN
Samarkand (Samarqand)
%
66 / POP 596,300 / ELEV 710M
We travel not for trafficking alone,
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are
fanned.
For lust of knowing what should not be
known
We take the Golden Road to Samarkand.
These final lines of James Elroy Flecker's
1913 poem
The Golden Journey to Samar-
kand
evoke the romance of Uzbekistan's
most glorious city. No name is so evocative
