Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
destabilised by the power vacuum left by
Karimov's death. Despite the fact that few
view Karimov with much fondness, Uzbeks
are well aware that it's often a case of 'better
the devil you know' in Central Asian politics.
The Uzbeks
Little is known of early Uzbek history. At
the time the Golden Horde was founded,
Shibaqan (Shayban), a grandson of Ching-
gis Khan, inherited what is today northern
Kazakhstan and adjacent parts of Russia.
The greatest khan of these Mongol Shaybani
tribes (and probably the one under whom
they swapped paganism for Islam) was Öz-
beg (Uzbek, ruled 1313-40). By the end of
the 14th century these tribes had begun to
name themselves after him.
The Uzbeks began to move southeast,
mixing with sedentary Turkic tribes and
adopting the Turkic language; they reached
the Syr-Darya in the mid-15th century. Fol-
lowing an internal schism (which gave birth
to the proto-Kazakhs), the Uzbeks rallied
under Mohammed Shaybani and thundered
down upon the remnants of Timur's empire.
By the early 1500s, all of Transoxiana ('the
land beyond the Oxus') from the Amu-Darya
to the Syr-Darya belonged to the Uzbeks, as
it has since.
The greatest (and indeed last) of the
Shaybanid khans, responsible for some of
Bukhara's finest architecture, was Abdullah
II, who ruled from 1538 until his death in
1598. After this, as the Silk Road fell into dis-
use, the empire unravelled under the Shay-
banids' distant cousins, the Astrakhanids.
By the start of the 19th century the entire
region was dominated by three weak, feud-
ing Uzbek city-states - Khiva, Bukhara and
Kokand.
History
The land along the upper Amu-Darya (Oxus
River), Syr-Darya (Jaxartes River) and their
tributaries has always been different from
the rest of Central Asia - more settled than
nomadic, with patterns of land use and
communality that has changed little from
the time of the Achaemenids (6th century
BC) to the present day. An attitude of per-
manence and proprietorship still sets the
people of this region apart.
Ancient Empires
The region was part of some very old Per-
sian states, including Bactria, Khorezm and
Sogdiana. In the 4th century BC Alexander
the Great entered Cyrus the Great's Achae-
menid empire. He stopped near Marakanda
(Samarkand) and then, having conquered
the Sogdians in their homeland mountains,
married Roxana, the daughter of a local
chieftain.
Out of the northern steppes in the 6th
century AD came the Western Turks - the
western branch of the empire of the so-
called Kök (Blue) Turks. They soon grew
attached to life here and abandoned their
wandering ways, eventually taking on a sig-
nificant role in maintaining the existence of
the Silk Road. The Arabs brought Islam and
a written alphabet to Central Asia in the 8th
century but found the region too big and
restless to govern.
A return to the Persian fold came with
the Samanid dynasty in the 9th and 10th
centuries. Its capital, Bukhara, became the
centre of an intellectual, religious and com-
mercial renaissance. In the 11th century
the Ghaznavids moved into the southern
regions. For some time the Turkic Khorezm-
shahs dominated Central Asia from present-
day Konye-Urgench in Turkmenistan, but
their reign was cut short by Chinggis Khan
in the early 13th century.
Central Asia again became truly 'central'
with the rise of Timur (also known as Ta-
merlane), the ruthless warrior and patron of
the arts who fashioned a glittering Islamic
capital at Samarkand.
The Russians Arrive
In the early 18th century the khan of Khiva
made an offer to Peter the Great of Russia
(to become his vassal in return for help
against marauding Turkmen and Kazakh
tribes), stirring the first Russian interest
in Central Asia. But by the time the Rus-
sians got around to marching on Khiva in
1717, the khan no longer wanted Russian
protection, and after a show of hospitality
he had almost the entire 4000-strong force
slaughtered.
The slave market in Bukhara and Khiva
was an excuse for further Russian visits to
free a few Russian settlers and travellers. In
1801 the mentally unstable Tsar Paul sent
22,000 Cossacks on a madcap mission to
drive the British out of India, along with
orders to free the slaves en route. Fortu-
nately for all but the slaves, the tsar was
