2018, Central Asia

We wake up early to check out from the hotel, not without taking our breakfast, of course. Our host and his family are already preparing the meal and other tourists are also there to eat before leaving.

We take a cab and head to Tashkent’s train station, where we take and old train to Bukhara. This time we have a first class ticket, but as the train is old, it feels more like third class. Anyways, it’s interesting to see how things work: in first class, you travel in a cabin for three people. All other cabins host 4 or more people. A guy crosses the train from time to time selling “hot doggy” and bread to whom it might interest. Again, there is a cabin right beside the entrance of the car with a samovar if anyone needs hot water for tea, noodles or anything else. The trip lasts 5 hours, which is quite long. We travel with another guy in the cabin, but cannot talk to him, as he doesn’t seem to speak English. Honestly, this trip is much less interesting than the trip from Andijan to Tashkent: the landscape isn’t as beautiful and we get a little bored. But that’s ok. We arrive to Bukhara at the end of the day, leave our stuff at the hotel and go for a walk into the city. A large number of madrasas, mosques and other monuments are waiting for us.

We go to the direction of the city center and visit the mausoleum of Ismail Samani, founder of the Samanide dynasty in the IX Century. Located inside the largest park of the city, the mausoleum has been discovered in the beginning of the XX Century and is quite well conserved, even too much: as many things in Bukhara, we believe most of the bricks have been replaced by new material, which doesn’t compromise the beauty of the monument.

What is striking here is that, while in Europe the so-called medieval times, culture and knowledge were struggling to find their place at the courts of Francs, Goths and other Germanic reigns, thousands of kilometers away, this region of the World was flourishing with wonderful works of art.

A few hundreds meters away, the Bolo-Khauz Mosque surprises us for its decorated wooden roof, 12 meter tall and its slim columns sustaining its weight. The whole building is supposed to convey the feeling of lightness and etherealness, in an attempt of bringing the complex, and our souls, towards more spiritual and religious dimensions. Funnily enough, these are the same very concepts that motivated the architectural choices of the earliest Gothic churches.

As we approach the very center of the city, the artisan shops become more and more frequent, even too much. Every 20 meters, sellers invite us to visit their boutiques, most of them located inside old mosques and madrasas. In Bukhara, among the dozens of madrasas, only two of them have kept their original function: the other ones have been converted to artisans atelier and shops. It looks definitely weird to see an ancient mosque being covered in carpets, bags, and clothes; still, this conveys to these shops a mystique allure, rare to find in other parts of Central Asia.

Goods being sold in shops are, in Bukhara, quite authentic: of course, cheap t-shirts or replicas are in almost every shop. But local handicraft is as original as we’ve rarely seen before: carpets, suzani (embroidery work), fabrics, clothes and other steelwork are made on site or in the proximity of the city with some artisans often working in the backsides of their respective shops. It is very interesting to admire their work, but we’re a little disappointed to find out that as tourists we pay much more than the regular prices. When we ask for the price of some articles, we often see sellers think a little before giving us prices in dollars or even euros. Prices are never written on the articles, so the sellers are free to make up their prices according to the clients (in general, Ouzbeks and foreign tourists - which pay much more).

The ancient city is heavily restored, and the most beautiful complexes, such as Poy Kalon, the Khodzha Karim monastery, the Nadir Devon Begi madrasa and the Kukeldash madrasa, have undergone a heavy face lifting during the years. Recent restorations, made with cheap materials, are struggling to bear with the extreme weather of the region, with summers hitting 50° celsius and winter down to -25°. Cracks or missing tiles are the most evident signs of interventions made more to please the eye of the tourist than to the well-being of the building itself.

That said, Bukhara is nothing short of spectacular, especially in this time of the year: the cupolas of the mosques, the water of the city pools, the blue of the ceramics, the shadows of the ancient bazaars passages give us the impression of living outside of time. Also, the whole town is pleasantly peaceful during the day and, albeit the number of western visitors, this never translates to the hordes of uncivilized cheap mass tourists that you can find in Italian or French cities.

During our visit, we notice Bukhara doesn’t have too many restaurants, and the ones we’ve found in the city center are a kind of a tourist trap: expensive and not very good. In the first evening, we try a little restaurant that looks like a local traditional cuisine with the menu presenting local dishes. So we order some dumplings but, while waiting, we hear the little bell sound of a microwave oven. We look at each other and simply can’t believe it. Needless to say, the dumplings are awful. Simone also eats a salad that will later make him feel a little sick. We swear to leave a bad review on Google or any other platform. But we’ll do this later.

The day after, we find another restaurant, close to the city center but outside of it. It looks like a place for tourists, but the location looks very nice indeed and we decide to try it. This is the best restaurant in Bukhara, according to us: good local food, great local bread, nice service and good atmosphere. We even repeat the experience before leaving the city.

In our last morning in Bukhara, we get a guided tour to revisit the places we’ve seen so we can have more information. Our guide speaks very good French and takes us to the major monuments of the city, such as madrasas and mosques, as well as to the shops spread all around. She explains a little bit of the process of making the silk threads used in embroidery and in the creation of the most beautiful fabrics. As a confirmation of the craftsmanship of the region, such process is still made around Bukhara.

We leave our guide at around 12, not before her telling us to convince other tourists to visit Uzbekistan, because “Europeans are afraid because we are close to Afghanistan but, as you see, here it is safe and people are friendly”. Indeed, we’ve been feeling very safe here and in Kyrgyzstan.

Our trip is now coming to an end, but we have one more stop to do: Samarkand.