10/5: Bukhara: Mausoleums, a Bazaar & a Synagogue

After an exciting morning seeing both a puppet and a carpet museum and the Ark, a 2,000 year old fortress, the next place we wanted to see in Uzbekistan's Silk Road city of Bukhara was the Imam Al-Bukhari Mausoleum, the building on the right below. Al-Bukhari was a 9th century philosopher and theologian who wrote more than twenty books, one of which is considered to be the most sacred Muslim text after the Koran. The Mausoleum was constructed in 1998 on the orders of Uzbekistan's first president, Islom Karimov, to celebrate Al-Bukhari's 1225th anniversary.

Steven decided he'd just wait in the sun for me while I spent a few minutes inside - he joked he could read all about it later when I posted about it!

I thought the glass dome looked interesting and appealing but didn't think more about it just then. 

These pottery pieces had Arabic engraving on them from the 10th or 11th century. 

Al-Bukhari's tomb in Hartang village is one of the most sacred, holiest shrines for all Muslims. According to stories, when he was buried a fragrant smell was given off from his grave and lights were dispersed from the four corners of his tomb. Muslim faithful believe that if somebody holds his book Al-Jomi as-Sahih on his head and walks around the city, there will be peace, fortune and Allah will save this place from all evils.'

It wasn't until I had walked downstairs that I noticed the glass dome I had first seen was the top of the shrine to Al-Bukhari. 

Around the lower part of the mausoleum were small stools where Muslims could reflect on the great Islamic scholar. 

Whoever designed the mausoleum did a great job I thought as it was simple but very moving and elegant. 

Directly across from the mausoleum was the Chasma-Ayub Museum of History of Water Supply, I kid you not!

Surprise, surprise - it also happened to be another spot to sell more suzanis!

In the beginning of the 20th century, bathhouses were one of the honorable places in Bukhara and were used by locals, foreign merchants and guests. There were about twenty of them then, most having been built in the 16th and 17th centuries. Bathhouses, fed by water from wells, all had the same shape; the only difference among them was the number of rooms. The map showed Bukhara's bathhouses in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

19th century water pitchers and samovars:

As Bukhara is one of the oldest cities in the world and long considered one of the biggest scientific, cultural and religious centers of Central Asia, I learned one of the most important places of pilgrimage in the city was Chasma Ayub Mausoleum which was built beginning in 1380 around a spring. According to legends and stories, the 'rich and trustworthy' Old Testament Job or Ayub in Arabic was visited by Satan who sent him misery, pain, suffering and a disease so severe that his body and skin were unrecognizable. 

When he still didn't lose faith in Allah, the Archangel Gabriel was sent by Allah, ordering Ayub to set his foot on the ground. From that very spot, a spring flows which cures corporal ulcers. The museum indicated that there is no exact information on the location of the spring and that there are also places in Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Kazakhstan which are associated with the name of the spring. I saw people first pray and then collect water from these taps, presumably with the fervent hope that it would help ail their skin conditions.

I previously wrote about the horrific man-made disaster that resulted in the drying up of the Aral Sea because of the Soviets' insistence that only cotton, a water-thirsty crop, could be grown in Uzbekistan. This diagram showed the amount of water left in the Sea from 1957 until last year as a result. 

These photos show the 'ship graveyard' at Moynak, in northwest Uzbekistan, i.e. all that remained once the Sea had dried up at what had been its southern part. Steven and I had talked about going on a day trip to Moynak from Nukus to see the graveyard and learn more about the disaster but we unfortunately just ran out of time. 

From the depressing Aral Sea situation we escaped to the city's thriving local bazaar because, as Steven said, you can never see too many bazaars and each one is different enough to make them enjoyable to wander through!

Steven's big purchase was a bar of soap for four thousand som, about fifty cents!

Too bad we didn't have our own shipping container as I would have loved to have stocked up on this very pretty navy and white china with the gold band around the rim! Virtually every restaurant we went to throughout Uzbekistan served their meals on this same china. 

One entire hall was devoted to selling spices. 

When the vendors generously almost insisted on offering us nuts to sample, Steven had to pantomime he was allergic to them unfortunately. 

Lina: Wouldn't you love to eat these yummy breads in sunny Arizona right about now? They'd only set you back about twenty cents!

Traipsing over to the produce halls:

I made out like a bandit with the fruit there; 4 small but so, so delicious peaches were only twelve cents; 3 clementines the same price; and 7 green apples were only $1.25. However, 2 bananas cost the same as all the apples as the former came from Ecuador. The female fruit vendors were so friendly and honest to a fault; one of them put extra apples in the bag for me when I thought I'd paid her the correct amount. So often tourists get taken advantage of in situations like this when we have no language skills and are at the mercy of locals that it was so refreshing when it didn't happen!

Grains were sold in a separate building for some reason at the Bukhara market. 

I wonder what it is with the Uzbek fascination with storks atop buildings as we saw quite a few of them!

Even for us, we had taken a circuitous route from the Ark that was just five minutes away to the Samanid Park which was home to one of Central Asia's great architectural highlights, the Ismail Samani Mausoleum that was built between 892 and 943 AD. 

As our travel book stated, "The 10th century gem housed the tomb of Ismail Samani who founded the cultured Samanid Dynasty that oversaw Bukhara's cultural high point. The genius in the cubed building lies in its elegant basket weave brickwork which glows in full glory in the afternoon light."

We made sure to walk completely around the UNESCO World Heritage Site as it's said to bring good luck! Despite being constructed of baked terracotta bricks, the beautifully restored Mausoleum has survived over 1,100 years owing to its six foot thick walls. The external detailing on the roof line and around the gallery was very intricate. 

I read a story that said when Genghis Khan and his army attacked Bukhara, people just covered the mausoleum with dirt so it wouldn't be discovered when the army destroyed the city and killed everyone. As a result, for centuries nobody knew where the mausoleum was. The tale sounded pretty far fetched but showed the depth of devotion Muslims had for the revered Ismail Samani and the sublime mausoleum.

It was so refreshing seeing different architecture both inside and out after so many turquoise and white mosaic mosques as stunning as each of those had been. The crypt was rather plain and small, but the ornamentation inside made in the same baked bricks was quite attractive. We weren't surprised to overhear a guide say that the mausoleum was built by the same people that later built the Taj Mahal in India as other madrassas and mosques in the city had also reminded us of similar buildings we'd seen in northern India several years ago.

What a shame that the Soviets built a public park and amusement complex so very close to the ancient sacred site.  

On our way back to the hotel we passed the Ansamble Minaret and Madrassa but we were just too tired to see any more madrassas that day so walked on by.

Later that afternoon we walked back to the Bukhara Synagogue as it had been closed that morning. 

We listened as a member of the synagogue, the man on the right, answered questions from a tour group of American Jews with the assistance of their guide and interpreter. The older man mentioned the synagogue's 1,000 year old Torah came to Bukhara from Israel via Iraq and Iran and that it had been written on deerskin. He explained there was no rabbi now as the former rabbi had died. Instead, a cantor leads the Friday night services, he said. 

The 82 year old former geologist stated 20 children study Hebrew and Russian at the local Jewish school. He added that he'd been to Israel twice but his blood pressure went up each time as he didn't eat well there compared to eating only natural food and walking five miles a day in Bukhara. I can but hope I look as good as he did if and when I reach 82 and can also walk five miles a day!

Photos on the wall showed Madeleine Albright, the first female Secretary of State, and Hillary Clinton visiting the tiny synagogue in 2000 and 1997 respectively. 

We had eaten dinner our first two nights in Bukhara at the same restaurant but decided to live on the wild side and try a new place our third after leaving the synagogue! We ordered chicken shish kebab and vegetable ragout, both traditional Uzbek dishes, and a pot of tea at a roof top restaurant just before the sun set. The grand total for our delicious repast was only $6! 

Steven and I both agreed there's been no other country where we've enjoyed the food so much as we did in Uzbekistan. As our children would attest to, we aren't 'foodies' at all. I am normally far more adventurous when it comes to food when we travel but I don't have any allergy concerns as Steven does. We really enjoyed almost all the dishes we had in Uzbekistan even if sometimes the photographs in the menus didn't quite look like what we ended up receiving! We like pasta dishes, (especially Steven whose fallback dish is spaghetti bolognese almost anywhere!) and lightly spiced meat, chicken, potatoes and vegetables or a rice dish in some form are go-to meals for us, given our druthers. Even if the meals weren't always a culinary delight, we weren't about to argue when the tab for two was well under ten bucks including the service charge!

Next post: The Emir's Summer Palace and other sights around Bukhara.

Posted on October 28th from Barcelona, Spain.