"Thatcher, Bush and Gorbachev were having an audience with God. He asked each of them in turn what they most wanted to see achieved during their lifetime.
'The elimination of inflation.' said Thatcher. 'No", said God, 'that will not be achieved during your lifetime'.
'The annihilation of all Communists.' said Bush. 'No', said God, 'that will not be achieved during your lifetime'.
'Aeroflot planes that will fly on time.' said Gorbachev. 'No', said God, 'that will not even be achieved during my lifetime.'"
That was how our Intourist guide had tried to prepare us for the eight hour delay before our TU154 took off from Moscow for Samarkand . The lack of punctuality of Aeroflot services was not surprising. Nor was the great contrast between Moscow and Soviet Uzbekistan. Moscow is a Eurpoean city and, in mid January, was in the grip of an icy winter. There was almost a foot of snow at the airport and, as we flew south-eastwards, we saw in the moonlight the snowy course of the frozen Volga .
Samarkand is as far away from Moscow, both in distance and culture, as Moscow is from London . Even though we arrived at Samarkand at 2am local time, the contrasts were clear the moment that we walked down from the plane onto the tarmac. The air was mild and there was the warm sweet, smell of a hot country. In the starry sky there were unknown southern constellations. Despite the time, men with Turkish features and darker skins were standing and sitting around, apparently doing nothing but talking. Everyone was more relaxed. As we were driven through the dark and deserted city to our hotel, we caught shadowy glimpses of the domes of mosques, single storey houses and small shops. We were definitely in Asia .
The mosques, madrasas and mausoleums in Samarkand and Bukhara are wonderful. From a distance, they are large and imposing. The predominant colours are the light "cafe au lait" brown of the brick work and the clear blue of the tile work. Their domes rise above the houses. Some are smooth, with plain duck egg blue tiles. Others, like that above the Gur Emir Mausoleum, are fluted with elaborately designed tiles which descend into squinches like honeycombs. The open courtyards are grand and often symmetrical, with huge arches facing each other across the squares where, in more religious times, thousands of worshippers would have knelt facing towards Mecca . There are minarets, but not tall and slender as in Turkey, or square as in North Africa . Mostly they rise out of the ground, rather than from the mosques themselves. They are solid and round, tapering slightly towards the top, like giant pepper pots or candlesticks.
Close up, the intricate patterns of the tiles are beautiful. Some designs are geometrical, based on stars or diamonds, whereas others use calligraphy to emphasise passages from the Koran. Islamic custom normally prevents the use of human or animal forms as decoration, but on the Registan in Samarkand there are large tigers and goats. In other mosques, tiles show stylised flowers in yellows and greens against a blue background.
Some of the mausoleums in Samarkand date from the eleventh century. Most though were built later, after Genghis Khan had pillaged, burnt and plundered the city and killed most of its 400,000 inhabitants in 1220. From the mid thirteenth century, the city was rebuilt and prospered again as an important staging post on the Silk Road between Europe and China . The Shah-i-Zendeh, a narrow street of small mausoleums, was built by Tamerlane in the 14th and 15th centuries. Ulu-Beg's obsevatory, with a sextant which was originally 63 meters high was built by Tamerlane's grandson in 1428.
The mountains to the south of Samarkand form a backdrop to the mosques. Although Samarkand itself was mild and spring like they were covered with snow. One afternoon, we drove out into the mountains, through villages of houses made of stone with flat mud roofs supported by branches. Astrakan sheep grazed by the side of the road.
We left the road and walked up a snowy track, past laburnum trees and huge rocks, to a col. To the south there was a wide snowy landscape without a trace of human habitation. In the distance there was a high range of white mountains. They were the Gissarskiy Khrebet, the western end of the Pamirs, a continuous and unbroken chain of mountains which reaches to the Himalayas . Beyond the mountains, less than 200 miles away, was the Oxus River and the Afghan border. To the east, only 400 miles away, was the Chinese border and Sinkiang Province . There was complete silence without a breath of wind. It felt as if we were on the edge of yet another world, and in a sense we were. The region's strategic position was emphasised by the radar post on the mountain above us, where unseen men were presumably watching to the south and east. This military post was however the only modern incursion into a wild and primeval scene which must have looked exactly the same when Marco Polo visited Samarkand during his travels along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295.