We left Khujand, Tajikistan, in the late afternoon and headed west to Uzbekistan. During the night we had a smooth border crossing, and when we woke up, we had breakfast on the train. We disembarked after covering about 600 miles.
The usual unusual welcoming committee greeted us at the train station. This particular group sounded a lot like my kids playing the kazoo and other instruments when they were little. There didn't seem to be any melody; it was just a matter of making a noise. There were also some dancers this time, and a few of our fellow travelers even got in on the act.
Our destination was the city of Khiva, about 35 miles from the train station. It has the distinction of being the most northern area in the world where cotton is grown. It is also known for its old walled city that has an unusual number of madrasas, 60 to be exact. Here is one of them:
Khiva is a mix of the old and the VERY old. Some structures may date as far back as the 6th century.
From some angles, it looked like a giant sandcastle:
Our final two stops in Khujand were a contrast in economics.
The first stop was a good representation of the Tajik masses, the 99%. We were dropped off in front of this huge city square:
Like lace on the hem of a dress, these delicate mosques edged the broad expanse. Unfortunately, we did not have time to explore them:
There were lots of children in tow, and we noticed something here we had seen in Kazakhstan: child-sized motorized cars for rent, like a carnival ride but without any tracks or fencing. It looked like a young kid's dream:
This square serves as the entrance to Panjshanbe Market, Khujand's main shopping area:
Just about everything you can imagine, and just about everything a local resident needs, is found at this market, from cumin seed to lingerie. The (mostly) tantalizing smells, the cacophonous bustling, the flavorful dishes, and the crowded stalls created a bit of sensory overload.
Russia conquered most of Central Asia in the 19th century, and by 1885 Tajikistan was completely controlled by Russia or its satellites. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks and Lenin wrenched any semblance of self-governance away from the locals, conducted a couple of purges, and imposed harsh laws and restrictions that led to famine and violence.
Even after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent independence of Tajikistan, the shadow of Lenin hung over the country for many years.
And so of COURSE there is an oversized monument to Lenin in Khujand. It was erected in 1974 on the 50th anniversary of Lenin's death because, you know, it's important to memorialize the guy who took over your country and outlawed your religion and co-opted your farms and starved your people.
This 36-foot-tall statue on the 36-foot-tall base is the largest statue of Lenin in Central Asia. (Some sources say it is the largest in the world,)
But 20 years after the break-up of the Soviet Union, the Tajiks finally decided Lenin's days were over, and they sort of got even. They dismantled Lenin's statue during the night and re-assembled it on the edge of town in a low-lying, low-visibility, scrubby park called Victory Field. Now instead of surveying the center of commerce in downtown Khujand, Vladimir rules over a bunch of old posters of war heroes lining a quiet sidewalk leading to an uninspiring war memorial. It gives new meaning to the phrase "social outcast."
Walking away from Lenin . . .
to the war memorial . . .
. . . and back to Lenin. That's it, folks.
At least there are some pretty (thorny) flowers in the foreground:
After finishing up in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, we took a little detour into Tajikistan. We had started our visit to Uzbekistan in Tashkent (green arrow) and then meandered down to Samarkand (red arrow). From there we headed back east to Khujand, Tajikistan (blue arrow). After a day in Tajikistan, we would go back into Uzbekistan to visit Bukhara (yellow arrow). It didn't seem to be the most efficient route, but we were following train tracks. Besides, who needed to be efficient? We were nomads on the Silk Road, right?
The jaunt into Tajikistan turned out to be one of our most dramatic and at the same time one of our smoothest border crossings of the trip. Tajikistan is a major port for drugs coming from Afghanistan and then being dispersed to the rest of the world, and our tour company had heard some horror stories about people crossing the border into Tajikistan and being arrested for a single pain pill in their possession. They had us gather up ALL our medications (prescription and non-prescription) and anything that looked like a drug (vitamins, etc.) and put them in a bag marked with our name. They left everyone's bags in Uzbekistan with our trip doctor's brother. (Yes, we had a local doctor traveling with us. He was kept quite busy.) He would meet us when we came back across the border into Uzbekistan at another location and return our drugs to us.
Not quite sure what was ahead and a little nervous, we went to bed and our train headed towards the border. Someone came by our rooms at 12:30 AM to get our passports so that we could leave Uzbekistan, and then someone came back a few hours later to get our visas that would allow us to enter Tajikistan. To our knowledge, no local military personnel boarded the train, and it was nice that for once the border patrol did not come in our rooms to take pictures of our groggy faces.
Much ado about nothing, apparently, but better safe than sorry.
In the morning after breakfast on the train, we were met in Khujand, the second-largest city in Tajikistan, by an eight-man band playing traditional instruments that sounded like the most annoying horsefly you can imagine buzzing around and around and around your head. I wouldn't call this music, but it was entertaining to listen to:
Off to the side, three young ladies were holding welcoming stacks of concentric circles of bread drenched in honey:
It was beautiful but sticky and not particularly tasty:
This city was named Leninabad during the "Soviet Era" (1936 to 1991), and we could see the Soviet influence, even though the Russian population today is only 3-4%.
