TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN: A PERFORMANCE BY THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF TRADITIONAL UZBEK MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

On our first evening in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, we went to a concert in a small concert hall:

It had been a very long day and we were tired. I was envisioning struggling to stay awake as we listened to an average group of musicians play average music.

Not even close.

To start out, they had a lovely narrator who announced the numbers for us. She has the typical Uzbek features:

TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN: HAST IMAM SQUARE AND A MAUSOLEUM, A MOSQUE, A MUSEUM, AND MORE ENCOUNTERS WITH THE LOCALS

Our next stop was Hast Imam Square, the religious center of Tashkent.

We stopped first at the Mausoleum of Abu Bakr Kaffal Shoshi, the first imam of Tashkent who lived in the 10th century. He was an expert on the Quran, a polyglot, a scientist, a poet, a craftsman and a teacher.   

I love this shade of what I would call either cyan or robin egg blue. The dome rises from a band of intricate mosaic patterns:

Looking at the dome from another angle reveals the thin, vertical slab that surrounds the front door, a Western Asia architectural style we would see again and again.  I read a description that said the mausoleum "acquired its modern shape in 1541." They have a very different definition of "modern" than I do.

TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN: EARTHQUAKES, WARS, AND CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH THE LOCALS

We began our journey through Uzbekistan in the capital city of Tashkent, the most populous city in Central Asia (2.5 million people). Its written history goes back 2200 years, and it has been conquered several times, including a complete destruction by Genghis Khan in 1219. After being rebuilt, it became part of the profitable trade on the Silk Road, and in 1865 it fell to the Russian Empire. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Tashkent was the fourth largest city in the USSR and one of the centers of science and technology. 

The word "Tashkent" comes from the Turkic language and loosely translates to "city of stone," which seemed to us to be an appropriate name for this city that has survived so much. 

On April 26, 1966, Tashkent was hit by a 5.1 magnitude earthquake, not huge by California standards, but the seismic activity was so deep that it was ranked somewhere between an 8 and a 9 on the earth's surface. The epicenter was also in the downtown area and destroyed 80% of the city.

The Monument of Courage Earthquake Memorial was built in 1976 (the 10th anniversary of the quake) by the Soviets in their typical Brutalist style--larger than life forceful figures with smooth, simple surfaces. This couple faces the fissure in the ground in front of them, the man shielding the woman, and the woman's arm outstretched as if to push away the force that is threatening them:


The surface they are standing on has also been ruptured by the earthquake:


At first I did not see the child in the woman's other arm. He clings to her, but her resolute face and stance seem to insure his safety: