We’re still in modern-day Uzbekistan, but now we’re about 140 miles east of Bukhara on the Silk Road.
Samarkand [...] is a city in southeastern Uzbekistan and among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central Asia. There is evidence of human activity in the area of the city from the late Paleolithic Era, though there is no direct evidence of when Samarkand was founded; several theories propose that it was founded between the 8th and 7th centuries BCE. Prospering from its location on the Silk Road between China and Europe, at times Samarkand was one of the largest[2] cities of Central Asia.[3] Most of the inhabitants of this city are Persian-speaking and speak the Tajik Persian dialect. This city is one of the historical centers of the Tajik people in Central Asia, which in the past was one of the important cities of the great empires of Iran….
en.wikipedia.org/...
It’s all about real estate: location, location, location.
Samarkand derived its commercial importance in ancient and medieval times from its location at the junction of trade routes from China and India. With the arrival of the railway in 1888, Samarkand became an important centre for the export of wine, dried and fresh fruits, cotton, rice, silk, and leather.
www.britannica.com/...
I think this synagogue is beautiful.
Samarkand even has its own special bread.
Since ancient times bread is very sacred in Uzbekistan. Each region has own type of bread, own peculiar technology of baking, own inimitable taste. Samarkand bread is really special. It differs in its sizes, design, pomp and weight. Even completely dried, it can be properly sprinkled with water, heated in tandoor (oven, microwave oven) and eaten.
From the YouTube description
[5:16]
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This is history, yo:
Samarkand has long been a central point for trade across the region, and was a substantial city renowned for its craft production, with a citadel and strong fortifications, several centuries before it was conquered by Alexander in 329 BC. From the late antique and early medieval period, the city and the surrounding area were inhabited by the Sogdians, a people of Iranian origins renowned for their skill at trading. As early as Han times (206 BC-220 AD), when the Chinese first committed to writing their impressions of Inner Asia, Sogdian merchants are recorded in the Chinese descriptions of the region. Sogdian colonies were established all along the trade routes and Sogdian letters have been discovered from 313-314 AD, providing evidence about a network of merchants from Samarkand, reaching various places as far as China, in order to trade precious metals, spices and cloth. Sogdian inscriptions on rocks in northern Pakistan testify to their activity on the routes south into India. Later on, in the 6th century AD, Sogdian merchants seem to have travelled west and developed new routes for trade with Byzantium.
en.unesco.org/...
Remember plov, the rice pilaf of Uzbekistan? Samarkand has its own take on the dish:
What characterizes a traditional Samarkand plov is that the ingredients aren’t mixed during cooking: the meat is fried at the bottom of the kazan, then the chopped carrots are added together with water so they don’t get a chance to brown, and finally the rice goes on top and remains white. When serving, the ingredients are stacked in a dish in reverse order. And there are few ingredients involved — just add to the aforementioned list some onions, wild cumin, barberries, and maybe chickpeas.
foodperestroika.com/...
The list of ingredients is in the YT description [6:04]:
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Traveling the Silk Road to Samarkand was a real hardship.
For hundreds of years the journey to Samarkand necessitated a Herculean effort. Arduous expeditions, carrying goods between far-off cities like Xi’an and Shiraz, made the trek on two–humped Bactrian camels over endless steppe, through inhospitable mountains and across shifting sands like the Taklamakan Desert, a parched expanse roughly the size of Italy.
Why? What made men endure scorching heat, numbing cold and howling winds, losing their minds – and lives – in a bid to reach Samarkand, hidden behind a barricade of mountain, grasslands and sand? The answer is trade, because from the sixth to the thirteenth centuries Samarkand experienced an age of unmatched prosperity. It became Asia’s great shop window, one of the world’s finest marketplaces, where everything from rare spices to yak-tail fly whisks were bartered and sold.
www.sbs.com.au/...
They weren’t just trading goods, either:
THE TERM “SILK ROAD,” or Seidenstrasse, is thought to have been first popularized in 1877 by the German geographer Ferdinand Paul Wilhelm, Baron von Richthofen. It is misleading in many ways, not merely because much more than silk was conveyed along this 4,000-mile ancient route — there was also lapis, turquoise, gold and ivory — but because it was richer still in the traffic of abstractions, ideas and religions. It came about a century before Christ, as a result of the mercantile interests of two great empires — imperial Rome and imperial China — gradually aligning, even as they were too far apart to trade directly with one another. As a natural consequence, the places that lay between the two shouldered the responsibility (and accrued the profits) of bringing them into contact with each other.
www.nytimes.com/...
And the architecture is stunning.
Here’s a real Samarkand treat: Tandoor puff pastries, or Somsa [12:50]:
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Samarkand was also a center of thought, philosophy, mathematics.
[I]f one was to do justice to the history of Uzbekistan, one would have to make a mental separation between the modern state [...] and the many worlds this land had been part of. The state was new, the land was eons old. It had [...] been a point of confluence between Iran and Turan, the line between Persianate and Turkic cultures; [...] It had produced a roll call of polymaths, from the scholar and scientist Al-Biruni to Ibn Sina, known to the West as Avicenna (980-1037), one of the fathers of early medicine. The creator of the algorithm — al-Khwarizmi (circa 780-circa 850) — had been part of the same flowering of genius that had made this land one of the centers of thought and discovery, as had the philosopher Alpharabius, or al-Farabi (circa 878-circa 950). This was the kingdom of the astronomer-king Ulugh Beg, whose 15th-century work was being translated into English and Latin in the years following the Renaissance.
www.nytimes.com/...
Remnants of Samarkand’s Jewish culture remain.
When we embarked on our Silk Road travels, we watched a video for lagman soup — traditionally made with hand-pulled noodles, although not so much anymore, lol. Well, if you have extra noodles from making the soup, try Fried Lagman Noodles.
The noodles are pan-fried with peppers, onions, tomatoes paste, and whatever other vegetables the kitchen has on hand. It basically tastes like stir-fried spaghetti. And, if you’re lucky, you might find it topped with a fried egg!
wanderingwheatleys.com/...
This is not so much a recipe as a template (with a great soundtrack) [3:19]:
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Traveling outside Samarkand:
THE NEXT MORNING, we [...] sped on through pale sunshine, yellowing screens of poplar and mulberry and a pointillist field of cotton [...] on our way to Samarkand. There were vineyards and orchards. Melon season was ending and the pomegranates were ripening [...] I had expected desert and steppe. Instead, I found a dark, fertile soil, as rich as Andalusia, where everything from apples to apricots grew. Babur, the first Mughal, had been homesick in India for the sweetness of the fruits of his native land. [...] I now began to see why.
www.nytimes.com/...
Blue is my favorite color. I guess it was Tamerlane’s, too.
Uzbek Manti are steamed dumplings:
They are served with yogurt for dipping, and in Uzbekistan, they are traditionally eaten without utensils so don’t be afraid to dive right in with your hands.
You’ll occasionally encounter manti filled with other great ingredients like potatoes, turnips, or pumpkin, but if the filling is not specified on the menu you can expect meat.
wanderingwheatleys.com/...
[3:30]
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Samarkand really did have a major confluence of cultures.
Seven ethnic groups have left their mark on Samarkand over the centuries – the Tajiks, Russians, Turks, Jews, Koreans, Caucasians and the Uzbeks themselves.
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There are Jews living in Bukhara and Samarkand who claim to be direct descendents of the ten lost tribes of Israel, although historians suggest it is more likely that they arrived at the behest of the fearsome tribal leader, Tamerlane. As he blazed a trail through Asian in the fourteenth century, he brought Jewish dyers and weavers from the Middle East back to his splendid blue tiled city of Samarkand. [...] Uzbek Jewish cuisine is a comingling of Persian vegetable-studded pilafs and Russia’s heavy meat dishes. It is characterized by light spices – a little cumin, coriander, turmeric, pepper and chilli – and delicate flavours intensified by herbs, onion and garlic.
www.sbs.com.au/...
There are also birding tours of Uzbekistan.
Dolmades! Well, not quite; but the idea’s the same. Uzbek Dolmas aren’t only stuffed grape leaves:
In Uzbekistan, you will often get a variety of different stuffed vegetables including peppers and cabbage leaves when you order dolmas.
wanderingwheatleys.com/...
[6:00]
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In case you missed it, Ancient Silk Road Cities #1: Bukhara, Uzbekistan: www.dailykos.com/…
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So c’mon into the cafe and grab a cuppa…
...and a nice nosh…
...and join us!
New Day Cafe is an open thread. What do you want to talk about today?