I’ve never been approached by so many people for group photos. People in Uzbekistan were incredibly friendly, and very curious. So many approached me because they were learning English and wanted to talk. But just as many spoke only Uzbek and Russian. They stopped me randomly on the street because they wanted to take a photo. That’s happened to me once or twice on other trips. But in...
Justin Marozzi I’d always thought of Temur as a cut-rate Genghis Khan who burst out of the Asian steppe, conquered a sizeable chunk of territory, and then failed to hold his empire together. It was only when researching a trip to Uzbekistan that I discovered Temur — or Tamerlane, as he was known in the West — was one of the world’s greatest conquerors. He was a strategist on a par with Alexander...
Gūr-i Amīr Mausoleum My interest in Bukhara and Khiva centred on the Great Game. Samarkand is all about Timur. The great Central Asian conqueror is known as Tamerlane in the West but he’s hardly a household name like Genghis Khan or Alexander. I’ll have more to say about him next week. Today I’d like to tell you about the rich architectural legacy he left behind. Timur was born near Samarkand in...
Alex Kerr I’ve often thought of Japan as one of the world’s most misunderstood countries, not because it is uniquely inscrutable but because it’s so beset by stereotypes. The casual visitor rarely sees beyond their image of geisha, Buddhist temples, hyper-modern electronics and anime. This exotic projection seems especially prevalent here in Germany and in France. The truth is more...