Musings #17 (part 3)

OUR TRIP TO CENTRAL ASIA.

Muslims and Jews in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

by Emil Steinberger

A four hours flight brought us to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. Here we joined a British tour group and traveled with them to several cities on the Marco Polo’s ‘Silk Route’. Cities that I visited the first time back in the 1940ies. Here the picture was different from Kazakhstan. Almost 90 percent of Uzbeks are Muslim. The Muslim population in the other Central Asian republics, except for Kazakhstan, is also predominantly Muslim. The entire area is under pressure from fundamental Islamic organizations to revert to fundamentalism and establish an Islamic state. However, the elected government although stained by numerous irregularities in respect to their form of democracy, steadfastly resists fundamentalist’s forays. Matter of fact it maintains rather warm relationship with Israel and attempts to retain its Jewish population with their deep historical roots in this part of the world as discussed above. This attitude is most likely prevalent because the Uzbek Muslims also belong to the Sunni sect of the Hanafi School,

In Tashkent, we learned that there was little mixing between the Bukharan and the Ashkenazi Jews, many of the former still spoke among themselves the Judeo-Tajik tongue and some Hebrew. Apparently, the major recent contributions to Uzbekistan by the Jewish community occurred during the Soviet period, particularly after the Second Word War and were associated with the influx of the Ashkenazi refugees from Europe. The contributions occurred in the areas of science, technology and arts. The Jewish community, however, dwindled significantly since its peak of 100,000 souls after the Second World War. because of the Muslim fundamentalists influence, anti Semitism and economic factors. A large number of Jews emigrated from Uzbekistan to Israel and some to other countries.

We left Tashkent on a local Uzbek airline with our tour group for Urgench, a city south of the Aral Sea. The group consisted of sixteen tourists plus the group leader, a local Uzbek (ethnically he was a Tatar). In addition to Ann and me, the group consisted of twelve Britons, a man from Ireland and a young lady from Australia. In Urgench, we bordered a tour bus that took us during the course of next ten days through a considerable stretch of the “Silk Road”. The initial destination was Khiva, an ancient city inscribed in the ‘World Heritage List’ as a historic and archeological monument. The initial inhabitants of Khiva were allegedly of Persian ancestry; however, the current inhabitants are the product of numerous invasions of various ethnic groups, the Turkic groups, the Mongols, the Uzbeks and most recently the Russians. As we approached the old city, we could see it to be surrounded by impressive many feet thick and twenty to forty feet tall mud brick walls with complex guard towers and exquisite mosaic covered gates. The Muslim influence pervades the entire huge area of the old Khiva, with innumerable stunning Madrassah, Mosques and many stunning minarets lavishly decorated with frescos and glazed mosaics, most structures restored impeccably to their original grandeur. Everywhere there were shops selling various oriental fabrics, articles of native apparel, jewelry and tourist souvenirs. To me the old town looked almost like a fantasy from a movie set.

The first nigh the tour group stayed in student rooms of one of the Madrrasahs and in the evening, we went for dinner to a local restaurant. Must local population, particularly women, wore beautiful native clothing and all were happy to engage in conversations with us, usually heading towards questions about America. People were expressing themselves freely and commonly in a positive way about USA and the Americans.

After two day of exploring this ancient town, we boarded our bus and started on the way to Bukhara. The road led through the Kara Kum desert. Stretches of the highway were obliterated by sand driven over it this morning by a sand storm. We met only few vehicles, mostly trucks carrying goods. The road headed through undulating sandy terrain with patches of ‘camel grass’ (similar to ‘tumble grass’), as far as the eye could see. In the early afternoon, we spied a clump of trees, an oasis. There we stopped and had lunch. After resuming the trip we noted vegetation on both side of the road and soon came upon a bridge over a huge river, the Amu Daria, meandering through the desert. This river and its sister, Syr Daria, flowing parallel to it on the east side of Uzbekistan, are the major sources of water for the network of irrigation canals allowing for agriculture in this desert. The primary export product created by this irrigational system is cotton, called here the “white gold”. In the past this was the primary export product of Uzbekistan, now it is the “black gold”, oil and gas!

In Bukhara, we feasted our eyes, ears and olfactory senses on a mosaic of exquisite Mosques, Madrrasahs, Bazaars, Bukhara rugs, and beautifully embroidered wall hangings. Here we met Uzbek Muslims eager to learn about America. We also visited a synagogue during the morning services. It was located on a narrow side street, behind a high wall and tightly closed solid wooden gate. The congregation was standing in the chapel, adorned in prayer shawls deeply engaged in ‘davenen’ (payers). Not wanting to disturb them, we approached the man who let us in. He was a Muslim Uzbek who turned out to be also the manager of the synagogue, supervising its functions and maintenance. He turned out to be very friendly, eager to show the Synagogue to us. He led us to the main sanctuary, and showed the Holy Ark with several Torah scrolls housed in it. Unfortunately, we could not wait until the end of the Service to talk to the congregationists because our tour bus was leaving for the next destination. While leaving the city we were stopped at a solidly build checkpoint manned by several military personal. Our tour guide warned us not to take pictures or videos. I, however, surreptitiously kept on rolling my video camera and was able to record our passage through this checkpoint.

We resumed our tour on the bus through the desert for Yangikasgan, a small town. There we switched to a small bus that took us to a desert camp where we spend 24-hours. Here we explored the desert on the top of camels, slept in native ‘Yurts’ on top of piles of Bukhara rugs and had a delicious native Uzbek dinner prepared by the family of the camp’s “Natchalnik” (boss). The dinner was served in a huge tent where the walls were adorned with beautiful hand embroidered hangings made of silk or cotton-silk, called “Suzanie” (from a Persian word meaning “needle”), the ground was decorated with Bukhara rugs and a huge table was covered with native dishes, nuts, raisins and a host of other dried fruits. Among the wealth of foods, there were interspersed about ten bottles of vodka.

During the day’s camel outing in the desert, I befriended the “Boss”, Abdurakhim who helped me with my camel. He sat with us during the meal and after we finished eating picked up a bottle of vodka from the table and insisted that I join him in his tent for some “real” vodka drinking. He and the other Uzbeks spoke perfect Russian; we had no difficulties communicating. Although, I could not match him, glass for vodka glass, we quickly found a common topic for a rambling discussion. Abdurakhim was frankly positive about America, and happily related stories of his friends who visited the USA. Then, with a twinkle in his eyes, he informed me that any one in Uzbekistan could go to America for about $15,000. This, he explained could be accomplished in variety of ways. Frequently visas are obtained for guest performance tours of the USA. Once the individual gets to the USA, he simply ‘gets lost….’. Subsequently he stays there indefinitely. I was amazed by his stories and was not sure that I could believe them. Next, as we consumed more vodka and the tent began slowly turn around in front of my eyes, Abdurakhim leaned close towards me and whispered, “You know that our Central Asian elected Presidents are political dictators and exert almost dictatorial control over the population.” (I recalled the military checkpoint on the highway leading out of Bukhara). He continued, “Our current President, Islam Karimov, came to power in 1990 and continued to be elected ever since, I am very suspicious of the veracity of these elections. However, in Turkmenistan the allegedly “freely elected” in 1991 President, Saparmurat Niyazov, recently appointed himself for life and added to his name the moniker ‘Turmenbashi’ (meaning the “Father of Turkmen”). He is a strict dictator forcing upon people his personal writings, the treatise, “Rukhnama” (‘Book of Soul’) to be the fundamental prescription for life and ethics alongside Koran.” I was appalled. “However,” Abdurakhim continued unperturbed, “our other neighbour, Tajikistan is in somewhat better situation, its President, Emomali Rahmonov, has been in power since 1992 and is expected to win again in the next the elections scheduled for the month. The election probably will be also rigged. You may ask then, why people put up with these leaders. I think that they do because all three of these leaders fully support our moderate style of Islam while at the same time fight ‘tooth and nail’ the Fundamental Islam that is trying to gain a stronger foot hold throughout the Republics of the Central Asia.”

Abdurakhim words rang in my ears throughout the ride to Samarkand. However, once we got to Samarkand the beauty of the city, and the sightseeing rush drove these thoughts out of my mind. We visited the exquisite Gur Emir Mausoleum built in 1404 for Timur’s grandson Muhhamed Sultan and climbed a hill to visit the mind blowing Ulug-Beg observatory build in 1429. The observatory was discovered in 1908 by Russians and then excavated and restored in 1948. It houses a giant marble sextant with a radius of 40.21 m (over 120 feet) that can determine the positions of celestial bodies with a remarkably small error margin of only a fraction of a second.

We spent couple of days in Samarkand visiting the innumerable tourist sites, including the famous Registan, a giant cobbled square in the middle of the city enclosed at three sides by stunning, beautifully restored ancient mosques and Madrassah and on the fourth side by a park bordering a major city street. We also had the opportunity to meet and talk to local Muslim Uzbeks and encountered confirmatory positive reactions towards the USA,

From Samarkand we drove back to Tashkent were the tour ended. Here we stayed an extra couple of days to explore it more thoroughly. The city is the capital of Uzbekistan and differs considerably from the other three cities we visited. It is more cosmopolitan and has fewer historical artifacts. Here, we had the opportunity to visit in addition to historical shrines some primary and secondary schools and to receive again a dose of surprises. Firstly, the kids were very friendly, many wanted to brag with their knowledge of a few English words and some had actually a passing knowledge of English. They crowded around us laughing, talking and asking to take pictures of them and with them. Secondly, the schools were segregated by sex. However, usually both, the girls and boys schools were in the same area. Thirdly, all students wore uniforms, girls, black skirts and neat white blouses while the boys wore black pants, white shirts and ties. They were obviously proud of their uniforms that were maintained in immaculate conditions.

The time came to return home. As we flew, high above the deserts of Central Asia, I asked myself what lessons, if any, did I learn on this trip? Answers to this question had tumbled in my mind. First, one of the most surprising bits of information was the incredible degree of material, industrial, developmental and cultural progress made by these countries in the course of the past six decades. Secondly, I had to re-evaluate my decades-long negative attitude toward Soviet hegemony over these parts of the world. This attitude had been conditioned by my experiences in Russian Gulag and later by the exposure to the famine and other miseries in Central Asia. Learning of the contributions of the Soviets to the Central Asian Republics has considerably changed my attitudes. Summary of these contributions forms an impressive list. The Soviets contributed significantly in the design and construction of modern cities in the Central Asian deserts. They build a system of general education for the populations, established grand, western-style, institutions of higher learning, stimulated the development of industries and supported admirably a broad cultural life, including pursuance of endogenous history and traditions, construction of theaters and museums as well as inoculation of certain Western moral and ethical values (euphemized by the single word, ‘cultura’. The tremendous effort expanded by the Soviet institutions in restoring historic sites and edifices must be included on this list. This impressive list has partly expunged my negative thoughts and feelings about the influences of Soviet hegemony over this area of the world and I had to grant the Soviets certain amount of credit, although grudgingly! Finally, I concluded that a number of Muslim countries in Central Asia are not, as yet, sworn enemies of the America and of the Western culture, they actually my be, at least as of now, a block of ‘friends’.

The Author may be reached at: esteinberger1@comcast.net

Further information at: http://esteinberger1.home.comcast.net