A Carpet Ride to Khiva: Seven Years on the Silk Road

by Christopher Aslan Alexander

  * * *

  By December, plastic green New Year trees, sparsely covered strings of tinsel and bright turquoise baubles were on sale at the bazaar. The Soviets, compromising on Christmas, had taken its non-religious imagery and tacked it onto New Year celebrations. There was also Grandfather Snow – a generic Santa – and a snow bunny who had, perhaps, hopped in from the Easter narrative. With just a few weeks to go, I was looking forward to a Christmas back home in Cambridge and three months staying at my parents’ house. It was the end of my fourth year in Khiva.

  Before that, however, I was keen to prepare for workshop expansion, planning to invite more weavers to join us on my return. With new looms in mind, Madrim introduced me to the metal bazaar in Urgench. Situated on the edge of the city and battered by relentless winds, the metal bazaar was a graveyard for products of Soviet industry. Derelict factories, stripped of anything metal, kept the bazaar in business. We found thick, hollow steel pipes for the crossbeams of each loom and iron girders for the sides, but needed a welder to assemble them.

  Welders in Khiva proved a fearless bunch, happy to weld in sewers up to their knees in water, oblivious to the risk of electrocution. One welder, in response to my concerns for his safety, proudly revealed a pronounced scar on one buttock where a huge electrical charge had exited. Foolishly we hired Hoshnaut the dyer’s father, who made a terrible job of the new looms, which later required re-welding by someone more competent.

  The first beneficiaries of a new loom were to be the two weaving ustas. Ulugbibi, in particular, had become quite lazy, shouting at the weavers to work faster while doing very little herself. But my plans for new equipment were put on hold after a phone call from Barry in Tashkent informing us of Hatice’s imminent arrival. Hatice, pronounced ‘Hatijey’, was a Turk from Ankara and a carpet specialist whom Barry had invited to provide us with some much-needed advice. We were particularly hoping for more help with the dyeing, as Fatoulah had taught us virtually nothing of use. Unfortunately, Hatice’s timing couldn’t have been worse. I was leaving for the UK halfway through her proposed visit and we had no gas in the workshop, making any dyeing extremely time-consuming as the boys spent half their time chopping wood.

  Barry was outraged when I explained the situation.

  ‘But why don’t you have gas? How can the whole of Khiva be without gas in the middle of winter, and how is this woman meant to teach you anything if there’s no gas?! I shall speak to the Mayor about this immediately!’

  Barry’s wrath provoked a swift response, and a few hours later three men from the Mayor’s office appeared. I asked them angrily why – if Uzbekistan was able to export gas to Russia – there was not enough for its own people? They looked uneasy, assuring me that the Mayor would personally provide us with gas canisters, enough to warm each cell and fuel the cauldrons.

  ‘And would these canisters be available all winter?’ I asked, to which the answer was, of course, no. Unfortunately they could provide them only for the duration of our guest’s visit.

  It was the usual cosmetic approach: the more important the visitor, the more impressive this illusion of progress became. During one presidential visit, the Mayor of Urgench had once even arranged for the dwindling canals to be filled with water during a summer of drought – as if the realities of life might prove too much for the President to bear. These little fictions served no purpose – a game of charades with no winners.

  Barry called to confirm Hatice’s arrival in Tashkent.

  ‘Chris, I think I’ll come up with her and stay for the first day or so, just to make sure that she’s OK. She doesn’t speak much English and obviously my Russian is useless on her. She seems a little … overwhelmed.’

  They arrived at lunchtime, Hatice looking around warily, obviously ill at ease. I greeted her in Turkish and managed to explain that I was born in Ankara and that she could call me Aslan. She was tired, so we postponed a workshop tour until after lunch and took her to the Arkanchi Hotel, just across the orchard from our workshop.

  The hotel interior boasted kitsch on a lavish scale. Fussy net curtains, festooned with rainbow garlands of plastic flowers, competed with gilt-framed pictures of tigers and deer reclining beside waterfalls, and an iridescent picture of Mecca that flashed when switched on. As if this wasn’t enough, the rooms were warm, and a good spread was prepared for us. Hatice looked around in dismay.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she began. ‘Why have you put me here? Where are the good hotels?’

  Barry gave me a look.

  ‘This is the best hotel in Khiva,’ I explained, ‘and you’ll be really close to the workshop!’

  Hatice was not impressed.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll be well looked after,’ Barry added with false jollity.

  ‘What is this?’ Hatice asked in disgust as I poured green tea from a round teapot emblazoned with cotton motifs.

  ‘It’s tea,’ Barry replied.

  ‘Tea?! But it has no colour’ – she took a judicial sip – ‘and no taste.’

  ‘It’s green tea. That’s what people drink here. Would you prefer black tea? I can ask them if they have any,’ I replied civilly.

  ‘And what’s this?’ Hatice continued, pointing at the bowl I was filling.

  ‘It’s called a piola in Uzbek or a kassa in Khorezm dialect. It’s what everyone drinks tea from,’ I explained.

  ‘But it has no handle and it isn’t a glass! How can you drink from it?’ Hatice swept it aside, dismissing the whole primitive concept of drinking from a bowl.

  The soup was too oily (a fair point, in fact), the plov passable – although Hatice blanched as I began to eat with my fingers. Her bedroom was not acceptable and nor was Barry’s, which he offered in exchange. I tried to make much of the beautiful view, but we weren’t off to a good start.

  After lunch we gave Hatice a tour. She enjoyed looking at the looms, and Zamireh seemed particularly adept at catching the meaning of her Turkish. She asked Hatice to teach her a few Turkish words, at which point our visitor began to cheer up.

  We, however, weren’t feeling quite so cheerful, having discovered that Hatice knew almost nothing about natural dyes and didn’t have a great deal to teach about carpets, preferring her favourite subject: the innate superiority of Turkish culture over anything Uzbek.

  I put Ulugbibi in charge of Hatice as penance for not working harder, and she was soon picking up Turkish words – Hatice refusing to learn Uzbek. Matthias was popular with Hatice because he was German and therefore modern. Ever since my hand-eating episode I was considered suspect, with a few too many ‘native’ characteristics.

  One evening Madrim invited Hatice to his house for some traditional Uzbek hospitality, along with Matthias, Ulugbibi and myself, greeting each of us at the door with a jug and basin of warm water. Madrim’s wife, Mehribon, had produced a table heavy with salads, nuts, fruit, cookies and cake.

  ‘But where are we to sit?’ asked Hatice. ‘There are no chairs. Surely you don’t sit on the floor?’

  I was getting tired of this routine.

  ‘Chairs are so uncomfortable,’ I replied, ‘so Uzbeks have modernised and sit on these mattresses called corpuches. They’re much better than chairs. Don’t you have them in Turkey?’

  We sat down and Madrim uncorked a bottle of wine as Hatice toyed with some Korean salad on her plate, explaining to Ulugbibi how much better the salads were in Turkey. I had asked Mehribon to cook an egg ravioli dish unique to Khorezm, and Hatice managed to eat this without complaint. We relaxed until Hatice whispered to Ulugbibi that she needed to ‘rest’. Madrim became visibly tense as Ulugbibi escorted Hatice out of the back door and down to the toilet at the bottom of the garden.

  Returning, Hatice was clearly shaken. She had barely sat down before she turned to Matthias. ‘Germany, modern,’ she said, and then to me: ‘England, modern. Turkey
modern!’ Then turning on Madrim: ‘Uzbekistan, why?! Why?!’

  Madrim, turning crimson, apologised that there was no sewer system in this part of town and that flush toilets were not permissible. I cut him off and told Hatice not to be so rude, and that, should she ever step outside of Ankara, there were plenty of toilets far less modern then the one she had just used. After an awkward pause I suggested that now might be a good time to leave, and asked Madrim if he would give us permission, praying a closing blessing on the food. We cupped our hands but Hatice protested.

  ‘You cannot pray! Look! We have been drinking wine. It is a sin for Muslims to drink. How can you pray after we have sinned?’

  When I pointed out that Madrim hadn’t drunk anything other than tea, she gave her grudging approval.

  * * *

  The evening with Madrim was also a farewell dinner of sorts. My bags were laden with knitted slippers, carved cutting-boards, Koran-stands and even an impressively carved Scrabble set – beautifully executed by Erkin the wood-carver after a lengthy explanation on my part. Zulhamar had baked flat pastries to give to my mother, and I had visions of the unlimited hot water, gas and electricity that awaited me.

  I made one last round at the workshop, admonishing Ulugbibi the usta to weave more and Madrim to work less. The weavers and dyers saw me to the door and passed on greetings to my family and friends whom they’d never met.

  Three months was a long time for things to go wrong, and I wondered how they would cope on their own. My aim was for the workshop to become self-sustaining, and this would provide an excellent trial run.

  But what state would I find things in on my return?

  10

  Navruz and new beginnings

  The accommodation here is three tiers high – that is to say three layers of shelves, and all of them packed with humanity, its bundles, its bedding, its kettles, its stinking dried fish and garlic sausage.

  —Ethel Mannin on Central Asian trains,

  South to Samarkand, 1936

  I arrived back at Tashkent airport in March 2002 after ten days hiking in the Canary Islands with my family. Feeling tanned and trim, I hoped to avoid the usual exclamations of ‘How beautifully fat you’ve become.’ My bags bulged with books on miniatures and I had brought with me the article on Timurid carpets by Amy Briggs. My head was full of new ideas for the workshop.

  After paying Barry a visit and showing off my finds, I made for the northern train station. The recent completion of a new rail track meant that the train no longer meandered into Turkmenistan. Turkmen border guards were notorious for demanding imaginary documents and extracting large ‘fines’ for all manner of fictitious infractions. The worst incident I knew about concerned a luckless Peace Corps volunteer on his way from Urgench to Tashkent. Forced off the train in Turkmenistan, his passport was confiscated and the train left without him. The guards returned his passport in exchange for all his money and belongings, leaving him with no other option but to walk back to the border and then swim across the Amu River – fearful of patrolling guards – into Uzbek territory. He then hitched back to Urgench, relying on Uzbek sympathy, and their unifying dislike of Turkmens, for the remainder of his journey.

  This new train track followed the old one as far as Navoi before veering northward, cutting through the Red Desert as far as the Three Wells oasis before bending to the left towards the oasis of Khorezm. I loved this trip, despite the twenty hours it took. No longer was I enduring bus journeys of blaring Uzbek pop in a foetal position for eighteen hours, with constant checkpoints. It was always me, the foreigner, who held up the bus and created extra paperwork, redeeming myself only by submitting my passport to the scrutiny and pawing of every single passenger. No longer would summer bus travel incur the wrath of aged matriarchs, bundled up in 45°C heat and complaining loudly if a window was opened. Nor would I arrive in Bukhara after eight or nine hours, sweaty, cramped and aching – the bus submerged in a detritus of sunflower seed shells – knowing that we were merely halfway.

  Instead, I arrived at the train station, found my berth and ensured that the unscrupulous wagonchi put no one without a valid ticket in the other three berths. Despite stringent security, there were always traders preferring to bribe their way on to the train, usually carrying several times their body weight in cloth bundles of merchandise and squalling babies.

  All train stations in the former Soviet Union were known as vaksal – a result of two Russian 19th-century engineers who had visited London. They emerged, blinking, from their first ride on the London Underground at Vauxhall station, and assumed its name to be the generic term for all train stations.

  As we pulled out of the vaksal, I was joined by a young Karakalpak student on his way home for Navruz, disappointed by my lack of porn. Within minutes the train bazaar was under way. Women lurched up and down the aisles selling bottled water and vodka, bread and sausages, hair-dryers, assortments of underwear, magazines and – occasionally – themselves. At each stop, the on-board traders vied with village women in a riot of colourful headscarves and house-dresses, who ran to the slowing train bearing steaming rounds of bread and salami. Passengers shoved dirty notes through the windows in exchange for these, or for boiled eggs with paper twists of salt.

  Train etiquette dictated that food was shared, and I swapped a packet of instant noodles for some stale rolls. None of the lights worked in our cabin, so I turned in early, woken up in Samarkand by an old man entering the carriage. He fumbled in the dark, stripping down to his underwear – a strengthening odour informing us of his progress.

  I woke at dawn as the train passed through the undulating Red Desert. It was the beginning of spring and the desert was in bloom. Tiny bright pink flowers decorated nondescript scrub, delicate crocus-like bulbs emerged from barren sand dunes and venom-green plants with waxy leaves erupted everywhere. The old man and the student were both asleep and I savoured the tranquillity, the rocking rhythm of the train as we passed the occasional desert yurt. The wagon toilet – best not described – was a trial, but the berths were comfortable and a communal wagon samovar was kept constantly on the boil. Some of the windows could even be opened, and a plastic bottle wedged in the gap kept them that way.

  By lunchtime the train had reached the edge of the Khorezm oasis and fields of spring green abruptly replaced the desert. We passed flat-roofed mud-brick houses, young shepherd boys with sticks leading cattle, women in the fields pinching the first shoots of spring clover for making gok burek (delicious parcels of pastry that tasted like spinach ravioli), and cheerfully ragged village children waving – excited when a passenger waved back. I was coming home.

  * * *

  The following day I was given a warm welcome at the workshop and inevitably congratulated on how beautifully fat I’d become. Most of the weavers, by contrast, looked wan and pallid. It was the time of year when fresh fruit or vegetables weren’t available in the bazaar, except for those who could afford greenhouse tomatoes, and home-made stocks of jarred and pickled produce would be running short.

  I wandered through each madrassah cell with Madrim. Four new rugs had been cut from the loom in my absence, one of which in particular, a large one with a medallion design, looked spectacular. Less impressive were the three centimetres of carpet woven by Ulugbibi the usta, which was all she’d managed during the three months. That night, over gok pastry parcels, Madrim explained how lazy Ulugbibi had become, and how strained relationships were as a result.

  I became well aware of this myself, wondering how to fire Ulugbibi in a way that wouldn’t leave her with a huge beating from her husband. I decided to blame the budget, announcing that we could employ only one weaving usta now that the weavers were trained.

  The workshop atmosphere rapidly improved with Ulugbibi’s departure, and we focused on the more enjoyable task of celebrating Navruz. The spring festival – literally ‘new day’ in P
ersian – was celebrated on 21 March and the workshop had decided to make sumalek.

  Early that morning we drove out to an uncle of one of the weavers and bought huge amounts of wheat sprouts, mincing them into pulp. This was mixed with water and then the pulp squeezed and set aside for Davlatnaza’s sheep. The remaining liquid was mixed with a little flour and was now ready for cooking. A wizened sumalek usta – brought out of retirement for the occasion – barked orders as a fire was lit beneath each cauldron. She gave a prayer of blessing and then poured in oil and beaten eggs, which spluttered and sizzled. These were removed and kept for lunch. The buckets of raw sumalek mixture – the colour and consistency of single cream – were then emptied into the cauldrons, followed by a tossed handful of walnuts still in their shells.

  Now began the eighteen-hour job of stirring, ensuring that the sumalek didn’t stick to the bottom, burn or become lumpy. Over time this process transformed the starch in the flour and wheat-shoots into sugar. For the first few hours stirring was easy but later, as the mixture boiled to a paste, it would require a lot more muscle. There were two stirring paddles for each cauldron and we took turns at the pot. I would lose myself in the swirling, mesmerising currents until a billow of wood-smoke left me choking and brought me back to my senses. Our sumalek usta periodically worked her knife around the rim of each cauldron, scraping off the dried paste and popping it back in the bubbling mixture. We hoped to produce a thick malty paste, sweet and rich in vitamins.