We started off the day by visiting the Earthquake Survivor Monument. There was a huge series of earthquakes in the 1960's that were around 8 on the Richter Scale, and much of the old part of Tashkent was destroyed. So they erected a monument in memory of all the buildings and lives lost. It was kind of a neat monument.
What you can't see in the picture is at the front of the statue, and it's a block of black granite that has a big crack in it (symbolizing the cracks caused by the quakes) that has a clock on it that is stopped at the time of the biggest quake, and a fault that runs from it to the edge of the statue.
After that, we visited the Tashkent Islamic Complex. The first building in Islamic Complex that we visited was the mosque. It had two huge minarets on each side (which you will only be able to make out the tip of one in the picture of the back of the mosque). It was built in 2007 in just four months, and was built in the style of the other buildings in the complex which are much older, which makes the mosque look much older than it actually is.
The second building in the complex that we visited was a madrassa turned into a Quran museum, which now houses the oldest known Quran in the world, written just 15 years after the prophet Mohammed's death. It was written on gazelle skin and the "ink" was made of a mixture of bile, willow sap, and ash. It was written in 645, was in Arabic hands until the 14th century, when it came to Samarkand until 1868, when Russians took it to St. Petersburg and put it on display in the Hermitage until 1924. After Lenin's death, it came back to Uzbekistan, and now resides in Tashkent. We couldn't take pictures inside, but here is a picture of the cute little museum.
The third building was another madrassa, called the Barakan Madrassa after the name of the man who donated the money to build it in the 1600s. It now serves as a shopping mall of sorts, since all the classrooms and student cells house gift shops and artisan workshops.
The fourth building was the Mausoleum of Muhammed Kafal Shashi. He did something important, but by this point we had been talked to for about two hours and my ability to pay attention was tested and failed. At any rate, it was a pretty structure.
After the complex, we walked through the streets of Old Tashkent and visited the home of a local woman. We pretty much just knocked on a door to see if anyone was home and if we could come in to see their courtyard. Every house has a courtyard, and the windows of the house don't face the street, they face the courtyard, we had been told, and we wanted to see one, so there you have it. A woman was home, invited us in to see her courtyard, then into her living room, where she offered us nuts, tea, and then asked us to stay for dinner. So sweet!
The streets of Old Tashkent:
The courtyard:
We then went to a local restaurant for lunch. After lunch we went to Tashkent's WWII memorial. Over 600,000 Uzbek troops died during the war, and so during Soviet times, they erected a monument to commemorate them.
We then walked through Independence Square. It was originally built during Soviet times for military parades.
The white building to left of the big globe statue is the Senate. We continued our walk to a fountain, and we decided since it was such a warm day to walk in it (that is allowed here, and should be everywhere, in my opinion!). The water was so cool and refreshing! At any rate, after that we visited the Opera House.
And then we visited a memorial to political prisoners who were massacred by Stalin. It was a really powerful monument with the inscription, "May the memory of those who have fallen for freedom of their country live forever!" written inside the dome above the grave of an unknown prisoner.
It was a really amazing monument... Afterwards, we were taken back to the hotel for downtime before dinner. Two of the group members (Rama and Pat, a couple who live right outside Indianapolis) and I walked to the nearby Japanese garden and walked around there for awhile. Something I haven't mentioned up to this point, but probably should have is all the people getting married who have their pictures taken all over the place. I mentioned it back in Almaty when we saw the married couples getting their pictures taken on front of a soviet memorial, but we've been seeing them everywhere. I don't know what's in the water here, but people are getting married left and right. We saw no fewer than 8 couples in wedding dresses and suits having pictures taken in this garden during our thirty minute walk around the place... Like I said, I don't know what's in the water around here in Central Asia, but never have I seen so many couples getting married in one week.
We walked back to the hotel after gawking at all the hideous (and a couple cute) wedding dresses at the garden, exchanged some money, and then checked out the hotel gift shop. I looked like Mr. Moneybags, having exchanged $60. The largest note they have in Uzbekistan is the 1000 soms note, but that 1000 note is only worth like 60 cents, so I ended up with a HUGE stack of Uzbek currency. Here was the result:
Handling all that cash really made me work up an appetite, so it was time for dinner! We went to the first private restaurant which opened in 1991, right after the fall of the Soviet Union, called Sato. We had the traditional, national dish called Piluv, which is rice mixed with all kinds if good stuff like grapes and nuts and topped with shredded meat. It was delicious, and after a long day like we had today, it was time for bed!
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