A Vision of Pomegranates in Bukhara

"It was proposed I should inquire for some moullah who could write me a letter in the Tartar language. On asking the guide, he at once sent for a learned man who, he said, could write beautiful things so soft and sweet they were like the sounds of sheep bleating in the distance."

At the train station to Bukhara, I was met by an old friend. I had been trying to determine if the guard had held up five fingers to tell me to wait five minutes or to proceed to platform 5, when a voice said in English, "Looks like you found your dosh."

It was the kind Australian who I had briefly met in "the 'Kent." The one who had offered me money for my metro fare and whom I had turned down before I knew finding my own money (or "dosh" as he called it) would be impossible. It was very nice to hear my native tongue, even with those topsy-turvy vowels employed by the Antipodeans.

He was with Bjarke, a Dane with a skateboard strapped to his knapsack. As a trio, we made our way to the correct platform (which was not 5). There are no electronic signs on Uzbekistan Railways to tell you which train is going where. There are so few, and they go to such a limited number of cities, it's just sort of understood by the locals.

I had bought my ticket rather late in the game, and all that remained was "Business Class," which suited my legs and bags just fine. Bjarke was in the same boat (on the same train), and we sat in the same compartment. He slept, and I read The Towers of Trebizond, the novel I'd set aside for this journey. In Georgia, I had read a book about a man traveling in the Caucasus. One night in his tent, he amused himself by trying to decide which character from this book he was most like. Having not read it, I couldn't judge the accuracy of his choice. I pledged to read it one journey soon.

And so, on the train to Bukhara, I did.

The journey was smooth. These bullet trains are quite remarkable, easily taking you along The Silk Route. It is a common one, this route from Samarkand to Bukhara. Early in the journey, I discovered the itinerary I had created for myself, though seeming quite daring from my study in Seattle, is in fact a very common one. To the degree that everyone I met in Samarkand upon seeing I was tourist would say, "Bukhara next? You go Bukhara after Samarkand, yes?"

Eric, for so the Australian is named, and Bjarke were evidence of this as were several older people wearing t-shirts with a map of Uzbekistan over a camel, and the exact four cities I was visiting represented by stars. I didn't mind, of course. I found it amusing, and there was no shame. There's a reason people come here and another why they do it in the order.  

When we arrived (just two hours!), we negotiated together with taxi drivers. We could not find an honest one, and so we took the bus. It was marvelous. We roasted like rotisserie jackdaws, frequently abandoning our seats for gold-smiled women in headscarves. The station is far from the city, and we took advantage of the time to properly meet one another. Eric is a physical therapist, and Bjarke a school teacher. They were very amused by the stories of the jobs I've had. 

Being, it was soon discovered, over twenty years older than them, I've had many more opportunities to find different sorts of work. 

The driver kicked us out in the city center, and we made our way to where our hotels were. We were all struck by Bukhara in the same way, finding it immediately peaceful and welcoming. 

It is incredibly beautiful, the old city. Samarkand was like an open-air museum, but this... this was a place. The mosques were in use. Locals lounged happily around a pool in the park and drank tea and chattered happily. And there were dozens of merchants lining the old stone walls, selling beautiful things.

Of course, there are souvenir shops in every city, and it took me a moment to determine why I was having such a strong positive response to what was on offer here specifically. Yes, the city was beautiful, and yes, the setting was picturesque, and yes there was the dopamine rush of having arrived in a new place... but why were the scarves, and rugs, and ceramics, and wool hats so appealing to me?

It struck me it was because they were all things I had been seeing IN USE throughout Uzbekistan. The homes I'd stayed in used these cloths, the women on the bus wore these headscarves. I'd eaten from dishes like these under paintings like those. It felt, a very dangerous and foolish word, authentic. Unlike, say, Rome where they sell gladiator helmets and centurion's swords, here were objects of contemporary domesticity. And they were beautiful.

The thing that pricked at my heart the most were the bread stamps. Little needle things you use to decorate the loaf with a flower pattern before it bakes. The bread I'd bought in the markets on Tashkent had those patterns. Men in the park carried loaves such as these under their arms. This was a tool in everyone's kitchen, not some replica of an ancient practice. A living art.

I've never made my own bread. It made me want to.

We went our separate ways. The city is small, and our lodging wasn't so far from one another. Though I had been happy to have them as companions, it was also nice to stretch out and have some time to process my thoughts.

My room was in a part of the city under construction. Big things are in store for Buxoro (which is what the locals call Bukhara). It looks like they are trying to double to size of the place. I saw this too in Samarkand, many men building large plazas out of brick. A painstaking process with clever patterns employed in the laying. I certainly haven't "discovered" this place (as the t-shirts testify) but it does feel like I'm here at a time before it's huge.

The 'stans in general are becoming more open as their economies stabilize, and there is talk of a Schengen-type agreement that allows for easy freedom of movement between them all. It's not easy to get here, so people want to see them all at once. This is currently difficult, but the new trains and some political changes may soon fill these enormous plazas with Chinese and European tourists.

My room was in the corner of what looked very much like a Moroccan riad. Big courtyard in the center. High walls and rooms surrounding it. The accommodations were lacking. One outlet high on the wall and sort of falling out. Loud roar from the fan in the bathroom. Weird blankets. But... I wasn't there for the room. I showered (miserable!), figured out a way to plug in my phone without tearing the outlet from the plaster, and went out in search of food.

There was a soft plan to meet up with the guys, and it hardened like a breakfast cheese when I saw them in the park around the statue of a laughing man riding a donkey. It was a very European-style scene.

I had a dumpling soup and some manti. They ate shocking amounts of shish kabob. I remember being young and having an appetite like that. My god, the skewers they cleared. There was some amusement over the age difference. When they did the math and realized I was their age in the '90s, they wanted to know all about the drugs and the music and the Trainspotting.

I did my best not to make it sound too impressive. There is little more pathetic, to me, than an older person trying to dazzle a younger with all the "cool shit" they used to do. The runs they used to score and how they won the war. The tail the used to pull and how they sheared the wool.

But I made them laugh.

Hilariously, and for reasons unknown, the song Unchained Melody kept coming on the restaurant sound system, and equally funny, a server would run over to change it to another song. It never got as far as "are you still miiiiine?" Though I certainly heard it in my head.

This was very amusing to me, and while I was enjoying the Uzbek music and the conversation, a significant portion of my awareness was searching the atmosphere for the return of Unchained Melody. What did the staff have against it?

We paid and left. No small feat. It is very difficult to get the check in this part of the world. You have to ask several times, and it's never just brought to the table. I am unclear as to the cultural significance of this. I understand the idea they might not want you to feel "rushed," but you kind of have to build in thirty minutes of waiting after the dishes are cleared and the teapot is cold before you're allowed to settle the bill.

Bukhara was lively at night. In the shadow of a mosque (typical Timurid architecture, but a glorious heron or peacock depicted on this one. More animal-art heresy!), locals and tourists mingled on benches enjoying tea in the cool of the evening. The area's name literally translates to "around the pool." It was very beautiful and it was very easy to imagine courtiers from another time taking their relaxation after the palace gates were locked.

Eric wanted ice cream, and I always want coffee, so the three of us went to a little place with both. It was staffed with teenagers (as in Samarkand, they employ them here). An older American man came in and said, "Hey, I'm back for ice cream! It's me. I want the blueberry again."

There was something rich about his voice, and he reminded me of my grandparent's friends from when I was a little boy. He had the cultivated way of speaking and easy manner of the comfortably retired. He was roughly my parent's age but his loaf was stamped with the buoyancy of "the Greatest Generation." As opposed to the corrupt entitlement of the dreaded Boomers.

I was quite taken with him, and the others picked up on it. "One of your people," said Eric. He probably meant American, but I took it to mean a solo traveler quick to make friends.

When the Blueberry Boomer left, Eric (also quick to make friends) asked the coffee teens if he could plug his phone into the sound system. He had been collecting a playlist of Russian and Uzbek hip hop. They let him do it and were soon pumping their fists along with the music. It was wonderful. They knew the words, and there was just a shared sense of positive energy. Eric asked Bjarke if there was anything he wanted to hear, and he chose an artist named Scriptonite, a popular Russian artist.

When he asked me, I said "Unchained Melody." We all laughed. But he didn't play it. The party ended, and we went out separate ways. Sleep.

In the morning, the riad served a free breakfast of nushy, skinless fruit, hard cheese, and cold french fries. It was so nasty, it seemed like a prank. The only edible bit was a fresh pomegranate, and it was a revelation, greatly making up for the rest. It tasted like what I imagine licking a stained glass window would. A breakfast made from the remains of a collapsed cathedral. I was enchanted.

And soon, I was under the fruit's spell. Out in the city, in the soft morning light, I saw its pattern everywhere. I had, of course, seen them in every market in the 'stans, piles and pyramids of them. But now, like the hats and ceramics and bread stamps, they had been enhanced by experience. I was ensorcelled by the... domesticity of them. A pillowcase with a sewn pattern of a pomegranate tree nearly brought me to tears.

And so, in love with life and the ways life is lived, I wandered the city and saw its famous sites.

There is the Kalyan minaret, which stuns with its height and ornate...presence. It's very tall, but finds itself able to hide somehow until you are suddenly upon it. There was The Ark, an old palace with many rooms converted to museums (and only a few to gift shops).

I wandered through them suddenly in love with old coins and textiles. I could "feel" them through the glass. It was very easy to imagine my thumb on the raised face of the coin's khan. Everything was feeling real to me, alive. The juice of the pomegranate was an elixir of life! It's intense stain brought color to the universe, merging planes and dimensions.

It could not, however, enliven the melancholy of a sad little collection of taxidermied birds. Though, a label suggested the yellow-eyed dude I've been appreciating was a mynah! Holy crow!

A happy little ramble on the cobblestones, a big push through the Towers of Trebizond, a short nap, and I met the guys for dinner. The party had increased by two. Another Australian and a Scando. They were readers, these two, and we had a lively party at the shish kabob factory. I tried to match them skewer for skewer and knew great regret.

We were all, of course, headed for Khiva the next day. It's the law that you see it after Bukhara. They asked if I was going to head to Nukus after or home. Home is the standard move, Nukus the advanced.
From Nukus you can force your way to Mo'ynoq where once was The Aral Sea but now is a graveyard of ships. They're all lined up like rusty Von Trapp children in the desert. Supposed to be most picturesque.

It would certainly be memorable, but my heart is with the living now, not with ruins. I want to see life and families and fill a bowl with pomegranates. I told them my heart was already winging home, and that after Khiva, I would close the book. 

Later, we repeated ourselves, returned once more to the ice cream place and Eric DJ'ed with his phone. One of the barista's name tags read "Sadam Xusen," which delighted me. When it was my turn to enter a request, I suggested "Brandy, You're a Fine Girl," but none of them knew it, and the conditions weren't right for them to learn a new song.

I had been thinking about the Uzbek Brandy on the dry shores of Mo'ynoq. Surely the sailors would have returned for her, fought over her. Their life, their love, and their lady, The Aral Sea had run off.

As we would, to Khiva, in the morning.