Kazakhstan | On the Silk Road

For 16 centuries, until 1453, caravans traveled the steppes and deserts of Central Asia and the Middle East, to connect Chang’an, the ancient capital of China (today Xian), and Constantinople (today Istanbul). They brought spices, but especially silk, which the Chinese had exclusive rights to.

Over the past twenty years, Uzbekistan has opened up to tourism, and the mythical cities of Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand have become popular tourist destinations. Kazakhstan has taken longer to promote the cities in the south of the country that lined this long trade route.

Although the modern metropolis Almaty was an important stopover on the caravan route, little remains of it. The ancient capital was destroyed several times by earthquakes, the most destructive of which, in 1911, spared only seven buildings.

You don’t visit Almaty for its architecture. But with its many urban parks, cycle paths and shaded pedestrian walkways, the former capital of 2.2 million people is very pleasant for tourists, despite heavy car pollution. It has excellent restaurants, nightclubs, museums and an active cultural life.

The Mausoleum of Turkestan

To explore the Kazakh portion of the Silk Road, you must therefore go 820 km further west, to the oasis town of Turkestan, in the north of the caravan route, but which was, from the 11th century^e century, an important place of pilgrimage.

The first contact with the city is disconcerting. With few high-rise buildings and wide avenues surrounded by strips of greenery, the city of 225,000 inhabitants takes on the appearance of an interminable suburb.

Our guide takes us to the “new city,” a complex of residential buildings, museums, hotels, cinemas and restaurants, with a huge shopping center surrounding an artificial canal, a university and a few places of worship. The whole thing dates back just five years.

At the heart of this new city is the mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasavi, the first place to be classified as a UNESCO cultural heritage site in Kazakhstan. Ahmed Yasavi, a wise man of the 12th century^e century, helped spread Islam in Central Asia. For Muslims in these countries, three pilgrimages to this mausoleum are equivalent to one pilgrimage to Mecca.

Tamerlane, an undefeated general whose Timurid dynasty ruled much of Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iran, commissioned this imposing mausoleum in 1389 to replace a smaller edifice dating from the 12th century.^e century. The construction site was abandoned after his death in 1405, but the unfinished building remains grandiose. Its dome (28 meters high, 18.2 meters in diameter) is the largest in Central Asia, and the mausoleum served as a model for all Timurid architecture that can be seen in Samarkand or Khiva.

Not far from the mausoleum is the semi-subterranean Hilvet Mosque, a former residence of the dervishes (monks following Sufi teachings) where the wise Ahmed Yasavi himself is said to have stayed. Among other things, you can see a cell where legend has it that a dervish survived for 16 years, isolated, without eating or drinking!

Taraz, then Otrar

Second stop: Taraz, 250 km further east. This was another caravanserai, but also the site of the mausoleum of Arystanbab, master teacher of Ahmed Yasavi. A slight disappointment: the building, much more modest, has been restored so many times that only two sculpted columns remain of the original. For Muslims, the place is still imbued with major symbolism. Just like the Aisha Bibi mausoleum in the west of the city, dedicated to love, where many fiancés still come to deposit their wishes in writing.

We then drive to the remains of what was once one of the largest cities in Central Asia, Otrar. In the 13th century^e century, the city had 200,000 inhabitants. Its schools taught Greek and Roman languages, the thoughts of the great philosophers, the sciences… Its library was as important as that of Alexandria.

In 1219, the governor of the city had the merchants of a Mongol caravan massacred, accusing them of having come to spy. In response, Genghis Khan launched a punitive expedition. This was the famous Mongol invasion. After a six-month siege, the city fell. Its inhabitants were killed or reduced to slavery. However, the city would rise from its ashes and survive as an important administrative center and caravanserai.

But in 1453, the conquest of Constantinople put an end to trade on the Silk Road. A drop in the flow of the Arys River, which fed the city’s irrigation system, would then reduce the irrigation areas of the oasis, so that Otrar would be abandoned in the 17th century.^e century.

The visit, however, gives a good idea of ​​its former glory.

The fortress encircles a 200,000 m hill.^⁠2 and 18 m high. The impressive south porch has been completely restored, as have the walls. Inside, you can see the foundations of two public baths from the 9th^e and XII^e centuries and those of the ancient library. Several houses have been restored using techniques representative of the different eras of the city.

Chimkent

Our pilgrimage ends in Chimkent, 120 km further south. The third largest city in Kazakhstan, with 1.2 million inhabitants, Chimkent was the last caravanserai before Tashkent, the current capital of Uzbekistan.

Founded in the 12th century^e century, the city was also destroyed by the armies of Genghis Khan, then rebuilt. But as in Almaty, there are no buildings left from the glorious era of the Timurids. A visit to the 16th century citadel^e century that dominates the city and which Kazakhstan has undertaken the partial restoration allows us to feel the daily life of this city, five centuries ago.