The mosque and masoleum we visited in Turkestan are considered by many to be the holiest sights in Kazakhstan. Naturally, a bride or two came by with their grooms and wedding parties to have their union blessed at this very special place.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Brides, brides, and more brides
The mosque and masoleum we visited in Turkestan are considered by many to be the holiest sights in Kazakhstan. Naturally, a bride or two came by with their grooms and wedding parties to have their union blessed at this very special place.
Crazy train!
This is what we looked like, just 12 hours or so before.
This is what you start to feel like on long, slow train rides.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Our friend and Guide
Our most excellent guide and friend, Sholpan. Thank you for making it such a smooth, wonderful trip. Your country yields up some of the best cauliflower I’ve ever set eyes on! Our amazing friend Sholpan. A learned Kazakh historian and esteemed translator.
In the company of travellers
Our company on board the train. It’s like a little village in these cramped open compartments. These ladies were very friendly and open to our entertaining this little on.
Sasha Our Conductor
Although Sasha seemed a bit slovenly and course in the crew compartment he was all ceremony in his uniform. Prior to this job he served in the Army during Soviet days.
The Busy Markets in Turkestan
A menagerie of colors, sounds and smells. A sea of blues and reds, a chorus of shouting, bargaining and somewhere an open sewer.
Our Host and Room Mate Sasha
Sasha the conductor appeared at first glance a rather hard-bioled character but was instrumental in keeping out the drunk men from wandering into our area at night.
The Train Station at Night
A cross roads of travelers and merchants. The trains here are but a modern twist on a very old enterprise: The Silk Road is alive here with the smells of fresh fruit and coal smoke.
The Train Station on Our Way back
As we left on the 1am train, we all marvelled at this lonely, beatiful train station built during the period of the last Russian Czar in 1891.
Tiled dome on Yasavi’s mausoleum.
Qur'an, Al-Hadid, Surah 57:1-5
All that is in the heavens and on the earth glorifies Allah. He alone is the Almighty, the Cognizant, the Sovereign of the heavens and the earth, who bestows life and ordains death, and has complete power over all things. He is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Unseen, the One and the Only with the knowledge of all things.
From "The Bounty of Allah," translated by Aneela Khalid Arshed.
Read more: http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Islam/Daily-Quran-Reading.aspx#ixzz1d1z5cxcV
Beautiful Timurid Tile Work
Carrie and Linda at the Mausoleum. The elegant decor, patterned ceiling vaults and colorful majolica tiling inspire the imagination and capture a pattern of cosmology that I venture would rival Notre Dame’s great mandala.
Islamic Architecture from the Timurid Era
The facade of this great mausoleum belies many common features of islamic architecture including the archway on the window and designs on the door. Timur the Lame sought to revive the former glory of the Mongol empire and unite its splintered hordes while recognizing the Caliphate of Baghdad.
Outposts in the Desert
A typical scene along our route to Turkistan. Many of these lonely communities comprise only a handful of such buildings: a corral, an outhouse, a feed bin maybe a shade tree or two and not much more. Notice the beautiful blue trim on the white, adobe house. Despite their isolation, its apparent that local people still proudly adorn their houses with a coat of fresh sky-blue paint, the anthem of the great open steppe.
Turkestan - the Historical Center of the southern Kazakhstan
Turkestan is 1, 500 years old. It was Hodzha Ahmed Yasavi, the poet and Sufi deeply esteemed in the Islamic world that made Turkestan famous. For a long time his verses existed only in oral form being passed from generation to generation by word of mouth. They appeared in written form only a few centuries after the poet’s death.
Known to historians as Yassy and Shavgar, this city was the capital of the Kazakh khanate where great ceremonies of enthronement toоk place; a place where ambassadors of foreign states were sent. The Byzantine Emperor Justinian once sent his emessaries here to pay tribute to the Turkish Kaganate.
The most spectacular of Turkestan’s monuments is devoted to Ahmed Yasavi. It is an architectural complex made of palaces and temples which annually attracts crowds of tourists. Itis worshiped by the Muslim community of Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries. In ancient times three pilgrimages to this place was equal to one pilgrimage to Mecca.
The entire city centre is an ensemble of historical buildings including the tomb of Robia Sultan Begim, Timur’s granddaughter, the tombs of the Kazakh khans and other representatives of nobility.
UNESCO has included Turkestan (or rather Ahmed Yasavi Mausoleum) in the list of world heritage sites.
Fall Break (This Year’s Theme: Pilgrimage)
If you recall, last year’s October vacation centered around a theme of exile; our trip convened a week of train travel to the northern coast of the Caspian, a tour of Aqtua, and Fort Chevchenko visiting the site of Taras Chevchenko’s exile outpost.
This year’s theme emerged as effortlessly as last year’s once I considered some of the more nascent characteristics of Turkestan, our destination. Located in southern Kazakhstan, close to the Uzbek border, this ancient Silk Road caravan is considered by many to be the holiest site in Kazakhstan. Indeed, the Kazakh’s holiest personage is entombed here in a great mausoleum revealing an Islamic cosmology unique to this central asian nation. This, indeed, was more than just a vacation with my wife and four other teachers. I’d like to think that this was a rare look into the sacred; a history of sufi teachings, Turkic-Mongol empire and the colossal breadth and influence of the Silk road in a region largely forgotten to the world until the latter 20th century.
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