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

by Christopher Aslan Alexander

  Still, there were people in the Khan’s palace who knew the truth – and one of these was Isak’s grandfather. Corroborating his story, Isak pointed out a yellowing official photograph taken in St Petersburg with the Tsar notably absent. Next to this was the portrait of the Tsarina given to Isfandir. Catriona wanted to know what happened to the last Khan.

  ‘You must not worry about Isfandir,’ Isak reassured her. ‘A few years later, he too was assassinated.’

  The Bolsheviks were fearful of former royalty staking claims to Khiva, and exiled the next in line to the throne. He returned from Ukraine after independence with his children and grandchildren. His offspring, speaking only Russian and Ukrainian, wandered around Khiva in jeans, marvelling at this exotic and foreign place that they might have ruled had history turned out a little differently.

  * * *

  By the beginning of March, I had lived with Lukas and Jeanette throughout the long, cold winter and we were all desperate for me to move out. Lukas was bogged down with endless bureaucracy required by the government for Operation Mercy work and, despite my nagging, had not followed up the permissions I needed to move into my dream house. I decided to take matters into my own hands and contact the Ministry of Culture myself. Enlisting the help of an English-speaking guide, we visited the post office and made our call. A terse conversation ensued, during which the guide simply nodded. Afterwards he turned to me and said: ‘They just say “no”. You simply cannot live in that house.’

  This was both emphatic and unequivocal. I had no alternative plans, but had to move out of Lukas’s house as his parents were visiting soon. I was anxious and irritated; although I’d made it through the winter, it had been about surviving, not thriving, and I was still unsure whether coming to Khiva had been a mistake.

  However, my housing crisis would result in an unexpected encounter in the Khan’s derelict palace that was to change my fortunes in Khiva considerably for the better.

  2

  A home by the harem

  Uzbek people like to drink tea very much. This is not just a simple fact about statement of devotion of one country population, because Uzbek people’s love for tea is something different than German’s love to beer or Finn’s to coffee. It does not just like for tea, if they talk they drink tea, anyone who was in Uzbekistan can continue this file of associations for ever and ever.

  —Uzbek Air magazine, Winter 2005

  My quest for a new home began with a long list of criteria which rapidly grew shorter after each unsuccessful house visit. Often one of the numerous barrack-like flats near the carpet factory became available. They were all identical in layout but in varying states of disrepair. In one case the door to the kitchen opened into thin air; a woman in the flat below peeling carrots looked up as I was pulled back from the brink by my host.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I began. ‘Why are you showing me this place when there is no floor? Where am I supposed to cook?’ My unshaven host stared disinterestedly at the yawning chasm as I saw myself out.

  Another house fulfilled my criteria in terms of location. It was right in the heart of the walled city beside a large madrassah. However, it was basic to say the least – little more than a shack. The outer layer of mud and straw adobe had washed away in places to reveal crumbling mud bricks. The front door opened into a small room that did have a floor – give or take a couple of floorboards – but little else. I dwelt on the positives, noting the presence of wiring which implied electrical capabilities. An even smaller room that might serve as a bedroom opened off the main room but there was no kitchen or bathroom, just a small pit latrine outside.

  ‘What would I do,’ I ventured to the owner, a corpulent middle-aged man bulging out of his greasy tracksuit, ‘about getting water? There doesn’t seem to be any plumbing.’

  He airily brushed away such concerns, explaining that two streets away was a well. Was I not strong? Could I not buy buckets? I realised that any concerns at a lack of bathroom would be similarly dealt with, for could I not use the local homom – the traditional bath-house used by most Khivans who didn’t have bathrooms?

  I decided that water, gas and electricity were non-negotiable, although I accepted the unlikelihood of living in the walled city. It was rumoured that rooms in the Nurulabeg Palace beside the park had been renovated for use as offices. I wasn’t sure if they would be habitable, but then most of the potential houses I’d visited weren’t either, and the idea of living in a palace appealed. I decided to pay the place a visit.

  From the outside, the palace looked rather like a prison, with huge walls lacking windows or doors, and just one giant set of carved wooden doors leading into the interior. It was set up as any other Khan’s palace would be, with a guest courtyard, a harem courtyard, and a courtyard in the original sense of the word: for holding court. I walked into the first, which was decaying, derelict and serenely beautiful. Fluted carved wooden pillars graced the upper level of open balconies, and a huge iwan of white plasterwork faced northwards. There were some rickety steps leading up to a room behind the iwan which would be delightfully cool in summer. Instead of the rotten floorboards carpeted in bird droppings I imagined my own palatial bedroom.

  Downstairs, I entered the main rooms. Crumbling ceiling plaster revealed patches of mud brick and a few voids gaping to the balcony above. The original splendour of the plaster-moulded walls and painted wooden surfaces could still be seen in places. It was, however, quite clear that this courtyard would be uninhabitable unless a huge amount of expensive restoration took place.

  I moved on to the next courtyard, which was less impressive but did have a well. I could tick off my requirement for accessible water. The rooms were all locked, but cupping my hands I peered through the smeared windows at dingy interiors, bare of furniture or floorboards. I heard a polite cough behind me and turned to greet a middle-aged man with closely cropped grey hair, a row of gold teeth and pronounced crow’s-feet. He was smiling and we introduced ourselves, discovering that we both knew Lukas. His name was Koranbeg and he was responsible for restoring Khiva’s ancient monuments. I noticed the way that he simplified his language for me without sounding patronising and found myself warming to Koranbeg immediately.

  I explained, in halting Uzbek, that I didn’t have any tanish bilish – connections – so was finding it hard to get somewhere to live.

  ‘I must go away from home. Lukas, his parents are will come soon. No space for me. Now I looking for new house. Here, remont? New home for me here, maybe?’ I looked at him hopefully.

  ‘No, there has been no remont here. Now, there is no money for these things.’ I must have looked dejected, as he continued: ‘But, have you seen the first courtyard? My grandfather was the Khan’s master craftsman and he decorated all those walls and ceilings. Now, each year they just get worse.’

  I nodded, and we stood in silence for a minute. I was about to thank him and leave, when Koranbeg made me an unexpected offer.

  ‘I understand that it is very difficult for you foreigners without tanish bilish here in our country, and yet you are our guests and you have come to help us. I have lots of tanish bilish and I will help you find a house. Come and live in my house until we find somewhere for you to live.’

  This was to be the defining moment of my integration into the community. A complete stranger had offered me a place in his home. I had no idea what his family were like, where his house was or what condition it might be in. He, in turn, knew almost nothing about me and yet welcomed me as a guest.

  My natural reaction was to refuse and protest that I could manage by myself, even if this wasn’t true. But, putting pride aside, I found myself shaking his hand and scribbling down his phone number, arranging to visit him the next day. I had walked into a derelict palace and found a place to live after all.

  * * *

  The next day Jeanette called Koranbeg to
find out exactly where his home was, and what time I should come over to visit. She hung up and turned to me smiling. ‘Did he tell you where he lives?’ she asked. ‘Right next to that house you were so desperate to live in, beside the Khan’s harem in the heart of the walled city.’

  Beaming, I offered up a silent prayer of thanks. ‘A house by the harem …’ I enjoyed the sound of it, imagining the generations of young men who’d lived in the house before, dreaming of the sequestered beauties just a wall away.

  That afternoon I followed Jeanette’s directions and entered the walled city’s northern gate, turned right and followed the snaking, crenellated wall as it curved left. At the bottom of the street was the Khan’s harem, topped by the watchtower. Before this – the last house on the left – was number 57, Koranbeg’s house. It was a large, two-storey mud-brick building with a flat roof and balconies. One of the neighbours was bent over a glowing round oven, slapping dough against its sides with only her headscarf visible. Some children kicked a football around on the street and hailed me with the usual ‘Toureeest!’ followed by clicking motions and ‘Photo! Photo!’

  I knocked on the door and was welcomed by a thin, sallow woman in a gaudy house dress over baggy trousers. She was, I assumed, Koranbeg’s wife. She smiled enquiringly, flashing an upper row of gold, and I sensed instantly that she had no idea who I was. Koranbeg had obviously not mentioned his encounter with me.

  ‘Assalam-u-Aleykum’ I began. ‘Is Koranbeg agha here?’ She shook her head and I asked if I might come inside and speak with her.

  ‘Of course, please come in, you are welcome,’ she replied, ushering me to a corpuche (a long seating mattress) next to a low table. I sat down cross-legged and she scurried into the kitchen, emerging with a pot of tea, some flat rounds of bread and a bowl of jam. I wasn’t really sure how to approach the subject of her husband’s invitation, and decided simply to recount our conversation in the Nurulabeg Palace. She nodded, smiling and hiding any surprise or annoyance she might have felt towards her husband.

  ‘My name is Zulhamar,’ she said slowly. ‘When would you like to move in? Would you like to see our house?’

  We had been sitting in a small dining area next to the main entrance, and now she opened a door that led into a huge room full of scaffolding. Workmen were busy with the ceiling – a blizzard of interlacing stars and complex geometrical designs rendered in three-dimensional painted plasterwork. The walls were a mock-baroque plaster confection tinged with gold-leaf. The effect – while not to my taste – was truly palatial, belying the humble mud-brick exterior.

  ‘My husband is responsible for the restoration of the Khan’s ceilings, and now he wants to make our ceiling also look nice,’ Zulhamar explained simply.

  I smiled up at the workmen, and Zulhamar called one of them down.

  ‘This is Madrim,’ she explained. ‘He is my husband’s youngest brother.’

  Zulhamar asked Madrim to show me upstairs, as it would appear unseemly for her to escort a man to a bedroom. Madrim was short, brawny and in his early thirties. With his thinning light brown hair and Caucasian features, he could have passed for southern European. Zulhamar, on the other hand, looked more Eastern, with slanted eyes, dark hair and yellow skin.

  Upstairs, Madrim showed me the bedroom. It was large and unused, having been recently painted, and led out to a walled balcony with a panoramic view of domes and minarets and the Khan’s watchtower. It was perfect.

  Downstairs, Zulhamar was making lunch for us. I attempted stilted conversation with Madrim, who was shy but polite and clearly struggled with my pidgin Uzbek and strange accent. I remembered suddenly that I hadn’t mentioned I was vegetarian and hurried to the kitchen.

  ‘I sorry, I vegetarian.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Zulhamar. I wasn’t sure if she knew what I meant.

  ‘As a result, I not eat meat,’ I tried.

  Zulhamar looked shocked. ‘But what do you eat if you don’t eat meat? Where do you get your strength from?’

  ‘Yes, I eat eggs,’ I finished lamely. Shrugging at such strange eating habits, she began frying six eggs in a generous amount of cotton-seed oil.

  I returned the following evening with bags, ready to actually move in. Burnaby the parrot stayed at Lukas and Jeanette’s for the first week, in order not to push my eccentricity too much too soon. I hadn’t realised the significance of my arrival date: it was the night before Navruz. I knew little about this celebration, except that it marked the beginning of spring and the new year and was the most important festival in the calendar.

  A moon-faced, willowy girl of around fourteen greeted me demurely and led me to my room. They had placed a mattress on the floor and strung up some gaudy-looking orange and purple patterned curtains. Other than that, the room was large and bare, which was fine as I expected to stay only for a few weeks before moving into one of the many houses Koranbeg had assured me he knew about.

  The girl said something about sumalek and beckoned me to follow her. Zulhamar and some other women were gathered around a huge steaming cauldron, stirring its contents with long paddles. Koranbeg sat with the men and a few stately-looking grandmothers on a raised platform covered in cushions and corpuches. He called me over and introduced me as his English guest, Aslan.

  Male neighbours, relatives and friends offered their hands to be shaken, while women simply nodded, placing their right hand on their hearts, asking after my health, my work and my family. These pleasantries were followed by a series of questions that I became quite adept at answering due to their repetition: What was I doing in Khiva? How old was I? Was I married? Why wasn’t I married? When would I get married? Did I have any brothers and sisters? What was my religion? Did I pray to paintings like the Russians? How much did I earn? What was the price of a kilo of meat or a loaf of bread in England? Where was life better: here or there?

  There was some disagreement as to the precise location of England, some maintaining that it was next to America, others convinced that it was in London. I decided to ask a few questions myself and enquired after Koranbeg’s children. He called over the girl who had answered the door, introducing her as his eldest, Malika. I found out later that she was quiet but stubborn and quite capable of mischief. Aware of her place in the family order, she was respectful for the most part towards her father, joked easily with her mother while cooking or cleaning together, sparred with her younger brother Jalaladdin, and terrorised or mothered her youngest brother Zealaddin depending on his behaviour.

  Jalaladdin was an awkward, skinny twelve-year-old with the beginnings of an Adam’s apple and a squint – his left eye slightly askew. For some reason, Koranbeg seemed ashamed of his eldest son, speaking to him roughly, always expecting more of him and rarely showing him any praise or affection. These were lavished instead upon Zealaddin, a young, bright-eyed boy of seven, who looked like his mother but with his father’s lighter skin colouring. He had the cheekiness and confidence his older brother lacked, and while his brother could do no right, he could do no wrong.

  I knew nothing of the family dynamics at that point, or who was a relative, who was a neighbour and who was both; the evening was a blur of faces for the most part. While some guests sat and chatted, others took a turn with the paddle, stirring the large cauldron constantly to ensure its contents didn’t stick to the bottom and burn. Somehow, the women seemed to end up doing most of the stirring while the men considered it their role to throw an occasional log on the fire. I asked what sumalek was made from and received a long and incomprehensible answer to which I nodded, pretending to understand.

  Tea and spring clover-filled ravioli were served to those of us seated on the platform. The sun set, leaving a chill in the air. Smoke from the fire mingled with the steam from the sumalek and one of the old grannies began to rock cross-legged and sing, others joining her. Bats ricocheted around the crenellated silhouette of the city
walls and a group of children charged past with Zealaddin in the middle of them. For the first time I began to feel less like a tourist and more like a guest. It was a magical evening, celebrating not only the new year but a new chapter in my life.

  The following morning was my first Navruz and I wandered around town with Catriona and Andrea – a team-mate who had returned from six months in Germany. The weather was pleasantly warm and a plethora of stalls had sprung up selling watery ice-cream, clover ravioli and other delicacies. The souvenir shops were open once more and I met Zafar, who recognised me. He invited me to his home again and I eagerly accepted, agreeing on a date and writing down his address. The rusting ferris wheel – which we’d previously assumed was derelict – cranked into life and gaggles of girls screamed and flirted with schoolboys, ignoring the stunning views of Khiva’s walled city that unfolded behind them. I had survived my first winter in Khiva, had a place to live and an invitation to Zafar’s house. Life was improving.

  * * *

  The light green fuzz that appeared over the fields grew rapidly as the weather warmed, replacing the desert-brown monotony of Khiva’s winter landscape. Trees budded and blossomed, and fresh herbs appeared in the bazaar. I settled into my new home, overjoyed at the presence of an indoor toilet and accustoming myself to Soviet textbooks in lieu of toilet paper. At first I was treated with deference by Koranbeg and Zulhamar, all of us trying a little too hard. Gradually, the atmosphere became more relaxed; the family would quarrel or joke in my presence, and I play-fought with the boys.

  The three children slept together in the living room, with a niece from the village who was studying in Khiva. Each morning they rolled up their mattresses and stored them in a neat corner pile, draped with a synthetic Chinese tapestry. Zulhamar and Malika were excellent cooks and kindly indulged my vegetarianism, introducing me to dishes such as shwitosh, a green noodle made with dill and served with yoghurt and stew, or semi-circular fried pastry parcels of vegetables.