Samarkand

Samarkand grew on the hill of Afrasiyab above the Siab stream, and the site has been settled since about the 7th century BC. As Maracanda it was the capital of Sogdiana when Alexander the Great took it in 329 BC, and for the next thousand years Sogdian merchants from the city ran the caravan trade between China, India and Persia. Arab armies conquered it in 712, and under the Samanids it became a centre of Persian letters and of the paper-making brought from China.

Genghis Khan's army destroyed the city in 1220; Afrasiyab was never rebuilt and settlement shifted south. In 1370 Timur made Samarkand the capital of an empire that reached from Anatolia to the Indus, and deported craftsmen from every conquered city to build it: Bibi-Khanym, the Gur-e-Amir, the mausolea of Shah-i-Zinda. His grandson Ulugh Beg ruled as a scholar-prince, building a madrasa on the Registan and an observatory whose measurements came remarkably close to modern values; he was murdered in 1449. Under the later Uzbek dynasties the governor Yalangtush Bahadur added the Sher-Dor and Tilya-Kori madrasas, but the capital had moved to Bukhara, and Samarkand declined, at one point standing almost empty.

Russian troops took the city in 1868, and a European town of avenues grew west of the ruins. Samarkand was capital of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic from 1925 until 1930, when Tashkent replaced it. Soviet and later Uzbek restoration rebuilt much of what stands today, work that is admired and argued over in equal measure. The historic centre was inscribed by UNESCO in 2001, and since then tourism, a new airport and large-scale redevelopment have reshaped the city around the monuments.

Samarkand is a city of two languages and layered identities. Tajik, a form of Persian, is the mother tongue of a large part of the population, spoken beside Uzbek and Russian; the mix runs through the city's poetry, songs and humour, and is a subject handled with some care. The old town's mahallas, with their gated courtyards and neighbourhood committees, keep customs that the Russian city across the avenues observes more loosely.

Religion and scholarship shaped the place. The shrine of Shah-i-Zinda draws pilgrims as well as visitors, and the memorial complex of Imam al-Bukhari, outside the city, draws pilgrims from across the Muslim world. At the same time Samarkand is remembered as the city of Ulugh Beg the astronomer, and that double inheritance of faith and science is a point of local pride. The Sharq Taronalari music festival brings performers from many countries to the Registan in odd-numbered years.

Crafts continue: hand-made silk paper from mulberry bark at workshops on the Siab north of the city, suzani embroidery, ceramics and carpet weaving. Everyday manners follow national custom — elders greeted first, a hand on the heart, shoes removed indoors, bread torn by hand and never set face down, guests fed before anything else is discussed. Weddings are large and begin before dawn with plov, and whole streets are drawn in.

Around 880,000 people live in Samarkand, making it the second-largest city in Uzbekistan after Tashkent, and it is the centre of a densely farmed province along the Zarafshan. The old town's mahallas of courtyard houses, the Soviet apartment districts and new estates on the outskirts hold most residents, and families are large by European standards, often with several generations under one roof.

Tourism is the most visible employer, with guesthouses, restaurants, guides, drivers and craft workshops built around the monuments, but it is not the largest: farming and food processing in the valley, textiles, a long-standing vehicle and machinery plant, several universities and the trade that passes through the city matter more in ordinary households. Labour migration to Russia and Kazakhstan is common, as everywhere in the country.

The day begins early — the bazaar is at its best before nine — pauses through the hottest hours in summer, and revives in the evening, when families walk on University Boulevard and along the illuminated monument route. Recent years have brought heavy construction: new hotels, a tourism complex north of the centre and the clearance of older housing near the monuments, which is debated locally alongside water supply, traffic and the cost of housing.

Samarkand's bread is its most famous product. Obi non here is a thick round loaf stamped in the middle and baked against the wall of a tandoor, denser than in other cities and said to keep for weeks when dried; it is bought at the Siab bazaar by the stack and given as a present when travelling. Local plov is made in the Samarkand manner, the rice steamed above the meat and carrots without stirring and served in layers on the plate, usually with yellow carrots and chickpeas.

The bazaar supplies the rest of the table. Halva in many forms, sugared nuts, dried apricots, raisins, figs and walnuts are sold in heaps, and the valley's grapes, pomegranates, peaches and melons arrive in quantity from late summer. Samsa baked in the tandoor, shashlik grilled over charcoal, lagman noodles, manti and chuchvara dumplings, and shurpa soup are eaten across the city, and nahor oshi, the dawn plov, marks weddings and commemorations.

Tea is constant and usually green, poured for guests before anything else and served with sweets. Samarkand is also one of the few Uzbek cities with a wine tradition, centred on the Khovrenko winery, the country's oldest, which makes dessert wines from local grapes, and small cafés serving coffee and European food have multiplied around the Russian city in recent years.