Termez

Termez is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in Uzbekistan, founded on the north bank of the Amu Darya — the Oxus of antiquity — where the river could be crossed on the road between India and Central Asia. It lay in Bactria, ruled in turn by the Achaemenid Persians, by Alexander the Great's successors and by the Greco-Bactrian kings, and the excavated river fortress of Kampir Tepe to the west preserves a Hellenistic town of that period.

Under the Kushan Empire, in the first centuries AD, Termez became a Buddhist centre. Monks cut chambers into the sandstone at Kara Tepe, built the monastery of Fayaz Tepe with its stupa and refectory, and raised the great stupa whose brick core survives at Zurmala; sculpture and finds from these sites are the core of the city's museum, which opened in 2002, while the excavated wall paintings are displayed in Tashkent. Buddhism faded after the Sasanian and Hephthalite invasions, and the Arab conquest in the 8th century made Termez a Muslim city and, in time, a place of Islamic scholarship — the Sufi thinker al-Hakim at-Termizi lived and was buried here in the 9th century, and the Termez sayyids built their long line of tombs at Sultan Saodat.

Genghis Khan's army destroyed the old city in 1220, and it was never rebuilt on the same site. The modern city dates from the 1890s, when Russian troops established a garrison beside the village of Pattakesar on the frontier of the empire; the settlement took the ancient name Termez in 1928. In Soviet times it became the base for the war in Afghanistan: the Friendship Bridge over the Amu Darya opened in 1982, and the last Soviet troops crossed it home in 1989. Since independence Termez has become the country's main gateway for trade with Afghanistan, with cargo terminals and rail links carrying much of that traffic.

Termez is a border city, and that shapes it. Uniforms are a normal sight, customs and freight work are ordinary jobs, and families have long-standing ties across the river as well as with Tajikistan to the east. The tone is provincial and conservative — more so than Samarkand or Tashkent — with large extended households, early marriages and a strong role for religious observance in daily life.

Pilgrimage is the city's most visible religious tradition. The shrine of al-Hakim at-Termizi above the river and the Sultan Saodat complex draw visitors from across the south, and the association with a scholar of the early Sufi tradition gives Termez standing among Uzbek Muslims well beyond its size. At the same time the city has built a second identity as a place of Buddhist archaeology, hosting scholarly gatherings and displaying finds that connect it to a religious history quite unlike its present.

Surxondaryo's wider culture is that of the Uzbek south: descendants of once semi-nomadic tribes, Tajik-speaking villages in the mountains, and the songs, rituals and crafts of the Boysun district, recognised by UNESCO in 2001. Kupkari, the horseback game played for a goat carcass, is held at weddings and holidays, and music at celebrations runs on doira drums and surnay pipes. Greetings are formal, a hand on the heart, elders addressed first, and a guest is fed before anything else is discussed.

About 180,000 people live in Termez, the administrative centre of Surxondaryo province. The city is low-rise and green, with Russian-planned avenues shaded by plane trees, Soviet apartment blocks and large districts of courtyard houses on the outskirts. Air conditioning, thick walls and shaded yards are what make summer life possible; in the hottest months the streets empty from late morning until the early evening.

The economy rests on cross-border trade and transport, on the military and administrative presence, and on the produce of one of the country's most fertile hot valleys — cotton, wheat, melons, grapes, figs and pomegranates, much of it sent north to Tashkent. Rail and road terminals handle Afghan freight, and cargo movement is a significant employer. Incomes are low, birth rates high, and many young men from the province work in Russia or the capital and send money home.

Life follows the heat and the calendar of the harvest. Bazaars open at dawn and are busiest before nine; the evening brings families out to the central park and the teahouses. What people talk about is water and electricity in summer, the price of fruit, the state of the roads over the passes to the north, and the situation across the river, which affects trade, jobs and the movement of goods through the city.

Termez eats like the Uzbek south: mutton, bread, dairy and an unusual abundance of fruit. Tandir go'sht, mutton sealed into a clay oven and roasted for hours until it pulls apart, is the dish the region is known for, served in pieces with flat bread, raw onion and tea. Plov is cooked in wide kazans for weddings and guests; shurpa, a broth of mutton with big pieces of potato, carrot and turnip, is the everyday soup; and dimlama, meat and vegetables layered in a sealed pot, is a common family meal.

Grills work along the avenues from late afternoon, turning skewers of mutton and fat over charcoal, and samsa baked against the wall of a tandoor are sold from mid-morning. Bread is round, stamped at the centre and broken by hand; qurt, hard salty balls of dried strained yoghurt, and fresh sheep's cheese come down from the mountain villages, along with honey and walnuts.

The Surxondaryo valley's long, fierce growing season is the city's pride. Melons and watermelons ripen from early summer and are stacked at the roadsides; figs, pomegranates, grapes and apricots follow, and much of the crop is dried for winter. Green tea is drunk all day, poured back into the pot before serving and taken in bowls with navat sugar crystals, and a guest is offered tea, bread and dried fruit before any conversation begins.