A Carpet Ride to Khiva: Seven Years on the Silk Road (12 page)

The secret of silk’s origin was known only in China, and the Chinese little imagined that it would eventually be traded with the far-flung empires of Greece, Persia and Rome. In fact, no one in China was sure that these empires even existed. China was hemmed in by a barbaric tribe they called Shiongu (possibly the Huns) who barred all exploration westwards. It was only a century before Christ,
after enduring one raid too many, that the Han Emperor went on the offensive.

Aware that his army was no match for the guerrilla warfare of the horseriding barbarians, the Emperor desired more information about potential Western allies. In 138 BC, General Chang Chien was dispatched with over 100 men to seek out kingdoms beyond the barbarians – should rumours of their existence prove founded
– and enlist these Western allies in a fight against the Shiongu.

His quest took him through hostile barbarian territory, and he was captured twice by the barbarians, spending eleven years in slavery. Eventually Chang Chien managed to escape with a few of his men and, undeterred, continued westwards. He made contact with the kingdom of Bactria, and arrived eventually at the capital of Khorezm,
the largest kingdom of Middle Asia. The Khorezm Shah demurred at the suggestion of a unified battle. He had no intention of unleashing the fury of the barbarians upon his own empire.

Actually, the Shah and his courts were far more interested in General Chang Chien’s wardrobe than in any plans for battle. They had never seen such dazzling material, shimmering with a bewitching iridescent
sheen. Chang Chien made a mental note that silk was an unknown and highly tradeable commodity. Having, presumably, sold his clothes to finance the journey home, Chang Chien returned to China via the fertile valley of Fergana. Here he made a second important find. Not only did the people of the West eagerly covet silk, they also possessed horses vastly superior, not only to the feeble horses of China,
but also to the warhorses of the barbarians. These heavenly horses were said to sweat blood and run like the wind. His discovery of fine horses and a market for silk would prove more useful than any potential allies.

Arriving home after thirteen years of adventures and with just a handful of his original entourage, Chang Chien was given a hero’s welcome by the Emperor, who had given him
up for dead. The Emperor obtained Fergana horses to build up his cavalry and the first trading parties were sent out, laden with bales of carefully wrapped silk. Their Middle Asian clients were mystified at the origin of silk and what ‘heavenly vegetable’ might have produced such a fabric. The Chinese, quite sensibly, refused to share their secret with anyone. Silk eventually made its way to Rome,
where it scandalised society. Wealthy noblewomen wore silken ‘glass’ togas that left nothing to the imagination. Unsurprisingly, demand went through the roof and soon silk was worth more than its weight in gold.

Caravans of a thousand camels braved their way across Middle Asia. It could take as little as 200 days to traverse the entire route, but most traders chose instead to ply just one
leg of the numerous routes available. As a result, caravanserais sprang up in the many desert oases, offering both accommodation and the opportunity for goods to change hands. Before long, these caravan stops had mushroomed into fully-fledged cities.

Silk was by no means the only merchandise to make its way from China along the Silk Road. Porcelain, paper, gunpowder, mulberries, rhubarb
and spices were just a few of the products taken westwards, with horses, coral, ivory, glass, asbestos, onions, peas, cucumbers and even ostriches returning via the Silk Road to the Celestial Empire.

As merchandise changed hands across the caravanserais of Central Asia, so new religions, philosophies and inventions passed to and fro. Buddhism, on the decline in India, was brought eastwards
and continues to dominate many Eastern countries to this day. Nestorian Christianity – a persecuted heresy in the West, led by Bishop Nestor who fell out of favour for opposing icons – found fertile soil in Central Asia, and soon cathedrals dotted the Silk Road, including the Cathedral of St George, built where the Registan stands today in Samarkand.

Eventually the secret of sericulture
escaped the Jade Gates, travelling westwards along the Silk Road, hidden in the elaborate hairstyle of a Chinese princess. Marrying a barbarian she was prepared to do, but living without silk was an impossible deprivation. Later, a single cocoon was smuggled to the West in the hollowed-out staff of a Nestorian monk and silk production was established in southern Europe and the Mediterranean. China
still produced vast quantities of silk, but alternative sea routes meant that the long, arduous overland journey was no longer necessary and the Silk Road declined in importance. Today, few could name the countries found en route, except that most of them end in
–stan
.

By the 20th century there were few places where silk was still worth its weight in gold, but Khiva was one of them – the
Khorezm oasis hadn’t ended its love affair with silk, and wove it into money. Until 1924 the Khanate of Khiva was the only country outside China to use silk money, each note hand-woven and then printed in the mint located in the Kunya Ark. When the money got dirty, it was quite literally laundered. After 1924 the short-lived Khorezm Socialist Republic was absorbed into the USSR and silk money was
no longer legal tender. Instead it became fashionable, stitched together to make robes or patchwork quilts. They made popular wedding gifts as a wish for new couples to be prosperous together.

And all this started with voracious little monsters like those happily munching on their mulberry leaves before me. I picked up a leaf with a worm hanging upside down from it, determined to let nothing
interrupt its guzzling. The life-cycle of these worms was also a silk road of sorts, and they were nearing the end of theirs.

‘It feels really good to be …’ I paused, trying to find the right expression, ‘… here in the middle of it all,’ I said, still pondering the impact of the Silk Road.

‘Yes, you can be,’ replied Nuraddin, misunderstanding me and pointing to a hole in the middle
of the seething mass of worms and branches. The hole had been strategically placed to allow access to the worms in the middle of the trestles and ensure an even spread of fresh branches. Realising that I was expected to emerge from the hole, I crawled through worm droppings, getting my hair caught in the mulberry branches above and feeling the odd worm bounce softly down my neck, before standing
up and brushing myself off. I was surrounded by the undulating ripples of thousands and thousands of worms.

The following week Nuraddin called to say that there was no need to come. ‘The worms are bigger than the last time, but otherwise the only change is that they’ve stopped eating. They’ll be like this for another four or five days.’

‘Oh,’ I replied, trying to imagine what a silkworm
would do with its time when no longer doubling its bodyweight as fast as possible. ‘Aren’t they hungry any more?’

‘No, they will never eat again. Now they must prepare themselves for spinning their cocoons. We’re happy, we can have a rest. Come next week and it will be very interesting. You can watch them spinning.’

* * *

This worked well with my own schedule, as our official
opening loomed. I was keen to use the occasion as a signal to any greedy officials eyeing the workshop that we had powerful friends in Tashkent and the blessing of the Mayor in Khiva.

Fatoulah the Bukharan was adamant that we should buy a sheep and slaughter it in the courtyard. The blood-letting would protect our workshop from the evil eye, and the meat could then be eaten at the official
opening. I was equally adamant that there would be no sheep coming anywhere near the workshop. Fatoulah, exasperated by my ignorance of the evil eye and its dangers, was willing to compromise with a cockerel, which I also refused to include in the budget. It was only when I gave him the opportunity to buy a cockerel with his own wages, if blood-letting was so important, that he desisted.

Barry, the Mayor and an entourage of local journalists, officials and hangers-on arrived on the day of the opening and the ribbon was cut. We gave everyone a tour, with just a few centimetres of woven carpet to show off, and finished with speeches.

Keen to make our opening something that the apprentices would also enjoy, I’d invited my friend Rustam, the pastor in Urgench and also one of
the best
surnai
players in the oasis. He lifted his oboe-like instrument and began a long, wailing note distinctive of the
lazgi
dance. Every wedding, circumcision or cradle party ends with this dance, and as the music began the effects were immediate. The weavers, silent and demure up to this point, began to smile flirtatiously at each other, swaying their shoulders and shimmying suggestively.
They were all wearing their shiniest and most glittery dresses for the occasion and even the dyers looked smart.

Rustam had once explained to me that the lazgi dance was the song of creation. God had commanded the angel Gabriel to play the surnai, and out of the music God had created Adam and Eve. This story was reflected in the dance, as man and woman were brought to life through the music.
Catriona and Seitske – a Dutch nurse – had abandoned their health education programme to join us for the day, and dragged the weavers into the centre of the courtyard to dance. Each girl lifted one hand, letting the wrist hang limp, and swayed her body like a weeping willow as the surnai continued its long, haunting melody. They froze as the music stopped and then abruptly shifted to staccato
rhythms, the hand-held drum joining in.

The music increased in speed and volume and soon Rustam was sweating. His instrument was the hardest to master and, like the oboe, required circular breathing. Toychi the dyer, an excellent dancer, joined the fray and I suddenly found myself dragged by him into the middle. Unlike the women’s swaying motion, the men danced in a series of jerks with
lots of snapping of the fingers and exaggerated facial expressions. The music increased in pace and inhibitions were cast aside as Andrea was dragged in by one of the weavers. Even Madrim – not without protest – joined us. The music stopped, followed by polite applause from the Mayor’s entourage who had considered it undignified to join in. Sweaty and dishevelled, we made our way to a neighbouring
hotel where a banquet of plov had been prepared.

The Mayor presented Barry with a gold-embroidered robe of honour – insisting on personally tying the belt on. I wondered how many of these robes Barry had accumulated over the years at similar functions. I was presented with a humbler, stripey robe and a black
dupe
, a skull-cap embroidered with four white chilli-pepper motifs to ward off the
evil eye. My robe fastened, I was given a crushing Mayor-hug. Now that I looked like a proper Uzbek, the Mayor said, it was time to find me a proper Uzbek wife, and he began pointing out different weavers and their womanly attributes. I also received a fantastically vulgar brown vase with brown roses all over it and snake handles. This was not the first and, sadly, not the last of these vases given
to me: we reserved a shelf in the Operation Mercy office for our collection as no one wanted to keep them in their homes, which probably only encouraged the giving of more.

After lunch, the Mayor departed and Barry returned to his hotel for a rest. The weavers and Operation Mercy girls, however, were in high spirits and returned to the workshop where dancing resumed to a mixture of Uzbek,
Turkish, Arabic and Russian pop and even, at one point, the Macarena.

* * *

The following week, I set off with Koranbeg and Madrim for one final visit to the worms. We drove past row upon row of bald mulberry stumps and saw a couple of lorries full of spindly, dry bushes that grew in the desert.

‘What are they for? Firewood?’ I asked Koranbeg.

‘You’ll see,’ he replied,
smiling conspiratorially .

Nuraddin met us with bad news. ‘You missed the worms weaving; they started a bit earlier than we expected and finished yesterday. But don’t worry, we’ll look at the cocoons and then visit another of the villagers whose worms hatched a bit later. They should be spinning today.’

Inside, the first thing I noticed was the quiet absence of munching. Where previously
there had been a seething blanket of leaves and worms, there was now a winter landscape of fine silver branches laden with snowy white gossamer silk threads. Now I understood the purpose of the desert bushes, which made excellent spinning sites. Embedded among the threads were hundreds of white cocoons. Nuraddin picked one up and rattled it in my ear.

‘Can you hear the pupa inside? Now it’s
getting ready to become a moth. Here, take it. A souvenir.’

It was an incredible sight, the stillness belying the transformation taking place inside each cocoon. I watched as an old woman sat ripping the cocoons from the strands that anchored them in place, removing any snagged twigs before popping them into a cotton sack that she held between her knees.

‘Granny, I think you deserve
a well-earned rest after the last months of labour,’ I said. ‘Are you looking forward to getting your house back?’

‘Let’s just hope we actually get paid this time,’ she replied grimly.

After taking some photos, we moved on to another house up the road where thousands of worms were at work. There was still the snowy effect of silver bushes covered in silky gossamer threads, but this
room was a hive of activity.

‘Look at this worm here,’ said Nuraddin. ‘You can see it is looking for a good place to begin weaving, a place where there are lots of twigs around and no other worms too close. This one here has started. First it makes these general sweeping motions with its spinneret to create a carpet of threads around it. Then it starts to weave its cocoon; see that one there,
the cocoon has already taken shape, but you can still see it inside going around and around.’