A Carpet Ride to Khiva: Seven Years on the Silk Road (5 page)

I made friends with Kamil, a carpet-seller who trawled the closer villages in neighbouring Turkmenistan for carpets, providing generous bribes to the border guards and selling the carpets to tourists for enormous profit. I was useful – able to translate English books on carpets into a pidgin Uzbek of sorts – and Kamil taught me more about Turkmen carpet designs.
Although not part of the local mafia/government, he’d done well for himself, buying influential friends and a smattering of wives whom he’d installed in different houses around town. Polygamy was officially illegal but many richer men took mistresses and referred to them as second wives.

My experience with Kamil helped me learn more about Turkmen carpets and begin to appreciate indicators
that affected a carpet’s value, such as the knot count per square centimetre. I also realised that within a few years, there would be no more old carpets to sell off. I wondered what it would take to set up a workshop producing new carpets of a decent quality to sell to tourists. It wasn’t something I gave much thought to. After all, what did I know about carpets? A few years later, when asked by
tourists visiting the workshop where I’d studied carpets and textiles, I’d look back and remember my very basic tutelage.

My accommodation prospects brightened. I discovered a beautiful old courtyard house within the walled city just next to the Khan’s fortress and watchtower. It was empty but owned by the Ministry of Culture who used it sporadically as a guesthouse. I could rent the main
living room for the princely sum of around $10 a month, sharing the bathroom and kitchen with an occasional guest from Tashkent. I was keen to move in as soon as possible, but the landlady insisted I gain approval first from the Ministry of Culture in Tashkent. I persuaded Lukas to visit them next time he was there, sure he would charm them with his fluent Uzbek.

‘Maybe it will be possible,’
had been the response. ‘But first you must get these other permissions.’ This sounded straightforward, but I failed to understand that I had been given an Uzbek ‘no’. Preferring not to say no directly, the hope was that I would be put off by the demand for permissions and look elsewhere. It was only later that I understood this, learning to spot the expression of vagueness immediately assumed
by any official when asked questions to which the answer was negative, or the dreaded
hozer
in response to a ‘when’ question. We were taught in language class that
hozer
meant ‘now’, but swiftly learnt that its practical application could mean anything from five minutes to eternity.

* * *

Catriona and I continued to collate stories for the guidebook, and Isak – a German-speaking guide
– proved particularly helpful. Standing before two life-size photographs of the last Khans of Khiva, he told us stories of their lives. The elder of the two was Mohammed Rakhim Khan, a poet known by his pen-name ‘Feruz Khan’, and ruler at the time the Russians successfully conquered Khiva in 1873. He had retained his position but was stripped of his armed forces, expected to pay a huge war indemnity
to the Tsar. He was Khan when Burnaby made his ride to Khiva, hosting the Captain and astonished that such a great nation as
Inglizstan
might be ruled by some woman called Victoria.

Feruz Khan had been a benevolent ruler and popular with his subjects. His trusted Vizier, Islom Hoja, was a progressive thinker committed to improving the lot of the common man. The Tsar invited his new vassal
to St Petersburg and the Khan left his medieval Khanate, returning with tales of wonder at the modern world. His new, purely decorative telephone was given pride of place, and a pianoforte was installed in the palace with a courtier instructed to learn how to play it. The Vizier Islom Hoja was similarly inspired and returned with grand schemes to modernise Khiva. He set about building the city’s
first hospital, its first secular school (which even admitted girls) and a post office – dreaming that one day Khiva might be connected to the world by telegraph.

Islom Hoja was a respected Vizier and honoured by the Khan, who arranged a marriage between their children. However, his fortunes changed with the death of the Khan. The Khan’s first-born was a hopeless opium addict and passed
over in favour of Isfandir, who wasn’t much better. The new Khan – preoccupied with his harem and dancing boys – left the running of the Khanate to the Vizier. This arrangement worked nicely until Tsar Nicolai invited the Khan and his entourage to St Petersburg.

At the first official reception the Khan, unaccustomed to meeting virtuous ladies uncovered, was introduced to the Tsarina. His
frank sexual proposition was judiciously translated as: ‘The Khan, enamoured by your beauty, humbly requests a portrait of your likeness to show his harem the superior beauty of the European woman.’

The Tsarina, delighted, provided the Khan with a portrait, and the smouldering Khan was promptly packed off to the nearest brothel. The Tsar, hearing of such lewd conduct, was furious and refused
to appear in the official photographs marking the occasion. Meanwhile, Isfandir contracted syphilis, a disease then unknown in Khiva, and returned to the Khanate where his physicians assured him that cleansing would occur if he slept with 40 virgins. The Vizier – fearful that his own daughter might get infected – intervened, quarantining the Khan from any further sexual exploits until he was
well again, making a powerful enemy in the process.

Isfandir was determined to do away with his interfering father-in-law; but he needed allies, who were hard to come by due to the Vizier’s popularity. He consulted the mullahs, who were also keen to see an end to the Vizier and his modernising ways, which threatened their own power base. A plot was hatched and a messenger dispatched ordering
the Vizier to come to the Khan’s palace immediately. The mullahs arranged for bandits to lie in wait for the Vizier, robbing and murdering him. The Khan immediately rounded up the bandits, executing them before they could protest that they were merely following orders, and conveniently tying up the loose ends.

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.