Uzbekistan: Samarkand, the Silk Road and Plov as a National Art Form
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Samarkand is one of the oldest cities in Central Asia and one of the most beautiful in the world. The Registan — a public square flanked by three monumental madrasahs covered in blue tilework — is among the great architectural achievements of any civilisation. Built under Tamerlane and his successors in the 14th and 15th centuries, the buildings represent the height of Timurid art: mathematics made visible in geometric tile patterns, calligraphy as architecture, blue domes that seem to belong to the sky rather than the earth. Standing in the Registan at dusk is a disorienting experience of scale and beauty.
The Silk Road cities of Uzbekistan — Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva — were the caravanserai stops at the centre of the ancient world's trade network, where Chinese silk, Indian spices, Persian metalwork, and European glass were exchanged by merchants who spoke dozens of languages and practiced half a dozen religions in the same market. The intercultural contact that these cities facilitated shaped the art, science, and philosophy of the medieval world. Al-Biruni, Al-Farabi, and Ibn Sina — who shaped medieval European science through Arab translations — all worked in the intellectual tradition of this region.
Plov — Uzbek rice pilaf — is the national dish and a serious art form. Lamb or beef, carrots, onions, garlic, and rice are cooked together in a large qazan (cast iron cauldron) over open fire in a specific sequence that produces a dish whose simplicity conceals its technical demands. Each region has its variation. Master plov makers — oshpaz — are invited to prepare the dish at weddings and celebrations for hundreds of guests. UNESCO recognised Uzbek plov as Intangible Cultural Heritage. The dish deserves it.
