At last, Samarkand’s Registan

September 13, 2017: If Samarkand was the “Center of the Universe” under Timur, the Registan was, and is, the center of the center. In Timur’s day it was a commercial center, with a covered bazaar, but his grandson, Ulug Beg, made it a religious and teaching center instead, with a madrassa to the west, a hospice for dervishes to the east, a caravanserai to the north and a mosque to the south. It is said that he taught astronomy in the madrassa, which had quarters for over 100 students.
Ulug Beg’s madrassa was built between 1417-1420, and two hundred years later it was the only one of the four buildings in good repair. The then governor of Samarkand, Yalangrush Bakhadur, removed the ruins and built two new madrassas on the west and north sides, Shir Dor and Tillya-Kori. The complex again fell into disrepair, with the buildings used to store grain, and was revived, surprisingly enough, by the Bolsheviks.

“Registan” means “sandy place”, and at one time it probably was. By the 2000s, however, photographs show a cleaned up square, although there are still bushes growing in front of the buildings. They had been removed by the time we visited, and nothing blocked the view of the facades, gleaming in the sunshine. In fact, there was rather too much sunshine when we visited as a group, and I went back later in the day for the evening light.

One might not guess, from all the photos of the facades, that once you enter the buildings you find interior courtyards ringed by more beautiful decoration. While souvenir sellers are scattered throughout all three buildings, they are not pushy, and don’t detract from the experience. We were fortunate that there were few other tourists sharing the place with us. Abdu said that the road to Samarkand was currently closed, perhaps because deceased President Karimov had recently been buried in town, and delegations were still visiting the tomb.

While I spent hours admiring the three madrassas, I could easily have spent days. I, along with three other people from the tour, did get an unexpected bonus two days later. It was a rare day when we were on our own for dinner. We had returned from a hot, exhausting, and not very satisfactory expedition to Shakhrisabz and Abdu’s suggestions for where to eat started with picking up snacks at a convenience store, moved on to eating in the hotel’s restaurant (which we had done the night before), and finished with calling out for pizza! When pressed he came up with a cafe that was about to close and a restaurant opposite the Registan.

After consulting Lonely Planet, I suggested another, more interesting sounding restaurant also opposite the Registan, and the four of us set off, passing the Registan on foot (the others wound up eating pizza as the hotel’s restaurant was closed). Now, Abdu had mentioned that the Registan was illuminated at night, but when we had passed it in the coach the lighting hadn’t looked very interesting. By sheer luck, we arrived just as the light show started, and it was absolutely magical. The fact the only four of us saw it is, in my mind, a big black mark against MIR. Since I wasn’t expecting to take photos I only had my smart phone with me, but I got a few shots even so. They don’t do it justice, but then the daylight shots don’t either. Like the Taj Mahal, this is a place that repays the effort of visiting in person.