A Golden Journey to Samarqand

an Eastern magic fairy queen

Recently the office of the weekly newspaper Uzbekistan Today has got a letter from the United Kingdom. Traveler Helen Littlewood wrote what had induced her to go to Uzbekistan, to visit the bewitching town of Samarqand and what she saw. Here are some fragments from her letter.

«This is Helen Littlewood writing to you, the organizer of a trip to Uzbekistan for a group of my colleagues of 15 persons with whom we had the pleasure to visit your country during April-May this year.

This letter is the gratitude for so pleasant impressions and memories gifted by Uzbekistan to us. This is an extremely fantastic country, hospitable people, friendly and benevolent guides and drivers. Great variety of hotels and restaurants as well as animation and recreation programs completely satisfied interests of the whole group.

Every year we visit various foreign countries, yet our trip to Uzbekistan was of special. The poem read by the schoolgirl of a local college on the Birmingham TV had inspired us for this trip. The poetic creation of the English poet and playwright James Elroy Flecker with such a much-promising title had literally bewitched us and enticed in “The Golden Journey to Samarqand”.

… The Golden Journey to Samarqand! - these words in the English-speaking countries of Europe have turned into a well-known phrase, idiom, slogan, and even if you want – into a tourist brand.

Today this phrase symbolizes a magic eastern fairy tale. This word-combination is used for making advertising pamphlet, various presentations are organized, books are published, as well as tours on the Great Silk Road are organized.

And “We are the Pilgrims” decided to make “For lust of knowing what should not be known, We make the Golden Journey to Samarqand.”

We got familiarized with this eastern town at a clear vernal day. Sun beams friendly shared its warm and energy, blossoming trees intoxicated with their sweetish aroma, fresh greens pleased our eyes. It seemed that we got into a fairy tale, and we were seized with the feeling of improbable pleasure.

Samarqand appeared the town of contrasts. Globalization had already left its trace here as well, but, fortunately, this process could not affect historical sights around which we travel!

We never feel such a tremble from contacting with the history, as in tumbledown fortresses of Go’r Amir at night. Guides revealed the secrets of the eastern architecture, accompanying each monument’s demonstration with one of local legends.

Registan, Bibi Khonim, Ulughbek Observatory, mausoleums, burial vaults… We read much about them, but to see them with our own eyes, to feel the spirit of that time, to imagine the history of these masterpieces of architecture and culture, to feel inexpressible delight is possible only visiting this place!

We were hugely amazed by the time course: it went rather different than we got used. It seems that here in UK time goes very quickly. Here it moved slowly yet with advantage, without forcing us to run and worry. We felt calmness and pacification…

Not without reason James Elroy Flecker wrote such lines in his poem:

“White on a throne or guarded in a cave

There lives a prophet who can understand

Why men were born: but surely we are brave,

Who make the Golden Journey to Samarqand…

Only visiting Samarqand, you understand the meaning of these lines … Only here, wandering from one monument to another, being plunged into the history, or sitting under the branches of a green plane tree, you are capable to reflect on philosophical themes and over purpose of life, and understand all the charm of it…”