Tonight we leave Samarkand by night train to Nukus, so we relax as much as possible in our apartment until it’s time to check out. We can leave our luggage in the back of our host’s car trunk and message her when we want it back.
There is one main sight still waiting to be visited in Samarkand, Gur-e Amir. The mausoleum of Timur. This highlight of Timurid architecture served as inspiration for the Taj Mahal, build by a great-great-great times 3 or so grandson of Timur. The Indian Mughal Empire was founded by Timur’s 4* great grandson Babur. Who also was a descendant of Genghis Khan btw, some genocidal heritage to carry.
It’s relatively busy here since the size is much smaller and there are several Uzbek tour groups who seem devoted to Timur as they all start praying inside his mausoleum. The main room is dazzling with its intricate golden decorations and beautiful motifs. We learn some more about Timur conquests, submitting most of Central Asia, the Middle East, Turkey and Russia.
After receiving a tip about a hidden mausoleum somewhere in Samarkand, Tim remembers seeing a mausoleum on the map next to Timur’s. So we take the rear exit and find a small mausoleum, it’s named Aksaray mausoleum, but we don’t find any more information to whom it belonged. But it’s beautifully painted and decorated and you also get entrance to the cellars through a white cellar door and a large stone stair into the darkness. Some visitors are deciding what to do, Tim shows them the way by leaping in and venturing under ground, it leads to a small tomb with three graves.
We exit the complex and take a walk through the park with a mosque and another mausoleum. The madrassa has turned into a tourist shopping centre and Olga tries on some Uzbek dresses to better fit in with the locals. She strikes a good deal and we make our way to another tip we received, a restaurant with vegan options. We take a Yandex to the Platan restaurant. Once there we see that it’s a restaurant catering to wealthy tourists, not exactly what we hoped for.
If we ask for a place outside, the waiter keeps point to the door and wants to lead us inside, after insisting to stay outside another host shows us a table outside. We pick some options which appear to be vegan and try to enjoy the sunny weather while the children run around and throw with rocks.
The food is bland but at least no animals died for these plates. After our mains we get the soup, not sure why this is the order, but probably because they have surprise meat in them and the other dishes were considered salads.
As a final goodbye to Samarkand, we walk back to the apartment to pick up our luggage. We walk through some office/government areas with Soviet era architecture. Since it’s Sunday the area is very quiet and only some couples are enjoying the parks.
Back at the apartment we message our host and pick up some bananas for in the train. The children get to spend their final energy of the day in the playground and once we are reunited with our luggage, we Yandex to the station. Bye Samarkand!
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