0:00:02 > 0:00:042,000 years ago,
0:00:04 > 0:00:07an ancient trade route slowly spread across a continent.
0:00:08 > 0:00:11As a historian, the Silk Road has always fascinated me
0:00:11 > 0:00:14and this is the story of my journey along it.
0:00:15 > 0:00:18It ran all the way from China's ancient capital
0:00:18 > 0:00:22through Central Asia, through mythical cities
0:00:22 > 0:00:24such as Samarkand or Persepolis
0:00:24 > 0:00:28until it reached the bazaars of Istanbul,
0:00:28 > 0:00:30the merchants of Venice.
0:00:34 > 0:00:37How much does modern Europe owe to the art,
0:00:37 > 0:00:41ideas and innovations that arose on the Silk Road?
0:00:42 > 0:00:46To answer that question, I'll follow it through deserts and oases.
0:00:49 > 0:00:52I'll get to see the Silk Road treasures of Iran,
0:00:52 > 0:00:55now, once more, opening to travellers like me.
0:00:55 > 0:00:57I'm starting to think that I may have actually been
0:00:57 > 0:01:00an Iranian merchant in a former life.
0:01:01 > 0:01:04The Silk Road was a place of adventure and invention.
0:01:04 > 0:01:09It cut across borders and brought cultures into contact and conflict.
0:01:10 > 0:01:13In this episode, I'm in Central Asia,
0:01:13 > 0:01:17the heart of the Silk Road, a place of constant conquest
0:01:17 > 0:01:22and resettlement, of displaced peoples and ruined cities.
0:01:22 > 0:01:25The Silk Road's melting pot.
0:01:25 > 0:01:29It's the part of the Silk Road which Europe has often overlooked,
0:01:29 > 0:01:33but it's quite possibly to this territory that the West
0:01:33 > 0:01:35owes its greatest debts.
0:01:35 > 0:01:38We weren't rediscovering our own ideas.
0:01:38 > 0:01:41We were discovering someone else's.
0:01:41 > 0:01:44I'll meet the last survivors of a race, the Sogdians,
0:01:44 > 0:01:48who once traded from the Mediterranean to the China Sea.
0:01:48 > 0:01:51I'll search for traces of their art and culture.
0:01:53 > 0:01:57I'll delight in a city built by tens of thousands of captive craftsmen
0:01:57 > 0:02:00for one of the greatest conquerors the world has ever seen...
0:02:01 > 0:02:04..and I'll go back to school in the Silk Road cities
0:02:04 > 0:02:09where modern mathematics and astronomy were actually born.
0:02:47 > 0:02:50Welcome to the Yaghnob Valley in Tajikistan,
0:02:50 > 0:02:53the very heart of the Silk Road.
0:02:53 > 0:02:55I've got a feeling that the roads here are roughly as old
0:02:55 > 0:02:56as the Silk Road itself.
0:03:01 > 0:03:05I'm in Tajikistan in a mountain range called the Zarafshan,
0:03:05 > 0:03:08north of the Himalayas, west of the high Pamirs.
0:03:14 > 0:03:17For more than 1,000 years, Silk Road traders had to find their way
0:03:17 > 0:03:21through mountains like these, through these valleys.
0:03:21 > 0:03:24If they timed their trip badly, they froze to death.
0:03:26 > 0:03:29The idea of coming to a remote Tajik valley
0:03:29 > 0:03:31seemed like a very good idea in Devon.
0:03:31 > 0:03:34I'm starting to wonder whether it was.
0:03:36 > 0:03:38I also realise that I like wide roads.
0:03:40 > 0:03:43I'm trying to get to an isolated group of villages
0:03:43 > 0:03:47further down the valley which, for more than 1,200 years,
0:03:47 > 0:03:51has been the last refuge of a people that once traded all the way along
0:03:51 > 0:03:54the Silk Road, from the Mediterranean
0:03:54 > 0:03:57to China's eastern coast - the Sogdians.
0:04:01 > 0:04:06They had a kingdom, Sogdiana, and I'm driving through it now -
0:04:06 > 0:04:08or at least, through its ghost.
0:04:09 > 0:04:11For centuries, their language
0:04:11 > 0:04:14was the common tongue of Silk Road trade and traders,
0:04:14 > 0:04:17a form of ancient Persian that Darius the Great
0:04:17 > 0:04:21would've understood, that Alexander the Great would have heard.
0:04:21 > 0:04:24But in the course of the eighth century,
0:04:24 > 0:04:26the Sogdians came into conflict with Islam,
0:04:26 > 0:04:29which was slowly moving eastwards.
0:04:29 > 0:04:32Sogdian culture began to fragment.
0:04:32 > 0:04:35Once, they'd been so central to Silk Road trade
0:04:35 > 0:04:39that the word "Sogdian" replaced the word "merchant" -
0:04:39 > 0:04:43but by the 10th century, they were largely lost.
0:04:43 > 0:04:47Except for in this remote valley,
0:04:47 > 0:04:50where some of them hid for more than 1,000 years.
0:05:00 > 0:05:05Amazingly, in this valley, the language has survived.
0:05:05 > 0:05:08The people who speak it now are known as the Yaghnobi.
0:05:08 > 0:05:09I want to meet them.
0:05:11 > 0:05:15I'm hoping that it's not just the language that's lasted.
0:05:15 > 0:05:17Is there some trace of Sogdian culture?
0:05:22 > 0:05:23This is my destination.
0:05:32 > 0:05:34Well, thanks for the lovely drive.
0:05:34 > 0:05:35You're welcome.
0:05:35 > 0:05:37You've got to drive back too.
0:05:40 > 0:05:44Here, I can meet Niyoz Karimov and his family.
0:05:44 > 0:05:46Hey. Assalaamu Alaikum.
0:05:46 > 0:05:48THEY GREET EACH OTHER
0:05:51 > 0:05:54I'm desperate to hear this lost language spoken.
0:05:54 > 0:05:55Niyoz brings the family together
0:05:55 > 0:05:58and after one of the toddlers tries to strangle a cat,
0:05:58 > 0:06:00they try to put the babies to sleep
0:06:00 > 0:06:04in a language I would struggle to hear anywhere else in the world.
0:06:05 > 0:06:06THEY SPEAK IN YAGHNOBI
0:06:34 > 0:06:36The children just aren't sleepy.
0:06:37 > 0:06:38I still feel privileged,
0:06:38 > 0:06:43listening to words that Alexander the Great might once have heard.
0:06:43 > 0:06:44CHILD COUGHS
0:06:53 > 0:06:55The family get on with daily life.
0:06:55 > 0:06:57The winter snows are coming
0:06:57 > 0:07:00and they can't afford to waste much time talking to me.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03But I have questions to ask.
0:07:03 > 0:07:05There are ruins all over the valley,
0:07:05 > 0:07:08evidence that the population has declined.
0:07:13 > 0:07:15What's happened here?
0:07:17 > 0:07:20Professor Saiffidin Mirzozoda,
0:07:20 > 0:07:23a Yaghnobi who's made a career outside the valley,
0:07:23 > 0:07:25is staying with Niyoz.
0:07:25 > 0:07:29I asked them both about the valley's recent history.
0:07:29 > 0:07:31What happened to the Yaghnobi People?
0:08:01 > 0:08:06Zafarabad is north of the valley, close to the border with Uzbekistan.
0:08:06 > 0:08:08During the Soviet years, the Yaghnobi
0:08:08 > 0:08:11were put to work here, picking cotton.
0:08:11 > 0:08:15It's only about 60 miles from the valley, but it placed the Yaghnobi
0:08:15 > 0:08:18and their fragile traditions in the heart of another culture.
0:08:43 > 0:08:45This was all in Soviet times.
0:08:45 > 0:08:49What would be trying to do to the Yaghnobi by forcing them to migrate?
0:08:56 > 0:08:58What else needs to be done
0:08:58 > 0:09:02to preserve the Yaghnobi culture as best we can?
0:09:27 > 0:09:29It turns out the truth is I'm too late -
0:09:29 > 0:09:3470 or 80 years too late - to see what I wanted to see.
0:09:34 > 0:09:38The Yaghnobi had long since forgotten Sogdian poetry and culture
0:09:38 > 0:09:42and the Soviet era destroyed much of the language.
0:09:42 > 0:09:44Off-camera, the professor admits
0:09:44 > 0:09:48that only around 30% of its vocabulary survives.
0:09:49 > 0:09:52If I want to find traces of Sogdian art, of their spirit,
0:09:52 > 0:09:54I'll have to look elsewhere.
0:09:58 > 0:10:00Here in the valley, Niyoz and others
0:10:00 > 0:10:03work to stop what they still have from getting lost
0:10:03 > 0:10:06in the rising tide of global culture.
0:10:07 > 0:10:08In the little schoolhouse,
0:10:08 > 0:10:10Niyoz shows me that the kids here
0:10:10 > 0:10:12aren't without a decent, basic education
0:10:12 > 0:10:15and that they are being taught Yaghnobi.
0:10:19 > 0:10:21APPLAUSE
0:10:25 > 0:10:28And a little further up the valley, I find the remains of some
0:10:28 > 0:10:32of the many villages depopulated during Soviet times.
0:10:32 > 0:10:35Mostly uninhabited ruins, some recently reoccupied.
0:10:40 > 0:10:44We meet these three gentleman and pose for a photo opportunity.
0:10:47 > 0:10:50After they've left, our guide tells me that the oldest gent
0:10:50 > 0:10:54was talking about exactly how old these ruins are -
0:10:54 > 0:10:58that their foundations date from the time of Alexander the Great,
0:10:58 > 0:11:00three centuries before Christ.
0:11:02 > 0:11:06The Yaghnobi live here with an awareness that their history is long
0:11:06 > 0:11:08but they have forgotten all of its details.
0:11:10 > 0:11:13Everyone living here now has made a deliberate decision
0:11:13 > 0:11:18to come back to this valley after Soviet Russia moved them elsewhere.
0:11:18 > 0:11:20They choose to live without almost
0:11:20 > 0:11:23everything that the modern world has to offer.
0:11:23 > 0:11:26VOICE ECHOES ON PHONE
0:11:26 > 0:11:28It's not exactly no-frills...
0:11:31 > 0:11:33..but this is not a smartphone.
0:11:36 > 0:11:38It's hard to believe that their ancestors
0:11:38 > 0:11:41once ranged across this entire continent,
0:11:41 > 0:11:46trading in everything from silk to ceramics, jewels to weapons.
0:11:46 > 0:11:48Hard to believe that there were kings of the Sogdians,
0:11:48 > 0:11:53or that these people have been so completely forgotten,
0:11:53 > 0:11:55so lost to history.
0:11:58 > 0:11:59I've had such a lovely time
0:11:59 > 0:12:02that I thought we'd take a photo to remember it by.
0:12:02 > 0:12:03Is that OK?
0:12:03 > 0:12:06'Hardest of all, perhaps, to believe that a culture
0:12:06 > 0:12:10'can survive in a single valley for 1,200 years.'
0:12:10 > 0:12:12Good. All right, then.
0:12:12 > 0:12:14I can hold this up. Just get in.
0:12:14 > 0:12:15One, two, three.
0:12:21 > 0:12:23One for the journal.
0:12:23 > 0:12:26Although I won't need much help to remember this day.
0:12:28 > 0:12:31'Goodbye, Niyoz and your family.
0:12:31 > 0:12:33'Thank you for resisting history.'
0:12:38 > 0:12:42Thank you for proving that another kind of life is possible.
0:12:42 > 0:12:43It's been an honour.
0:12:53 > 0:12:54We start the drive back.
0:12:54 > 0:12:59It's a chance to reflect on who I've just met.
0:12:59 > 0:13:03As far as the rest of the world is concerned, these people don't exist.
0:13:05 > 0:13:08I'm very glad to have met them, very glad indeed.
0:13:11 > 0:13:15I'm hoping that further to the west, out of this valley,
0:13:15 > 0:13:19I might find some trace of Sogdian art or culture.
0:13:19 > 0:13:22Near the valley's mouth, I find something else,
0:13:22 > 0:13:25a remnant of Tajikistan's recent past
0:13:25 > 0:13:28as part of the Soviet Union.
0:13:28 > 0:13:34Bus stop, artwork, space age relic and reminder of political reality.
0:13:34 > 0:13:36In pastoral painted concrete and pebbles,
0:13:36 > 0:13:41we see the hammer and sickle and Sputniks orbiting the Earth.
0:13:44 > 0:13:46It's too good to miss.
0:13:46 > 0:13:48I need a snap for the journal.
0:13:48 > 0:13:53It reminds me once again of where I am and where it was,
0:13:53 > 0:13:58that all around me are nations whose boundaries were set not by history,
0:13:58 > 0:14:02but by the Soviets, who sought to frustrate national identities.
0:14:03 > 0:14:07In terms of the ancient Silk Road, I'm still well within
0:14:07 > 0:14:09the boundaries of Sogdiana.
0:14:09 > 0:14:12But if you look at a modern map of central Asia,
0:14:12 > 0:14:15at the illogical lines that determine the outlines of countries
0:14:15 > 0:14:19like Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan,
0:14:19 > 0:14:23what you're essentially looking at is a map of Stalin's mind.
0:14:26 > 0:14:29Look at these straight lines.
0:14:29 > 0:14:31What happens if you are a Kazakh nomad here
0:14:31 > 0:14:36whose summer pastures lie beyond this new border?
0:14:36 > 0:14:40I'm leaving Tajikistan behind, going West to Uzbekistan,
0:14:40 > 0:14:42to its capital, Tashkent.
0:14:42 > 0:14:45Relations between these two neighbours
0:14:45 > 0:14:46who share so much history,
0:14:46 > 0:14:48not least the memory of Sogdiana,
0:14:48 > 0:14:53are currently so poor that I can't cross by road.
0:14:53 > 0:14:58I have to fly to Istanbul and then from there to Tashkent.
0:14:58 > 0:15:02When the walls went down in 1990 and 1991,
0:15:02 > 0:15:07and the Soviet Union collapsed, Uzbekistan gained its independence.
0:15:07 > 0:15:10It's been ruled ever since by President Islam Karimov.
0:15:14 > 0:15:17Throughout the country, statues of the former gods of the Soviet Union,
0:15:17 > 0:15:23Lenin and Stalin, have been replaced by statues of one man,
0:15:23 > 0:15:27a colossal figure in Silk Road history.
0:15:27 > 0:15:30There used to be a statue of Karl Marx here.
0:15:30 > 0:15:33GONG SOUNDS
0:15:41 > 0:15:44And it's Karl's replacement that I've come to meet.
0:15:45 > 0:15:48One of the biggest figures in Silk Road history.
0:15:50 > 0:15:55Three great conquerors swept through this entire territory,
0:15:55 > 0:15:58men whose names have never been forgotten.
0:16:00 > 0:16:03Alexander the Great, three centuries before Christ,
0:16:03 > 0:16:06Genghis Khan in the 13th century
0:16:06 > 0:16:09and this man, the last of the three.
0:16:09 > 0:16:12He rolled across Central Asia like a sandstorm
0:16:12 > 0:16:15a century after Genghis Khan.
0:16:15 > 0:16:17He's been known by many names
0:16:17 > 0:16:20but we'll use just one to avoid confusion.
0:16:20 > 0:16:22Timur.
0:16:25 > 0:16:30Tamerlane, Tamburlaine, Timur - why so many names?
0:16:30 > 0:16:34Because his name was spoken in so many different languages
0:16:34 > 0:16:36and because he was also known
0:16:36 > 0:16:39as Timur-lang, which meant Timur the Lame.
0:16:39 > 0:16:42Wounds from arrows caused him to walk with a limp.
0:16:44 > 0:16:49He was almost certainly the most pitiless of all the conquerors.
0:16:49 > 0:16:53A favourite trick was to promise the people of the city under siege
0:16:53 > 0:16:56that no blood would be shed if they surrendered.
0:16:56 > 0:16:58When they opened the gates,
0:16:58 > 0:17:00he would bury them alive.
0:17:02 > 0:17:05Even in Europe, he became proverbial.
0:17:05 > 0:17:07200 years after Timur's death,
0:17:07 > 0:17:09Christopher Marlowe would write a play
0:17:09 > 0:17:11devoted to this historic monster.
0:17:13 > 0:17:15The play was a huge success,
0:17:15 > 0:17:18a celebration of boundless ambition, thirst for dominion
0:17:18 > 0:17:21and the glamour of power.
0:17:25 > 0:17:28This is one of Timur's monologues from the play.
0:17:28 > 0:17:31"I hold the Fates bound fast in iron chains
0:17:32 > 0:17:35"And with my hand turn Fortune's wheel about
0:17:36 > 0:17:39"And sooner shall the sun fall from his sphere
0:17:39 > 0:17:42"Than Tamburlaine be slain or overcome."
0:17:44 > 0:17:45Europe would never forget him.
0:17:45 > 0:17:48Vivaldi, Handel and about 50 others
0:17:48 > 0:17:50would create operas about him
0:17:50 > 0:17:54and in the 20th century, he fascinated the Soviets.
0:17:54 > 0:17:58This is a sketch of a reconstruction of Timur's face
0:17:58 > 0:18:01made by a Soviet scientist, Mikhail Gerasimov,
0:18:01 > 0:18:04who exhumed the corpse in 1941.
0:18:04 > 0:18:08Usually, I distrust such things, but whoever made this
0:18:08 > 0:18:13worked with Timur's personality firmly in mind.
0:18:13 > 0:18:17It's certainly not a face that would forgive failure
0:18:17 > 0:18:19or understand excuses.
0:18:19 > 0:18:22Perhaps that's why it works.
0:18:22 > 0:18:24Perhaps there is something in it, after all.
0:18:24 > 0:18:26Perhaps it is a good likeness.
0:18:29 > 0:18:35It's a chilly thought, and a chilly face.
0:18:35 > 0:18:39Perhaps this WAS the man, perhaps those WERE the eyes.
0:18:41 > 0:18:42Timur is everywhere.
0:18:43 > 0:18:46He's even on the money.
0:18:46 > 0:18:49He's at the heart of a new cult of Uzbek nationality.
0:18:53 > 0:18:54Night falls on Tashkent...
0:18:57 > 0:19:00..and there are signs that the youth of Uzbekistan
0:19:00 > 0:19:02are very happy to have Timur back.
0:19:08 > 0:19:11Tomorrow, I'm on the road again,
0:19:11 > 0:19:14heading for the city that's always been associated with Timur,
0:19:14 > 0:19:16his reign and the Silk Road itself.
0:19:20 > 0:19:22Samarkand.
0:19:22 > 0:19:25And the quickest way to get there is this.
0:19:29 > 0:19:31Uzbekistan's pride and joy -
0:19:31 > 0:19:35a high-speed rail link from its capital to its cultural heart.
0:19:38 > 0:19:43It'll get me to Samarkand in slightly less than two hours.
0:19:43 > 0:19:46It may not be a very romantic way to get there, but hey.
0:19:49 > 0:19:53Uzbekistan is remaking, rewriting its history.
0:19:53 > 0:19:55In the 19th century,
0:19:55 > 0:19:58Europe put Central Asian history to use as well.
0:19:58 > 0:20:03Think of Burton's translation of The 1,001 Nights.
0:20:03 > 0:20:06We wanted this exotic world to stand for something.
0:20:06 > 0:20:08We made it stand for sensuality,
0:20:08 > 0:20:10wickedness and risk.
0:20:13 > 0:20:14A place of sexual licence
0:20:14 > 0:20:17and ladies in transparent trousers.
0:20:17 > 0:20:18If you go back far enough,
0:20:18 > 0:20:22there are some occasions when that might possibly have been true.
0:20:22 > 0:20:25At some celebrations shortly before the death of Timur,
0:20:25 > 0:20:28eight of his wives were paraded before a Spanish visitor,
0:20:28 > 0:20:31and the drinking went on for several days.
0:20:35 > 0:20:40For Europeans, the Silk Road became the very heartland of licence.
0:20:40 > 0:20:44The poet James Elroy Flecker was inspired to write this.
0:20:45 > 0:20:48"Sweet to ride forth at evening from the wells
0:20:48 > 0:20:51"When shadows pass gigantic on the sand
0:20:51 > 0:20:55"And softly through the silence beat the bells
0:20:55 > 0:20:57"Along the Golden Road to Samarkand.
0:21:03 > 0:21:05"We travel not for trafficking alone
0:21:05 > 0:21:08"By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned
0:21:08 > 0:21:13"For lust of knowing what should not be known
0:21:13 > 0:21:16"We take the Golden Road to Samarkand."
0:21:19 > 0:21:23Hotter winds, fiery hearts, knowing what should not be known -
0:21:23 > 0:21:26these ideas suggest that Samarkand
0:21:26 > 0:21:29is a place of forbidden and dangerous knowledge.
0:21:29 > 0:21:32Knowledge, certainly, but forbidden and dangerous?
0:21:32 > 0:21:34Well, it depends entirely
0:21:34 > 0:21:37what you think of the mapping of the stars,
0:21:37 > 0:21:39the study of medicine, the ideas of Aristotle,
0:21:39 > 0:21:42or the fundamental principles of mathematics.
0:21:42 > 0:21:44These are just some of the things
0:21:44 > 0:21:47that we'll find that we owe entirely or in part
0:21:47 > 0:21:50to Samarkand and the Silk Road cities that lie beyond.
0:21:58 > 0:22:00Alexander the Great visited the city that would one day
0:22:00 > 0:22:04become Samarkand in 329 BC,
0:22:04 > 0:22:08and announced that "everything I have heard about Samarkand is true,
0:22:08 > 0:22:11"except it is even more beautiful than I had imagined."
0:22:13 > 0:22:17But the city Alexander saw was destroyed more than 1,000 years ago.
0:22:17 > 0:22:20We're here to see what replaced it.
0:22:23 > 0:22:24Timur's Samarkand.
0:22:51 > 0:22:54This is the Registan,
0:22:54 > 0:22:57actually built some time after the death of the Emir Timur.
0:23:00 > 0:23:02But it's astonishingly faithful
0:23:02 > 0:23:06to the style with which he's always been associated,
0:23:06 > 0:23:08which rose to prominence during his reign.
0:23:08 > 0:23:10The Timurid style.
0:23:13 > 0:23:16This extraordinarily impressive plaza was once described
0:23:16 > 0:23:19by one of Britain's most notoriously dismissive,
0:23:19 > 0:23:21arrogant and snotty diplomats
0:23:21 > 0:23:25as "the noblest public square in the world."
0:23:25 > 0:23:28Better, in short, than anything Britain has to offer.
0:23:30 > 0:23:31And he was right.
0:23:31 > 0:23:34Look at any surface and be astonished.
0:23:34 > 0:23:38It's the extraordinary deep blue-green tiles of the domes
0:23:38 > 0:23:40that catches the eye first,
0:23:40 > 0:23:42like a memory of the sea thousands of miles away.
0:23:42 > 0:23:46And then, when your eye slides off those domes onto the walls,
0:23:46 > 0:23:50there's more deep blues and gold that really punches through.
0:23:50 > 0:23:53The walls are covered in repeated patterns
0:23:53 > 0:23:55and quotations from the Koran.
0:23:55 > 0:24:00It's astonishingly beautiful and looks almost brand-new.
0:24:03 > 0:24:05Because it is.
0:24:05 > 0:24:08Everywhere I look, there are construction workers,
0:24:08 > 0:24:10angle grinders, scaffolding,
0:24:10 > 0:24:12signs of renovation and restoration.
0:24:17 > 0:24:23And in a tiny workshop in one of the inner courtyards...
0:24:23 > 0:24:26I find Ravshan Halimov and his family working away.
0:24:29 > 0:24:32They've been working in the precincts of the Registan
0:24:32 > 0:24:33for decades.
0:24:35 > 0:24:38Lovingly, painstakingly making replacements
0:24:38 > 0:24:43for the most important ingredient in the decorations of these buildings.
0:24:45 > 0:24:47The ceramic tiles.
0:24:48 > 0:24:50Some plain, some patterned,
0:24:50 > 0:24:53some containing quotations from the Koran.
0:24:53 > 0:24:55Some made like jigsaws,
0:24:55 > 0:24:57from almost 30 pieces.
0:25:02 > 0:25:03I could watch them for hours.
0:25:05 > 0:25:07But I have questions to ask.
0:25:07 > 0:25:11How difficult has it been to restore the tile work?
0:25:25 > 0:25:28How difficult has it been to make sure that the colours
0:25:28 > 0:25:30are accurate, that the colours are correct?
0:25:39 > 0:25:42Is there a sense that all of this restoration work
0:25:42 > 0:25:46has to do with the memory of Timur and his family?
0:25:56 > 0:26:01So this family and everyone working away outside, grinding stone,
0:26:01 > 0:26:05replacing tiles, even in sweeping up dead leaves,
0:26:05 > 0:26:07is working away on the memory of Timur,
0:26:07 > 0:26:09the Silk Road's greatest conqueror.
0:26:14 > 0:26:18A few hundred yards' walk from the Registan is the Bibi-Khanym.
0:26:20 > 0:26:23This enormous mosque was built on Timur's orders
0:26:23 > 0:26:25in honour of one of his wives.
0:26:27 > 0:26:32Unusually, he was here in the later stages of its construction.
0:26:32 > 0:26:36He was normally far away conquering someone.
0:26:36 > 0:26:40According to myth, Timur brought 100,000 captured craftsmen
0:26:40 > 0:26:44to Samarkand to work on this and other projects.
0:26:44 > 0:26:48And as the city grew, he named its streets and suburbs after
0:26:48 > 0:26:51the other countries that he'd recently bagged,
0:26:51 > 0:26:53like notches on a bedpost.
0:26:55 > 0:26:57The Bibi-Khanym was under construction
0:26:57 > 0:26:59as his death impended in the early 1400s
0:26:59 > 0:27:03and in those same years, his empire reached its greatest extent,
0:27:03 > 0:27:07threatening Turkey to the west, China to the east.
0:27:07 > 0:27:09He called himself the Sword of Islam
0:27:09 > 0:27:12but he was Islam's scourge more than its protector.
0:27:12 > 0:27:15Most of those he defeated were Muslims.
0:27:17 > 0:27:19As for the Bibi-Khanym,
0:27:19 > 0:27:22he wasn't satisfied with the rate at which it was rising.
0:27:22 > 0:27:24He toured the site, threatening the sluggish,
0:27:24 > 0:27:27rewarding the industrious by throwing coins at them
0:27:27 > 0:27:29and chunks of meat.
0:27:34 > 0:27:37The pace of construction duly accelerated
0:27:37 > 0:27:39but the work became more slapdash.
0:27:39 > 0:27:41Within years of its completion,
0:27:41 > 0:27:44the mosque began to crumble and collapse.
0:27:44 > 0:27:46Flawed though it was, one contemporary remarked
0:27:46 > 0:27:50the dome would be supreme, were it is not for the sky itself.
0:27:54 > 0:27:58The fact that the Bibi-Khanym was built at all
0:27:58 > 0:28:02is a testament to Timur's tyrannical will and power.
0:28:02 > 0:28:05But in terms of restoration, it looks as though the Bibi-Khanym
0:28:05 > 0:28:07is rather unloved.
0:28:07 > 0:28:10You wonder if it's been restored at all.
0:28:12 > 0:28:14You can wander into some of its spaces
0:28:14 > 0:28:15and regret the damage
0:28:15 > 0:28:19but enjoy the traces of a culture for which every surface
0:28:19 > 0:28:23was a decorative opportunity, now enjoyed by feathered residents.
0:28:25 > 0:28:26But the truth is, these buildings
0:28:26 > 0:28:29were much more damaged than they seem today.
0:28:29 > 0:28:32This is the Bibi-Khanym now
0:28:32 > 0:28:38and this is then, a little more than 100 years ago.
0:28:39 > 0:28:44This small exhibition shows exactly how far these buildings have come.
0:28:44 > 0:28:47Now I'm looking at photographs that show the state of the Registan
0:28:47 > 0:28:49100 years ago.
0:28:49 > 0:28:52It wasn't just the Bibi-Khanym that had suffered as time passed.
0:28:52 > 0:28:55It's a bit like the before and after shots
0:28:55 > 0:28:58of a famous actor who's had plastic surgery.
0:28:58 > 0:29:01Samarkand has certainly had some work done.
0:29:02 > 0:29:06It's the most impressive feat of restoration I've ever seen.
0:29:06 > 0:29:08But have they gone too far?
0:29:08 > 0:29:10How would it be, for instance, if the Italian government had
0:29:10 > 0:29:15decided to completely reconstruct the Roman Colosseum?
0:29:15 > 0:29:19But then how would it be if visitors were denied this spectacle?
0:29:26 > 0:29:31Timur's tomb, the Gur Emir, is about ten minutes' walk from the Registan.
0:29:31 > 0:29:34It, too, had suffered from neglect and earthquakes.
0:29:34 > 0:29:37It, too, has been almost completely restored.
0:29:39 > 0:29:42Timur died in February of 1405.
0:29:42 > 0:29:45He'd been laying plans to invade China at the time
0:29:45 > 0:29:49but he caught a cold which turned into a fever and killed him.
0:29:50 > 0:29:53According to the histories,
0:29:53 > 0:29:56the armies he had amassed for the China campaign
0:29:56 > 0:29:58numbered some 200,000 men.
0:29:58 > 0:30:00But they were disbanded,
0:30:00 > 0:30:03and Timur was brought back here to Samarkand for burial.
0:30:03 > 0:30:06Lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky China.
0:30:06 > 0:30:11Saved from the scourge of God by a passing virus.
0:30:20 > 0:30:24Almost as soon as he died, his empire began to crumble.
0:30:24 > 0:30:30Like his buildings, it had only existed because of Timur himself.
0:30:30 > 0:30:35He was the mortar between every brick and now he was gone.
0:30:35 > 0:30:38Officially, Timur lies beneath this chunk of black jade -
0:30:38 > 0:30:41once the largest piece of this rare mineral
0:30:41 > 0:30:43to be found anywhere on earth.
0:30:46 > 0:30:49But he doesn't lie beneath this slab of darkness.
0:30:51 > 0:30:53He's in a crypt somewhere below stairs.
0:30:55 > 0:30:57Visitors by special appointment.
0:30:57 > 0:30:59Cameras not permitted.
0:31:02 > 0:31:06If you want easy access to the old emir, you can find it...
0:31:07 > 0:31:09Here.
0:31:09 > 0:31:13Samarkand has its own new statue of him.
0:31:13 > 0:31:17Tashkent's showed him on a horse, conquering.
0:31:17 > 0:31:20This one has him on his throne, ruling.
0:31:20 > 0:31:24Not all of the legends surrounding Timur are ancient history.
0:31:26 > 0:31:28There are some stories from Soviet times.
0:31:31 > 0:31:33It was on 22 June, 1941,
0:31:33 > 0:31:36that Soviet anthropologist Mikhail Gerasimov
0:31:36 > 0:31:41opened Timur's tomb and removed his body for scientific scrutiny.
0:31:41 > 0:31:44It had always been said that curses would rain down
0:31:44 > 0:31:48on the heads of anyone who disturbed Timur's remains,
0:31:48 > 0:31:52and later that very day, Hitler invaded Russia.
0:31:52 > 0:31:53Spooky.
0:31:54 > 0:31:55If you believe in curses.
0:31:59 > 0:32:02It was Gerasimov who made the facial reconstruction,
0:32:02 > 0:32:04a sketch of which we saw earlier.
0:32:05 > 0:32:09I'm not sure that these new statues referred to it that much.
0:32:09 > 0:32:12I think they paid more attention to snaps of Sean Connery.
0:32:13 > 0:32:15Still works, though.
0:32:15 > 0:32:19Young Uzbeks come here to pay their respects and stand on his boot.
0:32:23 > 0:32:25I am turning my back on Timur.
0:32:25 > 0:32:27I've heard that here in the heart of Samarkand
0:32:27 > 0:32:31is some trace of the art and culture that I couldn't find
0:32:31 > 0:32:33in the remote valley of the Yaghnob -
0:32:33 > 0:32:36the last traces of the Sogdians.
0:32:38 > 0:32:41Before Timur, there was Genghis Khan,
0:32:41 > 0:32:44and it was Genghis who came here in 1220 to sweep away
0:32:44 > 0:32:47the city of Afrosiab.
0:32:48 > 0:32:50He did a pretty thorough job, as you can see.
0:32:50 > 0:32:52The city is somewhere underneath
0:32:52 > 0:32:56these gentle green hillocks and hummocks.
0:32:56 > 0:32:59It was incomparably older than Timur's Samarkand.
0:32:59 > 0:33:01And unlike Timur's buildings,
0:33:01 > 0:33:04it's been largely left to die in peace.
0:33:05 > 0:33:08Except in one corner of the site where the Soviets built
0:33:08 > 0:33:11a small section of mudbrick wall to give visitors some
0:33:11 > 0:33:16idea of what this city was like, or how it was defended.
0:33:17 > 0:33:19Here was the capital city of Sogdiana,
0:33:19 > 0:33:22the very heart of that trading network that stretched all
0:33:22 > 0:33:25the way from the Mediterranean to China.
0:33:25 > 0:33:29It was almost 2,000 years old when Genghis Khan destroyed it,
0:33:29 > 0:33:31and for 400 years before he arrived,
0:33:31 > 0:33:34it had been occupied by the previous wave
0:33:34 > 0:33:36of Silk Road conquerors, the Arabs.
0:33:36 > 0:33:38And, of course, Alexander the Great had been here
0:33:38 > 0:33:41when the city was young, conquering it.
0:33:45 > 0:33:47On the Silk Road, you find yourself wondering
0:33:47 > 0:33:50if the city's got tired of all of this.
0:33:50 > 0:33:55You can almost hear the stones or the mud bricks sighing gently,
0:33:55 > 0:33:57"Here we go again.
0:33:57 > 0:33:59"Here comes another conqueror."
0:34:01 > 0:34:03The ruins of Afrosiab were discovered in the 1960s,
0:34:03 > 0:34:08covered in rubble and dust and sand and centuries.
0:34:14 > 0:34:18In the nearby museum, built during Soviet times,
0:34:18 > 0:34:21the most precious finds are preserved.
0:34:21 > 0:34:25Seventh century paintings made by the Sogdians -
0:34:25 > 0:34:29and precious is most definitely the word.
0:34:29 > 0:34:33These delicate survivors are absolutely ravishing.
0:34:39 > 0:34:43Pale, fragmented phantoms of extraordinary delicacy...
0:34:46 > 0:34:47..and vigour.
0:34:50 > 0:34:51Those swans look angry.
0:34:53 > 0:34:55But most of what we see on these walls
0:34:55 > 0:34:58is a variety of visitors to the Sogdian court.
0:34:58 > 0:35:01It's the Sogdians working the room.
0:35:01 > 0:35:05And that's what's rather wonderful about these murals.
0:35:05 > 0:35:08It's not just that they were drawn by ancestors of the Yaghnobi,
0:35:08 > 0:35:12who we met all those miles ago in their lost valley.
0:35:12 > 0:35:15It's that what we see here is the Sogdians
0:35:15 > 0:35:18just going about their business, doing what they always did
0:35:18 > 0:35:22before the nature of the Silk Road washed them away.
0:35:24 > 0:35:28In the Yaghnob Valley, the people survived.
0:35:28 > 0:35:31Here is what they've lost - the art of being Sogdian.
0:35:33 > 0:35:35And it feels familiar.
0:35:36 > 0:35:39Here, once again is art in the service of the state.
0:35:39 > 0:35:42Celebrating Sogdian virtues -
0:35:42 > 0:35:47trade, deals, connections, alliances.
0:35:52 > 0:35:55Who knows who these silhouettes may once have been?
0:35:59 > 0:36:04These people traded the entire Silk Road from east to west.
0:36:04 > 0:36:07These people came to stand for trade itself.
0:36:12 > 0:36:16Here, it's been speculated, is the Sogdian king
0:36:16 > 0:36:18in fabulously decorated robes,
0:36:18 > 0:36:22waiting to greet some very important visitors.
0:36:31 > 0:36:36And here we have some Chinese traders carrying bales of silk -
0:36:36 > 0:36:42and, very faint, but also unmistakeably, silk cocoons.
0:36:42 > 0:36:44Silk - the very reason that I'm here,
0:36:44 > 0:36:47the very stuff on which this Silk Road was made.
0:36:50 > 0:36:52It's oddly pleasing.
0:36:52 > 0:36:54It is like seeing an old friend.
0:36:54 > 0:36:56And there's another old friend I want to visit,
0:36:56 > 0:36:59an essential ingredient in the music,
0:36:59 > 0:37:03not just of the Silk Road and Central Asia, but of Europe.
0:37:04 > 0:37:06In one small corner of the Registan,
0:37:06 > 0:37:10there's a little music shop, owned and run by Master Babur.
0:37:12 > 0:37:14He has a lot of instruments to show me,
0:37:14 > 0:37:16but one looks particularly familiar.
0:37:17 > 0:37:19What about this one in the corner?
0:37:19 > 0:37:20In the corner?
0:37:20 > 0:37:24This is also one of the very ancient musical instrument
0:37:24 > 0:37:27- which, we call it oud. - It looks a bit like a lute, to me.
0:37:27 > 0:37:29Exactly, exactly same musical instrument.
0:37:30 > 0:37:35OK, I will show you from oud also a little music.
0:37:37 > 0:37:38HE PLAYS THE OUD
0:37:38 > 0:37:41'No-one is quite sure exactly when the Arab oud
0:37:41 > 0:37:43'was first absorbed into European culture.
0:37:43 > 0:37:46'It's been suggested that this happened as early
0:37:46 > 0:37:48'as the eighth century.
0:37:48 > 0:37:51'The oud became our lute,
0:37:51 > 0:37:55'an instrument that remained central to European music until the 1800s.'
0:38:07 > 0:38:09Wonderful. It's the sound of history right there.
0:38:09 > 0:38:14Sound of history, sound of ages. Sound of the Silk Road.
0:38:15 > 0:38:17And... Could I have a go?
0:38:17 > 0:38:20Of course, of course. You can...
0:38:20 > 0:38:22You can try it.
0:38:22 > 0:38:25- Of course, it is played sitting.- Yeah.
0:38:25 > 0:38:26- HE PLAYS OUD - You can try.
0:38:26 > 0:38:29HE PLAYS OUD
0:38:34 > 0:38:37'I'm used to playing the guitar - and I play it very well -
0:38:37 > 0:38:40'but the oud is a challenge, to say the least.'
0:38:40 > 0:38:45- This one has no fret. It's quite difficult to play, isn't it?- Yes.
0:38:45 > 0:38:47- Of course.- Thank you very much. - You play well!
0:38:47 > 0:38:49- Thank you.- Thank you.- Thank you.
0:38:49 > 0:38:52The origin of the lute has long been acknowledged,
0:38:52 > 0:38:53but in the next city,
0:38:53 > 0:38:57I'll be discovering debts we've owed to the Silk Road
0:38:57 > 0:38:59for more than 1,000 years
0:38:59 > 0:39:01and done our best to deny.
0:39:01 > 0:39:05Five hours drive west of Samarkand lies Bukhara -
0:39:05 > 0:39:08a treasure house of the mind.
0:39:12 > 0:39:15Bukhara sat at one of the crossroads,
0:39:15 > 0:39:17the interchanges in the Silk Road.
0:39:17 > 0:39:19Trade goods could arrive here
0:39:19 > 0:39:22and depart in almost any direction.
0:39:26 > 0:39:27KAMANCHEH PLAYS
0:39:27 > 0:39:31The deals were done in domes like these, trading domes.
0:39:31 > 0:39:34For hundreds of years, the money changed hands here.
0:39:36 > 0:39:39And where they still stand, of course,
0:39:39 > 0:39:42these domes are perfect tourist traps.
0:39:47 > 0:39:52It's position and its wealth made Bukhara attractive -
0:39:52 > 0:39:56an essential stop on any conqueror's tour through Central Asia.
0:39:56 > 0:39:57They all came here.
0:39:57 > 0:40:01Bukhara was conquered even more than most.
0:40:05 > 0:40:08In 1220, Genghis Khan,
0:40:08 > 0:40:11before reducing most of the city to a smouldering ruin,
0:40:11 > 0:40:14told the citizens of Bukhara that they must have been very
0:40:14 > 0:40:20great sinners indeed for God to have sent him as their punishment.
0:40:20 > 0:40:24But these huge walls, built around 850, were simply too big to destroy.
0:40:24 > 0:40:28There's been a fortress on this site for about 2,000 years.
0:40:33 > 0:40:35This is the Ark of Bukhara.
0:40:38 > 0:40:41And its massive walls were here to defend,
0:40:41 > 0:40:43not just the people of the city,
0:40:43 > 0:40:47but also one of the greatest libraries the world has ever seen.
0:40:49 > 0:40:52It's a monument to the thirst for human knowledge
0:40:52 > 0:40:54and to an Islamic Golden Age
0:40:54 > 0:40:58when many of the world's greatest thinkers were to be found here
0:40:58 > 0:41:01or in other Silk Road cities, ranging all the way to Baghdad.
0:41:09 > 0:41:11In the ninth century,
0:41:11 > 0:41:15Bukhara bloomed into an intellectual powerhouse.
0:41:15 > 0:41:18By then, Europe had squandered most of Rome's sophistication,
0:41:18 > 0:41:23and the text of Greek philosophers, such as Aristotle, had been lost.
0:41:27 > 0:41:29But not here.
0:41:29 > 0:41:31On the Silk Road, Islamic philosophers
0:41:31 > 0:41:34preserved and translated the works of Aristotle,
0:41:34 > 0:41:36and they interpreted them, too.
0:41:36 > 0:41:39So when the Christian West eventually rediscovered these
0:41:39 > 0:41:44ancient ideas, it was on Arab translations that they depended.
0:41:44 > 0:41:47One of those philosophers became particularly famous.
0:41:47 > 0:41:51His name was Ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna -
0:41:51 > 0:41:54and, in the 11th century, Bukhara was his hometown.
0:42:02 > 0:42:08Ibn Sina's Preservation of Aristotle is only the tip of an iceberg.
0:42:08 > 0:42:11The thinkers of the Silk Road were very deep,
0:42:11 > 0:42:15and at the core of their thought - absolutely the central to it -
0:42:15 > 0:42:16was mathematics.
0:42:16 > 0:42:18It's a part of their art.
0:42:18 > 0:42:21In Islam, figurative imagery was frowned upon
0:42:21 > 0:42:24and so the decorations of buildings of any sort
0:42:24 > 0:42:27were framed around geometric patterns,
0:42:27 > 0:42:29repetitions, tessellations.
0:42:31 > 0:42:33Maths and geometry are everywhere.
0:42:37 > 0:42:41It's time to go back to maktab -
0:42:41 > 0:42:42school -
0:42:42 > 0:42:45where Uzbek children are taught to remember their forefathers
0:42:45 > 0:42:48and their massively significant ideas.
0:42:49 > 0:42:51It's the bread and butter of Uzbek education.
0:43:52 > 0:43:55It was here on the Silk Road that mathematics
0:43:55 > 0:43:58matured into a system that we've depended on ever since.
0:44:03 > 0:44:05It was in the 12th century that Al-Khwarizmi's work
0:44:05 > 0:44:07reached Europe as a Latin translation.
0:44:09 > 0:44:14That translation used his name as its title, Algoritmi.
0:44:14 > 0:44:17This wave of translations from Arabic led, in Europe,
0:44:17 > 0:44:21to what we now call the 12th century Renaissance -
0:44:21 > 0:44:24a movement of ideas without which the Renaissance proper
0:44:24 > 0:44:25could never have happened.
0:44:28 > 0:44:31But once you realise just how much of this was entirely new
0:44:31 > 0:44:36to Europeans, it becomes clear that the very word "renaissance",
0:44:36 > 0:44:39or rebirth, is more than a little dishonest,
0:44:39 > 0:44:42because we weren't rediscovering our own ideas,
0:44:42 > 0:44:45we were discovering someone else's.
0:44:47 > 0:44:50And what we would learn from these Islamic philosophers
0:44:50 > 0:44:54was a great deal more than algebra and algorithms.
0:44:54 > 0:44:58Astronomy matured here, and it was here that it was demonstrated
0:44:58 > 0:45:03that the Earth revolves around the sun and spins on its own axis.
0:45:19 > 0:45:22As much as any other decoration here,
0:45:22 > 0:45:24carpets depend on the mathematics of repetition.
0:45:28 > 0:45:32They're very beautiful, and of course they're made of silk.
0:45:36 > 0:45:40This kind of carpet, which we always think of as Turkish,
0:45:40 > 0:45:42belongs to the Silk Road history
0:45:42 > 0:45:46you can reduce to cliches, cartoons, kid's stories.
0:45:49 > 0:45:51It's like a magic carpet for Aladdin.
0:45:52 > 0:45:56It's exactly what we expect to find along the Silk Road.
0:45:58 > 0:46:02The Turkish carpet is hard to completely steal.
0:46:02 > 0:46:04Even the woollen rugs we copied from this,
0:46:04 > 0:46:07which spread across British floors in the 19th century,
0:46:07 > 0:46:10always had something slightly foreign about them.
0:46:12 > 0:46:16But the ideas that grew here were a different matter.
0:46:16 > 0:46:20Those could easily be taken and disguised as ours.
0:46:24 > 0:46:27A thousand, a million tiny thefts
0:46:27 > 0:46:31and small dishonesties, or even simply the idea of a renaissance,
0:46:31 > 0:46:34of a rebirth, add up to a rejection,
0:46:34 > 0:46:37a silencing of the idea that the modern West
0:46:37 > 0:46:41could owe anything to Islamic culture.
0:46:41 > 0:46:45In a Silk Road history that's absurdly rich with myths,
0:46:45 > 0:46:48THAT perhaps, is the greatest myth of them all.
0:46:53 > 0:46:56Al-Khwarizmi's birthplace lies ten hours drive to the
0:46:56 > 0:46:59West in the city of Khiva.
0:46:59 > 0:47:01I'm leaving Sogdiana far behind
0:47:01 > 0:47:04and entering another ancient kingdom.
0:47:10 > 0:47:13Khorezm - which gave Al-Khwarizmi his name -
0:47:13 > 0:47:16had a great deal in common with Sogdiana.
0:47:16 > 0:47:19These people were descended from Iranian colonists.
0:47:19 > 0:47:22The language they spoke was similar to Sogdian.
0:47:26 > 0:47:29Khiva is only a few miles from the border with Turkmenistan...
0:47:33 > 0:47:37..and these hats belong to the old nomadic culture of the Turkmen.
0:47:37 > 0:47:39They are called "Telpak" hats.
0:47:42 > 0:47:47And nowadays people of Turkmen origin can be found in Turkmenistan,
0:47:47 > 0:47:53Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine and here.
0:47:55 > 0:47:58Once more, those Soviet borders just seem absurd.
0:48:01 > 0:48:03And the absurdity is only underlined
0:48:03 > 0:48:06when I sit down for lunch with my guide, Utkir.
0:48:08 > 0:48:10Everything I am about to eat is certainly Uzbek,
0:48:10 > 0:48:13but I've been eating it since I was back in China.
0:48:14 > 0:48:16A menu that hardly varies across a lot more
0:48:16 > 0:48:19than 1,000 miles of central Asia.
0:48:20 > 0:48:25In this oven made from mud and straw, they are breaking flatbreads,
0:48:25 > 0:48:26naan breads.
0:48:27 > 0:48:29In the kitchen, pasta dumplings.
0:48:31 > 0:48:33And, of course, noodles.
0:48:35 > 0:48:37While we're waiting for the food,
0:48:37 > 0:48:39Utkir is cruel to the naan breads.
0:48:41 > 0:48:45- What have we got here? - This is manti.
0:48:45 > 0:48:47That's a sort of dumpling.
0:48:47 > 0:48:49They cook with squash and with meat.
0:48:49 > 0:48:50- OK.- Meat can be beef.
0:48:50 > 0:48:53And we've got some noodles.
0:48:53 > 0:48:56This noodle is related with China.
0:48:56 > 0:48:59- Well, let's try some. Shall we start with some...- Manti.
0:48:59 > 0:49:02- Actually, we eat with hand. - With hands, OK.- Yes.
0:49:08 > 0:49:11Oh, wow! It is a little... bomb of flavour.
0:49:13 > 0:49:15Lovely. Very sweet.
0:49:16 > 0:49:21And this...is so remarkable in its design as well,
0:49:21 > 0:49:23it looks Chinese to me.
0:49:23 > 0:49:24No, this is traditional Uzbek.
0:49:30 > 0:49:33Mmm! Delicious.
0:49:33 > 0:49:35Freshly made noodles.
0:49:35 > 0:49:38I think I need a bit of that lovely looking bread with this.
0:49:38 > 0:49:41And it's got these extraordinary patterns on.
0:49:42 > 0:49:44- It can be even the family pattern. - Can it?
0:49:44 > 0:49:47They decorate everything in Uzbekistan, even the bread.
0:49:47 > 0:49:49'The food is remarkably tasty.
0:49:49 > 0:49:52'I don't know whether it was invented here
0:49:52 > 0:49:53'or arrived here from Italy,
0:49:53 > 0:49:56'or came here from China. Nobody does.
0:49:56 > 0:50:01'Once again, I am reminded, the Silk Road is a massive melting pot
0:50:01 > 0:50:02'and I am in the very middle.'
0:50:10 > 0:50:13Khiva exists to serve and preserve the past
0:50:13 > 0:50:16and one of its mosques, the Djuma Mosque,
0:50:16 > 0:50:19is now a museum in which more than a millennium
0:50:19 > 0:50:23of cultural change is wonderfully preserved.
0:50:23 > 0:50:26It contains an extraordinary display of one of the things
0:50:26 > 0:50:28Khiva has become famous for.
0:50:30 > 0:50:32The carving of wood.
0:50:32 > 0:50:34Particularly wooden pillars.
0:50:35 > 0:50:39It's an extraordinarily peaceful place.
0:50:39 > 0:50:43And in some ways, it seems a shame to talk in it.
0:50:43 > 0:50:45But, needs must.
0:50:45 > 0:50:47The pillars are all very beautiful.
0:50:47 > 0:50:49And they have similar designs,
0:50:49 > 0:50:52but they are also all noticeably different.
0:50:52 > 0:50:53Why is that?
0:51:38 > 0:51:39That's fascinating.
0:51:39 > 0:51:43We have a combination of a celebration of the natural world
0:51:43 > 0:51:47with a celebration of human knowledge and science?
0:52:09 > 0:52:12So, the spirit of Al-Khwarizmi's wonderful mind
0:52:12 > 0:52:14broods over these pillars.
0:52:14 > 0:52:16They're expressions of Khorezm's cultural
0:52:16 > 0:52:18and religious history.
0:52:18 > 0:52:22The oldest pillar here is 1,000 years old,
0:52:22 > 0:52:25but the floral style has roots that are older still.
0:52:25 > 0:52:30It reaches back to the religion that Islam slowly supplanted here -
0:52:30 > 0:52:31Zoroastrianism.
0:52:40 > 0:52:43And, of course, it's not just ancient history.
0:52:43 > 0:52:46Shavkat Tumaniyozov's workshop is about 100 yards
0:52:46 > 0:52:47from the Djuma Mosque.
0:52:47 > 0:52:49With his brother and their apprentices,
0:52:49 > 0:52:52they still carve in the same style, although these days
0:52:52 > 0:52:56the customer is more likely to be a local hotel or restaurant.
0:53:02 > 0:53:04It's a delight to watch them.
0:53:04 > 0:53:07I'm surprised by the confident, detailed...violence
0:53:07 > 0:53:09with which they work.
0:53:13 > 0:53:17For the journal, I want something more than just a photo.
0:53:17 > 0:53:20Shavkat offers to draw us a part of the design for his pillar carving.
0:53:22 > 0:53:25Kindly, he tells us the pattern's name.
0:53:33 > 0:53:36I've no idea what it means and I don't want to know.
0:53:36 > 0:53:38I love the mystery.
0:53:38 > 0:53:41It's one of the pages in the journal that pleases me most.
0:53:45 > 0:53:48Paging back through the last several hundred miles,
0:53:48 > 0:53:51I am struck by the number of times I see ghosts -
0:53:51 > 0:53:53or perhaps "survivors" is a better word.
0:53:54 > 0:53:58On the Silk Road, nothing ever entirely dies.
0:53:58 > 0:54:03There are still Sogdians hiding as simple farmers in a remote valley.
0:54:03 > 0:54:07The Soviet buses are gone, but the bus stops still stand.
0:54:07 > 0:54:10And even Timur isn't dead and buried.
0:54:10 > 0:54:14He's hard at work on horseback, on the throne, and on the money.
0:54:16 > 0:54:20Everything looks old, but is actually new.
0:54:24 > 0:54:25GLASS SMASHES
0:54:32 > 0:54:36And in a village outside Khiva, there's a workshop I can visit
0:54:36 > 0:54:38where history is remade on a daily basis.
0:54:42 > 0:54:44It's not just that old cognac and vodka bottles
0:54:44 > 0:54:48can have a new life here as ingredients in a glaze,
0:54:48 > 0:54:52it's the fact that it's only since independence that this workshop,
0:54:52 > 0:54:56and its master, have returned to the traditional styles
0:54:56 > 0:55:00that were once the basic ingredients of Timurid decoration.
0:55:33 > 0:55:37What is the connection between the tile makers of Khiva and Timur?
0:56:09 > 0:56:13Several hundred years ago, Timur put people from this province
0:56:13 > 0:56:16Khorezm, to work on his palaces, mosques and minarets
0:56:16 > 0:56:20and all the stately places in his capital of Samarkand.
0:56:22 > 0:56:24One small irony, however -
0:56:24 > 0:56:27he didn't like living inside.
0:56:27 > 0:56:29He was descended from Mongols -
0:56:29 > 0:56:31at least in part from nomads.
0:56:31 > 0:56:35The buildings were all for show, to impress the foreign idiots
0:56:35 > 0:56:38who kept coming, wringing their hands, suing for peace,
0:56:38 > 0:56:40who needed, above all,
0:56:40 > 0:56:43to be impressed and terrified by the scourge of God.
0:56:43 > 0:56:48Timur preferred to live in the city's extensive gardens, in tents.
0:56:52 > 0:56:54Every political regime in history has used art
0:56:54 > 0:56:57and architecture to project its power.
0:56:57 > 0:57:01Timor did it, Uzbekistan's current rulers are doing it, too -
0:57:01 > 0:57:05and that's what this part of my trip along the Silk Road in Central Asia
0:57:05 > 0:57:06has made clear to me.
0:57:06 > 0:57:11So, these tiles are for tourists and citizens, too.
0:57:11 > 0:57:14They come with a message baked in beneath the glaze.
0:57:14 > 0:57:16It says, "Be proud of our history."
0:57:18 > 0:57:21"Visitors be impressed when you see tiles like these
0:57:21 > 0:57:25"by the thousand on the walls of the Registan or in your hotel.
0:57:25 > 0:57:28"Carefully reassembled to surround a fireplace.
0:57:30 > 0:57:34"Try not to think of our Soviet past which we too are trying to forget.
0:57:35 > 0:57:38"And don't waste too much time waiting here.
0:57:38 > 0:57:42"Because there are no Soviet buses. Any more."
0:57:46 > 0:57:48Next time, I am heading to Iran.
0:57:48 > 0:57:50A country whose rich Persian past
0:57:50 > 0:57:52is filled with fascinating characters,
0:57:52 > 0:57:56and where the culture and art of the empires they built
0:57:56 > 0:57:59spread to every part of the Silk Road.
0:58:01 > 0:58:03From Iran, I will travel to the cities
0:58:03 > 0:58:05at the western end of the Silk Road,
0:58:05 > 0:58:08and I will discover that many of their great palaces,
0:58:08 > 0:58:12buildings and churches were inspired by the East...
0:58:12 > 0:58:16Paid for and made possible by the Silk Road.