7NNT25: Day 9 – Khiva

Soundtrack: “Helter Skelter”, The Beatles

Today we explored the ups and downs of Khiva, the old provincial capital and city that’s a mere 2,500 years young. Khiva, like many historical places, is a city within a city, there’s the old walled city, Itchan Kala, and then the rest of the city. Itchan Kala is largely a walled museum city, with the bulk of building done in the 18th and 19th Centuries (Ghengis Khan was here, you know the story). Much of the construction of the period remains intact, owing to the Khanate of Khiva capitulating fairly rapidly to the Tsarist forces, and then having their own revolution after the soviets came to power and basically volunteering to join the Soviet Union.

Our guide, GI (Guide I) took us on an extensive tour of Itchan Kala. Unlike many old museum cities, people still live within the walls. The story of Khiva’s founding goes along the lines of one of the sons of Noah was wandering around the area, and dreamed of 300 burning torches. He took this to be an omen and dug a well, which then over time started attracting people to the area, and eventually a permanent settlement arose. The original well is still within the walls, but is in someone’s house so tourists can’t see it.

There are numerous parts of the walled city that are straight out of the Uzbekistan song book, many madrasahs, minarets, mosques, blue tiles, white tiles, painted tiles, columns, arches, you know the drill. I felt a little sorry for GI trying to explain a number of these things to us, as we’ve seen plenty over the last week but didn’t want to appear rude or interrupt his prepared delivery (though I’ll say he was quite verbose, part of me wonders if he might lean a little on the spectrum). And yes he was able to rattle off so many names of Khivan Khans, as there were about 50 or 60 over the 400 years the Khanate existed. Muhammed Rahim Bahadur, Allah Quli Bahadur, Muhammed Rahim Quli, Abu al-Ghazi Muhammed Amin Bahadur, Isfandiyar Jurji Bahadur, Sayyid Muhammed, just to name a few.

Fortunately for GI, Khiva has a number of unique items for us to get to know. The first is the unfinished or blue minaret, a 29 metre tall spectacularly tiled cylinder that was intended to be the base of one of the biggest, if not biggest, minaret ever. GI told us a story of why it was unfinished, in that the architect/builder was imprisoned within it so that he would only finish this minaret and not go and build a bigger one elsewhere, so servants who brought him food felt sorry for him and helped him escape. However GI also explained that the likely reason was the Khan died and his son wasn’t interested in finishing it (looking at wikipedia, they lost a few Khans in quick succession to marauding rebels, so maybe building a big tower wasn’t high on the priority list).

Also on the unique side of things was the mausoleum of Pahlavon Mahmoud, the venerated patron saint of Khiva. Mahmoud was a Persian craftsman who ended up having a shop in Khiva, but was also a poet, warrior who freed slaves, philosopher, champion wrestler, and general nice person. Renowned for being humble, it was only many years after his death that the Khans decided to build a big mausoleum for him, and then chose also to be buried there. Interestingly, Mahmoud never married.

Our guide GI touched on Khiva’s history in the central asian slave trade, pointing out a madrasah that was built by slaves who were promised their freedom once it was completed, but then funnily enough found some more projects for them. It’s likely that many of the buildings were built by slaves, as this city was one of the largest human trading markets of the 18th and 19th century. Part of the reason the city capitulated to the Tsarist forces was that once the bombardments started, the slaves revolted and started attacking the slave masters, who then surrendered on the condition the Russians would protect them from the slaves. I don’t know what happened to the slaves doing the revolting, but the Russian presence led to the abolition of the slave trade.

The Itchan Kala also has a number of structures that can be climbed, including a watchtower and the Islam Khodja minaret. Regular readers will be well aware I rarely pass up on an opportunity to climb something (mostly out of a mix of refusing to give in to my fear of heights, and refusal to consider being too old for this crap) so I climbed both. L, who fully embraces her fear of heights, did the watchtower but passed on the minaret. The views from both are pretty impressive, in the distance the city drops away suddenly to the surrounding desert. The Islam Khodja minaret is 57 metres high, the tallest in Uzbekistan, the viewing platform is at 45 metres (according to some sources, others have the total height at 44 metres — slightly shorter than the minaret in Bukhara — suffice to say I wasn’t packing a tape measure). Inside the minaret are many very narrow and tall steps built around a central column, apparently 98 in total, but I was too busy trying to avoid banging my head to count, and given the steepness I was just about crawling on the way up. The view from the top is quite stunning, but as there were already three others on the platform I stayed long enough to take a selfie and send proof of life to L waiting at the bottom, and take some pics of the view. In some ways coming down was more challenging, basically keeping three points of contact and let my shoes absorb the impact of each step down. Surprisingly I didn’t find the challenge as exhausting as I was expecting, a little bit of sweat and deep breaths but I wasn’t totally incapacitated. My glutes definitely felt it though.

We said goodbye to GI at a tea house and had lunch, where it had to be shivit oshi.

Noodle 2: Shivit Oshi (Mirza Boshi Tea House)

These are a Khivan speciality, though why here of all places they decided to include dill in the process, making the noodles green and giving a slight extra flavour, is a mystery (or at least to me, as my web searching for an origin story is profoundly lacking, and even trying a translator the best I get is that oshi might mean rice, which makes no sense). Maybe I should make up an origin story, I’ll give it some thought. Anyway, shivit (sometimes spelt shuvit) oshi is a fairly short, home made noodle, made with wheat flour, and unlike laghman which are pulled and cylindrical, these are rolled flat and cut into strips. They are then traditionally served with beef, vegetables, and a yogurt sauce. They are softer, lighter, and less chewy than laghman, but I was expecting a stronger dill flavour, but these only had a hint of it.

After lunch we thought we’d wander around Itchan Kala a little, maybe check out some market stalls for souvenirs. Despite successfully navigating myself up and down the minaret, I misjudged the last of three steps and ended up at six points of contact with the ground. Fortunately it was all smooth stone, so all I got out of it was a little scrape on one knee and a reminder that they also have gravity in Uzbekistan. The hand sanitiser I rubbed on the scrape was more painful than the fall, though I’m pretty sure I didn’t subvocalise some colourful language in the direction of Mecca.

We continued walking a little but the breeze had dropped, the old city was feeling warmer, and we just weren’t feeling the shopping vibe. A lot of souvenirs in Uzbekistan are fairly same-same: pottery, paintings, silk/cotton/camel wool scarves, wooden items, bags — there appears to be a complete lack of snow domes. Service wise there’s also a weird thing where while there are the expected folks who do the heavy sales pitch, other stores are either unstaffed or staffed by a single person who is completely uninterested in selling. Sure I’m not a fan of pushy, but I kind of expect that when I’m holding an item and looking around in the direction of the staff person, they might get the hint and come over and ask if they can help. It just feels weird, especially when combined with almost no shops having fixed prices.

Noodle 2.1: Shivit Oshi and Noodle 3: Chuchvara (Xiva Kafe Milliy Taomlari)

Went out for a second helping of shivit oshi at a local restaurant reviewed as friendly and home cooked meals, and outside of the old city walls so likely cheaper. I’m going to interpret them seating us at the low table on the raised platform as friendliness rather than attempting to permanently cripple me by making me sit cross legged. Their shivit oshi had a little more dill flavour, but overall it’s still in the background. They also mix the yogurt in with the noodles, and they combine well, the noodles hold the sauce. Overall this is a decent noodle dish. I’m not sure I’d travel all the way to Khiva just to try this, but I’d definitely say folks who come here should give it a go. I also went for a bowl of chuchvara in soup, a filled noodle, like a wonton but the shape is almost rose-like. These little flowers are filled with beef, and then served in a soup that had a layer of fat, making for a full flavoured meal. I’m pretty sure I had these or something similar in Samarkand, but they were dry and fried so I didn’t think to count them as a noodle, but I figure as I’m here more to eat well than create a definitive definition of noodle, welcome to the fold chuchvara.

Our last day in Khiva looks to be a fairly quiet one, ending with a late flight back to Tashkent, so not sure if it will get an entry all of its own or if it gets rolled into a combined day 10 and 11.