A Carpet Ride to Khiva: Seven Years on the Silk Road Read Free

claustrophobia of Tashkent replaced with a skyline of glittering minarets; a place with no overcrowded buses; a place where chickens could roam free.
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    I had imagined arriving in Khiva, after a long, arduous journey, to see its exotic skyline beckoning like a mirageacross the desert. In reality, my first glimpses of the city, at three o’clock one blustery November night, were the few metres illuminated by headlights after an eighteen-hour drive. There was no sense of exuberance, merely the opportunity to collapse on the piled cotton-filled mattresses that Lukas and Jeanette, my hosts, had prepared for me.
    Lukas and Jeanette, a Scandinavian couple,had lived in Khiva for two years and in Tashkent before that. They both spoke good Uzbek and had adapted well to life in Khiva. Jeanette wore a headscarf as all married women should, and baggy pants under long, brightly-patterned dresses. Her distinctive gold hooped earrings studded with nuggets of turquoise were typical of those worn by local women but had been a birthday present from Lukas ratherthan the usual marriage gift. She tried to sweep outside her house every morning and keep up with the cultural expectations of her neighbours. On some days she managed excellently, but on others the challenges of home-schooling her eldest daughter and raising three children in such a different environment from her own would overwhelm her.
    They lived in a modern part of Khiva in a concretetwo-storey house that doubled as our office. Their faith and commitment to the blind children they worked with had kept them in Khiva despite the challenges and isolation. They both taught children how to use white canes, increasing their independence and freedom. They were also attempting to change the attitudes of teachers at the blind-school who had been trained in the Soviet science of Defectologia – an approach to disability that was caring but isolating, ensuring that those with disabilities existed in a cosseted parallel world of institutions, away from their able-bodied family and friends. Lukas was struggling with the corrupt school director, who was building a palatial new house for himself with money meant for the blind children under his care.
    Both Catriona and I were keento visit the blind-school, but first we wanted a general tour of the town – and especially the Ichan Kala or walled city, dubbed by UNESCO ‘the most homogeneous example of Islamic architecture in the world’.
    Our tour took us down one of two main roads that ran the length of the modern town, past the blind-school, the park and a rusting ferris wheel which I assumed, wrongly, was disused.At first sight, Khiva had a shabby, provincial and slightly disappointing feel to it. It was only as we turned the corner at the bottom of the road that the Ichan Kala loomed in front of us. The bulging mud-brick walls wound around a crowded centre of madrassahs, mosques, minarets and mausoleums like a large bronze snake basking in the autumn sun. Nearing the walls, we could see their crenellationsand the impressive watchtower, giving the appearance of an elaborate sandcastle.
    Four enormous, turreted gates led into the inner city from the four points of the compass. We approached the Grandfather Gate and Jeanette introduced us to a plump woman who sold entry tickets. We would pay admission this time but, seeing as we were living in Khiva, wouldn’t pay again. This was, after all, oneof the main thoroughfares for getting to the bazaar.
    Wherever we went, we were greeted with a chorus of ‘Toureeest! Toureeest!’ As time went by, I learnt to expect this accompaniment, along with ‘Good morning’ at any time of day or night, and the occasional ‘Fuckyoo’ from gaggles of daring boys. We were also greeted with cries of ‘Aiwa’, which I assumed to be a local variant of ‘hello’.Its origins were actually in the first capitalist television adverts shown in Uzbekistan after the Soviet Union’s collapse. Aiwa