Antietam

Almost back home in Jersey from my super-long road trip through the South, I spent the night in Winchester Virginia, and the next day arrived at the Antietam National Battlefield Park at about 6:30 AM. I was the only person there, other than a few park rangers doing maintenance work.

Antietam was the bloodiest single day of conflict in American history, with 23,0000 people killed on September 17th, 1862.

General Lee wanted to bring the war to the north, and possibly break the will of the Union to fight, as well as to relieve Union pressure on the Confederate capital of Richmond- so he decided to mount the first Confederate invasion of the North. The Army of Northern Virginia moved across the Potomac river and headed north, threatening to encircle Washington.


General McClellan and his 87,000 strong Army of the Potomac confronted General Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, with 45,000 soldiers, near the town of Sharpsburg, along the Antietam Creek.





Monuments outside the Antietam visitor's center

After some skirmishing on the 16th, Action began at dawn on the 17th, Near a German Baptist church.



Elements of Hooker's first corps (Pennsylvania Infantry, Vermont Sharpshooters, and New Jersey Artillery) advanced across an open cornfield at 6:30 AM (the same time of day I was there), opposed by Stonewall Jackson with 7700 men from Louisiana, Alabama, Texas, and Georgia.

The action quickly turned into a stalemate,with musket and grapeshot literally mowing down corn and men. According to witnesses, not a single stalk off corn remained after the battle, all having been "cut down as with a scythe." Starke, commanding CSA artillery, was the first of the six generals to die during Antietam.

Jackson's men were eventually dislodged by a flank attack of the "Iron Brigade", from the Ohio Valley, at hideous cost. During this action, the Texas Brigade suffered a casualty rate of 82.3%.


The Cornfield, as seen from Jackson's position. Union troops advanced directly across this field against Confederate artillery


Artillery at the cornfield, dawn


monument to a Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiment


Vermont Sharpshooters


14th Brooklyn Infantry Monument


New Jersey Artillery Monument


Texas Monument

"The Bloody Lane"


Approaches to the confederate center
At mid day the action shifted from the confederate left (the cornfield) to the confederate center.


Union Artillery facing the Confederate center


Here, New Hampshire Infantry and the "Irish Brigade" assaulted D.H. Hill's division, who had entrenched a sunken lane. So many bodies filled the ditch that, by the end of the action, it was essentially "filled in" with corpses.


the fortified depression, and the field over which Union infantry advanced. This was the worst fighting of the day

The first Union assault on the bloody lane failed, and General Lee rushed up reinforcements to bolster Hill. At one point, it seemed as if the Confederates were about to flank the Federals, but a desperate counterattack by the 5th New Hanpshire pushed them back. The confederate line broke, and it seemed as if the Army of Northern Virginia was about to be split in half, when General Longstreet directed his artillery to hammer the advancing 5th New Hampshire.

"Burnside's Bridge"

The last major action of the day took place on the southern edge of the battlefield. After three failed assaults, General Burnside's 51st New York and 51st Pennsylvania stormed a Bridge across Antietam creek, bumping into two Georgia divisions, which had been weakened in order to reinforce the center. They had been promised their Whiskey ration should they take the bridge.



After taking the bridge, Burnside's men stormed the opposite heights and drove Toomb's Georgia divisions off. (The Georgians were in the process of pulling back at the time). At this point it seemed as if Burnside could cut off the Army of Northern Virginia's only escape route. Only the sudden arrival of Confederate General A.P. Hill to the south of Antietam with a light division (including three Tennessee regiments) stalled Burnside's advance and saved the Confederate army.

As Darkness fell, the opposing forces disengaged and Lee began withdrawing the Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac river. Thus ended the first confederate invasion of the North. The second invasion, the next July, would also fail, ended at Gettysberg.

Kokand




Towards the end of the day, we hopped on yet another Mashrutka to Kokand, the first major city one encounters when driving into the Fergana Valley, and the last when leaving it.

The site that Kokand sits on has been inhabited since at least the 10th century, but the Mongols staged a concert there during their 1221 world tour, and the after party left the place pretty much depopulated. The current town dates from 1732- so it's not terribly old, but it has a wonderful feel to it. The city is clean and well laid out, and has a number of parks, small and large.


pleasant city park


pleasant...tree lined avenues?


The first thing we did was find a hotel. The Lonely Planet guide says that there is only one hotel in the city, the appropriately named Hotel Kokand- they, however, strongly recommend against setting foot in this establishment as it is somewhat less than, well, clean. In fact, the LP recommends that you keep on truckin' and sleep in a totally different city.

The Odyssey Guide, on the other hand, claims that there is a hotel at 92 Furkat street called the Hotel Oktyaber. We decided to search this out. It's near the bazaar, and is totally unmarked. when you enter the doors, you walk into a dimly lit cavernous hall with a staircase leading up, said staircase passing in front of a huge 2 story high grime encrusted mural showing workers and peasants laboring happily together. On the second floor is the hotel. It costs 1200 sum per night ($1).

The woman in charge of the place was clearly not enthused about our wanting to stay there. The hotel is very basic- each room has 4 beds, there is only one toilet for the whole building, little light, and no heat. It is the kind of place where farmers coming into town to sell their goods at the bazaar stay before they return to the countryside. It was old, but relatively clean.

The lady running the place thought that this was no place for a lady (such as my CFO), and insisted that we go to the "nice" place in town, the Hotel Kokand. So we did. This is not that unusual- quite a few times business people will try to steer you away from their services based on the fact that they aren't "good enough" for foreigners. Trying to buy a 3rd class rail ticket, for example, is practically impossible. When we were travelling from Samarqand to Tashkent we had to talk to the station agent for 15 minutes just to get second instead of first. (and when we took the train, they gave us, but no one else in the train car, the 1st class meal). Coming from the most capitalist of countries, this is odd to me. No one willingly turns down business in New York.

The Hotel Kokand is actually not that different from the Hotel Oktyaber. Except the adjectives "clean" and "relatively clean" can in no way describe the horror show that is this hotel.

We settled for the "nicer" $12 suite vs. the cheaper and even nastier $9 room.


The fanciest room at the Hotel Kokand. The white stuff on the mirror? That's dust.

I won't get too deep into this, as we'll complete the description of the hotel later. Needless to say, we left the hotel as soon as it was possible to see the city.

The centerpiece of the town is the palace of Khudayar Khan- although Kokand is a bit of a backwater now, back in the 18th century it was the center of a relatively powerful Khanate. At one time, the Khanate of Kokand even took over Tashkent, but by the end of the 18th century it was being pressured by both the Emirate of Bukhara and the Qing dynasty of China. (Chinese claims to soveriegnty in the Fergana valley date to the tribute paid by Kokand to the Qing).

Khudayar's palace is not nearly as fancy as those in the great triumvirate of Khiva, Samarqand, and Bukhara- but it is well preserved.


Khudayar's Palace

The palace is fronted by the city's biggest park. The guidebook claims that there is an old YAK-40 airplane here that was converted into a children's cinema; but a few years ago that was removed (sadly).



It costs a few bucks to get into the palace (everything here costs about $2.25 to get into- given that this is the price of a meal, it's a tad outrageous). Inside the palace are a number of rooms and courtyards.


Central Courtyard

The Soviet tradition of having odd junk on display that appears out of place in tits chosen setting is alive and well here in Uzbekistan.


A display of local Taxidermy?

The Khan lived pretty well, in a series of apartments that are well maintained by the local museum staff.


The breakfast room (?)






The level of handicraft displayed is quite advanced, and the detail work is well preserved. The staff at this museum is large for a place that isn't so big, and it's obvious that the city intends to take good care of its palace. Some restoration work is going on on the central courtyard Iwan, but most of the palace is in pristine condition- or as near pristine as it can be after being conqoured by the Bukharans, then the Russians, and then re-conqoured by the Bolsheviks.


Wall Carvings




The carved wooden capitol of an Iwan column

There is a woman at the museum who runs the place named Manzurahon Mansurova. She speaks absolutely perfect, almost accentless English. This is quite surprising, as very few English speaking folks get to Uzbekistan, much less to the Fergana Valley, and even less so to Kokand.

As we were chatting Manzurahon asked us if we would like her to arrange a homestay for us. We replied that we had already made arrangements at the Hotel Kokand, and a look of extreme concern passed over her face. "Oh dear!... that's a rather...'dreadful' place actually." she said. Speaking in Uzbekm she relayed the news of our unfortunate situation to her colleagues, who also expressed shock and dismay (I assume). Some of them may have actually made hand signals to ward off the evil eye at the mention of the words "Hotel Kokand."

After seeing the museum, we strolled around the park a bit, and as we were heading toward the hotel we saw Manzurahon and some of the other museum folks walking home from work.

I figured that Manzurahon would love a chance to practice English with some native speakers (well one native speaker at least), so I suggested to my wife that we invite her out for tea at one of the local Chaikhana. I imagined that she would likely enjoy an hour or so of conversation (I know I always enjoy having tea with foreigners myself).

She told us that, unfortunately, she was headed towards her sister's house. We expressed regret, but she then insisted that we accompany her. I myself didn't want to feel like a cad, inviting myself to her sister's house, but she replied that it was no imposition at all- and rather insisted that we go.

When we arrived, unexpectedly, at the place her sister was basically in a house coat, but quickly changed into regular clothes. (we really were unanticipated guests!).

They immediately cooked and sat out a huge feast for us; including plov (the national rice dish), Non, persimmons, raisins, grapes, fruits of all types, sweets, and black and green tea.


Uzbek food for the random house guest

Keep in mid that we had met this woman 30 minutes earlier for the first time. Other members of the family started drifting in, including Manzurahons 3 sisters, her brother, and a numerous amount of children.


The Manzurova Crew

Her brother was a big soccer fan, and had just returned from working with the local soccer team. I indicated that I was disappointed because I had been looking for a Paktakor Team Shirt (Paktakor is Tashkent's football team) but had no luck. Her brother immediately removed his jacket and revelaed that he was wearign a brand new UFF (Uzbekistan Football Federation) shirt. He literally peeled it off and gave me the shirt off his back.

This, to me, is the essence of the Muslim world- Hospitality. As Manzurahon said, the Uzbek's have a saying that "The food you give to Guests, Allah gives back to you."

The news may show freaky Pathans and wacked out islamofascists with great frequency, but of all the muslim countries I have been to (granted, that's only 4; Morrocco, Kosovo, Turkey, and Uzbekistan- if you don't count Jersey City, which is arguably an exclave of the Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province) I have always been recieved with the utmost of courtesy, respect, and genuine friendliness. You can expect the same reception in Uzbekistan.

Had we spoken Uzbek, or better Russian, we could have eaten and slept in people's homes every night. Not a day passed without some sort of invitation.

After about 4 hours of constant eating and talking, we began to get quite tired. Manzurahon's sister offered to let us sleep at her place, but we didn't want to take total advantage of her hospitality, we had already paid for the Hotel Kokand, and both my wife and I had a sort of tourist machismo thing going on- a "there's no hotel so nasty we can't hack it" sort of attitude. This turned out to be a mistake. I believe we were exibiting what the Greeks would have called Hubris.


This TV hasn't worked since it broadcast news of Krushchev's passing

The suite actually had a bathroom, of sorts. the bathroom, however, had no toilet (although there had obviously been one here at one time, perhaps it was looted by the Mongels?); and the bathtub consisted of an orange stained tub with a pipe above it that constantly dripped cruddy ferric smelling water.


The bathtub

All of this I can handle. We decided to sleep in our clothes- not like that hasn't happened before. This isn't as bad, I thought, as sleeping in the Belgrade Train station. The Belgrade train station waiting room, after all, smells of cheese-feet. That's just as nasty as it sounds. Actually, its a bit nastier than it sounds. Have you ever been unable to fall asleep because of a smell? No? Then you haven't been to the Belrade train station. (and you haven't had to share an apartment with Portuguese salted cod, either).

The real problem was the toilet.

there was one per floor, and you couldn't miss it. As soon as you left the room the stank of something evil greeted you. This toilet was not only a squatter, it was an actual portal to the underworld. And a relatively unsavoury part of the underworld at that.


The actual portal to the underworld. Say hello to Dante and Virgil when you get there.


Abandon all hope, ye who enter here

I resolved not to resist nature's insistent demands, but eventually I found myself confronting a rather delicate engineering problem.

WARNING- THE SQUEAMISH MAY LEAVE OFF READING NOW!

Here's the deal with squatters for those of us who wear trousers. When you drop those trousers and squat down, your pants make a little net directly underneath you and, believe me, you don't want to catch anything in that there net.

I surveyed the situation and saw that there was a lovely sink just opposite the actual toilet. A brilliant Idea occured to me. I would grab the sink with both hands, then hang my butt out, wind-surfer style. Though brilliantly concieved, actual application of this plan proved difficult.
It worked perfectly, right up until the point where the sink detached itself from the wall, and sent me comically flailing my arms, attempting not to fall backwards into... who knows what.

Did you see mission impossible with Tom Cruise? Remember when he was hovering inches above the floor? Imagine me doing that, backwards, suspending myself upon my fingertips, with my pants around my ankles, repeating like a mantra "pleae don't let me touch this awful surface more than necessary."

Horrifying. The moral of this story is that, if you go to Kokand, go immediately to the museum and Get Mazurhona to arrange a home stay for you.

RETURN TO NORMAL, DECENT CONVERSATION

Kokand was the last place in the coutnry that we saw. We hired a chared taxi to take us from Kokand to Tashkent for about $25, the taxi driver dropped us off at Maxim Gorky Metro, and we spent one night in the Grand Orzu hotel. ($25)


I saw this on the ride back into Tashkent. God Bless America!

The staff at the Orzu was friendly and helpful, and it was nicely located to do a bit of last minute shopping. It is very near a place on Usman Nosir street called "Human House", a shop that has a number of great things on sale. Bolts of raw silk, handicrafts, and fashion (the dresses are all really well made, and unique- My wife bought a dress she wore to the Met in NYC, blowing away the other ladies there, for $90).

Also near the hotel is the "Skynet" internet cafe. (Open 24 hours) You can rent the computer for $0.50 per hour. Our plane left tashkent at 4 AM, so the very last night, instead of paying for a hotel room, I played "Call of Duty" against Uzbek teenagers from 10 AM until 2 AM. All for about $2, then had them call me a cab for the airport. The Teens speak some English, and they definitely speak microsoft.


The Orzu also isn't too far from the "Caravan Art Cafe" Honestly, if you are flying out the next morning, its late at night, and you still haven't finished your shopping for gifts, then you have to come here. Whatever you didn't buy in Bukhara, Samarqand, or Nukus you can pick up here for reasonable prices.

But the restaurant attached to the shop is ridiculous. I have been in a lot of snooty places (I live just across the river from Greenwich Village, the scond snootiest place on the face of the earth after the left bank in Paris) but even the most pompous of New Yorkers wouldn't match these folks for attitude.

First off the cafe is way overpriced, (A beer and a sandwich for twice the price of a 6 hour taxi ride? I think not). The food is also "middle eastern," which is wierd, because we aren't in the middle east.

I took one photo of the place before the irate waiter stalked over and told us that "photography is not allowed in here!" This was the only time she actually showed any interest in us all night.


The illicit photo!

Apparently, they didn't want us to take pictures of the "Art" that was hanging for sale on their wall. The art is bad quality anyway. Mostly Kitschy schlock- not that I haven't sold a few kitsch photos in my time.

The staff is, of course, Russian, as Uzbeks would likely never behave in this fashion.

My point? Avoid giving them your money if you can. I had a few things left to buy, so I did, but it gave me no joy.



So, after the video gaming, we got on the plane, flew back to New York (with another 4 hours in the moscow airport) and slept for a long, long time.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed looking at this as much as I enjoyed making it, and I highly recommend that you visit Uzbekistan. It's a great place, with great people.

Except, of course, for the Taxi drivers.

Kimchak Pass & Fergana Valley

By the time our train arrived in Tashkent, it was snowing pretty fiercly. Shortly before dawn, we left the train station and starting asking at the assembled taxis outside to see how much it would cost to go to Fergana City, usually about a 5 hour drive over the mountains into the Fergana Valley. Normally, a shared taxi should cost around $8, and a chartered taxi (all to yourself) about $25 under normal conditions. These guys were all asking for $100. Since their were about 5-6 taxis, they all, standing around, colluded with each other and maintained this absurdly high price. This isn't that unusual at the train stations and airports. "Snow" they said- "No one goes to Fergana."

So we left by metro and went to the Sobir Rahimov metro station, which is where the mashrutno/shared taxi stand to Fergana is. There we anticipated a plethora of vehicles going to Fergana or Kokand. Normally there are. But today, as it was snowing, not so much.

However, we did manage to get somebody to charter a taxi for $35. As this is only $10 above what the guidebook said, allowing for snow and inflation it wasn't too bad. A lot better than $100.

We soon discovered why none of the taxis were going to Fergana. The Kimchak pass is about 2000 meters high, and as we were approaching it the weather got worse and worse.



Visibility was down to about 50 feet due to fog and snow.



It didn't seem as if anyone could live here under these conditions; cold, steep hills, scrubby ground. But the odd village did dot the landscape here and there, and occasionally a herd of goats, small cattle, or sheep would cross the road.



The pass is a major chokepoint on the trade routes that go from Southern Russia to China, so there was a lot of truck traffic sharing the road with us. I noticed a number of jacknifed trailers on the other side of the road as we were climbing up, and at one point a tractor trailer in front of us lost traction and began to slide backwards down the mountain. We simply weaved around it and another struggling truck, and went on our way. No seatbelts, of course.

I was afriad that the rest of our trip was going to be a cold, lightless photographers nightmare, but as soon as we crested the pass, the skies became bright and clear.




The Syr Darya


Trucks after the Kimchak pass

some of these photos are from the return trip, but it seems to be appropriate to put them here. Coming back a few days later from the Fergana Valley, we shared a taxi with a couple of other Uzbeks.



they kindly stopped for me to take some pictures.


The road to Fergana

We stopped for Lunch in Angren, an old mining and nuclear power town. They stil obviously maintain some old links with the past.


Apartment Blocks in Angren

After you leave the mountains you come upon a sort of desert area, with irrigated fields on one said and scrubland on the other.



But, after about another hour of travel, the legendary fertility of the Fergana Valley becomes evident. This is the most densely populated valley in Central Asia, although there aren't many huge towns. It's also the agricultural center of the region, and has been since antiquity. Babur, the exiled Timurid who once ruled this valley but was driven out and forced to go to India (where he founded the Mogul empire), waxed poetic about the produce of the region. Though he sat amongst the riches and splendor of Delhi, he would always long for the simple Fergana melons of his youth.


FERGANA CITY

Fergana City is a rather recent arrival to the scene, being constructed by Russians in the 19th century. It is the least Uzbek, most Russian influenced town in the country. It is also the best center where one can stay and travel through the valley, with plentiful and good hotels, taxis, and other amenities.



One could easily think that one was a small Bohemian spa town here, if it wasn't for the people.

The town has a lovely and quite large park area, with a huge statue of Al-Fergani, a famus mathematician from the valley.



You can also play billiards outside.




The Author's long suffering better half


CHUST & NAMANGAN

We were very fortunate in the Fergana valley section of the trip. The weather in the valley was very nice (a bit cold, but clear). The tone of the Fergana valley is quite different than the rest of the country. Khorezm and The Zerafshan river plain (samarqand) have grand old Imperial cities and giant features; vast deserts, wide rivers, giant mountains. The Fergana is much more low key. It's more agricultural, the peaks of the surrounding Tian Shan mountains loom in the far distance, but the valley is so gently sloped and large that it seems to be no valley at all, but a plain. The habitations consist of small towns and hamlets, with a few cities of moderate size scattered about (other than Tashkent, all Uzbek cities are of moderate size).

But, if the lands beyond the Kimchak constitute the heart of Historical Transoxania, the Fergana is the modern center of gravity of Uzbekistan. It is the most densely populated section of Central Asia. It contains the second and fourth largest cities of the country (Namangan and Andijan), and each of these cities has numerous outliers, unlike Samarqand and Bukhara, which pretty much stop in the desert.

We set out the second day in the valley to find the city of Chust, famed for its production of knives. The Fergana Valley is home to the most notable production of knives in Central asia, and each city has a distinct style. Chust is related to be the nicest, and the guidebook stated that there was a knife factory open to the public- a factory in the sense of "a collection of artisans" rather than a mass production facility.

Kinves are worn to ward off the evil eye, and the water used in knife grinding is supposed to be a curative for all manner of diseases.

We went down to the bazaar in Fergana, and caught a mashrutka to Margilan. Although Fergana is bigger than Margilan, Margilan is more of a transportation hub- its about 15 minutes ride from Fergana.

Once in Margilan we found the Depot where buses go to Namangan, along the north rim of the valley. We were there about 30 minutes before the bus departed, so we ducked around the corner to get a breakfast of Somsa on the street outside.



The guy that was making Somsa had no change, so instead of 400 sum ($0.30), we paid 500 sum ($0.38). We then returned to the bus. The fact, however, that we had overpaid the man 100 sum apparently bothered him, as about 10 minutes later, as we were sitting in the bus, he arrived with suitable compensation; an entire tree branch full of persimmons.



That's a lot of persimmons for eight cents. But, as I said before, most folks in Uzbekistan seem to be pathologically honest and generous to travellers. Except, of course, for Taxi drivers, who are ifrit-spawn the world over.

Getting to Namangan took about 3 hours; mostly because we stopped at numerous little villages. We passed through Rishdon, a great place to get ceramics that, unfortunately, we never got to stop in. But if you have the time I have heard that it is quite nice.

After arriving in Namangan, we had to wait for 35 minutes or so at the central bus station for transportation to Chust, which is not a terribly big place. That was alright. In the bus station itself are a number of tables with food and coffee available. The "last" table actually has very good coffee, the only time in U-Stan that I found a decent cup ' joe.


Good coffee and good company in the Namangan Bus Station


This is the lady to buy cakes from at the Bus Station

After the appropriate time, our bus arrived. The buses tend to be old and strange looking, but they are usually pretty reliable.


Uzbek intercity bus

We piled onto the bus, and began our trip to Chust. Just before we left Namangan, the bus stopped, as luck would have it, just in front of the Philology faculty of the University of Namangan, and our bus filled up with foreign language students, most of whom were (to my pleasant surprise) very good looking ladies.

It was obvious to everyone that we were foreigners, so the girls immediately began speaking to us in English, most of them being able to speak it quite well. This was one of three occasions where we found good speakers of english. They all stayed on the bus for the better part of an hour, then most departed at an outlying village.

One of them inquired if I was married. I pointed to the woman next to me and stated that this was my wife (I thought it pretty obvious, as she clearly isn't Uzbek). The lady sighed and expressed voluble dissapointment.

It's good to know the pimp hand isn't totally rusty.


Our travelling companions (marriage minded woman, second from right)

In addition to marriage proposals, we also recieved an invitation to dinner from an older woman who spoke nothing but Uzbek, and wanted us to meet her 13 grandchildren.


85 year old Uzbek lady- the good air keeps folks young


Also, we discovered that people take the "one eyebrow" thing very seriously, Perhaps I mentioned it before, but having one single eyebrow (what we call a "uni-brow) is considered the acme of female beauty. Women who do not have their eyebrows connected will pencil in the gap, as demosntrated below.







As we left the Namangan area, our bus, which was totally packed to the rafters, had a bit of a suspension problem. It lurched, then canted alarmingly to the left. Such small matters do not deter valiant Uzbek drivers, so we continued on driving tilted for another 5 minutes or so, despite the grinding and crunching sound coming from the rear left wheel (whose shocks had collapsed). After a bit, this added friction was too much for the engine to handle, along with the 70 or so people sardined inside, and it finally gave up the ghost, everyone then piling out onto the side of the road.



The men on the bus began immediately tinkering with the engine.



While the rest of the passengers (several dozen) gathered around us in a circle and began asking us all sorts of questions, translated by the two english speaking women who remained. After some time it became apparent that the bus was not going to reach Chust in a timely manner, so we began to climb, in groups, onto other buses (themselves already packed) that were heading for Chust.

We eventually reached the town center, and walked to the factory, which was permanently closed. Disapointment, as it had already taken most of the day to get here (one can really only visit one city a day in the Fergana, as transport, while fun, is not fast). So we went to the Bazaar, where we saw some nice melons.



Also in the bazaar we found a small forge and shop that turns out knives and various other edged tools (saws and axes). they forge the blades and heads from steel.



For the knives, the steel has a smoky "watered" look to it. Mohammad (the chief craftsman) claims it is "Damascus Steel"- made by the same method famed in Damascus and Toledo. I am not sure if it is done to the same intensity that the famous blades of the levant were, but it has the same look and weight.



Once the blade is formed, it is then sharpened and buffed to a nce sheen.






the Knife Making Crew

Muhammad is a real craftsman. The knives take quite some time to produce, and he had only a few examples around that were complete. One knife he refused to sell because of an imperfection in the blade that wasn't visible to me, but bothered him, it was destined for the scrap heap (how often would you encounter that sort of attitude in Western Europe or the US?). We bought two blades; one with a mother of pearl haft for about $18, and one with a polished horn haft for about $7. The distinguishing feature of Chust knives are their large and relatively unadorned haft (handle), most of the other Fergana valley knives have skinny hafts that are quite guady. I prefer this style.

This is not my picture, but here is a typical Chust knife:




After obtaining our knives, we wended our way back to the Mashrutka stand, passing the obligatory sheep in the town parrk;



By the time we returned to Fergana, it was dark, so we went back to our hotel, the Ziyorat (English speaking staff, best place in the valley to sleep, $12 doubles) and hit the sack.

MARGILAN

The next morning we returned to Margilan to do the principal thing we wanted to do in the Fergana Valley, visit the Yogdorlik silk factory.

Uzbekistan sits astride the old Silk road, and sericulture (the harvesting of silkworms) has been known since around 6,000 BC, when it was first developed in China. The Chinese attempted to keep the methods of sericulture secret, but the technology had arrived in Fergana by at least 300 AD. Currently Uzbekistan produces about 30,000 tons of silk per year, most of it in Margilan. The Yogdorlik factory was started in the 1980s by folks who wanted to maintain an alternative to Soviet style mechanization. Although the scale of the factory is large, they follow traditional spinning and dying procedures, and their silk is amongst the highest quality in the world. Uzbek silk is made in a style known as Ikat.

Silkworms, in this case the bombyx mori, eat mulberry leaves, wich are abundant in fergana, they thin spin a cocoon in preparation for turning into a moth.


early stage silkworm cocoons, they have not yet turned white or grown very large.

The cocoon consists of a single thread of silk, wich is slightly over one kilometer long. this is one of the factors that makes silk strong; in addition to the incredible tensile strength of silk, which exceeds steel, each "sheet" of silk is woven from extremely long monofilaments.

These cocoons are collected in sacks, and delivered to the factory.




Before the moth can emerge and break the silk thread, the cocoons are steamed in order to prepare them for unwinding. (Sorry vegans!)



In the ultra-traditional way (Yogdorlik has absolutely traditional as well as semi-mechanized spinning, although all dying and design is traditional) the thread is then teased out of each individual cocooon, and readied for spooling.



The silk is then spooled onto large reels, and this is used to weave the heavy "raw" looking silks used for many carpets, etc.



This is extremely slow, however, so Yogdorlik has large setups where the spooling is more industrially efficient.



Each thread is almost to small to see with the naked eye, but each of the cocoons bobbing in the hot water has a thread that loops over the plastic wheel, and three of these threads are eventually wound together into a larger thread.


Three of these larger threads are then wound together and spooled onto a small bobbin.








The bobbins are then taken to a spooling room, where three small bobbins are spooled onto a medium bobbin (winding the three threads together into a cable-like larger thread).



Eventually, the silk ends up on a very large bobbin, where it is ready to be marked, dyed, and woven.




The silk is formed into "cords"





And then is laid out on a frame, where a master designer marks and tapes off sections to be dyed.



Once marked, it is taken off the frame, and brought to the dye house.



Dyes are made from natural vegetable material,



As well as metal for the iron oxide colors:



The cords are essentially "tie-dyed", with wrappings being removed, then the cord put in a sack and submerged in the boiling dye.



Wrappings are re-arranged, and other colors added to the cord.



Then the cords are dried in ovens.



The cords are then transported to the looms, where they are cross woven with either toehr silk, for pure silk textiles, or occasionally with linen or (most often) cotton, for blends.









Uzbek teen hearthrob






In addition to Ikat silks like these, they also weave carpets from silk and wool, or silk and cotton. Carpets here are "persian" style rather than the more north african that I am used to.



The patterns are "embroidered" through a field of textile.


Students learning the carpet making process

and then they are shorn off to provide a level carpet surface. It can take up to a day to do one centimeter od a complex design. Even in U-Stan, these carpets are expensive ($500 and up). In New York, however, they can cost ten times that.


more than a few bandaged thumbs

They also embrodier the "suzane" table cloth type things.




The tour of the factory is free, and supposedly available in English- although that day they could not find the sole English speaker so the foreman, Sobirjon, lead us aroudn and gave us a Russian language tour.



At the end of the tour they have a shop. There is no pressure to buy and the prices are quite cheap. We got 4 ikats, a hat, and a couple of bolts of silk (18 feet long each) for less than $100. Not bad really.


Yogdorlik silk shop

The tour is designed, I think, less to sell than to show off the craft. Everyone there seemed genuinely proud of their work, was quite courteous, and its definitely photo-friendly. Be sure to bring lens cleaning cloths, as going from the cold to the steam can fog up your glass.

A few other shots of the silk factory: