The return of Fitzroy Maclean

[shewhomust]

Since helenraven expressed the desire, and then deferred her project, to visit Alma Ata, it seemed appropriate to give her a copy of Fitzroy Maclean's Back to Bokhara, which describes a journey in much that part of what was then Soviet Central Asia. Maclean was revisiting, in the late 1950s, a region where he had made his way some twenty years earlier, and clearly enjoyed the insistence of the Soviet authorities that he would be admitted only as a tourist travelling de luxe. Then of course I had to re-read my own, very battered copy: had I given her something totally unreadable, was it as vivid and entertaining as I remembered?

For example:

An hour and a half after taking off from Tashkent the expertly piloted if rather ancient twin-engined aircraft taxied to a standstill, and collecting my luggage I scrambled out into the brilliant sunshine. The air was cooler and more exhilarating than it had been in Tashkent. Facing me was a flimsy wooden arch, bearing the inscription SAMARKAND. On one side of it stood a large silver-painted statue of Lenin; on the other an equally large silver-painted statue of Stalin. In front of these were two beds of Michaelmas daisies. Through the arch a car was waiting for me with Pyotr Petrovich, a robust-looking European Russian, in the driving-seat. I climbed in.

For five or ten minutes we drove across the dusty, barren expanse of the Afrosiab. On either side of the road a wilderness of crumbling ruins and ancient graveyards stretched away into the distance. This was once the site of the city of Maracanda, founded, it was said, by Alexander the Great. Then suddenly we topped a rise and came all at once in sight of the minarets and glittering turquoise domes of Samarkand, spread out before us against a background of brilliantly green gardens and trees. Away on the horizon above the blue heat haze rose a range of distant snow-capped mountains.

From where we were I could distinguish the three great medressehs, or religious colleges, which form the three sides of the Registan, or principal square. Nearby rose the vast shattered arch of the mosque of Bibi Khanum, the Chinese princess who became Tamerlane's wife. To the south stood the Gur Emir, the blue-domed tomb of Tamerlane himself; and just outside the city to the north the clustered cupolas of the Hazreti Shakh Zindeh, or Shrine of the Living King, an avenue of ancient tombs and shrines dating back to long before Tamerlane, built on either side of a flight of steps up the side of a hill. Soon we had reached the Old Town and I noticed that since my last visit a neat little public garden, with another silver-painted statue of Stalin in his greatcoat and peaked cap, had made its appearance next to the Registan.

From the dust and hubbub and crowds of the Old Town we passed rapidly to the broad, leafy avenue of the New. 'There,' said Pyotr Petrovich, pointing proudly to a massive new building in the approved classico-oriental style, 'is the Philological Faculty of the University of Uzbekistan. And there is the stadium. And here, until the new one is finished, is the hotel.'

The hotel at Samarkand bore a family resemblance to the hotel at Tashkent. In both the furniture consisted of mass-produced bedroom suites of light polished wood. The plush portières were identical - evidently a general issue to all provincial Soviet hotels. The pictures, too, were the same. In the course of my travels I was to become quite attached to a coloured lithograph of 'Three Baby Bears at Play in a Forest Glade', which, in various sizes, adorned practically every hotel I stayed in. In Tashkent it had been in my sitting-room. Here, it was in the entrance hall.

In addition to the picture of the three baby bears the entrance hall, which was painted chocolate colour and was full of people, also boasted a large gilt chandelier and a heavy wooden frame, four feet high by two feet wide, containing a list of nineteen rules to be observed by hotel guests. The hall porter, a mahogany-skinned Uzbek with high cheekbones and a pair of long jet-black drooping moustaches which gave him an almost Chinese air, sat by the door, deep in conversation with a friend. He wore a bright blue uniform with a broad triple band of shining gold braid running round his peaked hat, round his collar and cuffs and down the outsides of his trousers. The reception desk had a seething crowd of people on both sides. On it was a telephone, down which from time to time one or other of them shouted. Over by the entrance door was another telephone. A man in a panama hat was talking down it, assisted by two more men in panama hats who were advising him what to say. Several more people were standing near by, listening and waiting for their turn to telephone. Somewhere in the background a man was practising on the trombone.

Inside the hall it was dark and cool. Through the street door one could see the brilliant green of the trees and the dazzling glare of the midday sun. On one side of the door was a glass-topped case containing a few rather disappointing picture postcards of polar bears sitting on ice-floes. Behind it sat a pale, detached-looking girl in a black dress. In another glass case were three electric razors, five bottles of Soviet scent, a cake of soap and a selection of embroidered skullcaps. Through another door was a barber's shop, with one man being shaved and several others waiting their turn. Yet another door had a curtain across it. Pulling it aside I found, as I knew I eventually should, three shapeless, sensible, middle-aged women with handkerchiefs tied round their heads and pudgy Russian faces sitting patiently in a row. Having entrusted myself to the care of one of these I was taken to my room.

Yup, that still works for me.

Comments

[helenraven.livejournal.com]

I'd put the book to one side until I was in a position to start planning the trip again, but now I think I should read it right away. Why the postcards of polar bears in Uzbekistan? Why? Because looking at ice can make one feel cool? Um...

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't think it has any bearing on any actual trip one might make; you aren't going to get to Soviet Central Asia in the late 1950s...

[helenraven.livejournal.com]

you aren't going to get to Soviet Central Asia in the late 1950s...

You don't know that. The range of tours on offer is getting wider every day.

I started it over my Sunday lunch at Carluccios and am enjoying it very much. I liked the way he messed with the head of the Italian delegate guy who called asking for "Theresa" - very promising for the rest of the book.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

I used to live in Alma Ata and I've worked in Uzbekistan (both Samarkand and Tashkent). Let me know if you'd like any info/contacts.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Thank you - I'll pass that on.

For my own part, I had picked up on that fact, and would love to hear you talk about it some time...

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

I haven't been back to Uzbekistan since 2004, and it's a very fast-changing region. Fascinating, though.