Goodbye Panjakent, hello Khujand

Earlyish check out from our hotel this morning. Wasn't the best hotel given the Silk Road could actually be renamed the Dust Road - of which the Panjakent Plaza hotel was the epitome!

The good news was the driving was easy with a comparatively smooth road. The scenery was getting everywhere more impressive as we followed the river valley, green but surrounded by magnificent, dry, sand coloured mountains.

Then we reach another town, around a hairpin, over the river and up. And up. And up. We continue to climb up a fairly narrow but very steep valley. The views we grab are magnificent but not necessarily for the faint hearted as roadside barriers appear to be optional!

To be fair the road is very good. Built by the Chinese it heads up to the Sharistan tunnel which was completed in 2012. At an elevation of nearly 3000 metres and 5km long it's the highest and longest in Central Asia. Just another example of China's BRI (Belt & Road Initiative.

But for now we continue - up and up! Occasionally being overtaken, once or twice actually overtaking. Our driver is very good though, he's clearly done this before.

The tunnel is at the top and no sooner than we are there we are through. The terrain the other side was nowhere near as dramatic. More like driving along the top of an Alpine valley.

A while later we reach Khujand. The plan was to do a city tour before checking in at our hotel. But we got some intelligence that there was an important political delegation in town and fearful they might be commandeering hotel rooms we checked in straight away!

We later found out the president was in town for three days as part of the September independence celebrations.

An hour later we picked up our guide, Sharifa, and headed into the city.

Khujand is one of Central Asia's oldest cities, situated on the Syr Darya River in the fertile Fergana Valley. It was founded more than 2,500 years ago and became an important stop on the Silk Road, linking Central Asia with China and the Middle East.
The city was conquered by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC and later became part of successive Persian, Islamic and Central Asian states.

In 1929 (then known as Leninabad) it was ceded to Tajikistan from the Uzbekistan SSR to help Tajikistan reach the threshold of 1 million people it required to become a full republic.
Today it is Tajikistan's second-largest city and an important industrial and agricultural centre. Its main sights include Khujand Fortress, the Panjshanbe Bazaar, the Sheikh Muslihiddin Mausoleum and the large Soviet-era Khujand Palace of Culture. Also known as the Arbob Palace, this was our first stop.

Arbob Palace is an unusual Soviet-era landmark built in the 1950s as a cultural and political centre. It's famous amongst Tajikistan for being the place where Emomali Rakhmonov (since restyled Rahmon) was sworn in as a leader of Tajikistan. That was in 1992 when the brutal civil war made it too dangerous to.hold political meetings in Dushanbe. It was commissioned by Saidkhoja Urunkhojaev, a prominent collective-farm leader. He was a larger than life character who was known to Stalin and Khrushchev and Sharifa referred to him as 'our Big Man'! The architecture of the palace was deliberately grand, with a design inspired by a palace in St Petersburg.

Next we went to the famous fortress. This had seemingly been rebuilt but was closed on the day we visited. Sharifa and Timur did manage to get us into the museum part of it though. Although it was rather underwhelming and we had the impression this city tour was lacking context and focus to understand the purpose of stopping in Khujand. Some of that was our fault as we had elected not to do another mausoleum and mosque.

It seems the only other thing to do was to have a short stroll to the river and look at the Khujand Historical Leaders monument with several bronze busts. They commemorate historical figures associated with Khujand and the wider region, including Queen Tomyris, Abu Mahmud al-Khujandi (astronomer and mathematician), Mahasti Khujandi (poet), and Haji Yusuf Khujandi, a traveller and scholar.

And that was about it. I felt we didn't really get to know Khudjand much although it is clearly now a major metropolis not really showing its silk road history. At least we ended the evening on the side of the river with some beers and good company 😁Read more