March 19, 2004 - April 03,2004

Day 08  Friday  March 26, 2004                                                                 
Khiva, Uzbekistan
Submitted by Bob & Carol Okano 

Khiva , 2000 year old city of Fairy Tales



We left the Khorezm Palace Hotel in Urgench to go to Khiv.  We were to visit a grammar school, but since the schools were on spring break, we visited the University of Khorezm, Department of Languages, instead.  Near the entrance to the building was a statue of the mathematician, Mohammed Ibn Musa Al Khorezm, who was born in Khiva and is considered the “father of algebra”.  The word “algorithm” is derived from his name.  We met with a group of pre-university students interested in learning English.  The department head or head teacher spoke about the education system and the department’s functions.  The state supports education for the first eleven or twelve years, then two or three years of college or four years of university, leading to a bachelor’s degree or even a master’s degree.  The students begin learning English in the first form or sixth form depending on the school.  The department provides monthly classes for English teachers and support in the way of a lending library and sales of teaching supplies.  There are also private universities that charge tuition.

Our next stop was to a market that was quite large with large indoor area. 

For lunch we visited the palace of a former emir of Khiva and were entertained by three women playing Attezbak folk music on native instruments and a dancer.  She was able to snap her fingers very loudly using a special technique.  She was successful in getting some of our group to dance along with her.Khiva is a “museum city” preserved as it was during its heyday as a stop on the Silk Road. Of Khiva’s population of 40,000, 2000 live inside the walls of the old city.   The city is surrounded by two walls:

one surrounds the old city called Inchan Qala or “Royal City”  and is the  most visible and the second, surrounds the Dishon Qala which includes Ichan Qala and provides protection for the merchants’suburbs.  Most of the latter is buried beneath the modern town.  The wall around the old city was built between the 5th and 4th centuries BC and was about one and a half miles long. 

There are many mosques and madrassahs in the city.  Some madrassahs are used as hotels, others for shops.  The Dzhuma Mosque is different in that it has no portals or domes.  It can be entered from three sides.  There is a large hall with a ceiling supported by 213 carved wood columns each about sixteen feet high and ten feet apart.  The columns rest on a stone base with a felt pad separating the parts and a metal collar to keep the wood dry. 

The Kukhna Ark, a fortress residence for the ruler, housed the Summer Mosque that included a beautiful painted ceiling.  The mint and jail and their histories were also interesting.

The Kalta minaret encircled by bands of beautiful turquoise designs and appears short and squatty is often photographed as a symbol of Khiva.  Its planned height was 230 – 260 feet, but construction stopped at 55 feet with the khan’s death in 1855.  The foundation diameter is 46 feet.  In comparison, the tallest minaret in Khiva  is 188 feet tall and 31 feet across at its base.    

We were entertained by a troop of aerialists representing three generations in one of the squares.  The older men provided music on native instruments while two men and a boy performed on the high wire.  Forming a human pyramid in the wind provided additional excitement to the show.

We had supper in a restaurant in the old city and departed for the airport for our flight to Tashkent.  We again boarded a Russian twin prop airplane, this time an AN 24-B.  The seats could be put in only two positions, “upright” and full forward, so Maria who was in front of me was leaning back almost into my lap.  Another interesting procedure on these flights in both countries was to wait for the captain to leave the plane before passengers disembarked.  We rode toward the terminal in a bus, got out, walked to a gate, got our bags from the baggage cart and went out the gate without going into the terminal. 

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