KHIVA

When speaking about Central Asia, history and legends are indivisible from each other. History gives you dates and describes important events, but legends bring you closer to the very heart and soul, the unique character of places you travel through. So, starting a story about a place in Central Asia with a legend is something inevitabe, rather than a pursuit of extravagance.

Khiva surely does have its own legends, and the first one brings us twenty five centuries back in time to Shem, son of Noah, who is said to have established this city in a green oasis between two scorching deserts of Kara-kum and Kizil-kum. The legend tells us that Shem’s people dug a well which got filled with sweet water, so they called this place Khi-vakh, “sweet water” – and this is where Khiva got its name from.

The earliest days of Khiva leave a lot for further study. Some scriptures say that Alexander the Great did once receive an emissary from Khiva, but he himself never went as deep into Central Asia as to reach it. It is known, however, that at the very beginning of the AD era it already was a flourishing center of trade and culture. Khiva was favored by some of the prominent people of Central Asian history: Al-Khorezmi, a mathematician whose works became known in Europe after they were translated into Latin in the Middle Ages, lived and worked here in the VIII century. Later, in the beginning of the XI century Avicenna had started his famous “Canon of medical science” while living in Khiva, and here he also got acquainted with Abu Raikhon Beruni, another famous eastern scientist; they worked closely together for many years.

Wars and destruction did not hit Khiva as often and as strong as Bukhara, for instance. For centuries it was enjoying relative stability and its comfortable position at one of the Great Silk Road’s branches. Khiva was also a center of slavery; the major number of slaves was Russian. This fact was of course irritating for Russia, but Khiva was still too far for serious military countermeasures, although some attempts were made in early XVIII century. In the middle of the XVIII century it was overrun by Persians; the city sustained heavy damage, and later, as restoration proceeded, began to look more and more similar to what we can see today. In May 1873 Khiva was at last taken by the Russian general Kaufmann as he was proceeding with the conquest of Central Asia in response to British advancements from India into Afghanistan during the times of the Great Game.

Today’s Khiva is unique in many respects, but the first and the most obvious is that its historical center Ichan-Kala is so small, less than one square kilometer, yet so dense and diverse – a magical jewel box in a palm of your hand. This small area, surrounded by 2200 meters of well-preserved walls with over 40 massive built-in bastions, is packed with practically as many places to visit as you would see, let’s say, in the whole Samarqand. Besides, Ichan-Kala has a permanent population of over 3000, mainly craftsmen with their families, and observing those industrious people at their home workshops is an exiting attraction by itself.

A clear, absolutely unique landmark of Khiva, located in Ichan-Kala, is Kalta-Minar. It was meant by Mohammad Amin Khan to be the tallest one in the Muslim world, but its construction, started in 1851, was stopped in 1855 with his death and was never resumed and completed. However, two other minarets still provide spectacular views over the city: a smaller one by Juma Mosque and, of course, wonderfully decorated Islam Khodja minaret.

Another place worth to be specially mentioned in even such a small overview is Juma Mosque. Its ceiling rests upon over 200 wooden pillars, many of them are hundreds years old (one even brought by Tamerlan himself from India), every pillar carved uniquely from all others. Pillars are gradually replaced as their wood is getting too old. There is a window in the center of the mosque’s ceiling which makes the lightning of the mosque’s internal space very special and unique.

A part of Ichan Kala forms a fortified citadel inside the fortress – Khan’s palace, Kunya Ark. Being well-preserved from the destruction of the time, as is the rest of the city, it would give you a bright picture of Central Asian rulers’ habitat.