The early-20th-century adventurer wrote about everyday life in Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan, in vivid detail – and in many ways the city seems unchanged
Last April, I arrived in springtime Tashkent. Buckets of tiny strawberries filled the markets and Amir Timur Square thronged with tour groups. I’d stopped to rest a while after travelling for weeks through neighbouring Kazakhstan and it was only when I sat down at popular buffet restaurant U Babushki did I realise it was Easter. Waitresses marched past with display baskets of painted eggs and Russian Easter breads called kulich, a cross between Italian panettone and hot cross buns, but denser than both. The holiday was almost over in the UK but Russian Orthodox churches celebrate a week later so the festivities were still going on. After devouring a plate of pancakes, I set off walking south to the biggest church I knew, carrying a copy of Through Khiva to Golden Samarkand, written by Isabella “Ella” Robertson Christie. A formidable and sharp-eyed traveller, Christie was born in 1861, close to my adopted city of Edinburgh, and she came to this region twice, in 1910 and 1912, publishing her adventures in 1925. Continue reading...
