Monuments to visit Samarkand

Registan used to be the heart of Samarkand, and a compact and colourful crowd would gather around the many stalls that crowded the madrasas. The indefatigable Swiss traveller, Ella Maillard, had the good fortune, during her visit to Samarkand in 1932, to stay in the Tilla Kari Madrasa, whose cells were then used to accommodate visitors passing through. Less hospitable, the Chir Dor Madrasa served as a place of detention for basmatchi - Muslims who opposed Soviet rule - awaiting execution. Here, as around the Gur Emir, the houses have been demolished to make way for cleanliness. One could think of the decor of a deserted theatre: the three huge and superb madrasas Oulough Begh, Chir Dor and Tilla Kari border a large empty esplanade and, on the fourth side, slightly set back, rise bleachers that welcome visitors during the sound and light shows. In the 14th century, the six main arteries that started from the city gates intersected at this location, on a vast sandy square. Not that sand covered the whole square, but sand was thrown in abundance to absorb the blood spilled during public executions. Tamerlan wanted to facilitate trade and encourage merchants, who paid heavy taxes, to come to Samarkand. He had a street lined with shops built that ran through the city from one end to the other and a huge bazaar. Continuing his work, his wife, Tuman Aka, built a tim, a large domed covered market. During the reign of Ulugh Begh in the early 15th century, the Registan became the official seat of Samarkand. Its new status was accompanied by major works, the domed market was demolished and a madrasah, a khanaka, a caravanserai and a mosque were built. It was also a strategic place and, at the end of the 15th century, when the enemies were encircling Samarkand, Babur, the last of the Timurids, had set up his headquarters on top of the madrasah of Ulugh Begh, the real centre of the city.

To the west, the Ulugh Begh Madrasa is the oldest of the three. Built between 1417 and 1420, it is recognizable by its northern minaret, slightly inclined, as if it was struggling to support the sky, a role attributed to these two gigantic minarets, 33 m high, which flank the portal and never welcomed imams. The guides like to tell how, during the restoration, the Russians tried unsuccessfully to rotate the minaret on its base to put it back upright. The portal, decorated with a mosaic of fired bricks and bricks glazed in the colours of the sky, rises like a huge vessel towards the celestial vault. Spirals of majolica, star motifs with five or ten branches, a few rare touches of yellow or green... the eye is lost in this bewitching spatial geometry.

Both the wings and the minarets are entirely covered with girikh, geometric patterns. Inside, about fifty cells spread over two levels form a square courtyard. At the corners of the building, high courtyard rooms were topped by domes that have now been destroyed. When it was built in 1417, the Madrasa of Ulugh Begh was the largest university in Central Asia. More than a hundred students studied the Koran, but also astronomy, mathematics, philosophy and literature. Kazy-Zade-Rumi, the so-called "Plato of his time", came to teach astronomy. Ulugh Begh, an enlightened governor, mathematician, astronomer, poet and politician, also came to the madrasah courtyard to argue with the students. This opening towards non-religious matters caused his death, his own son, allied with religious fanatics, had him assassinated in 1449. "The owls had taken the place of the students in these cells, and instead of silk curtains, their doors were stretched with cobwebs. "The description dates from 1711.

At this time, the sumptuous Samarkand seems to be fast asleep. The market, which has taken over in the centre of the city and grafted itself onto the buildings, flooded the Registan square with rubbish; brought by the wind, the sand also rushed in and the ground level rose by more than two metres! In 1873, Eugène Schuyller pointed out the dilapidated state of the madrasah, which has only one floor left, as well as the optical illusion that makes the minarets appear leaning. It is in order to repair this "illusion" that in the 20th century the architects in charge of the restoration of monuments tried in vain to straighten the right-hand minaret. The back of the courtyard is occupied by a mosque.

To the east, facing the Oulough Begh Madrasa, the Chir Dor Madrasa was not erected until two centuries later. At the beginning of the 17th century, Yalangtush Bakhadur, vizier of Imam Kouli khan and governor of Samarkand, probably wanting to wake up the sleeping city and leave his mark on it, destroyed what was left of the caravanserai and the khanaka and had a madrasah built on the other side of the square, mirroring that of Ulugh Begh, between 1619 and 1635. Its fire-coloured lion tigers adorning a portal as bright as the sun respond to the starry vault of the madrasah of Uulough Begh: the power of the sun facing the infinity of space. Legend has it that the architect responsible for the construction of Chir Dor perished for violating the laws of Islam that prohibit figurative art.

It was this tiger-lion that gave the madrasa its name: Chir Dor means 'who carries the lion'. The width of the two buildings is identical, but the Chir Dor Madrasa, built on the foundations of the ancient khanaka, is slightly lower than the Ulugh Begh Madrasa. On each side of the portal, two fluted bulbous domes with aerial relief cap the study rooms. Many inscriptions decorate the portal and the drums of the domes: "You are the great warrior, Yalangtush Bakhadur, if we add the numbers of your name, we get the date of foundation. "And also: "He raised up a madrasah so that through him the earth was brought to the zenith of heaven. "Or again: "Never in the course of the centuries will the skilful acrobat of thought, by the rope of fantasy, reach the forbidden peaks of the minarets. »

Facing the stands, the Tilla Kari Madrasa, which is lower and has a longer façade than the two previous ones, closes off the north side of Registan Square. On its left, the blue dome of the mosque distinguishes the madrasa from its two neighbours. It is to this mosque that the madrasah owes its name: Tilla Kari means "covered with gold". One only has to admire the stunning decorations inside the dome to see that this nickname is entirely justified. The high portal and the two levels of cells are decorated with majolica, intertwined floral motifs and solar symbols that echo the tones of the Chir Dor Mosque. Yalangtush wanted to endow Samarkand with a Friday mosque worthy of his rank, that of Bibi Khanum being already in ruins. He had a large mosque built adjacent to the courtyard of a madrasah, so that he could accommodate the largest number of worshippers during public ceremonies. The madrasa was built on the site of the caravanserai built under the Timurids, the foundations of which are still preserved. The work lasted more than 10 years, from 1646 to 1659, and the mosque was indeed covered with gold. It is the youngest monument in the square and, undoubtedly, due to the imbalance created by the dome of the mosque at the corner of a 120 m façade, the most astonishing. Of the three madrasas, this one is the only one to have outward-facing cells, like the Mir-i-Arab madrasah in Bukhara. The walls, the dome and the mihrab are entirely decorated with red and gold floral motifs on an ultramarine blue background. The dome is particularly impressive, the concentric circles of gold leaf on a midnight blue background seem to catch the eye towards infinity. The ceiling is as flat as a table, but the trompe l'oeil decorations make it appear vaulted. Space has been set aside to display photographs taken before and during the restoration