Monuments to visit Route de la soie

Summer as well as winter, it is nice to spend the day in the beautiful surroundings of Summer Palace and its immense park. The latter is on a surface of about 280 hectares, delimited by a wall wall with few doors; with a huge lake, Kunming Lake, which covers three quarters of the surface and, in the north, a hill called "the hill of Longevity", on the flanks of which palaces and temples stretch up to the top.

History

Successively called "Garden of Golden Waters" under the Jin during the construction of the original palace, then "Garden of Wonderful Hills" while Ming had added the Temple of the Perfect Tranquility, other pavilions and enlarged the lake, it was to Emperor Qian Long (1711-1799) of the Qing the park owes its most important transformations. He was inspired by Hangzhou's architecture, which his mother emulated, Nihulu, had loved, and that is why Qian Long offered him as a gift for his sixtieth birthday the new ensemble renamed «the hill of the Millennial Longevity», standing in the «garden of clear Waves».

At the time, the court took refuge in its secondary residences outside the capital, from the arrival of the summer and its torrid chalks until 1860, where many palaces were destroyed, including the palace of summer. It was to Empress Cixi (1835-1908), the untreatable, but who took the whole thing, that it was a luxury restoration (it diverted money to bail out the imperial navy coffers) and its new name "garden where l l l… the concord is grown. The palace was once again destroyed in 1900 at the time of the Boxer revolt, and Cixi, who was very attached to it, rested it again.

Visit

In order to enter the courtyard, we first come under a large pai, a wooden porch sculpted and painted. In the middle of this double courtyard, you will see a beautiful bronze unicorn, and at the bottom is the room of Benveillance and Longevity, before which you will note four burning bronze incenses representing animals. It is said that the Empress gave its hearings in this Chamber.

Then, by heading to the lake, we arrive at the palace of the jade waves, poetic name for what was for ten years the prison in which Empress Cixi returned the emperor Guangxu trapped in the most complete isolation (he couldn't even see his wife or his concubines) after the failure.' a hundred days of reforms'. You can still see what was the furniture of Guangxu's bedroom.

We then headed to the Garden of Virtue and Harmony, where Cixi had offered, on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, a superb theater, with all the modern mechanisms of the time - traps, water games effects… His true passion for theater sometimes pushed her on the boards during performances, under the tasting. It's Guanyin's isment.

Then you will go along the lake for a moment to arrive at the residence of Cixi, the palace of Joy and Longevity. This is where the empress took its summer quarters from June, and it was in this context that it used to be used daily for festins, said, of more than one hundred and twenty dishes and, as it only touched those closest to it, the cook thus had the ones that were the closest to her, she preferred in close proximity knowing that, for the smallest detail she was unpleasant, she was whipping servants and eunuchs, showing boundless cruelty. Notice the furniture in the throne room and some of the old ones.

The shores of the lake are lined with a long covered gallery with four pavilions running on 728 m at the foot of the millennium Longevity hill. We can also go along the shores of the lake, but the main interest of the gallery lies in the 14,000 small paintings that follow it and carefully reproduce historical or mythological scenes, landscapes or floral motifs… real masterpieces that deserve a little time to be admired, even though some have lost their colors and are damaged.

The gallery is cut in its middle by the orderly Cloud Palace, where Cixi used to celebrate his birthdays. There is still a great portrait in the empress's oil. This palace is also the starting point for ascension to the millennium of Longevity (Wanshoushan). A series of doors and stairs that end fairly steep lead through several pagoda of Buddhist worship: Bright Virtue Room, Buddhist Fragrances Pavilion, from which you can enjoy a wonderful panoramic view of the lake. Then a trail climbing through the trees completes this ascent on the Temple of the Perfect Wisdom, a brick building decorated with yellow and green ceramics and housed in Buddha's effigy statuettes.

Returning to the lake, the gallery continues to the famous marble boat, which seems strangely floody, docked on the lake and where, according to history, Cixi liked to organize banquets. There are small pontons from which you can rent canoes and cross the waters of the lake from one bridge to the next. It is the water community that has the most beautiful view of the Wanshoushan as a whole. In winter, you can cross the frozen lake on foot and even indulge in the joys of the ice chair or the skating rink with the many Chinese who walk through the family weekend.

A council, plan a good day to have the time to stroll and drink a cup of tea in a small house in the gardens, to canoe on the lake and admire the diverse plant species that make up the gardens harmoniously along the promenade. The ensemble has been classified as UNESCO's World Heritage Site since 1998.

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