Journey Around the 5 Stans: Buildings Then and Now

Ken Powell, a seasoned globe-trotter and experienced photographer (powellphotography.ca), blogs (powellponderings.com) about his journey with Adventures Abroad’s 21 Day Five Stans Tour, which covers Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. His insights, images, and expertise offer a wonderful glimpse into this extraordinary tour.

The Five Stans tour offers a captivating and comprehensive exploration of the region's architecture spanning centuries. This journey takes you through an extraordinary range of buildings, from the ancient ruins of castles to the distinctive and unique structures of the modern era. These buildings are reflections of the rich history and culture of the various countries.

Then - The Fifty Fortresses
(The Khorezm Fortresses, known as Elliq-Qala)

We were in the middle of the very barren Karalpak Desert, between Nukus and Khiva when the first fortress, in a collection of ancient desert castles, appeared almost as a mirage. These date back more than 2,000 years although the area has been occupied since the Old Stone Age (i.e. as far back as 11,000 BC).

We scrambled around a couple of them – Toprak Qala from the 1st or 2nd century AD being the first. They exist in a region that is sometimes called the 6th Stan, Karakalpakstan, which while part of Uzbekistan, is autonomous. They are now UNESCO “protected”, although that doesn’t mean much when there is no structure or people to do any protecting.

We saw what essentially were mud bricks forming a structure rising a few hundred feet out of the desert (the view was great from the top). No railings, no directions, no nothing except our local guide explaining to us that this was part of a system of ancient desert castles or fortresses.

The ruins show the complex urban layout, including temples, houses and more. At its height, it accommodated a population of 2,500 people. Toprak Qala was both a fortress and a royal residence, and archeologists have identified a throne room, fire temple, and an armoury inside the citadel. An ancient system of canals brought water to the city from a now dry branch of the Amu Darya River.

These fortresses existed in a rough time and were subject to multiple attacks. Power struggles in Central Asia, particularly in the wake of Alexander the Great’s death in 323 BC, were constant.

Camels wandered around at various times during our desert excursions, as you can see.

Now - The Navruz Palace

In Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, we visited a monstrously garish “palace”, which essentially is a high-level meeting place. It was very expensive to construct, apparently costing $60 million, so it is quite likely the government paid for it. It’s almost new, built ten years ago and designed for formal functions. It was built, we were told, because the “local business people wanted it”, an explanation that makes no sense at all. This may be a catchphrase for redirecting a government’s need onto a neutral, blameless party.

Nearly 30,000 square metres of rooms are spread over four floors and everything about it is over-the-top. Wood carvings, chandeliers, fine plaster decor, unusual ornate chairs, enormous tables, and inlaid floors were all very expensively done. A strange lady in a colourful traditional Tajik outfit toured us around and talked like an automaton. She emphasized the size and quality of everything, particularly the two rooms used for large multi-people meetings and conferences. But as far as I can tell, not many happen.

There is a smaller room full of mirrors where they have flags of the countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that was established by China and Russia in 2001. This is an Eurasian political, economic, international security, and defence organization and it is the world’s largest regional organization in terms of geographic scope and population (it covers 24% of the world and 42% of its population). This is the kind of group that meets in such a “palace”. A light bulb came on in my head when I realized that this may explain my original disbelief about who really wants and uses this facility.