Club Meeting

13 February 2020 Uzbekistan, The gateway to Asia – John Spence

Doug started the proceedings with his creative Grace:

Our Speaker tonight is John

An interesting tale he has one

About a land far away

and entertain us about Uzbekist...o..n

As anticipated Past President John gave us a fact filled illuminating presentation with quantity and quality of pictures of Mosques and Madrassas (Islamic Schools). He started with the question regarding the country, that it was ‘double’ landlocked, one of only two (Lichtenstein). A country with little natural beauty and that its odd shape was mainly caused by the Mountains in the East, near the capital Tashkent, with its 2.5 Million population. John’s reason for visiting this remote country was to see where the Moguls came from, but he gave a brief history starting in 1BC with The Silk Road, 7 to 8 BC with the Arabs, 8 to 9 BC Persians, the destruction by Genghis Kahnin, followed by the Moguls then Turkic rule and eventually the Soviets, with Stalin then Khrushchev (who was well thought of). Ami Timur or Tamerlane, the Turco-Mongol Persianate conqueror who founded the Timurid Empire with his new capital in Samarkland. His son Babur was the 1^st Emperor of the Mogul Dynasty.

John talked about the architecture of the buildings and the later Indian influence with wood and how a number now have been converted into hotels as the Country starts to build its Tourism economy.

A fascinating presentation that kept his audience spell bound.                                                                   AR