Samarkand, Uzbekistan: Where Strangers Become Wedding Guests (ft. Joanna Lillis)

Some destinations feel like preserved relics of the past, others
feel like overly polished versions of the modern world. And
then there are places that feel undeniably alive, where history
and modern life don't just coexist, they collaborate. Summerkant Uzbekistan
is one of those places. For centuries, it stood at
the center of the Silk Road, a crossroads between East
and West, where traders, travelers, and dreamers carried not just
their goods, but ideas, stories, and pieces of who they were.
This is Wayfinder, life changing travel. This podcast goes beyond
the guide books into the heart and soul of real
life travelers as they journey around the world. I'm your host,
Daniel Scheffler, and I have seen firsthand how our stories
connect us and inspire us. In this episode, we journey
to Uzbekistan with journalists and historian Joanna Lillis, someone who
didn't just visit, but was embraced by a country's irresistible
warm Welcome to become a local herself. I'll share a
bit on my own experience in Summer kunt as Joanna
takes us back to her first trip there in two
thousand and one and all of the surprises along the way.
Let's dive in. Okay, you're a real journalist. I mean,
I'm just a writer traveling the world and having a
good time. You're a journalist, journalist.
That's cool.
Like, how did you first get into journalism?
Well, I moved to Moscow after I graduated from university,
which is not as strange as it sounds, because I
studied Russian at university and I graduated in the early nineties,
and it was just as the Soviet Union, that communist
empire that stretched from Europe to China, had just collapsed.
In fact, the very year I graduated, it collapsed. I
started working for a part of the BBC called BBC Monitoring,
which monitors the foreign media, analyzing reports and translating reports,
and they had an office in Moscow. And then I
kind of had an urge to move out of Moscow,
and I ended up moving to Pakistan.
There's something interesting about Uzbekistan that I think as western
as we don't quite understand what it is and separating
it from Russia and what that is, I mean, I
refer to it to Central Asia, and when I say that,
people don't know where that is. How did this become
a sort of region and how does it fit into history.
Basically, I mean, if you're looking at a broad brush,
we could say that Central Asia is sandwich between Russia
and China. Of course, Central Asian people don't like to
be seen that way. Central Asians like to be seen
as their own people with their own agency, quite rightly
as they are. So the countries that we refer to
Central Asia nowadays means to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgistan, Tukmenistan, and Tajikistan.
But these countries, once ruled by Russia in some cases
for hundreds of years, in some cases far but less,
tend to be overshadowed by their bigger neighbors. And generally
when people think about this part of the world, they
do you tend to think about Russia, and people have
a kind of image of what Russia is. Likewise with China,
if you say the word China, people can picture something.
And yet if you say Central Asia, or if you
say any of the names of those five countries, people
do struggle to picture what it is. And I think
the Central Asian countries, Uzbekistan included, went through lots of
trauma because it was such radical changes over such a
short period of time, such as the terror under Stalin
and Uzbekistan itself only came into being out of the
Russian Revolution in what we think of as Zuzbekistan today,
and then of course in nineteen ninety one, when the
Soviet Union collapsed, it just became independent Uzbekistan.
Right Like, because these countries aren't a way they're finding
their modernity. So it's interesting to be in countries where
the shift is new. The shift is the nineties, right,
So like there's still generations of people that are alive
that can tell these stories, and it's like a history
feels tangible.
Yes, I agree.
I mean it will be thirty five years this year
since the Soviet Union collapsed. People are still finding their
national identity and people are still learning they're on a
path to independence. It doesn't happen overnight. Over these thirty
five years. It's small time to build a nation, and
it's been very top down in many ways. I mean,
in an authoritarian country like Uzbekistan, the government decides how
things go, you know, that's how it works. But I
think the people are also engaged in their own search.
It was one of the most interesting places I've ever
been because I felt like the people were such a
mix of things that I already knew, and they were
like a little this, a little that, a mix of this,
a touch of this, a drop of that, and it
was this whole new mixture of human that was different.
So my first impression when I arrived was like, I
understand all of these people because I understand everything that
you've made up of. Yeah, so tell us about your
early days living in Uzbekistan.
I moved to Uzbekistan in two thousand and one. I
was working in the capital, Tashkent. It was a bit
of a crazy time because just a couple of weeks
after I moved there, nine to eleven happened. Central Asia
was quite a journalistic backwater when I moved there, very quiet,
and within a couple of weeks on Uzbekistan's borders, that
was war in Afghanistan. So it became a very unexpectedly
busy and stressful time for everybody.
Including all the Usbeks.
Of course, I think my first trip that I managed
to actually find some time to go and see Uzbekistan,
I went to Samarkand.
Summer Kant is one of the most iconic cities in
Central Asia known for its luminous masques and mausoleums. One
of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, it
was once a vital link along the Silk Road, the
ancient trade network connecting China to the Mediterranean. Now you
can feel that link of East and West, not just
in the architecture, but in the atmosphere.
The word Samarkant has such a buzz about it. It
sounds so evocative. It's just somewhere you want to go
when you hear that word. It's very kind of fable.
Do you think of Silk Road, ancient cities and blue domes.
It was a huge difference from what I got used
to living in Tashkent.
I mean, taush Kent. It's a great city.
It's a buzzy city, but it is a very post
communist city. So much of the architecture was built in
Soviet times when it was kind of brutalist in style.
But when I got to Samarkan, I was just absolutely
blown away by the place. It is such an incredible city,
and I think it's probably my favorite city in Uzbekistan.
I was absolutely blown away by the sights and the
sounds and the smells, all of it. In the market.
You can smell so many aromas, smell the fruit. Uzbekistan
is famous for its fruit. If you're there in the
right season, you'll smell the melons. You can actually smell them,
and of course the sellers don't mind if you pick
them up and smell them. They're quite happy for you
to do that, and they'll always offer you a taste
of anything. If you're there in the autumn, you can
smell the pomegranates, and you can smell the vendors who
are making food snacks for the shoppers in the bazaar
and the traders. So you'll smell shashlik kebabs. Well, I'm
a vegetarian, so that one doesn't turn me on much.
But an amazing smell to me that I always associate
with Sammarcand actually because it's got the most amazing bazaar,
is the smell of baking bread.
Oh god, those giant ones, well, actually.
The round ones, the sort of flatbreads, but they're not
that flat. Yeah, sometimes they're fluffy. Sometimes they're quite hard.
In summer cant the traditional one is actually harder than
in the rest of Uzbekistan. But the smell of them
baking is absolutely incredible. I remember the first time I
went there, vendor giving me one of the loaves when
they saw me blown away like try it, try it, our.
Guests, Oh, it's amazing.
So those smells, and of course the sites as well.
You picture blue domes and ancient squares and fantastic dresses
and turquoise, sparkling tile work, and it's all there. The
blue domes will blow anyone away. You couldn't fail to
be moved at the site of the main square, the Regaistan, oh, yeah,
which is these three absolutely majestic buildings built at different times,
but starting with the Timurid architecture which will be the
time of Tai Lane fourteen fifteenth century, and then some
other ones built later in the time of his grandson,
and these incredible, I mean, the actual size of those
particular buildings is monumental. But it's not just about these
blue domes, which are of course what we associate with
Samarkand it's also the site of the normal streets, going
into someone's courtyard and sitting under a pomegranate tree and
drinking tea out of traditional teapots and teacups, which are
not just for tourists. You often see teapots that people
are using at home, just as a matter of course,
with traditional Usbek decoration on. Sometimes they're decorated with cotton
because cotton is grown in Uzbekistan it's a big part
of the culture. Or they might be decorated with other motifs.
And of course they drink not out of cups like
in the West, but out of small bolts and the
sides of these on a table, just nicely laid out.
And it's not because you're a guest. That's what people
do normally.
They have those ceramic bowls that clink, they sing when
they touch.
Yeah.
Sma Cut is full of family run guesthouses around the
old town, each of which has a unique and particular
distinctive character. People are proud of their famous textiles, their silks,
and they hang them on the walls, and they do
this in their own homes as well. It's not just
for the guest houses. They decorate the cushions and the
things you sit on with their own textiles, and everything
looks like it could only be Samma kanned. It's totally magical.
But also was magical is people will come and talk
to you. Sometimes they live and invite you into their
home for some tea or something to eat.
Yep, that happened to me.
It's got to.
Happen when you're in Uzbekistan because Uzbek's are such friendly people.
We have to remember that uzberg culture is very much
about hospitality, and a lot of countries like to boast
of their hospitality in a good way. Sometimes it becomes
a cliche, but in Uzbekistan it's not a clicheape people
really do subconsciously see it as a bedrock of their
culture that they should be welcoming to guests. It's not
just about hospitality of inviting you to share a meal
or to talk to you, but it's also about helping
you if you're lost or if things go wrong. People
are not afraid of other people. They have a very
big community spirit in Uzbekistan, and I think that's important,
and that's why it's such a pleasant and also I
would say, relatively safe place to travel.
That spirit of hospitality which Joanna describes isn't just a
detail of Usbek culture, it's the actual way of life,
and in Joanna's case, led to an invitation she could
never have anticipated.
I was on a weekend away in Samarkand, and on
the first night I was staying in a very small
guesthouse in the old town, very atmospheric place with a
courtyard where they would serve breakfast under the sunshine. I
remember it was October, still very warm, and I was
eating breakfast one day in the courtyard. They would bring
out this fantastic fresh fruit and all kinds of fresh
bread and pastries and eggs, and I was eating this
luxurious spread, and the owner of the guest house came
over to me and said, would you like to come
to my daughter's wedding tonight? And I said, oh, well,
I'd love to come to your daughter's wedding, but I
don't know your daughter, you know, indeed, I don't.
Really know you either.
And he said, yeah, no, I mean we'd love to
have you, and my daughter would love to have you too. Anyway,
I was shocked and surprised in a good way, of course,
in a very positive way. I had a little bit
of trepidation, thinking was he just being polite or what?
But I went along to the wedding and it was
the most incredible experience. It was a total immersion in
genuine Uzbeg culture traditions.
The traditional clothes.
Oh, the traditional clothes indeed. I mean the bride was
wearing a Western style white wedding dress, but many other
people were dressed in the most fantastic traditional clothes, the
Uzbek ikat pattern, the silks, the very psychedelic pattern of
slashes with all different colors that's known as ikat. Women
usually wear a sort of chaos Camese type thing. There's
a modesty going down here, you know, it's a certain
way women should dress, and many will dress either in
longish dresses well over knee or wearing a tunic type
thing with silk trousers and often wearing traditional hats, sometimes beaded,
many men wearing what they call chopan, which is a
padded jacket often or made of silk. That was incredible,
just the sight of the wedding, and of course the sounds, well,
the sounds were pretty deafining, because Uzbek's absolutely love loud
music and they love dancing. Sometimes it would be Western pop,
sometimes Uzbec pop, but a lot of traditional Huzbek music
as well, and everybody knows how to do traditional dances.
That's something we've lost in the West, that's for sure.
And so they were doing traditional dancing. There was massive
tables of food, of course, vodka flowing, lots of vodka shots,
lots of green tea as well.
So it was an absolutely eye opening.
Experience and a wonderful immersion into Uzbek and Tagic culture
because in Samarkanda culture is very much a fusion of
Uzbek and.
Tagic, which is amazing. Yeah, I think this is the
lesson if you're open, these invitations just cal't and it's
funny because you could live your life not seeing them,
and then it's amazing to go to places where this
feels normal. Like in fact, it would not sit right
with him if you won't invited, because you are a
guest in his guest house, and it doesn't matter that
you're a paying guest, you're still a guest.
Being invited in to share that kind of experience is
an absolute privilege for a traveler, but it's not something
you have to seek out very hard if you go
to summercount because people are so hospitable, so friendly that
they will invite you to do that. So you've got
to recommend to the listeners that you do that you
really will experience a slice of Central Asian life because
people are so friendly and so willing to take you
into their lives, and I think that's really special.
Now it is special because the problem is often all
over the world, and I travel all over these things
become sort of touristy, or they become commercialized, or it's
harder and harder to meet locals. Right, you go to
these very popular destinations and the locals are angry that
people are there, or it's filled with airbnbs or too
many tourists. I think the right traveler, the curious, the
person who's like I've done so much of the rest
of the world. I'm interested in something new and interesting
and deeply, deeply fascinating and part of human history and
not commercialized, is what I thought was Sbekistan was and
what Summer kind was.
Yeah, and it's true that some places are spoiled by
over tourism and that you know, I'm not going to
white wash it. W uz Bekistani's to be very careful.
It doesn't go that way because it is keen to
attract tourists. And they were behind the Iron curtain actually
for seventy years, and then after that they were living
in a cruel dictatorship. And now things are more open
than they used to be, and it's a great time
to feel this sense of optimism that people are expressing.
As Joanna shared, this is a pivotal moment to visit Uzbekistan,
a country where ancient traditions remain intact. Yet the doors
are open, ready to welcome those curious enough to step through.
And nowhere is that generosity more tangible than at the table.
So before we continue, here some of Johanna's favorite flavors
that define summer cunt and let me just say they
are delicious.
Jose Bekistan has fantastic cuisine, absolutely delicious, hearty, hearty fair.
The national dish is ploth.
It's similar to Indian pillar if people can picture that,
the plot is different. So it's a rice spaced dish
and the main ingredients are usually lamb or some other
kind of meat and carrots basically often with chickpeas as well. Now,
this is a signature dish of Uzbekistan, and one of
the reasons it's such a brilliant signature dish is that
this meant for sharing.
You're not going to eat plot on your own.
Traditionally, it has cooked in a pot called a kasan,
a big iron pot, a great big dish of it
is made, and it's a sharing dish. It's a sociable meal,
and that's still the case today. So you can eat
plot in summerkana in lots of places. Now, I'm a
vegetarian and so plov is not actually my thing usually, However,
you can also get vegetarian plov.
I mean, Uzbecs wouldn't eat vegetarian plov.
But there is a great restaurant in Samarcan called Old
City where they serve traditional Uzbek plov and also vegetarian
plov made with quints. So that's a fantastic take on plov,
and it's also a great place to go. Another speciality
that I'm particularly keen on does not so well known.
I mean it's well known to Uzbex, but foreigners who
travel to Uzbekistan sometimes miss out on this from not
knowing about it. It's called hanum, and the best way
I can describe it is it's like a giant ravioli,
either stuffed with meat or with vegetables, but quite big,
and it's really really tasty. So that's something you should
always try when you're in Samarkan. And when it comes
to washing it down well, Usbecs would wash that down
with green tea. Green tea is an absolute staple, but
it can be washed down with local Samarcan wine. You
can also visit aarticular winery called Havrinkov and you can
find these wines which have fantastic names like Uzbekistani Muscat,
and you can of course taste some of the wines.
Some are kinds actually famous for dessert wines, sweet wines,
but it has some other kinds of wines as well.
From the moment she arrived in summer Cot back in
two thousand and one, Joanna felt the desire of its
people to connect with and welcome her. It created a
kind of grounding where the unexpected didn't feel risky, it
felt possible, the perfect footing for the invitation she was
handed next.
It was also the first time I went to samarkand
when I was visiting the Registan, that square of amazing architecture,
these huge maddresses, and this police officer came up to me. Now,
in Uzbekistan at that time under the dictatorship, that wasn't
something that you would particularly want to happen, a police.
Officer coming up to you and you're a journalist.
Yeah, and I'm a journalist, so you know, I was
a bit wary.
There's a great, big.
Square and I can see him making a beeline for me,
and I'm thinking, what does he want?
And he comes up and he says, hey, Hi.
You know, they're a lot of small talk, because that's
how people engage in Who's becker say some small talk?
Hi?
How are you?
Where are you from? What are you doing?
Then he's like, do you want to go.
Up that minaret?
I mean that minaret that he's pointing at in one
of them addresses is about the size of at least
a six or seven story apartment block. And I'm like,
what do you mean? Because you know it's not open
to the public. I can see that. So he says, basically,
slip me a little bit of money and you can
climb up this minaret. And I was like, well, be
open to new experiences all that. Yeah, I guess, so,
you know, why not? I thought that sounds like fun maybe,
And so he climbs in.
Front of me.
I'm climbing, climbing, and it's really dark and really musty.
There's no one there. Of course, it's not open to
the public. These are just some barely used stairs that
are leading up the tower. It's really steep and it's hot,
and I'm thinking should I go down? Should I go on?
And I was tempted to say to him, hey, let's
go back at one point because I was so close
to phobic and it was so dark, and I thought, oh,
what if I fall down the.
Stairs or something.
Anyway, I carried on behind him in the end, and
it seems to take ages. It must have taken about
twenty minutes.
And we get to the top. There's no viewing platform
or anything like that.
You just stick your head out of this tower and
you see this incredible view of the domes of Samarkan
spreading out before you, this silk.
Rowed dream, if you like. And it was another lesson,
I guess, in.
How to be open to new experiences, because I could
have just easily said, well, no, I don't think that's
a very safe thing to do, or whatever. And I
think that's a great piece of advice for people traveling,
instead of being default like no, I'm.
Not going to do this. I've got my plan. Maybe
just go with the flow.
Yeah, And I think it's about that feeling when you
try a lot of that baggage that you have when
you're at home, you can put it down and just
allow yourself to be like, wait, I'm going to be
open and learn something. And I think that's what travels about.
Absolutely.
You need to get out there, meet the people, including
some of the different communities, smaller communities, and talk to
people exactly.
So how to encourage people to step out, to put
away the prejudice, to put away all the frequency ideas,
and to go and speak to locals that perhaps you
don't speak the same language.
Yeah, that's obviously going to be a barrier. But I
think as English speakers we're also lucky because much of
the world speaks English and wants to speak English as well.
And the fact that people want to speak English also
makes them very open to interaction. And I think as
Westerners we've sometimes forgotten how to interact. We kind of
get into our bubble. We find it weird if people
approach us when we're in the West. But in many
parts of the world, including in Central Asia where I live,
it's perfectly normal for strangers to come and strike up
a conversation and it's really nice. So I think it's
important for people to be open to those interactions and
not be suspicious. I mean, of course suspicion has its
place sometimes, but if you're too suspicious and not open
to interacting with people when you're abroad, it's gonna color
your experience and you're not going to be open to
all the experiences that are available to you.
Well, just limits it like it makes it smaller. It
doesn't mean it's nothing. I just think there's so much
room for that experience to be able to grow and
grow and grow.
Yeah, definitely, that's the magic of travel if you just
roll with it.
Unlike most Wayfinder guests, Johanna didn't return home from a
Zbekistan as a tourist. She stayed for nearly twenty five years.
She's lived within this intersection of cultures, a participant to
its spirit and way of life, and now instead of
the guest invited to the party, she's the one inviting you.
The thing about Uzbekistan is like all countries, I suppose,
it's full of paradoxes. For example, I don't want to
exoticize it, but Uzbekistan is exotic to a Western eyes.
The way that many people dress, the fact that they
wear traditional silks in daily life. The fact that the bizarres,
some of them anyway, are still so vibrant and could
be like something out of the Middle Ages, you know,
with the cellars and the carts being pushed, and all
the cries and the sights and the sounds and the
vendors calling out. So Uzbekistan is both exotic and yet
at the same time, it's not exotic in a way
that pushes you away or makes you feel like an outsider.
It's exotic and it's welcoming, and Uzbekistan is a place
where you can have incredible experiences.
In one single day.
In fact, you could be standing below the blue domes
of summer kanned and yet in an hour or so
you could be high in the mountains, looking through these
amazing valleys and looking at these amazing peaks.
And if you go the.
Other way, you could be driving through the desert towards Bukhara.
So you can see so much variety. The experience of
traveling in Uzbekistan is rewarding, it's exciting.
It's a real.
Privilege for a traveler to be able to experience that
kind of thing, especially in our globalized world, where you
go places and sometimes everything just looks the same and
all the sites are just swarming with tourists, or everything
is covered in souvenir shops that are full of tat
and people can be aggressive, or you know, people can
be aggressively selling you things. You won't find that in Uzbekistan.
All you'll find in Uzbekistan instead is a warm welcome
from some very warm and welcoming people.
I feel like this is the nugget, Like this is
the peace that is so special. I found that that
country has a unique ability to bring out the best
in you because when people behave like this, when people
are welcoming and open, and you're on the street and
people greet you and people invite you in, whether you're
going into their home or into the local shool, it
brings out the best in you. Like there's a mirror
effect that starts to happen. It makes me feel like, oh,
I want to behave better. I want to be better.
And it's funny because I took that home with me
from my trip there. That unbelievable hospitality is something that
I think about in my own home and in my
own city. I mean that culture has changed and evolved
and merged and meandered in such a beautiful way to
deliver to you what you have in twenty twenty six,
and there are not so many places in the world
like that. It's so magical to reflect on this.
Thank you, Thank you for inviting me.
It's been a privilege to talk so much about Uzbekistan.
Some places are stops along the way, others are just
the start. Joanna arrives in Uzbekistan as a journalist, there
to observe, but what she found was something more immersive.
She became part of the story. And maybe that's the
invitation waiting for all of us. Because travel at its
best isn't just about observation. It's about allowing yourself to participate.
My message to future travelers to Samarkand is be open
to new experiences. Be open to the people, greet the
warmth with which they greet you with your own warmth.
Think of how you want to engage with people, and
be warm and friendly just as they're warm and friendly
to you.
Be the best guest you could be.
Wherever your path leads. Next, may you allow yourself to
be invited into territories you could never have found on
your own. We find a life changing travel production of
Iheart's Ruby Studio. I'm your host Daniel Scheffler. Our show's
executive producer is Sierra Kaiser, supervising producer Kelly Kyle and
story producer Ryan Amador, with post production by James Foster
and editing by Sierra Spreen. Don't forget to subscribe to
Wayfinder and please rate and review the show wherever you
get your podcasts. Thanks for listening.