Mary and Old Merv

Rachel was so moved by our day in Old Merv, outside the city of Mary in Turkmenistan, that she just had to share some of what we learned that day with all of you!

I was born and raised in New York City and am very excited to travel for the first time to Central Asia with DanceMotion USA. While I love traveling as a tourist, my favorite way to travel is as a performer. That way, not only do I get to see amazing places, I also get to also keep doing what I love and meet a lot of new people through teaching and performing. Our schedule in Turkmenistan was a bit lighter than it will be in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, so we got a full day to be tourists and travel from the capital, Ashgabat, to the city of Mary with some staff from the Embassy. Very few Americans have ever been allowed to visit Mary and Old Merv, so it was quite an honor! 

We got an early start at 4:30am with a half hour flight to Mary. After landing we sat down for breakfast with the embassy staff, and then headed to just outside Mary to the site of Old Merv, an ancient oasis city dating as far as the third millennium BC that was at the heart of the Silk Road. This site is interesting in that, unlike many other ancient cities that have been discovered, the succession of cities in that area over time were spread out around the area rather than built one on top of the other because of the shifting location of the Murghab river over time. In addition, the different ruins in the area show the influence of many different cultures, both because the region was a cultural and economic crossroads on the Silk Road and because it was conquered and ruled by many different people over time including Arabs, Persians, Turks, Mongols, Uzbeks, and Russians. 

Rear of the Great Kyz Gala

At the edge of the site we met up with another member of the embassy staff who was generous enough to share her amazing and insightful guide, Yevgenia, with us on our trip through the ruins. We saw the ancient mud-brick structures of Great and Small Kyz Gala, from the 7th century AD, which are in remarkable shape considering the centuries of erosion. Two sides of the Great Kyz Gala have been quite eaten away by wind and the meager precipitation the desert here has gotten, but on the other sides the columns of the exterior walls are still quite visible. Legend has it that young women were housed in the Great Kyz Gala and young men in the Small Kyz Gala. These men used to compete with one another, lobbing apples the not insignificant distance between the two buildings in order to earn the right to enter and choose a woman to marry.

The company men felt a restaging of the opening of Hard Bargain might be in order.

As continued on to the next site, with the midday sun blazing overhead, we spotted a group of camels munching away on scrub and brush. Each camel had a marker tied around its neck because the herd was a conglomeration of many peoples’ camels that we tended by a few central shepherds. I must admit I am quite an animal person so usually when I look back at the pictures from traveling, there are always at least as many animal pictures as anything else such as these.

Pressing on, we came to the Mausolea of two Askhabs or “standard bearers” of the Prophet of Muhammed, one from the 7th century and the other from the 15th century. People come here to process three times around the Mausolea with a wish in mind in order to have the wish fulfilled. I was surprised to see even very young toddlers walking around on their own and even touching the Mausolea and then their eyes as their mothers were doing. There was also a heavy stone, originally used as a measuring weight, which men are challenged to lift in order to determine if they are guilty or innocent. Luckily, all the men in the company were able to lift the heavy stone and thus were declared innocent!

Evan, overjoyed with his newfound innocence.

From there, we went to the Great Icehouse, dating to the 12th century, which is exactly what it sounds like: a large double-walled (like a thermos) mud-brick building built to keep the food stores for the city cold. Despite there being big gaps in the walls now due to erosion, it was still remarkably cool inside the Great Icehouse, which was a welcome relief from the searing sun.

The Great Icehouse

Our final stop was the spectacular Mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar. Local legend tells that the last Sultan from the dynasty of the Great Turkmen-Seljuks, Sultan Sanjar (1086-1157), fell in love with a woman who was, unbeknownst to him, a fairy. She said she would marry him on the condition that he not break three rules: to never look at her feet while she walked, to never watch her while she brushed her hair, and to never embrace her. Because he loved her so much, he agreed and for a long time they were happy together according to her rules. But then, he grew curious and looked at her feet and saw that she didn’t walk but floated. She was furious that he broke the first rule, but after her begged her, because she loved him, she forgave him. Time passed and he couldn’t help himself and peeked into her room to watch her brush her hair. He saw her take her hair off and brush it, which, while frightening, didn’t diminish his love of her. She discovered him and became very angry. This is begging wasn’t enough so he had to get his entire city to beg her to forgive him, which she eventually did. Finally, a while later, overcome by love he embraced her but he discovered he had no corporal form – she was a fairy and hence he couldn’t touch her. Despite her great love for him, the fairy told him that he’d broken all three rules and she must leave him, but she still loved him so she instructed him to build a large building with a dome at the top and to leave a tiny hole in the center of the dome so that she could peek in and see him. 

The Mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar

Thus, he had the mausoleum built quickly and visited it every Friday. He would look up to the top of the dome and she would gaze down at him through the small opening. Time passed and he found himself growing old spending so much of his life in the Mausoleum and he knew he would soon die. Upon seeing him, his fairy love threw down a chest of treasures including her golden comb, which is still hidden somewhere in the building. 

The partially restored dome of the Mausoleum.

Because we had been spending most of our time in Ashgabat meant that mostly we saw roads, huge water fountains, and a lot of huge white marble and gold buildings, so it was really nice to get out of the city for a bit, rest our bodies, and get a real sense for what the desert looks like. The Karakum desert occupies around 70% of Turkmenistan so seeing the desert gave us a better sense of what Turkmenistan looks like as a whole than Ashgabat. I was expecting all sand and only sand, but was surprised by how much vegetation, albeit dried looking and brown, there was growing in the desert.

If you are interested in more information on Old Merv and Mary, see the Ancient Merv Project http://www.ucl.ac.uk/merv/ and the Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merv.