Mud houses, felt tents, bricks from old ruins
Editorial contextMany Khivans, even the rich, lived in felt tents all year because they were used to nomad life. Houses were of cheap mud with a hole in the roof for smoke. The fine buildings were a few mosques, above all the turquoise-domed great mosque, and bridges were built of fired bricks taken from old ruins.
The houses are very bad and wretched, and a great portion of the people live in felt tents all the year round. Even the wealthy do this, although they possess houses, because they are so accustomed to a nomadic life. The houses are of mud … Bridges are numerous, and are constructed of the burnt bricks which they get from old ruins.
About Uzbeks and other people of the Khiva khanate
Mud castles of the Khivan landowners
Editorial contextConstant feuds had led landowners to build square fortified farmsteads with granaries, tanks, mills and stables for 100 to 150 people. Muraviev gives their size and materials: mud walls 18 to 20 feet high, sometimes of masonry, with domed corner towers and battlements that were only for show. He was himself held in one of these forts.
The buildings are in the form of a square, and are surrounded by walls generally of mud, but sometimes of masonry. The walls are 8 feet thick at the base, diminishing to 3 at the summit, and are from 18 to 20 feet high. They are supported on the exterior faces by round buttresses, also of mud, and are crenelated, but the battlements are merely for show
About Uzbek landowners of Khiva
The 'Silver Hill': a buried brick fortress
Editorial contextWhat looked like a hill on the coast turned out to be the sand-covered shell of a huge fired-brick building with a wall about 600 feet long. Muraviev dug for coins and found Muslim-style graves and broken glass. The local Turkmens told him it had been built by the Russians, and a translator's footnote links it to an ancient wall along the Gorgan River.
The Silver Hill is, as above mentioned, only the shell of some huge building or fortress, which has been covered with sand from the eastern side ; nevertheless within those walls I found tombs, and, indeed, got at some human remains, buried after the Mahomedan fashion … The great wall is about 600 feet long and over 12 feet in height. It consists of beautiful burnt bricks
About Yomut Turkmens (living around it); builders unknown
Keep in mind
The site lies at the western end of the brick barrier now called the Great Wall of Gorgan, usually dated to the Sasanian period. The claim that Russians built it is local belief, and the footnote rejects it.
Turkmen tents like those of the Georgian Tartars
Editorial contextOn the Caspian coast Muraviev compared Turkmen dwellings to those of the 'Tartars in Georgia' (Turkic-speaking Muslims of the Caucasus): reed mats on long poles covered with felt. He also notes that Turkmen women did not hide from strangers and wore very tall headdresses edged with gold or silver.
The dwelling-places of the Turcomans are constructed like those of the Tartars in Georgia, that is to say, they consist of rush mats stretched on long poles, the whole being covered with felt. Their women are not kept in privacy
About Yomut Turkmens
A note hidden in a gun barrel
Editorial contextPreparing to leave, Muraviev found a slip of paper secretly pushed into his gun barrel by Russian captives, begging him to tell the Tsar of more than 3,000 Russian slaves suffering in Khiva. Elsewhere he says most were kidnapped on the Orenburg frontier by Kazakhs and sold at Khiva, and that Russian slaves were the khanate's only smiths.
As I was preparing to clean this gun, I discovered a slip of paper in one of the barrels, on which the following was written in Russian : "We venture to inform your Honor that there are over 3,000 Russian slaves in this place, who have to suffer unheard-of misery from labour, cold, hunger, &c. Have pity on our unhappy situation and reveal it to the Emperor.
About Russian slaves in Khiva
Bards who sing all night
Editorial contextRich Khivans kept bards who sang the deeds of ancient heroes on a lute, growing more ecstatic as the audience applauded, sometimes through the whole night while the listeners sat still and silent.
The wealthy Khivans generally keep a bard in their service, who entertains them with stories and songs, and airs played on a sorry kind of lute. Sometimes they compose ballads relating the deeds of ancient heroes. … This singing is kept up the whole night not unfrequently, during which the host and his guests sit attentively listening, motionless, and apparently buried in meditation.
About Uzbeks and wealthy Khivans
Oaths at a saint's tomb and fortune-telling sticks
Editorial contextThe Yomut Turkmens settled disputes by swearing an oath over a saint's tomb, believing a perjurer could only escape damnation by dying on the spot. Muraviev also describes Khivan fortune-tellers who read letters from a book, or threw sticks onto a circle of other sticks each standing for a letter.
The Yomud Turcomans adore a Saint over whose tomb they settle their differences by an oath. A false oath under those circumstances is unknown, for it is firmly believed that whoever forswears himself over the tomb can only save himself from eternal punishment by dying on the spot.
About Yomut Turkmens and Khivans
'Most incorrectly' called Tartars
Editorial contextMuraviev says the scattered Turkmen tribes share a common origin but have been 'most incorrectly' called a Tartar race by European writers. He suggests the word came from Tatar, the founder of a tribe of that name still living in the far steppes.
This people has been most incorrectly denominated the Tartar race by several European authors. The term was probably borrowed from Tatar, the Chief who founded the tribe of that name, existing in the remoter steppes to the present day.
About Turkmens
Keep in mind
The eponymous chief 'Tatar' is a traditional explanation, not established history.
Uzbek means 'own master'
Editorial contextMuraviev explains the Uzbek name as 'own master' (uz = self, beg = master) and adds, with some irony, that since Muhammad Rahim Khan made himself absolute ruler, the Uzbeks of Khiva now called themselves 'khidmatgar', servants.
"Us" in Turkish signifies "self" and "Beg" master, so Usbeg may be translated as "Own Master." The name was appropriate enough up to the time of the reigning Khan, Mahomed Ragim, who, by ability, craft, and force, established himself as uncontrolled Ruler, since when his countrymen in Khiva style themselves "Khidmatgar" (servant) instead of "Usbeg."
About Uzbeks of Khiva
Keep in mind
A popular folk etymology; the name probably comes from the 14th-century Golden Horde khan Özbeg.
Five doors in the cliff and a hidden king
Editorial contextAlong the dry old bed of the Amu Darya, Muraviev passed five neat openings cut in a cliff, called Besh Dishik. The Turkmens said they led to caverns where a king with his family and treasure had lived since ancient times, and that intruders were strangled by an unseen hand. When one man doubted, another pointed to the cliff's echo as proof.
The nomadic Turcomans of the surrounding country are all assured that these apertures are the approaches to vast caverns in which from time immemorial there has dwelt a King with a numerous family, countless treasure, and beauteous daughters, but that once when some inquisitive persons tried to intrude into the caverns, they were immediately seized by an unseen hand and strangled.
About Turkmen nomads
Keep in mind
A local legend; Muraviev tried to climb up but could not reach the openings.
The devil's claws on the moon
Editorial contextMuraviev says that even the court astronomer who could calculate eclipses believed, like everyone in Khiva, that an eclipse happened when the devil grabbed the sun or moon, and that shouting and firing guns would drive him off. They called the North Star the 'iron point' at the end of the earth's axis and compared the earth to a watermelon.
he does not even know the cause of an eclipse, but believes with the rest of the people that it is brought about by the devil fastening his claws on to the sun or moon, and thinks a loud noise and the firing off of guns necessary to get rid of this dreadful enemy. The earth they believe to be round and compare it to a water-melon.
About Khivans
Keep in mind
Muraviev writes condescendingly about Khivan learning.
A Russian hut on the old Oxus nobody dares touch
Editorial contextThe Turkmens told Muraviev that at the mouth of the dry river bed stood a hut built in the Russian style that no one would pull down out of superstitious fear, and whose builder nobody knew. Muraviev guessed it dated from Prince Bekovich's expedition sent by Peter the Great a century earlier.
Kiat informed me that the mouth of this old river bed, although choked with sand, is still distinguishable on the Caspian, and that by it there stands a hut (isba) constructed on the Russian plan. No one knows who the builder of this was, but the neighbouring Turcomans are restrained from demolishing it by superstitious dread.
About Turkmens of the Balkhan region
Keep in mind
Muraviev did not see the hut; the link to Bekovich is his guess.