A Relic from Samarkand in the Urals
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A RELIC FROM SAMARKAND IN THE URALS Rustam Ganiev Anton Kochnev Konstantin Anikin Nikolai Neuimin Ekaterinburg, Russia he accidental discovery in Ekaterinburg of a piece that had been originally enclosing Tamerlane’s tomb T of carved marble fence that had originally been at the oldest mosque in Samarkand” (Katalog 1887, p. in the Timurid Gur-e Amir mausoleum in Samar- 372). An examination of the museum holdings located kand initiated a fascinating exploration of the piece’s the object, a piece of marble slab weighing 20 kg, mea- significance and the history of how it arrived in the suring 96 x 15 x 5 cm [Fig. 1]. foothills of the Urals, far from its original home. The In order to identify the exhibit correctly and proceed article which follows here presents the results of this with historical analysis, the museum addressed the th research on a remarkable fragment of 15 –century Ural Federal University (UrFU) Central Asian Re- Central Asian architecture. search Center (CARC). CARC is an UrFU department In 2014 research fellows of the Sverdlovsk Oblast’ that has been carrying out fieldwork and research Museum of Regional Studies (Sverdlovskii oblastnoi on the Central Asian region since 2010, with the Sa- kraevedcheskii muzei), Ekaterinburg, came across an in- markand Expedition as one of its key projects. In the triguing entry in the catalogue of the Urals Society of course of the expedition, research groups from UrFU the Lovers of Scientific Knowledge (Ural’skoe obshchest- visited Uzbekistan, examined the archaeological site vo liubitelei estestvozananiia, USNSF) for the year 1917. of ancient Afrasiab, carried out excavations and stud- The record included a description of a rare exhibit that ied the cultural heritage of Samarkand, especially its had been presented to the museum by General Alek- architectural monuments, including the Gur-e Amir sandr Evstaf’evich Baranov in 1887 and then would be mausoleum. Thus there was an opportunity to com- on display until 1920. The description characterized bine the efforts of scholars from Ekaterinburg and Sa- the exhibit as “a piece of stone slab with bas-reliefs, markand to study the artefact in order to trace how it came to the Urals. Fig. 1. The marble fence fragment from the Gur-e Amir mausoleum, obverse bottom, reverse top. Photos courtesy of Sverdlovskii oblastnoi kraevedcheskii muzei. Copyright © 2017 The authors and holders of image rights as indicated The Silk Road 15 (2017): 134 – 141 134 Copyright © 2017 The Silkroad Foundation The historical background begins with Russian ter- brazhenskii Life Guard regiment. He was reassigned ritorial expansion into Central Asia in the 1860s. In to the Caucasus, where he received honors for brav- 1865 Russian troops under the command of General ery in battles against the indigenous mountain people, Mikhail G. Cherniaev conquered Tashkent; in 1866 served briefly in Poland during the 1863 uprising, and Khujand was occupied too, as well as, a bit later, then was sent in 1865 to the Turkestan governorate. Ura-Tiube. In 1867 these territories were included in In Turkestan Baranov took part in all major military the newly-formed Turkestan governorate (Abash- expeditions against the still independent Bukhara in 2008, pp. 73–77). In 1868 Samarkand was also Khanate. In 1866 after the siege of Khojend he was included in the same administrative unit, but not promoted to major. His service in 1868 commanding without a struggle, as Russian forces had to take ref- the 3rd Orenburg Line battalion in a battle near Samar- uge in the citadel and defend it against a concerted kand resulted in promotion to colonel. After the fall counter-attack. of Samarkand, Baranov proceeded together with von Kaufmann’s main corps to the city of Bukhara which Vasilii V. Vereshchagin, who became a famous Rus- was also forced to capitulate. Over the course of his sian artist noted for his battle scenes and depictions career, Baranov was awarded multiple orders and of Central Asia, was among the citadel defenders and other military decorations of the Russian Empire, e. g. wrote in his memoirs: Order of St. Stanislav (First Class), Order of St. Anna Soldiers are scurrying to and fro in the smoke-cov- (First Class), Order of St. Vladimir (Second Class, ered ground above the Bukhara gate and exchang- 1890), Order of White Eagle (1896), Order of St. Alex- ing lively fire with the enemy. I rushed in, saw how ander Nevsky (1905), Golden Sword for Bravery, and few were our defenders, grabbed the gun of a dead Order of St. George. His promotion to the rank of Ma- soldier lying closest to me, filled my pockets with jor-General came during his service on the Caucasus ammunition rounds of the dead and for 8 days de- front in the Russo-Turkish war of 1877–1878. With his fended the fortress together with my comrades. This appointment to command the army’s Perm’ brigade was not any kind of heroism, but simply because in 1881, he made his home there for the last 24 years our garrison was already few in numbers to the ex- of his life. The obituary published in the local Perm’ tent that those released from the hospital, even if newspaper after his death on 27 December 1905 de- still weak, were impressed into service to increase scribed him as “a fine man, modest and honest in the the number of bayonets. For a healthy individual to highest degree” (Baranov necrology 1906). One ought remain idle in the circumstances was sinful and un- to take this into account while analyzing his stay in thinkable. [Vereshchagin 1888/2011]. Turkestan. At the time of its conquest in 1868, the city of Samar- Presumably Baranov acquired the piece of the mar- kand was subjected to sanctions of the newly formed ble fence from Tamerlane’s tomb during his stay in Turkestan governorate. The governor-general Kon- Samarkand in summer or autumn of 1868. How he stantin P. von Kaufman ordered the local bazaar to be actually obtained the piece is unknown, although it is burned and, as was typical for almost any conquering hard to imagine he simply ripped the slab away from force, allowed his soldiers to plunder the city. It was its position in Timur’s mausoleum. Nevertheless, in only later, as he established stable co- those days seizing this kind of “orien- lonial administration in Central Asia, tal souvenir” of the Islamic world was that von Kaufman initiated projects routine. Baranov might have either to study and record local culture, one purchased the fence piece or found it of which led to the publication of the lying in a pile of rubble and picked it invaluable Turkestan Album of pho- up while visiting Gur-e Amir, which tographs that would include a major apparently was in a truly deplorable section on the architectural monu- condition (see below). Situated not far ments, among them the Gur-e Amir. from Timur’s citadel (later destroyed), the mausoleum would have been easy Colonel (later General) Aleksandr for the Russian occupiers of the for- Baranov was among the army officers tress to visit. Thus, Aleksandr Baranov, at the taking of Samarkand [Fig. 2]. a military professional and fancier of Information about his personal life historical artifacts, took the Gur-e Amir is thin, but we know he was the son Image source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/7/7d/Baranov_Alexandr_Evstafievitch.jpg fence piece from Samarkand as a me- of аn 1812 Napoleonic War veteran mento of the expedition, and until 1887 and general, Evstafii Baranov, was Fig. 4. General Aleksandr kept it in his private possession. trained in the Corps of Pages, and Evstavf’еvich Baranov. then enrolled in the prestigious Preo- In 1887, while still in military service 135 as head of the 21st Perm Brigade, General Baranov ap- honors for his study of the natural resources of Turke- plied to participate in the Siberian-Urals Exhibition of stan. The ethnographic section of the exposition fea- Science and Industry, which took place in Ekaterin- tured the Kirghiz people in their traditional clothing burg from June to September of the same year. Orga- and yurts. nized on the initiative of USNSF members (Korepano- General Baranov was awarded the “Great Silver Med- va 2005, pp. 34–65) the exhibition included eleven al” at the exhibition for displaying “an archaeological sections: anthropology, geography, ethnography, rarity,” the artefact which he then, on 15 September education, mining industry, factories, cottage crafts, 1887, presented to USNFS (Katalog, p. 372). One might agriculture, imported items (the so-called vvoznoi sec- assume he did so with the encouragement of his wife, tion), a Siberian section, and the section of arts. With Ekaterina I. Lenarttsen, the daughter of Ivan I. Lena- almost 4000 exhibitors from 32 Russian provinces, the rttsen, the deputy head of the Urals mining factories exhibition was a significant milestone in the cultural association and a founding member of the Society. and industrial life of the Urals region and for Russia According to USNFS records, the fence piece was put as a whole. Moreover, it was the first large-scale exhi- in a separate showcase, where it remained on display bition in Russia that successfully combined scientific in the History Department of the Society’s museum and industrial exhibits (Istoriia 2015). until 1920. Then, with the whole country in the throes Baranov was not the only participant displaying of Civil War, the museum was closed, its holdings Turkestan artifacts at the exhibition. Central Asian abandoned, and, like a homeless orphan, relocated participants included representatives from Samar- from one cellar to another — e. g., in the Voznesenskaia kand, Verniy (Almaty), Tashkent and Pishpek (Bish- Church, which for a time in the inter-war years was kek).