Samarkand - an eternal city, the same age as Rome
Cities, like people, have their own unique face, their heart, their character, their life. This is also Samarkand - one of the oldest cities in the world.
Like other first centers of human civilization - Babylon and Memphis, Athens and Rome, Alexandria and Byzantium - Samarkand was destined to survive the turbulent events and upheavals.
A stormy, sometimes dramatic, and brilliant history was destined to Samarkand from the first days of its existence. The city saw on its streets and squares of semi-savage Saks and Massagets, the iron "phalanxes" of the Greek-Macedonians, hordes of cruel Karakitais, suffered the fatal invasion of fanatical Arab generals followers of the founder of the Islamic religion Muhammad. The bloody hordes of Genghis Khan fell upon his peaceful houses with fire and sword. Under the conqueror Timur, Samarkand becomes the capital of the world empire stretching from the Indus River to the Bosporus. And with the great scientist-astronomer Ulugbek the city acquires the glory of one of the outstanding centers of culture and science of the Middle Ages.
"Eden of the Ancient East", "The Pearl of the Islamic World", "Rome of the East", "Rui Zamin" - "Face of the Earth" - poets, historians, medieval geographers of Iran, India, China, Byzantium, Egypt endowed such magnificent names with Samarkand.
An invaluable treasury of the culture of the peoples of the East was rightly called and called Samarkand.
Already in the most ancient historical documents and annals Samarkand is glorified as the focus of scientific thought and high culture. The history of the city is associated with the names of prominent scientists and poets of the East - Rudaki, Alisher Navoi, Jami, and especially, along with Ptolemy, Galileo, Giordano Bruno, Copernicus, in the history of astronomy of the martyr of science of the outstanding scientist Ulugbek. It was in the famous observatory erected on a hill on the bank of the Siab Canal on the outskirts of Samarkand that a galaxy of the largest representatives of progressive scientific thought was assembled.
Throughout the centuries, the ancient city has been constantly involved in the whirlpool of turbulent, sometimes tragic events. Periods of brilliant flourishing of science, culture, art, crafts, trade were replaced under the blows of half-savage, greedy invaders full decay. There were decades when Samarkand was deprived of almost the entire population, and jackals poured out at night in the once crowded Registan Square. But the mighty vitality once again made its way to the surface, and the city of Phoenix rose from the ashes.