A city worth called a world wonder. Samarkand left us speechless - part 1

We are in a city called Samarkand. Never heard of it? Me neither before and I know seriously wonder why. This looks so amazing it should be worth being on some world wonder list and at least to be slightly known. Buuuut im rushing ahead again. Before going to Samarkand we visited a traditional silk factory, our guide Siki told us the entire process and I'll now do the same with you 😋

The silk worms feed on these sweet fruits. We ate then as well, they are pretty delicious (the fruits, not the worms 😂 )

The worms then form these cocoons

Here are bigger worms already feeding on leaves.

The cocoons are then boiled here to make them soft enough to make threads out of them

This machine rolls the threads up out of the boiling sink

Then the threads are colored. The parts that are not meant to be colored are glued with scotch tape, that's the yellow spots in the picture above. The tape is wrapped so tight, that no color penetrates it.

This is some indigo color (blue).

These are differently colored threads

Ingredients to make these colors

And there are made carpets from it. Yes carpets made out of silk. Not cheap, especially when done in this traditional way by hand.

The carpets also get REAL big

And are still woven by hand. Every. Single. String. This one is wool I think.

Here is a picture of their weaving machines

They are still operated by hand, its very simple work. Left pedal down, pull on the string, right pedal down, pull on the string, left pedal down and repeat.

These weaving machines are used to make "endless" materials for sewing or scarfes.

They also have "real" machines for these endless bands

But they say they don't use them so much because the noise annoys the neighbors and the quality is not as good. 

Some detailed carpets. The sky is made out of silk, the rest out of cotton.

There is plenty of street food and here is an especially good looking nom (bread):

This is a monument of a Khan (Mongolian emporer).

Aaaand here we go. This is one of the "smaller attractions", the Gur-Emir-Mausoleum. Here are some more fotos:

Notice how there are arabic writings from the Quran on the Mausoleum.

We were VERY amazed by this and not prepared what was to come.

The next thing is called "Registan" and was used for different things during it's existence. It was used as a center of education for astronomy, physics, arabic language, Islam, maths and other things and it is just stunning. It is an ensemble of three big buildings with their own "backyard". I'll post some pictures here but be sure to check out the picture section, this is just insane.

Look at the size of the people! This thing is HUUUGE.

Registan at night was just insane. Pure madness. We couldn't believe our eyes. And then some security guard in the shadows told us to come, we could go up a tower (minarette) for 100.000 Uzbek soms (8€), officially it would cost 200.000 per person. Ne questions asked, we went with him. The minarette was really tight and 34 meters high but gave us a great view over the whole thing. This thing is just so HUGE and there ia so much of it, it's crazy.

I think my favorite "Detail" is this golden ceiling in on of the three main buildings..

Ok this website is buggy and deleted a bubch of text and atleast 60 pictures for the second time, I'll create a second entry with the rest of the content.