Uzbekistan, A Jewel on the Silk Road Quiz

Answer: Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan started the siege of Samarkand by damming its canals and thereby depriving the city of water. When it finally surrendered, the Mongols started to plunder and drove the people beyond the walls where many were slaughtered. A thousand men kept resisting but were trapped in the Friday Mosque. Genghis Khan set fire to the place burning all inside alive.

After the destruction by the Mongols the city was gradually rebuilt, albeit on a different location south of the original site. By 1370 CE, when Tamerlane had become supreme ruler of the region, it had reclaimed most of its former glory. Tamerlane (AKA Timur the Lame) was born in the nearby city Shakhrisabz and claimed to be a descendant of Genghis Khan. He recognized Samarkand's potential and chose it as the capital of his empire over his birthplace. Under his rule Samarkand reached its zenith. Wealth, slaves and craftsmen flooded in from territories conquered by Tamerlane.

Ulug Beg is a grandson of Tamerlane who ruled over Samarkand from 1409 till 1449 CE. He was more interested in astronomy and mathematics than in conquest and turned Samarkand into the intellectual centre of the empire. He built an observatory on a scale to ensure revolutionary accuracy.

Kublai Khan is one of Genghis Khan's grandsons who conquered China.

Answer: Oxus

The lands north of the Oxus were known as Transoxania. They comprise the territories of current day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

The Syr Darya, or Jaxartes as it was known to the ancient Greeks, is the sister river of the Amu Darya. It originates in the Tian Shan mountains and flows to the Aral Lake over a length of 2,212 km (1,374 miles) through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to the Aral Sea.

In 326 BCE Alexander the Great fought the battle of the Hydaspes river (now called Jhelum river) against Indian king Raja Puru (Porus).

The Lena is a river in Siberia.

Answer: Job

The mausoleum is called 'Chashma Ayub' what means 'the Spring of Job'. It is said that during a time long before Bokhara even existed the region was struck by a terrible drought. As the people perished of thirst around him, Job struck the earth with his staff and a source of cool spring water erupted to the surface.

The Chashma Ayub commemorates this site. The most unusual feature of the mausoleum is a conical cupola, rare for the region. Today the Chashma Ayub also houses the Museum of Water Supply where visitors are given an overview of how water was handled over the ages in this arid land.

Answer: They were all part of the USSR

Uzbekistan's neighbours are Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan. They all end in stan which means 'place of' in Persian.

They are all landlocked, which makes Uzbekistan one of only two double landlocked countries in the world. Liechtenstein is the other. Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan all have Muslim majorities, as does Uzbekistan. Prior to 1991 Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan were all part of the USSR. Afghanistan never was.
A landlocked country is one surrounded by another country and/or whose only coastline is access to a "closed sea" or "closed lake".

Answer: Algorithm

His Latin name is Algoritmi. In Renaissance Europe he was considered the inventor of algebra although his work was based on older, Indian and/or Greek sources. He wrote 'The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing', which established algebra as an independent mathematical discipline.

Answer: Sweden

Sweden has an area of 450,295 kmē (173,860 sq mi). Mexico (1,964,375 kmē - 758,449 sq mi) and Chad (1,284,000 kmē - 496,000 sq mi) are much bigger. Uruguay (176,215 kmē - 68,037 sq mi) is much smaller.

Answer: Turkic

Uzbek is a Turkic language although there are Arabic, Russian and Persian influences. There are about 25.5 million native speakers in Uzbekistan and its neighbours.

Answer: False

In the 1940s the Soviet Union started constructing irrigation canals on a large scale to divert water from main tributaries of the Aral Sea. This was done to irrigate the desert and increase revenue from agriculture in the area. In the 1960s the first effects of this disastrous policy started to show when the Aral Sea gradually started to disappear. By 2007 it was reduced to only ten percent of its original size.

In Kazakhstan a project to replenish the northern part of the Aral Sea has been started, but the future for the southern part still looks very bleak.

The disappearance of the Aral Sea has had grave economical and environmental consequences. Fishing companies went bankrupt which caused great unemployment in the region. Furthermore, chemicals deposited on the bottom of what used to be the lake are blown onto the neighbouring villages by frequent sandstorms causing massive health problems to the population.

Answer: Cotton

The production of cotton, which needs a lot of water, is the reason water is diverted from the Amu Darya River. This is a cause of the disappearance of the Aral Sea.

Answer: Red sands

Kyzyl Kum means 'red sands' in Turkic languages. It has an area of approximately 298,000 kmē (115,058 sq mi). Parts of it lie in Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. South of the Amu Darya river, covering most of Turkmenistan, lies the Karakum desert whose name means 'black sands'.