Ustyurt Arrows - Geoglyphs

Introduction

In 1986, scientists from the the Karakalpak Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the Uzbek ССР whilst examining aerial photographs of the plateau Ustyurt detected strange arrow bag layouts. In total some 50 such arrow bag like lay-outs known as negative geoglyphs were found in an almost continuous chain over a vast area starting from near Cape Duana on the edge of the Aral sea stretching hundreds of kilometres into the Ustyurt across the border into Kazakhstan. 

The Arrow formatiuons differ little from each other with contours and sizes, and generally face to the north. On the ground each arrow and bag can be identified by a faint ridge of rock in which the traces of a binding solution. On the inside of the bag was a trench dug earth, the earth from which a shaft, which has been installed and stone ridge.

All along the pit grows wild grass, which can be clearly seen against the background of withered grass on the plateau. Archeologists believe that the arrows represent the ancient watering facilities for Ungulates (large hoofed animals).

Ustyurt Arrow Geoglyphs - Scientists still do not have an unified opinion about these ancient geolines however the most recognized hypothesis is that the arrows were used for seasonable mass-hunting for ungulates (hoofed animals).

Source of photo: vokrugsveta.ru 44°45'31.39"С 57°37'45.74"В

Arrows of the Ustyurt

Despite an interest by UFOlogists who tie them into similar theory they have about the Nazca Lines in Peru ie that they are an ancient Spaceport ect (ED: I have visited Nazca - truly an amazing place!).

By far the most logical explanation to date was that put forward by the chief of archaeological expedition from Nukus V. Yagodin which investigated these formations. His team concluded that they served ancient hunters as shelters / pens during the seasonal hunt for ungulates (large hoofed animals) they may also have had an additional function in that they allowed for the collection of water.

All the geoglyts "Arrows of the Ustyurt" so far identified are in the form of a bag, from which two arrows with strong tips stick out. All the arrows point to the north and only slightly differ from each other in size and outline. The top keen edges of each bag have jutting out two spread wide arrows (one each side) having tips in the form of extended triangles. The narrow passages that form the body of an arrows delimited by shallow swales along their entire length in the direction towards the tips which are pits of up to 2 meters in depth.

At top of each triangle are rings of ten-meter diameter, serving possibly as holes. They look very similar to a schematic drawing of a military chart on which the fat arrows specify the direction of an attack.

The length of each lay-out is 800-900 meters, together with directing shaft reaches 1500 metres, width 400 - 600 meters, the depth of most of the outline doesn't exceed 0.8-1.0m, and the tops of the arrows up to 2m in depth. Judging by the fragments scattered around, earlier these outlines were much deeper, being worn away by wind erosion over time.

The area over which these mysterious impressions are found even surpasses the extent of the world famous system of mysterious lines and drawings in the Peruvian desert of Nazca. They are known to local population under the name “aranvi.”. During a trial excavation section through one of the arrow lay outs had been found ceramics and other subjects dating to the VII—VIII to centuries AD. However, if one is to consider that these are a little above the occupation layer which concerns the time of creation of the layout this is more than likely “the top border” of the timeframe of their construction.

Source: Vokrug sveta (ED: the oldest continuously published magazine in the Russian language) www.vokrugsveta.ru/vs/article/2427/

Note: A geoglyph is a large design or motif produced on the ground and typically formed by clastic rocks or similarly durable elements of the landscape, such as stones, stone fragments, gravel, or earth. A positive geoglyph is formed by the arrangement and alignment of materials on the ground in a manner akin to petroforms, while a negative geoglyph is formed by removing patinated clasts to expose unpatinated ground in a manner akin to petroglyphs.

The Ustyurt also spelled Ust-Yurt, Ust-Urt and Usturt (Kazakh: Üstirt, Turkmen: Üstyurt), is a  plateau in Central Asia (Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan) between the Aral Sea and the Caspian Sea. It extends roughly 200,000 km², with an average elevation of 150 meters, and consists primarily of stony desert. The plateau’s semi-nomadic population raises sheep, goats, and camels.

Sources: 

Bannikov A.G. History of the Arrows Vokrug sveta www.vokrugsveta.ru/vs/article/2427/
(ED: the oldest continuously published magazine in the Russian language)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoglyph

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ustyurt

Additional Information:
Bull J.W. and Esipov A.  Ancient techniques for hunting saigas in Ustyurt: the remains of arrans
http://www.saigak.biodiversity.ru/eng/publications/SaigaNews-16_Spring_2013_%20ENGsm.pdf

Plakhov K.N. 1994. ‘Sastaiannie populazii Ustyurskogo gornogo barana v Kazakhstan’ Selevinia 3: 58-67.

Viktorov S.V. 1971. Pustenia Ustyurt i voprosi ee asvoenia. Moscow.

Yagodin V.N. 1978. ‘Pamiatniki kochevik plemen drevnosti i srednievekoviya’. In: Drevniaya

i srednievekovaya kultura Iugo-Vostochnogo Ustyurta. Tashkent: 79-199.

Yagodin V.N. 1991. ‘Strelovidnie planirovki Ustyurta’. In: Arkheologhia Priaralia, vol 5. Tashkent, ANRU.

Karavan Saray on the Ustyurt Plateau

Caravanserai, khan, or fondouk, also Han (in Turkish) known as caravansary, caravansera, or caravansara in English or Sarai in Indian subcontinent (Persian: كاروانسرا kārvānsarā or کاروانسرای kārvānsarāi, Turkish: kervansaray) are buildings specially built to shelter travelers, goods and animals along ancient caravan routes, in particular along the former Silk Roads.

Caravanserais supported the flow of commerce, information, and people across the network of trade routes covering Asia. Up until the 16th century caravans continued to move trough the region linking the Kharnate of Khiva with the Emba and Volga Rivers.

Archeologists have discovering on the the remains of Caravanserais and wells which used to be stay points along the Great Silk Road placed at intervals of 20-30km or so across the UstyurtPlateau.

Linked to the rise of Islam and the growth of the land trade between the Orient and the West (then to its decline because of the opening of the ocean routes by the Portuguese), the construction of most of the caravanserais spanned a period of ten centuries (IX-XIX century), and covered a geographical area the centre of which is Central Asia. Many thousands were built, and together they form a major phenomenon in the history of that part of the world, from an economic, a social and a cultural point of view. They are also remarkable for their architecture, which is based on geometric and topologic rules that use a limited number of elements defined by tradition.

Sadly many have been completely demolished and those which remain are, for the most part in ruins and are slowly disappearing.

Beleuli caravanserai (Just over the border in West Khazakhstan)- On the route of the Khorezm-Sheikhs connecting Khiva with the lower reaches of the Emba and the Volga.

Ural Airlines flights to Nukus from Moscow

Ural Airlines started its “Moscow-Nukus-Moscow” flights on the 12th September 2012.
It is amongst the six leading Russian air companies and in 2015 over five (5) million air passengers used its services. It currently goes to some 190 destinations. Ural Airlines fleet includes six (6) A-310s, nineteen (19) A-320s and ten (10) A-321s. The flights are operated twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays by an Airbus A320. Departure of the flights are from  Moscow’s Domodedovo International Airport.



FLIGHT SCHEDULE (Updated Jan 2016)

Timetable Nukus, Uzbekistan (NCU) to Moscow, Russia - Domodedovo (DME)

Flight	Operational days	Departing Nukus	Arriving Moscow	Duration	Aircraft
U62998	Wednesday	13:50	15:25	3:35	320
U62998	Saturday	16:40	18:15	3:35	320

Timetable

Moscow, Russia - Domodedovo (DME) to Nukus, Uzbekistan (NCU)

Flight	Operational days	Departing Moscow	Arriving Nukus	Duration	Aircraft
U62997	Wednesday	07:20	12:40	3:20	320
U62997	Saturday	10:05	15:30	3:25	320

Besides the Moscow – Nukus flight, Ural Airlines in 2016 offers a number of other air routes to Uzbekistan.

	Ekaterinburg (SVX) - Tashkent (TAS)
	Krasniojarsk (KJA) - Tashkent (TAS)
	Krasnodar (KRR) - Tashkent (TAS)
	Samara (KUF) - Tashkent (TAS)

	Ekaterinburg (SVX) - Namangan (NMA)
	Moscow (DME) - Namangan (NMA)
	Moscow (DME) - Navoi (NVI)

OTHER AIRLINES Important to remember that Gaspromavia Airline (Russia) and Uzbekistan Airways also operate on the Moscow – Nukus route. I recommend that you check with your travel agent which airline offers the best price and service for your needs.

Note: All times given are local to the airport.



Source - http://www.gazeta.uz/
http://www.airlines-inform.ru/
http://www.advantour.com/uzbekistan/flights/ural-airlines/nukus-moscow.htm

 
NUKUS AIRPORT


Photo: Nukus Airport

Nukus is the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan. It is the administrative, economic, scientific and cultural centre of the Republic. The tree lined city lies in the Amu darya delta an oasis surrounded on both sides by the desert. It is also the home of the world famous State museum of arts named after I.V. Savitsky which hosts an important collection of works of Russian and Uzbek avant-garde art works and a large ethnological collection. Other interesting places in Nukus are the museum named after the Karakalpak poet Berdakh and the Parliament Buildings as well as the nearby ancient Mizdakhkan's necropolis (20Km from Nukus). 

Biography of Igor Savitsky, Founder of the Karakalpakstan Museum by Marinika Babanazarova

Igor Savitsky - Artist, Collector, Museum Founder - Marinika Babanazarova.

The Savitsky State Art Museum named after Igor Savitsky in Nukus the capital Karakalpakstan contains an astounding 90,000 works including a comprehensive collection of Karakalpak art and ethnographic items and the largest collection of Soviet avant-garde art outside Russia (rivalled only by St. Petersburg’s Russian
Museum).




Russian artists, caught up in the idealism of the early Soviet days, were drawn by the exoticism of Central Asia. They visited the region, some settling there, and painted exuberant works fusing modernism with orientalism. Simultaneously Uzbek and Karakalpak artists were producing remarkable pieces influenced in particular by primitivism.

This frenetic period of modernist experimentation lasted for a decade after the revolution. In 1932-33 Stalin promulgated the decree 'On the Reconstruction of Literary and Art Organizations' and those artists whose works did not meet the 'radiant future' style of socialist realism found their paintings removed from galleries and were unable to participate in exhibitions and like others out of step with this turbulent era, often subject to repression.

Igor Savitsky was born in Kiev in 1915. He first came to Central Asia as a student during World War II, when the Institute in which he was studying was evacuated to Samarkand. In 1950 he went to Karakalpakstan as the artist on the Khorezm Archeological and Ethnographic Expedition, and, fascinated by the culture and people of the steppe, he stayed on after the expedition finished in 1957.

He took the opportunity to explore the region and started collecting Karakalpak carpets, costumes, jewelry, and other works of art and artifacts. In the early 1960’s he persuaded the local authorities in Nukus that they needed a museum to store and exhibit them and in 1966 he became its first curator.

Savitsky also collected drawings and paintings of artists linked to Central Asia and most famously he began his amazing collection of thousands of works from all over the USSR by avant-garde artists including Alexander Volkov, Ural Tansykbayev and Victor Ufimtsev of the Uzbek school, Kliment Red’ko, Lyubov Popova, Mukhina, Ivan Koudriachov and Robert Falk of the Russian avant-garde movement amongst many others.




















This amazing collection today is regarded by many including UNESCO of being of immense importance to Uzbekistan's cultural heritage.

Marinika Babanazarova has been the museum's director since Savitsky's death in 1984. Her grandfather served as one of the early leaders of the region. Savitsky often visited her family's house in Nukus and later, Tashkent. Her memoir draws upon correspondence, official records, and other documents about the Savitsky family that have become available during the last few years, as well as the recollections of a wide range of people who knew Igor Savitsky personally.

As she states in the foreword to this deeply moving and personal narrative: “I hope this memoir will serve not only as a multifaceted, broad-based portrait of a great man who was my mentor, but also as a tribute to his legacy.”

The book is available at the Nukus museum and also online now through Discovery Books, London. (around A$24 including postage to Australia).

If you are visiting Nukus this book and many other excellent art books, catalogues, poscards and traditional arts and crafts are available at the museum for purchase.

Visiting the museum's website provides a valuable overview of its history and collection before your visit.

See http;//museum.kr.uz/eng

Source : Uzbek journeys - Art and Craft Tours to Uzbekistan and a number of other sites.

More information on the Art movement known as Socialist Realism see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_realism

My Favourite Salad - Granatoviy Braslet

Introduction: Granatoviy Braslet is a salad that is shaped like a thick bracelet, studded with pomegranate kernels (seeds) popular in Nukus and all over the former Soviet Union.

The bracelet “effect” is achieved by placing a glass/cup in the middle of the salad plate and assembling the layers of vegetables, eggs, chicken, and walnuts ect around the outside. The glass is removed once the layers have been assembled and the salad is covered with fresh pomegranate kernels all around.

Recipe for a layered “Pomegranate Bracelet” Salad : Makes 1 large bracelet, enough for 8-10 people.

Using a coarse side of a box grater, grate the carrots, potatoes, beets, and eggs. Place on separate plates.

Put a tall glass in the middle of a large flat serving platter. You will arrange the ingredients in layers on the plate around that glass, and remove the glass once the salad has been assembled.

Begin layering the ingredients evenly on the plate in the following order. Sprinkle the layers with some salt, but take care not to oversalt as mayonnaise is salty already.

Ingedients:

1st Layer - Potatoes (3 medium) boiled in water until tender, and peeled and then Dressing (mayonnaise, or half mayonnaise + half sour cream (about 2 tablespoons, spread evenly)

2nd Layer - Beet (1 medium) boiled in water until tender and peeled (boil separately from carrots and potatoes) and then Dressing about 2 tablespoons, spread evenly.

3rd Layer Carrots (3 medium) boiled in water until tender, and peeled and then Dressing (about 2 tablespoons, spread evenly)and then Walnuts - 1 cup walnuts, coarsely ground.

4th Layer Chicken (1 medium skinless, boneless chicken breast halves) cooked in slightly salted water, drained, and shredded into thin strips and then Dressing (about 2 tablespoons, spread evenly).

5th Layer Eggs (3 hard-boiled eggs, shelled) and then Dressing (about 2 tablespoons, spread evenly).

6th Layer Chicken ( 1 medium skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cooked in slightly salted water, drained, and shredded into thin strips) and then Dressing(about 2 tablespoons, spread evenly).

7th Layer - Beet (1 medium) boiled in water until tender and peeled (boil separately from carrots and potatoes) again slather some dressing all over the “bracelet”.

Carefully remove the glass from the plate. Generously sprinkle the salad with pomegranate kernels (from 1 large pomegranate) all around. Slightly press to adhere. Chill the salad in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour before serving, to allow the flavours a chance to blend.

Karakalpak (Қарақалпақ тили / Qaraqalpaq tili)

Karakalpak is a Turkic language mainly spoken by Karakalpaks in Karakalpakstan (Uzbekistan) a language that belongs to the Kipchak or north-western category of the Turkic-Altaic family of languages, along with Kazakh, Bashkir, and Nogay.

It is spoken as their first language by about 600,000 people in the Karakalpakstan Autonomous Republic in Uzbekistan, where the language has official status. (Many Aral Uzbeks and Kazakhs in Karakalpakstan also speak the language as well as their own). There are some Karakalpak speakers in Afghanistan, Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkey as well. Ethnic Karakalpaks who live in other parts of Uzbekistan tend to speak local Uzbek dialects.

Karakalpak is a member of the Kypchak Turkic family of languages, which includes Tatar, Kumyk and Kazakh. The Kypchak family is a subgroup of the Turkic languages. Within the Kypchak Turkic family. Karakalpak is most closely related to Kazakh and Nogai, and has absorbed a lot of vocabulary and some grammar from Uzbek as well as some Uzbek and Russian vocabulary (word share). Due to its proximity to the Uzbek language area, much of the vocabulary and grammar has an Uzbek influence. Like Finnish, Hungarian, and Turkish, Karakalpak has vowel harmony, is agglutinative and has no grammatical gender. Word order is usually subject–object–verb.

The Ethnologue identifies two dialects of Karakalpak: Northeastern and Southwestern. Menges mentions a third possible dialect spoken in the Fergana Valley. The Southwestern dialect has č for the Northeastern š.

Karakalpak has 21 native consonant phonemes and regularly uses 4 non-native phonemes in loan words.



Vowel Harmony
Vowel harmony functions in Karakalpak much as it does in other Turkic languages. Words borrowed from Russian or other languages may not observe rules of vowel harmony, but the following rules usually apply:

a may be followed by a, ɯ
æ may be followed by e, i
e may be followed by e, i
i may be followed by e, i
o may be followed by a, o, u, ɯ
œ may be followed by e, i, œ, y
u may be followed by a, o, u
y may be followed by e, œ, y
ɯ may be followed by a, ɯ

Personal Pronouns
men - I
sen - you (singular)
ol - he, she, it, that
biz - we
siz - you (plural)
olar - they

Numbers
bir 1, eki 2, u'sh 3, to'rt 4, bes 5, altı 6, jeti 7, segiz 8, tog'ıs 9, on 10, ju'z 100, mın' 1000

Karakalpak was written in the Arabic and Persian script until 1928, in the Latin script (with additional characters) from 1928 to 1940, after which Cyrillic was introduced. Following Uzbekistan's independence in 1991, the decision was made to drop Cyrillic and revert to the Latin alphabet (1994). Whilst the use of Latin script is now widespread in Tashkent, its introduction into Karakalpakstan remains gradual.

The Latin, Cyrillic and Arabic alphabets are shown below:

Latin

Cyrillic

Arabic

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakalpak_language

Uzbek Pomegranite and Onion Salad - Anor va Piyoz Salati

Anor va Piyoz Salati - Pomegranate and Onion Salad

Ingredients -
2 onions, peeled and sliced
One large sized pomegranate, pared
Salt to taste
1 tsp of pepper
1 tbsp of vinegar

Place finely chopped onions in a bowl and wash 2–3 times in hot water and drop into a sieve. Take the pared pomegranate and separate half into kernels (arlis) and the other half crush to make sour pomegranate juice. Mix with with the white onion slices and top with an onion rosette, in which a few extra kernels (arlis) are placed and pour on a little sour juice. Edge the dish with onion rings.

If onions are too bitter then put them in cold water for a while, then pour out all the liquid and combine with vinegar and salt. After add in pepper and pomegranate and mix together all ingredients.

Serve and enjoy!

“Anor va piyozli salat” is usually served as a garnish for plov, shashlik and other meat dishes. Very good for digestion.


Editor Note: Pomegranates are one of those special fruits that are stunning to look at, appear in many historical depictions of still lifes going back hundreds of years because of their appearance and color, and by just sprinkling a few pomegranate arils on a dish you make it taste and look a lot better.