As we are being lead around the town we notice a small commotion on some waste ground and our guide decides to take us over to see it.
A group of around 50 people mainly men are all looking very excitedly at some thing or things so we immediately think it is another market and well it is of a sort.
This appears to be a Bird Market nothing else is on sale there in this patch of semi waste ground in a backstreet of the town so I think this is not something you see often
There were many different sorts of cage birds but most of the attention was on the Pigeons.
You can see one guy examining one pigeon in very great detail almost oblivious to us well searching around the web I found this info
The breed is an “Uzbek Crack Tumbler” and of course originated here in Bukhara. Pigeons it seems was quite a bid thing back in the day and the Emirs
brought in several breeds from Persia’
brought in several breeds from Persia’
After many years cross breeding with local birds they ended up with “Double
Crested and long Muffed breeds” (I know it beats me as well I have no idea).
Crested and long Muffed breeds” (I know it beats me as well I have no idea).
For over 300 years breeders in Samarkhand, Tashkent, Namangan, Fargona Valley, and various other regions of Uzbekistan acquired these breeds from the Emirs of Bukhara
It would seem the name is derived because when flying they sometimes begin to rise up vertically and begin tumbling and clap their wings together making an audible clap or crack sound.
So know you know as much as me and very welcome you are to the info.
The people were concentrating on the birds and seemingly oblivious to the group of 20 odd tourists who were in their midst happily snapping pictures.
A very entertaining 20 minutes where we were just allowed to hang out with the locals.
By the way did you know HM Queen Elisabeth II is patron of a number of British pigeon racing societies in recognition of her interest in the sport, most notably the Royal Pigeon Racing Association and the National Flying Club
Whilst we are about it I forgot to tell you we had been to the ubiquitous carpet shop there are carpet shops everywhere and whilst it is not actually part of the tour we do get to see one.
We saw a little of the actual carpet making I say making rather than weaving as each individual strand is knotted not woven.
It seemed we arrived at an inopportune moment as it was payday for the girls and they get paid in cash once a month so if you remember how big the wad
was when I changed $50 then you can imagine it took about 15 minutes to pay each on and then they left they had a couple of carrier bags stuffed full of notes (I kid you not)
was when I changed $50 then you can imagine it took about 15 minutes to pay each on and then they left they had a couple of carrier bags stuffed full of notes (I kid you not)
This is Sabrina (I think) and she was very good at explaining all the different details of how to pick the right carpet and how to tell the quality andunderstand the different types of silks used ( who knew there were different kinds in the first place well not me I can tell you). She was a local however she had a mix of East London and American in her accent which sort of threw me for a while as we have only hear local accents for a few days.
Whilst there were as you see lots and lots of very nice carpets there were not with my name on so this time I got away light.
I did however later find a stitched floor rug which I had to negotiate hard for, well I think I did ok 45% discount brought it into my price bracket. (Judi would be proud)