Word: samarkand
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...window she must take whatever the overworked comrade clerk has left, and sometimes he or she has nothing left, slams the grocery window. Not only in Moscow but throughout the Soviet Union such standing in line is a common sight in every city. In remote Alma Ata, in romantic Samarkand, patient women, whether they can read or write or not, guard jealously their "food books," in which the Co-operative clerks enter every purchase to prevent "food repeaters...
Alexander of Macedon ("The Great"), though he died many a century before George Washington, is still held in a mellow, Washingtonian esteem at Samarkand. The natives appear to have forgiven that he sacked and burned their city, remember only how he wrought great glory there, and refer to him affectionately as "Iskander Macedonski...
...stakes and exposed to a pious mob which threw stones until the women died. One youthful male Communist was likewise bound, reviled by the Ichans (Priests), and beaten to death with flails, despite attempts by the police to rescue him. Kindlers of Asia. All over the province of Samarkand and throughout Turkestan similar outbursts were provoked last week by "Woman's Day." This remote region, so long slumberously out of the world, seemed to be kindling again from the sparks struck by Soviet ideals. The human fuel there is crude and lumpy; but so are the logs one needs...
Very different is the attitude at Samarkand toward the two greatest Khans.* The natives seem indifferent that the conquests of these two mighty princes made them dreaded and obeyed from Poland and Peking to India. For some reason the sack of Samarkand by Jenghiz Khan is treasured up in the native mind as an atrocity altogether reprehensible and comparatively recent (1221 A. D.). Strolling about with a native guide one hears said of whatever seems to be in disrepair that "it was all right until Jenghiz Khan came"-an explanation provocative of hilarity when offered by native children to account...
Tamburlaine the Great. As U. S. citizens sink their every prejudce in praising Lincoln, so Timur is always upon approving lips at Samarkand. The largest slab of jade known to exist is his tombstone (6 ft. x 17 in. x 14 in); and every child of Samarkand has stood in the great vaulted octagonal hall where the green jade tomb reposes, surrounded by six family tombs of white marble...