Uzbek Odyssey: Samarkand is a meeting point of two worlds

The great Silk Route city has a very strong Russian heritage, and in many parts, feels like it is in the heart of European Russia.

On a quiet Sunday morning, as I walked out of the Samarkand Railway Station, dodging my way past taxi touts, the first thing I noticed in the city was a tram network. The two surviving lines in the city keep away from the city centre but one of them goes right up to the fabled Siyob Bazaar. The system was built before the 1917 Revolution and at a reflec…