To citizens' opinion, the summer of 2003 has been very hot. But Abdullo Mirboboyev, well-known archeologist, Dr. of History, chief of the department of archeology and ethnography under KSU named after academician B. Ghafurov considers that on the contrary, it was rather moderate. As for strong heat, it was observed only in the past ten days of July…
- This theme seems bound to be discussed with meteorologists and weather forecasters. And what do archeologists-researchers think about today's weather and its influence upon the monuments of history and culture? Did ancient authors who lived three or two millennia ago, for example, or those ones of not very remote times leave anything concerned with the climate of our region?
- Every year we hear that namely this summer has been very hot. But strong heat was registered twenty years ago - in the summer of 1983 when temperature rose to +43C. Even in the second half of August thermometers showed +37+38C. But the present summer, as weather-forecasters deem, is considered to be normal. The excavations of ancient settlements evidence that the climate in Central Asia was and is dry and sharply continental upon the whole, with rather cold though short winter and sultry summer. To say the truth, Russian geographers in the 90-ies of the XIX-th century forestalled water reservoirs in Central Asia to dry up, they wrote about it in "Izvestia" (news) published by the Russian geographic society. It is seen partially by the example with the Aral Sea. As for our ancestors, their home architecture, clothes, food and all the domestic tenor of the settled population of Central Asia pursued one purpose - protection from sultry summer and short winter. In particular, the so-called climatic phenomenon was taken into account in the construction of residential houses, palaces and mosques where the elements of "thermal inertia" prevail, i.e. they heat and cool slowly. Under the vaults of many residential houses architects discovered air canals. In separate cases air catchers - "bodghir" in Tajik - were installed on the tips of vaults.
- Today we use refrigerators and freezers. But we know from history that in old times people drank wine and beverages with ice. How did our ancestors contrive to find this ice?
- Even in ancient Chinese sources they inform about cellars of ice in the cities of Sughd and Iran. And the quests of historians and archeologists crowned with success - a score of cellars with ice were registered on the territory of ancient Khujand. One of such cellars known under the title "Yakhdoni Tojikalla" functioned up to the 50-ies of the century passed not far from the present hotel "Tavhid". Ice for this cellar was taken from the river. Custodians of these cellars were called "Yakhchi", it means "icer". Ice cellars were fixed archeologically on the campsite of ancient Afrosiyob (Samarkand), in Bukhara and other cities and towns. Even today the word "jomadoni yakh" preserved in speech of Bukhara residents, means "ice-case", icers brought them to the city for cooling drinking water and making ice-cream of "Rohati Jon" type. Our forefathers knew also about air condensing. In the castle of the heir named Masud belonging to Gaznevide court in Gerat (Afghanistan) the rooms for midday rest was equipped with the system of water cooling, rather unusual for that time. The origins testify to ceramic water running pipes with small holes to be laid out around the edifice along the edges of the roof. Towels twined out of reeds or rush were hung on pipes. Then by means of a special arrangement called "tilisi" (secret mechanism) water from a reservoir raised to the roof flowing from there smoothly along the pipes moistening towels. In such unpretentious way the edifice was protected from sun overheating; moderate temperature being preserved in the rooms. It is supposed that it was based on the motion of water wheels ("chinghirs") and the inventor of this secret mechanism was scholar Abdurahmon Biruni.
- And what did Khujand undertaken in the past against strong heat?
- According to 1910 statistics there were over 400 orchards in Khujand within fortress walls. Suburban gardens are not taken into consideration. From south to north the town was indentated by a ribbon of over ten big irrigative canals, such as, for example, the Kozy, the Mazor, the Kurkhona (arsenal), the Razzoq, the Masjidi Savr and others, which carried the icy water of the Khoja Bakirgansay mountainous river. These trunkline canals had up to 800 minor drains - djuis - laid out through homesteads and orchards. The modern young generation of Khujand citizens don't know the sense of the term "obmuri" - water conductor (close to "dud muri" - smoke flue) which passed through years under doovals (clayed walls-hedges) and houses of an entire mahalla. As Russian ethnographers of the end of the XIX-th century testify, in many big yards they made mill-ponds in these aryks and even women bathed in them with pleasure. In a word, canals, aryks, reservoirs lined obligatorily with willows and mulberry-trees carried cold mountainous water and thus created microclimate in the town.
- Citizens consider often that the Mogol-Tay mountains are to blame in all our misfortunes, hot summer inclusive.
- To some extent they are right. In the Middle Ages sources of the XI-XV-th centuries belonging to mystical poet, sheikh Muslihiddin, Kamoli Khujandi, "Boburnoma" author Zakir ad-din Bobur these mountains were called "Mevagul". In Tajik it means "mountains permeated with fruit-trees". Later on, when these mountains were populated with Turkish tribes the deformed word "Mogol-Tau" appeared in foreign literature. The Mevagul mountains really had a potential influence upon the temperature regime of the town. The first chief of Khujand district N. S. Lykoshin (1907-1912) called these mountains a peculiar accumulator of warmth - in daytime they were incandescent as a frying-pan and at night they gave their warmth to the town. Natural conditions in these mountains were quite different in Middle Ages. Botanician N. A. Severtsov who visited these mountains in 1867 referred them to the belt of leaf-bearing woods. Scarce thuja trees preserved there in some places prove that in old times the Mevagul mountains were covered with them in abundance. Our compatriot Oleg Panfilov, archeologist by his first profession and well-known journalist at present, discovered in the 80-ies over thousand and a half drawings in the Mevagul mountains left on rocks by ancient cattle-breeders, the most interesting thing is depictions of deer among other animals. The explorations of Leningrad scientist B. M. Komarov pertaining to the 40-50-ies of the XX-th century confirm that in the past our mountains weren't so bare as now. We, people, turned them into the wilderness having utilized mercilessly their flora resources.
- Abdullo Kenjayevich, what else might have caused the complete denudation of the Mevagul?
In 1822 a strong earthquake occurred in the Ferghana Valley. As one origin asserts, the earthquake was so destructive, the earth shook so vigorously that huge rocks precipitated from the Mevagul; Russian explorers saw boulders which had broken loose from the mountains at the bottom of the Syr-Darya river during winter time when waters were shallow. The western portal of Sheikh Muslihiddin's Mausoleum fell on the ground. The earth in the area of Panjshanbe was in crevices spurting with water-fountains. Chronological data on many houses of Khujand citizens testify to their appearance just after this elemental disaster. The restoration of the town and the building of houses entailed new felling of thuja and other trees. Later on well-springs in the Mevagul mountains ran dry having changed sharply the town ecology.