The land beneath their feet was the same earth they’d known for decades — unchanging, steady, eternal. The air brushed past their face, cool and familiar, carrying the faint scent of dew and ripening fruit. It clung to the skin like a memory unvisited for years, but there was something different about it now. The geography hadn’t changed: the hills rolled where they always had, the mountains peeked out from behind the centuries-old buildings and the trees whispered from where they had stood for generations. And yet, this was home in a way it had never been before.
It was not just a home defined by walls or possessions, but a home that lived and breathed with the land itself, a home where the soil carried stories of those who came before. Beneath the surface, centuries of footsteps pressed into its memory: the laughter of children chasing one another down the streets, the quiet murmurs of ancestors whose hands had once tilled this ground. The air felt heavier, not in weight but in meaning, as if it was aware that a familiar face stood in her presence and offered her a warm embrace.
This city, in the heart of the historic Silk Road, was a land where history thrived in the streets, free from the cages of foreign museums and archives. The blues of domes and minarets in the distance whispered of a golden age when scholars and poets turned it into the jewel of the Silk Road. Those same monuments bore the weight of conquest, the burden of wars and the strains of governance that ranged from visionary to ruinous. Yet despite the turmoil, Samarqand stood steadfast.
To walk these streets was to step into a conversation with time itself. It wasn’t only the grandeur of the Registan, the ancient square that glimmered with intricate mosaics of gold and lapis lazuli, or the imposing gates that had once welcomed caravans from distant lands. It was also the simple details: the walnut trees planted by hands long gone, the worn cobblestones polished smooth by generations of footsteps and the sprawling cemetery just kilometers away, where the bones of their ancestors rested beneath the earth. Family members lay together in a small plot of soil, separated by hundreds of years but held together by blood. Rows of graves stood like lines of poetry, each one tracing the lives of those who had worked this land, loved it, defended it.
The rooster’s cry rang out, sharp against the morning haze as the sun stretched over the streets. Walnut trees stood on every block, their sprawling branches reaching wide as if to hold the sky in place. Their leaves shimmered green, catching the early light just enough to feel alive with history, alive with the essence of the lives that had passed beneath them. These trees did not belong to one family or another. They were older than anyone could remember, witnesses to countless seasons and stories. Their roots tangled deep into the soil, nurtured by the gentle spring rains, tempered by the resilience of summer droughts and transformed by the quiet whispers of autumn’s change.
The trees gave freely. They would never hoard their bounty, instead sharing fruit with the children who climbed their trunks and the elderly who sought solace in their shade. Further down the street, a handful of sour cherries plucked from the neighbor’s tree — no words exchanged, no permission sought or required. These cherries would not be missed, nor would the walnuts in the fall. It was an unspoken rhythm, the quiet way a community sustained itself. The trees bore fruit, the people gathered and in return, a jar of preserves was placed on a neighbor’s doorstep or a bag of fruit was handed off at twilight.
Reciprocity was not enforced or written; it simply was the way of things here. The people took what they needed, returning what they could in small gestures that stretched out like threads, weaving the fabric of a place that felt whole.
And yet, this comfort was not universal. Somewhere else, far from this quiet morning, there were places where this connection had been severed. Homes torn apart, lands stolen, borders drawn. There were others who could no longer walk the streets of their youth. Soil once cradled by familiar hands now marked by foreign flags. Displacement — more than leaving a place; it was the loss of the air that had once belonged to one’s lungs. What would it feel like, to stand on earth that had forgotten the weight of one’s footsteps? To know that the soil beneath no longer remembered the stories of their ancestors?
The land remembered, though. Even if thieves claimed it, the earth would hold its history in the deep, tangled roots of its trees, in the eroded grooves of its stones, in the unspoken language of the wind moving through its valleys. Even if borders carved it into something unrecognizable, the earth would ramin patient, seeds buried deep waiting for the sunlight and touch of hands that recognized them.
The rooster’s crow rang out again, sharper now that the sun rose higher, scattering light across the streets and trees. Beneath the walnut canopy, the earth hummed softly, alive with the weight of footsteps and whispers of those who had come before. This was the same rhythm, the same thread, that bound everything together: the roots of trees tangling beneath the earth, the hands of neighbors exchanging gifts, the soil waiting patiently to give and receive.
A morning like this could stretch endlessly, the air cool against the skin and the sky alive with the soft gold of sunrise. There were other mornings, harsher ones, where the rhythm faltered. Times of drought when the earth gave less, when neighbors had less to give in return. Even then, the bond remained. It was not about abundance or scarcity — it was about trust. The trees would bear fruit again. The land would give again. The people would sustain one another again.
The streets were not paved by ownership, but with belonging. This was not a place claimed, but a place held. A place where the land did not belong to the people, but the people to the land. The air carried its quiet song, rustling the leaves above, rippling through the blades of grass below. The sun, higher in the sky, illuminated the intricate tapestry of roots, branches and lives intertwined. To walk here was not just to move through space but to step into the pulse of history, to feel the weight and wonder of belonging.
MiC Columnist Madinabonu Nosirova can be reached at nosirova@umich.edu
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