The Ukraine War Echoes in Ancient Samarkand

SAMARKAND, UZBEKISTAN — The 2,000-year old city of Samarkand lies some 2,000 miles away from Kyiv, separated by Central Asians deserts, the Caucasus mountains, and the Caspian sea. 

The city hasn’t seen warfare since the Russian Civil War. The residents live calm lives in the shadow of centuries-old Timurid madrasas and mosques. 

Yet the echoes of modern war are heard even here, as an unusual diaspora makes the city home. 

“They’re nice kids,” Padre Paolo told The Diplomat in accented Russian. “Some need to be taught manners, but they’re all good kids.”

An affable Argentinian Catholic priest is an unexpected sight in the historically Muslim Samarkand, but his new congregation is even more unexpected – Indian medical students, evacuated from Ukraine in the aftermath of the full-scale invasion in late February 2022. 

The Diplomat spoke with the Indian students, the Catholic priest, and others. Their stories show the multicultural face of Samarkand and illustrate Uzbekistan’s reformist drive. 

Samarkand, once a major node of the Silk Road, is once again bringing together people from all over the world. The city now houses roughly 1,500 Indian students, 500 formerly enrolled at the Bukovinian State Medical University in Chernivtsi, Ukraine. 

Thrown into a foreign city and culture after a traumatizing evacuation, some of those students found community and solace in St. John the Baptist’s church in Samarkand, run by a pair of Argentinian Catholic priests of the Order of the Incarnate Heart.

Samarkand’s tiny Catholic population is itself diasporic in character – most of them are descendants of Poles, Russians, and Ukrainians who found themselves in Uzbekistan at various points in time stretched across the Russian and Soviet empires. “We don’t have a single Uzbek in our congregation,” Padre Paolo told The Diplomat. The local congregation is tiny – some 20 people, per Padre Paolo. The newly arrived Indians outnumber the old congregation roughly 3 to 1. 

Samarkand is an ancient city, most famous for its prominence during the Timurid Emirate – a large Sunni empire encompassing modern-day Iran and parts of Central Asia and Turkey throughout the 14th-16th centuries. Once an imperial capital called “protected by Allah,” for it was never conquered, Samarkand fell to the ever-expanding Russian empire in 1868. 

Throughout the 19th century, the Russians brought with them a small contingent of Catholics – the Samarkand community was largely made up of Polish and German traders, officials, and missionaries. By World War I, the Empire transferred numerous Austro-Hungarian Catholic prisoners of war from the muddy trenches of Eastern Europe to sunny Samarkand.