Our “armchair travel” talk looks at the loveliest historic cities of Central Asia and is based around several visits made by our lecturer, Jane Angelini, in the last ten years. At the heart of the ancient Silk Roads, Bukhara, the ‘Dome of Islam’, was for centuries a centre of artists, poets, scientists and scholars. Its emirs resided in the austere Ark fortress, as old as the city itself. No name is as evocative of the Silk Road than Samarkand, glorious capital of Tamerlane, which boasts the most magnificent central square in the Islamic world. From the 17th century Khiva rose to pre-eminence, with one of the most homogeneous collections of later Islamic architecture, a museum city, frozen in time.
Jane Angelini is a freelance lecturer for the Arts Society and other arts organisations. She runs her own art tours company, specialising in cultural visits. She speaks several foreign languages and has translated a number of works of 19th century Russian literature for Penguin Books and Oxford University Press. She has a BA in Russian Studies and an MA in Byzantine Studies.