[struwwelpeter]

Recently I watched Sergey Eisenstein's "Ivan the Terrible". In one scene, during Ivan's wedding celebration, the Khan's ambassador arrives to inform him of the end of the truce between Muscovy and Kazan. He then produces a jewelled dagger for the Russian Tsar to commit suicide with, if he wished to prevent war. The Mongol (Tatar) summed up the arguments with a big hand "Kazan is Big" and then his little finger "Moscow is small".

Probably not historic, but interesting nonetheless.

Also, during the seige of Kazan, captured Mongols were tied to stakes in front of the gate and told to beg their comrades to surrender. They refuse, and a Mongol chieftain orders archers to shoot them, since: "It is better that they die at the hands of their brothers, than by the infidels."

[elcid1970]

I was deployed to Uzbekistan 2003-04. I listened to beautiful English-speaking Uzbek girls tell me what a great man `Temujin' was. Genghis Khan, they said, was only a title. An older Uzbek woman observed, sadly, "That's our problem here in Central Asia: the only people we truly admire are poets and conquerors."

These young women spoke several languages, were Western oriented (and clothed), hated and feared Taliban-style Islam. But if I noticed an Uzbek with blond hair, that according to them was a legacy of `Alexander the Macedonian'. Another conqueror.

No sign of the Uzbek Adams or Jefferson or Madison.