Simon Sebag Montefiore on Timur

“Tamerlane was a world conqueror, statesman and military commander of astonishing brilliance and brutal ferocity who built an empire stretching from India to Russia and the Mediterranean Sea. Never defeated in battle, the ultimate hero-monster, he ranks alongside Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great as one of the great conquerors of all time yet he left in his wake both pyramids of human skulls and the aesthetic beauty of his capital Samarkand.”

“A ruthless killer, whose armies were responsible for unrivalled pillage and brutality, Tamerlane was equally a shrewd statesman, brilliant general and sophisticated patron of the arts. Revered in Uzbekistan to this day — his monument in Tashkent standing where Marx’s statue once presided — Tamerlane was buried in a beautiful simple tomb in Samarkand. Legend said that the disturber of his tomb would be cursed: in June 1941, a Soviet historian opened the tomb. Days later, Hitler attacked Soviet Russia.”