But according to Temur Iakobashvili, a Georgian minister, the Russian diplomat never turned up.

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Compared with his Central Asian empire-building predecessor, Genghis Khan, Temur emerges as not without virtues.

ECONOMIST: Tamerlane: Lame but never halting | The

But butcher or builder, the West has reason to be grateful to Temur.

ECONOMIST: Tamerlane: Lame but never halting | The

Carney added the third on 65 minutes when he tucked the ball under Uzbek goalkeeper Temur Juraev after Matt McKay's precise pass.

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It traces Temur's rise from obscurity in a small village in what is now Uzbekistan, but was then part of the fragmented Mongol empire.

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Many of the works relate directly to major historical figures of world significance (Ibn Sina, Ulughbeg, Temur, Chingiz Khan, Navoi, Beruni), and several are in the author's own hand.

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Mr Marozzi has traced in person much of Temur's relentless campaign trail, and he elegiacally shows us how far Samarkand and Bukhara, once the most glorious cities in Asia, have descended.

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Despite this zeal for destruction, Justin Marozzi finds a surprising amount of good to say about the Central Asian conqueror usually known in the West as Tamerlane or Tamburlaine, a corruption of Temur-i-lang, or Temur the Lame not a name that anyone, surely, would have dared use to his face.

ECONOMIST: Tamerlane: Lame but never halting | The