Greetings from Uzbekistan, the third and final country on my travel route.
The most populated of the five “stans”, Uzbekistan has a population just slightly smaller than Canada’s living in an area roughly the size of California. Uzbekistan is one of only two doubly-landlocked countries in the world — the other is Liechtenstein. It is also the only one of the five ‘stan’ countries to border the other four.
Just about every major empire in history has at one point conquered Uzbekistan, from Alexander the Great to the Arab Empire to Genghis Khan to the Russian Empire to its modern-day history as a former Soviet Republic.
Uzbekistan is home to cotton, gold and natural gas mining, part of the rapidly shrinking Aral Sea, and, oh yeah, Olympic figure skater Misha Ge, who gave this memorable performance in Sochi last year. I mean, c’mon, how could you not love this kid?
Flying, Soviet style
We arrived last night to Tashkent, Uzbekistan’s capital, after a short but eventful one-hour flight on Air Kyrgyzstan. That was, um, definitely an experience. Kyrgyzstan’s national carrier flies decades-old Boeing 737s that look like they haven’t been updated since the Soviet days. The row behind us, where Colleen, Sally and Julie were sitting, was so tiny that they had their chests up against the seats in front of them. One of the overhead compartments flew open on takeoff. There were ash trays in the armrests. Oh, and by the way, Air Kyrgyzstan is also on the blacklist of airlines banned in the European Union. Now isn’t that a comforting factoid?
But anyway, we made it fine and in one piece, landing in Tashkent around half past seven. Since there’s an hour time difference between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, we actually landed only fifteen minutes after we took off.
In contrast to what I’d been warned about, passport control and customs were pretty much a breeze. We had to wait a bit for Julie and Colleen to get their visas on arrival, but other than that, there were no bag searches, no cumbersome processes, nothing other than a simple form fill and a couple of bag scans. And then it was welcome to Uzbekistan!
We then hopped onto a private transfer to the hotel. Our hotel is big, centrally located, and quite nice. It’s a former government hotel from the Soviet days, but it’s obviously been updated. I’m fairly certain we’re all being monitored, but hey. It has a pretty good view over the city centre, which is pretty all lit up at night. Upon check-in, we were all issued a registration slip, which we need to keep in order to prove where we stayed upon departure. It’s illegal for tourists to stay anywhere other than officially-registered hotels, so the hostel, homestay, camping and couchsurfing scenes aren’t very good here, needless to say.
Want some som?
Next, I needed some local money. Uzbekistan’s currency is the Som, and it’s one of the lowest-valued currencies in the world. One Canadian dollar equals about 2,000 Uzbekistani Som (at the official rate; the black market rate is much better). The only money I’ve ever used that has made me feel richer in useless zeroes was the Vietnamese Dong, which is worth about a tenth that much. The difference is, most Vietnamese bank notes are in five-digit denominations, so you still end up carrying around a reasonably sensible amount of paper money.
Not so in Uzbekistan: The largest banknote is 5000 som (or about two dollars) and even that’s fairly new; until recently, the biggest note was 1000 som. As a result, exchanging a relatively small amount of US money, say, 20 bucks, yields a huge stack of banknotes.
Mosques, minarets, madrasas, bazaars
Today was spent exploring the city. Tashkent literally means “stone city”, which is fun considering we’re the Stone/Stein tour. It’s a city four times the size of Bishkek, and it’s evident that it’s much more developed and westernized. It’s also much newer; most old buildings here were destroyed in a large earthquake in the 1960s, so pretty much everything has been built since. There are wide boulevards, expansive squares, fountains, and everything is very clean, though it all feels a bit formal and stiff compared to more lively cities. That could also be because we were walking around during the day on a Monday, while most people are at work, mind you.
We started out by taking a taxi to Khast Imom Square, home to the classic 3 Ms that will form the basis of our visit of all places in Uzbekistan: mosque, minaret, madrasa. The madrasa there serves as a craft market today, with artisans selling their works in the small rooms inside off the courtyard. I bought another scarf — hey, it is the Silk Road after all. There’s a regular mosque and a larger Friday mosque, and a small library that houses one of the oldest surviving copies of the Koran dating back to the 7th century.
From there, we walked to the Chorsu Bazaar, a big, bustling market filled with foods, handicrafts, silks and fabrics and souvenirs. There was an entire floor where meats were sold; another area for spices and dried fruits and nuts; yet another for fruits and vegetables. The souvenir shopping looked interesting, but we still have three more stops so I held off on buying much else. I did pick up a phone card, with Rustam’s help, though, so I’m connected to the outside world again.
Independence Square
Next, we rode Tashkent’s famed subway — the only one in Central Asia — to Independence Square. Sorry, no photos of the subway stations; it’s strictly forbidden. And they take that sort of thing really seriously here, with stern-looking guards giving you the fish-eye every few steps. The subway stations were quite pretty and uniquely decorated, though you’ll have to take my word for it.
In Independence Square, we took a few minutes to relax on a patch of grass, and then walked around the parks exploring the various statues and such. There’s an area dedicated to a memorial of WWII, with an eternal flame and books containing the names of all the Uzbek soldiers who lost their lives fighting. There were a lot of them. There’s also an independence statue that replaced the old statue of Lenin from the Soviet days; Uzbekistan, unlike Kyrgyzstan, seems to have made an effort to distance itself from the Soviet era symbolically and practically. Some little kids kept coming up to me at the statue, wanting to take photos and practice their English, which was pretty cute.
We passed the Romanov house from the Russian imperial era, and past some sort of important government building that it was apparently strictly forbidden to photograph. Colleen found that out the hard way, after she took a photo pointed in the same general direction — not even of the building — and was stopped by an angry guard who spent time looking through all her photos. He deleted that one, asked to see her passport, and spent some time arguing with Rustam in rapid Uzbek before letting her go. Yeah, good reminder that, despite Uzbekistan’s attempts to open up to tourism, it’s still very much a police state and we’d all best be on our best behaviour everywhere.
Then we headed back to the hotel via “Broadway”, which is a shopping area with a small artists’ quarter, and through Amir Timur Park, dedicated to the Uzbek national hero Tamerlane.
This ain’t Toronto
For dinner, we walked to a nearby Turkish-style restaurant called Torento (not to be confused with Toronto) and sat out on the patio. Dinner was nothing special, and I was really only picking at it since I’m just starting to carefully eat real food again. Paying for it with stacks of som was fun, though. All the people working in shops and restaurants seem to have mastered the art of counting money very quickly, or else they use automatic counters for larger amounts.
Overall it was an interesting first day in Uzbekistan. In contrast to Kyrgyzstan, this country is obviously wealthier, more populated, more developed and contains far more historical and cultural attractions. On the other hand, it’s also much hotter, a bit more expensive (though still a relative bargain), and far more strictly controlled.
We’re off very early tomorrow morning to Khiva. I’ll update soon!