Tag: tashkent

Uzbekistan: Nukus to Termez via Tashkent

October 25, 2012

This morning we boarded an Uzbekistan Airways flight and flew over the vast desert back to Tashkent. We were actually headed to Termez, a city in southern Uzbekistan on the border of Afghanistan. But with a few exceptions, all internal flights in Uzbekistan are via Tashkent, so we would be stopping there for the day until our late evening flight south.

We would be returning to Nukus in four days, to cross the border to Turkmenistan. But why not cross now? It is a long story, but in short, there were complications with the Turkmen visa that necessitated an extension of our time in Uzbekistan, and so for the next few days we would be flying and driving around the opposite side of the country.

We had eight hours in Tashkent, so did a bit more sightseeing after lunch (my stomach problems cleared and I was finally well enough to eat). We visited the Chorsu Bazaar, the oldest market in Tashkent. Here you could buy everything: meat, produce, spices, Fanta, carpets, and wedding clothes.



Sheep that will be slaughtered for the religious holiday of Eid al-Adha.

Next, we stopped for tea at the Rakhimov Ceramics Studio. This studio had a lovely courtyard filled with pomegranate trees (and, of course, ceramics).

Our flight that evening was delayed, so when the plane finally arrived, the stern flight attendant yelled that we were late, and we were to take any seat. Passengers hurriedly stuffed their bags into the overhead bins and buckled their seatbelts, lest they be lectured again. Our flight was further delayed when the attendant discovered that one of the passengers was considerably drunk, and so she had him removed from the plane with the assistance of several crew members. With everyone seated, and the drunk passenger gone, our aging Ilyushin turboprop began the bumpy flight south to Termez.

We were the only tourists on board, and so the curious Uzbek teenagers seated behind me took the opportunity to use the English they had learned in school and pepper me with questions: “Where are you from? What is your name? Where have you gone in Uzbekistan? Why are you going to Termez?” (“Just to see it” was met with a quizzical look).

As we began our descent into Termez, I was horrified as my seatmate pulled out her cellphone and began to call someone (presumably the person who was picking her up from the airport). Thankfully, we landed without incident and my new Uzbek friends announced “Welcome to Termez!” and wished me a good trip. Stepping off the plane, the first thing I noticed about Termez was how dark it was. The next thing I noticed was the police officer standing at the gate confiscating all the American passports before allowing us to leave the tarmac. Apparently they were to be taken to the police station and kept overnight, but after some negotiation they were returned, much to our relief.

As we drove through the city to our airport we couldn’t help but notice the thousands of blue, white, red and green (colors of the Uzbek flag) lights strung along the light poles and across the streets. Termez was either the most patriotic city in the country, or, as one traveler joked, it was simply to let NATO drones know that they had crossed from the Afghan border into friendly territory.

Goodbye Tajikistan. Hello again, Uzbekistan.

October 16, 2012

Goodbye, Tajikistan. It was far too short of a visit, but I’m sure we’ll meet again someday. The rugged Pamirs are calling my name…

We were headed to Tashkent, where I had overnighted only a few days prior when I first arrived in Central Asia. The road from Khujand to the Uzbek border was new, having recently been built by the Chinese. After the usual jockeying for position at the chaotic passport control “lines”, we had finally managed to make it back into Uzbekistan. The drive through the Uzbek countryside to Tashkent took less than two hours.



Cotton fields



With a population of 2.2 million, Tashkent is the largest city among the post-Soviet republics of Central Asia. Though it still retains the hallmarks of Soviet planning (large blocks of prefab apartment buildings, wide boulevards, and well maintained parks) the city is undergoing a construction boom, with miles of new apartment and office buildings being erected along the main boulevards.

We were leaving for Samarkand the following morning, so only had an afternoon to explore (however we would be returning to Tashkent yet again later in the trip).


Martyrs’ Memorial Complex, erected to honor the victims of Russian and Soviet rule



Tashkent TV tower


Courage Memorial that commemorates the powerful earthquake that struck Tashkent on April 26, 1966, leaving over 300,000 residents homeless. Afterward, construction workers from all areas of the Soviet Union converged on Tashkent to help rebuild the city.

And then we wandered the streets of my favorite part of Tashkent, Old Town. The Old Town felt like we had entered another world; gone were the highrises and traffic clogged streets, now replaced by low mud brick houses and narrow, shaded streets.







From the Old Town we continued to Hast Imam Square, where we saw Caliph Uthman’s Koran, the oldest in the world. Completed in the year 651, its words written on pages of deer skin, it is considered the primary source of Islam. Legend has it that Uthman, a former companion of Muhammad, was reading from this Koran when he was murdered by a group of rioters, staining the pages with his blood.



Barakh-khan Madrasah


The Tellya-Sheikh Mosque



And then on to Independence Square…



Memorial to the 400,000 Uzbek soldiers killed in World War II (The Great Patriotic War)



Names of the soldiers engraved on these large plaques



We saw newlyweds nearly everyday we were in Uzbekistan. It is quite common to have wedding photos taken in front of historical monuments and buildings, so we were constantly encountering them.


A statue of Lenin once stood here. It was replaced with this globe, a monument to Uzbek independence.

Uzbekistan: From Tashkent to the Fergana Valley

October 13-14, 2012

After 16+ hours of being stuffed like a sardine in a can (but with free German beer!), I landed in Tashkent around 10pm. It took two hours to clear passport control and customs, so I didn’t arrive to my hotel until around midnight. Instead of going directly to bed, like any sane person would, I spent some time Tweeting/Facebooking/whatever and finally crashed at 2:30am.

And before I knew it, I was awake again at 6am and headed to the Fergana Valley, a five hour drive away. Uzbekistan has interesting radio stations, by the way. One minute they’ll be playing the Beatles’ “Back in the USSR” (ironic, no?) and the next minute MC Hammer’s “Too Legit to Quit”. Yes, MC Hammer.

Tashkent itself appeared to be like every other post-Soviet city I had previously traveled to, with plenty of communist block apartments, wide boulevards, and grandiose monuments. Although I didn’t see sheep grazing in the medians of Kiev and Moscow, so that was something new. But those were just cursory observations; I would return to Tashkent a few days later to explore further.

Outside the city limits of Tashkent, the scenery changed to cotton fields and herders driving their cattle along the roadside. In the small towns along the highway, old men gathered at dilapidated chaikhanas to sip tea and trade stories. Dozens of cars waited patiently at the entrances of palatial gas stations that have no gas to dispense; it reminded me of scenes from the Energy Crisis in the 1970s.

We began to climb the winding roads leading higher into the mountainous terrain. The views from up there were spectacular, interrupted only by the occasional police checkpoint and massive tunnels bored through the mountains, guarded at each end by Kevlar clad, Kalashnikov toting soldiers.

Finally through the mountains, we arrived in the Fergana Valley, the cotton and bread basket of Uzbekistan. Pull up the region on Google Maps and you’ll see an oasis of green surrounded by the dry, desert Tien-Shan and Gissar-Alai mountain ranges. On our way to Rishtan, where I was rendezvousing with my company’s tour group (oh yeah, did I mention this was a work trip?) we passed miles of cotton fields being picked by (mostly) women workers. There is no mechanical harvesting in Uzbekistan, so these women endure hours of back-breaking work to provide for their families. Driving further, we passed barren fields where dozens of large seismic trucks idled. Yes, the Chinese oil companies are here, eagerly searching for that black gold. My eyes began to sting – we traded our fresh mountain air for the dust and smoke of the valley. It smelled of burning trash and agricultural waste.

I’m embarrassed to admit that prior to this trip I had little knowledge of this region of Central Asia. Up until now, the only things I associated it with were ethnic conflict and Islamic fundamentalism. One of my grad school professors was slightly obsessed with these topics, so we spent a lot of class time covering them. Thankfully this visit would give me a chance to learn a bit more about the region.

The Fergana Valley encompasses portions of three countries – Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan – but in reality the entire region is a jumble of ethnicities, rather than clearly delineated by borders. You’ve got some Uzbeks living in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, some Kyrgyz living in Uzbekistan, Tajiks in Kyrgyzstan, and well, you get the idea. The ethnic conflicts that erupted as the Soviet Union collapsed, and which continue to this day, have their origins in the 1920s, when Josef Stalin arbitrarily divided Central Asia into Soviet Republics without any regard for ethnicity.

fergana_valley_ethnic_groups
Source: The Economist

I met up with our tour group and we headed to Kokand, a city of 192,000 that has existed since the 10th century, and, like most things in Central Asia, was razed to the ground by the Mongols in the 13th century. This would be a recurring theme of our travels throughout the region.

Here we visited the Palace of Khudáyár Khán, home of the last ruler of the Khanate of Kokand. The Khanate of Kokand was a Central Asian state that was established in 1709. But in the 1870s the Russians arrived and abolished the Khanate, declaring it part of Russian Turkestan.

Yes, finally, pictures:


Entrance to the palace


These guys asked me to take their picture, so I did.

After visiting the palace we had a few hours to rest at the hotel before dining at the home of a local family. They served the Fergana version of plov, which is the national dish of Uzbekistan and incredibly tasty. Seriously, it is one of my favorite comfort foods and I would eat it every day if I could. Lamb, rice, carrots, onions, and spices – how can you go wrong?

It was early to bed that evening, as we were departing early that morning for the portion of the Fergana Valley located in Tajikistan. Yes, I had been in Uzbekistan for barely 36 hours and was already leaving. But this trip to Tajikistan was just a quick jaunt, I’d be back in Uzbekistan the following day.

More photos here.