Soviet Satellites - Uzbekistan

20 Jun 2016 . category: Travel . Comments
#Soviet

Intro

And so we came to our final Stan: Uzbekistan. It contains the lion’s share of famous Silk Road cities such as Samarkand and Khiva, and is where we spent most of our time this trip (around a week). As such, this post will be a bit less detailed than the others.

Thankfully, walking across the border by ourselves from Tajikistan wasn’t a problem despite all those scary stories from Boz, and we were met on the other side by our guide for the entire week, Utkir, as well as our driver, Erkin. Our vehicle for the week was a trusty white Chevrolet, like basically every other car in the country. This is really only a slight exaggeration, as we routinely had trouble finding our car in a sea of identical white sedans:

Apparently, due to high import taxes for vehicles, most people drive the Chevrolets produced by GM Uzbekistan.

Soon after the border, we also exchanged money for the first time. Uzbekistan has a black market for USD which is almost twice as good as the official government rate (around 5800 vs. 3300 while we were there). And while black market makes it sound sketchy, you can basically change money everywhere. Many storekeepers would openly quote rates at us once they heard us speaking English. No need for a shifty guy with a trash bag in the bazaar, though those apparently also exist. There’s also another quirk: Uzbekistan’s highest denomination bill is 5000, less than a single US Dollar! So, paying for anything in Uzbekistan involves handing over a huge stack of cash. I’m still unclear as to why they don’t print a larger bill…the lost productivity from having to count cash all the time seems unfortunate. Here’s a picture of a hundred dollar bill and all the som it turned into:

Samarkand

From the border, we drove to our first city, Samarkand. We were welcomed at dinner with, what else, vodka. The restaurant also had live music, with various groups getting up to dance, from older women to a band of high school guys. It was definitely more raucous than I expected given Ramadan. Here’s a bad picture of some of the dancing:

The next day was sightseeing in the earnest. Samarkand definitely has the most quintessentially beautiful buildings of Central Asia, with stunning tilework and blue domes. Though unfortunately, this is only because of aggressive restorations throughout. Highlights included the Shah-i-Zinda Mausoleum Complex with its beautiful tilework:

as well as the Mausoleum of Uzbekistan’s national hero, Timur. And of course, the Registan, three madrasas at the center of the city, each in stunning blue tile:

In Samarkand, we also experienced Uzbek plov for the first time. Or as our guidebook described it, “plov, glorious plov.” It’s a cousin of pilaf, but with the rice cooked in a fatty, meaty stew. Every region of the country has its own variant, which is of course the best. Here’s a shot of our Samarkand plate (one big one for the whole table):

On our way out of Samarkand, we stopped by Shakhrisabz, the birthplace of Timur. It gives a glimpse as to what Samarkand would have looked like without restorations. Generally, a pretty decent percentage of the tilework is still preserved:

Bukhara

Next up was Bukhara, where we spent three nights (basically one too many). For me, the highlight here was the Ark Citadel, former residence of the Emir of Bukhara. It contains the bug pit where Stoddart and Conolly of Great Game fame were kept, and also the square where they were executed. Peter Hopkirk’s The Great Game is a great read for anyone interested in this and other stories about Central Asia, a nonfiction book that reads like an exciting thriller.

The other highlight was the Chor Minor, a madrasa with four minarets that also graces the cover of the Lonely Planet Central Asia guidebook. Every traveler we came across in the Stans seemed to have this book.

While in the area, we also saw the Emir’s Summer Palace and the mausoleum of Isma’il Somoni, Tajikistan’s national hero. This is slightly awkward, but is due the USSR’s particular partitioning of the region in the early 20th century. As such, many parts of Uzbekistan have substantial, or even majority Tajik populations. And of course, Uzbekistan has Timur to be their national hero.

Ayazkala: Yurt Stay!

Up next was a yurt stay, actually in the middle of nowhere in the desert:

Unsurprisingly, our guide and driver were not particularly happy about having to stay there with us. Utkir asked us why the hell we had chosen to stay here, when there was human civilization thirty minutes away. But this seemed like an interesting Central Asian experience, albeit one constructed for tourists. Our camp was complete with a couple camels just chilling, and the ruins of a fort in the background:

Despite Utkir’s warnings about the accomodations and food, we actually had a pretty good time. The nearby ancient forts were quite fun to climb up and around, and dinner (plov of course) was pretty good.

We also met a kindred spirit traveler while staying at the yurts, a retired gentleman named Michael who was also traveling across Central Asia, and had recently been to both North Korea and Iran. Hopefully I’m that cool when I’m older! Here’s Aaron and I with the yurt the morning of our departure:

Khiva

From Ayazkala we drove to Khiva for the day, basically a well-preserved old city, a “museum city” as our guidebook described it. Unfortunately, by this point in the trip I was a little tired of seeing blue tiled madrasas, and it was punishingly hot outside. But, in hindsight, it really was a beautiful area, and climbing out on the old city walls was a good time.

To Tashkent

We took an evening flight to Tashkent, Uzbekistan’s capital and also Central Asia’s largest city. It and Almaty were definitely the most modern cities we visited. The flight was completely ridiculous, beginning with these hand-written boarding passes:

Then, once on the plane, we realized that the seats weren’t fixed, being able to fold completely down and forward. The many unoccupied seats of course all did this upon landing. In addition, our checked luggage was merely dragged into the cabin for us, and we could see compressed oxygen streaming into the cabin and all the condensation it caused.

Thankfully, we made it to Tashkent in one piece, only to find that our initial hotel completely booked on account of an upcoming meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Our driver was thankfully still with us and found us accomodations elsewhere. The next day, we did some sightseeing in Tashkent, including lunch at the National Plov Center. Look at these huge batches of plov!

For our last dinner, we went to this Uzbek fast food clone, BBQ Burger, and finished up with a “cocktail.” We had strugled all day to actually find cocktails, with most places’ cocktails actually just being smoothies. This one bar supposedly had only one drink, a Long Island Iced Tea, which turned out to basically be some sort of orange juice and liquor concoction…

From here it was time to say goodbye to Utkir and the Stans, onwards to Moldova! A picture of the three of us from the last day:

Stans Parting Thoughts

I’m so glad I had the chance to visit these Silk Road countries, even if we did end up missing Turkmenistan. Would definitely encourage anyone considering a trip to go for it! As mentioned before, Central Asia is a region with an incredibly diverse set of histories and peoples. It’s also a great place to see the strong legacies of Soviet control, as well as the very recent construction of national and ethnic identities.

I think if I had to do it over again, I might opt for arranging my own accomodations along with day guides/drivers, as we ended up staying in unnecessarily nice hotels. Traveling through the region totally alone is definitely possible, though one would probably need to be time flexible given the possibility for things to go wrong, lack of English speakers, etc.

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