The present day capital of Uzbekistan, Tashkent, is the 4th largest city in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) behind Moscow, St Petersburg and Kiev.
Back in 1219, the city was destroyed by Genghis Khan as he rampaged towards the West, although it was to fare slightly better under Temur (Tamerlane) and his successors during the 14th and 15th centuries.
In the late 14th century, Tashkent was a pale shadow of the modern day capital city. Temur had little to do with it as Samarkand was the seat of his empire and Bukhara his religious capital.
Over the following 300 years, there were many clashes with local clans and it wasn’t until 1809 that Tashkent was annexed to the Khanate of Kokand, which consisted of much of what today is the Fergana Valley which is in eastern Uzbekistan. At that time, Tashkent was considered to be the richest city in Central Asia, prospering greatly through its trading links with Russia.
Tsarist Russia, at that time, was keen to make progress southwards towards India and in 1864, Major General Mikhail Chernaiev attempted to capture the city during a daring night-time raid. On this occasion the attack was repelled.
The Emir of Bukhara was also interested in taking Tashkent under his control. Chernaiev, with this in mind, and also the prospect of gaining “Great Game” kudos in St Petersburg, persuaded him to try again the following year, much to the indignation of Tsar Alexander, who had ordered him not to attack. Chernaiev was successful but had to campaign fiercely to win over the city’s residents to his side.
The fall of the Russian Empire saw Tashkent become the capital of the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Republic (ASSR) and when, in 1924, the borders were revised, it fell within the new boundaries of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) and displaced Samarkand as the capital city.
During the Inter-war years, Tashkent saw a lot of industrialisation and when the Russian Government relocated factories from western Russia and Ukraine in the face of Hitler’s invasion, Tashkent became even more influential. So much so that, after the War, many refugees decided to settle in Tashkent instead of moving back to their former homes.
In 1966, much of the old city was completely destroyed by a massive earthquake and in spite of extensive rebuilding programmes, little architectural heritage survived and there is little evidence today that marks Tashkent’s significance as a trading point on the historic Silk Road.
Two years after independence was thrust upon a bewildered leadership due to events beyond its borders, President Karimov unveiled a statue of Temur in Tashkent’s Central Square. Having been a Communist supremo, Karimov needed to restore his reputation and who better to galvanise the country behind him than Temur, rebranded as an Uzbek hero. He was no longer the destructive tyrant the Soviets had labelled. He was now the glorious saviour of Uzbekistan.
He took his place atop a marble plinth as the latest in a succession of nationalist symbols, ahead of the likes of Marx, Stalin and Lenin.
We are given a hot meal a couple of hours after take-off (at midnight - GMT) which was very nice, but I am exhausted. It’s been a very long day and I just want to go to sleep. When everything is cleared away, the lights are turned out to encourage sleep! Not very likely for my shot putt friend. He’s still standing up in the aisle. I try to doze off – and fail miserably so I plug in my iPod to listen to some music. After a couple of hours, the lights go back on as the staff want to serve breakfast. But we’ve only just had supper! Nevertheless, the trolleys come out and we are served a full cooked breakfast. Not what you want really at 2 o’clock in the morning – that’s what it is effectively.
As we begin our descent into Tashkent, I go onto Uzbek time – it’s now 7.00am. I am beginning to wonder how big our group is going to be. Apart from t’other Peter, I have not been able to identify any of our fellow explorers, although I have an inkling over one couple, and I am proved right.
There are 20 of us in the group as we congregate around Laura before enduring the bureaucracy that is Uzbekistan Customs. On the plane we had been given two identical forms to fill in, asking for such information as the breakdown of any currency we are bringing in to the country. As the Uzbekistan ‘sum’ is not available in the UK, I have brought some euros, some US dollars and I have a bit of sterling. Each denomination note has to be disclosed.
Forewarned is forearmed because as we approach the Passport Control booths, these forms are scrutinised in minute detail and rubber stamped goodness knows how many times. Obsolete or non-applicable sections have to be crossed through using a pen and a ruler, signed, dated and stamped by the customs officer.
I begin to form the impression that Uzbekistan must be a country with ‘full employment’ if this is the level of bureaucracy. Eventually, a rather tired and limp copy of the form is returned to me. Laura tells us to make sure we keep the form somewhere safe as we will need to produce it along with a fresh set of forms in order to leave the country.
We emerge into the scrum of the baggage reclaim and have to wait for Laura in the corner once we have collected our bags. All bags have arrived – except one!
Tracey from Leicester is visibly upset and is being comforted by her travel companions. She is surprisingly stoical about the fact that she is the only bag-less person. It has happened to her before when she went to Argentina, so she has come prepared with some clean underwear in her hand luggage. This is something that I always do, although, touch wood, my bag has never gone AWOL.
Whilst we wait for Tracey and Laura to sort out the missing bag with the airport authorities, I hear cheering out in the arrivals lounge. It is our Olympian friends being welcomed home. I am so pleased for them, they thoroughly deserve their accolade and as we will notice over the course of our visit, they are indeed national heroes.
So, with our depleted volume of luggage, we make our way across the car park towards our bus. Not luxurious but acceptable. It has just turned 9.00am and the heat is already oppressive.
I had read as part of my research that Uzbekistan gets on average 300 days of sunshine a year and under 300mm of rain. So, I concluded that there was a fairly high chance that it was going to be hot, even in September, when, they say, travel is more comfortable. My hat is going to be an essential accessory.
***
As the bus gets moving, we are introduced to two key aspects of what it is going to be like here in Uzbekistan. First, the need to drink plenty of bottled water. We are all issued with a large bottle of water and are told that this will be a daily feature for the rest of our trip. Second, the condition of the roads. Not the volume of traffic but the road surfaces. They are awful!
The international airport is about an hour away from our first hotel so we only have a short-ish time to endure the potholes. The bus has some air conditioning which is encouraging.
Much to our surprise on arrival at our hotel, they have laid on a late breakfast for us. It is all very nice and much appreciated but we don’t really need it having had our fill on the plane. It’s a good opportunity to meet some of my fellow travellers. I am sitting at a table with 2 couples, Paul and Jean come from Bath in Somerset and Mark and Sue from Andover in Hampshire. I’m able to break the ice very easily as I was born and brought up in Bath and I now live in Hampshire. We have a lot in common so we have an easy conversation over fried eggs and bacon about our respective places of residence. Paul and Jean know the village that I grew up in and are familiar with what was once my local pub. A small world!
We have a couple of hours to freshen up and relax before embarking on a tour of Tashkent. It gives me a chance to get my hat out of my suitcase. I stow it away there as it’s a bit cumbersome to have as hand luggage. I stuff it full of underwear and socks so that it keeps its shape.
I need to exchange some money. The hotel has a small bank so I venture off in search of it and discover a small window in the business suite. With a variety of hand signals I manage to get the cashier to understand that I want to exchange $100 into Uzbekistan Sum. She looks somewhat perplexed as if to say, “Are you sure?” I smile at her and she disappears behind a screen to talk to her colleague. After about 5 minutes she re-emerges with a huge pile of bundled notes. I thought she was replenishing her till but she proceeds to put all these notes through a counting machine. I then begin to wonder if all these notes are for me. I knock on the glass and point at the notes and then point at myself with an enquiring expression on my face. She nods. I make her understand that I don’t want that many notes and produce a $20 bill and point at it. She huffs and puffs, gathers up her pile of notes and goes off in search of her colleague behind the screen. I could sense all the derogatory things they were saying about me. She returns with a smaller pile of notes. It is still a lot of notes and I wonder how I will fit them in my wallet. I also think that if this lot is worth only $20, things must be incredibly cheap and it turns out that they are.
I keep some of the notes in my wallet and store the remainder at the bottom of my camera bag.
Paul admires my hat and asks where I got it from. I tell him it was given to me by the captain of my local cricket team as a ‘thank you’ for umpiring all the matches during the season a couple of years ago. I now wear it as I’m umpiring and it goes with me on all my travels. He’s is a cricketer so we have something else to talk about.
Back on the bus, we are introduced to Tatiana, our local Uzbek guide who will be coming with us for the entire trip. Her English is good but with a heavy Russian accent so we have to listen carefully to understand what she is saying.
One thing she does say, and in hindsight, I now wish I had waited, is that she will be able to exchange money on the bus each day and will give us a better rate than the hotels or banks. Hindsight is a wonderful thing!
The bus deposits us at the entrance to one of the main bazaars in Tashkent. Tatiana gives us a brief insight into the importance of the bazaars in everyday life of local Uzbeks. It is a key part of their lives. Once or twice a week, people come to the bazaar to trade produce that they have grown in their fields.
What an amazing place. It has a real buzz about it. This is real Uzbekistan and how ordinary people live their lives and make their livelihood.
We are given 40 minutes to wander around.
The stall holders are mainly women. They are all very friendly and keen to sell their produce. There is no shortage of fruit, vegetables, nuts and spices, all immaculately displayed in pyramids and it seems a shame to spoil them. There are bright orange piles of spices and other such delicacies. I am keen to capture this colour on camera and the ladies are equally as keen to pose behind their piles of produce. When they smile I have to do a double take. I am amazed at the rows of sparkling gold teeth. Upper and lower sets are gold! It puts my gold crown to shame.
Tashkent Bazaar – she didn’t smile!
I don’t fancy any of the spices but I do buy some of her apples. I try to strike up a conversation with the gold-toothed lady but she doesn’t understand so I hold up three fingers and point at the pyramid of red apples. Surprisingly, she bends down and picks three red apples out of a sack. The shiny ones are obviously for show only. I hand over a 100 sum note as that is the only denomination that I have. She rootles around in her apron to find some change but I wave my hand telling her not to bother. My note is only worth about 25p and she is looking to give me some change. How on earth do they make a living? A big grin breaks out on her face, her gold teeth glistening. She reaches across and grabs my hand and in very crude English she says “Thank you”. I must have made her day by giving her 25p and taking away 3 apples. Despite not being as shiny as the ones in her pyramid, the ones I bought are delicious.
She loves my hat. She hasn’t seen anything like this before. She wants to try it on. She likes it so much she wants to keep it and tries to buy it off me. She brings out a large bundle of notes from her apron and offers them to me. I gesture back that I don’t want them and that I want my hat back. Reluctantly, she obliges and hands it back to me.
Even as I walk away, my new friend still has a broad golden smile. I wonder what she will tell her family about me and my hat – and all for the sake of 25p.
As I wander around it becomes more and more apparent to me the differences between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ and just how hard the ‘have-nots’ have to work to eke out a living to support their families.
I get lots of strange looks. It must be the hat, or at least I hope it’s the hat they are looking at! I doff my hat and smile. I get lots more gold-toothed smiles back. Dentists in Uzbekistan must do a roaring trade!
I meet up with t’other Peter. He has bought some bananas and it turns out that he has had the same experience as me. These ladies are just so friendly and they want to convey just how much selling a few bits of fruit to a tourist means to them. They don’t see many ‘western’ visitors, especially one with a grey beard and a funny hat. The children love it too. Their grasp of English is much more apparent. They obviously learn it in school and we are able to have some really good banter with them. Sue has bought some nuts and is nibbling away.
Before going back to our hotel, Tatiana leads us down some steps for a ride on the Metro. She is at pains to tell us that under no circumstances are we allowed to take any photos of the station platforms. I don’t understand the reason and it is a real shame because I have never seen such exquisitely decorated stations. It must be a throwback to the old Soviet era and a rule that has yet to be lifted. The sooner they do the better!
The ride is as uneventful as a ride on the Tube in London. After three stops we alight at the stop for Independence Square and as we emerge we are confronted with a huge steel arch adorned with storks that are a symbol of peace. The main feature of the Square is a huge statue of Amir Temur. This is our first encounter with this revered historical figure about whom I had read such a lot.
Independence Square, Tashkent
As we make our way back to the bus, we suddenly get a soaking. Obviously, at 6pm every day the sprinklers are turned on to water the grass. Most of the water, however, seems to be going over the pathways instead of over the grass! I wonder if this is to supplement the 300mm of annual rainfall.
Dinner is in the hotel. Laura tells us that we have a very early start in the morning. We groan! She says that we have to be at the domestic airport for our flight to Urgench at 7.00am so that means alarm calls at 4.30, breakfast from 5.00, bags outside rooms to be collected no later than 5.30. The bus will leave at 6.00. We groan again! Bang goes the idea of having a few beers in the bar after dinner. Paul, Jean, Mark, Sue and I manage to have one and then decide to turn in.