Where are Ron and Ellen?
Central Asia, 17 September - 18 November 2009
Ron and Ellen and Amir Timur (Tamerlane), Tashkent, Uzbekistan, September 2009
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, September-October 2009
To see photos of Tashkent, click on the thumbnail at the left.
To see photos from markets in Tashkent and other places in Uzbekistan, click on the thumbnail at the left.
Waiting in Tashkent
To see photos of clothing styles in Central Asia, click on the thumbnail at the left.
1 October 2009
Tashkent, UzbekistanDear Family and Friends,
We are in Tashkent, staying with Bob McCutcheon, exploring the city and waiting for our passports to come back from registration via the US Embassy. Since we are staying with Bob and not in a hotel, our passports have to go to the Uzbek authorities via the Embassy; if we were regular tourists, each hotel we stayed in would register us. The passports went in on Monday, and we hope to get them back tomorrow; we can't go on to any of the other places we want to go until we have them back. Today is an Uzbek holiday (Teacher's Day), so no action today. In the meanwhile, our accommodations are wonderful -- computer access, laundry facilities, music and movie collections, just like being at home!
As you may surmise from the passport registration process, the Uzbek government keeps very tight control over everything. For example, some Internet sites are blocked (e.g. Google Maps). People as individuals are very polite (young people frequently give us their seats on a crowded bus or tram), but in other situations that politeness disappears. Going through customs at the airport when we flew in from Bishkek was a total mob scene, no lines, with everyone in one big mass pushing and shoving and squeezing around wherever they could to get to one of the two stations; all the baggage had to go through an x-ray machine to come into the country. Took us two hours to get through!
Money has been the most amazing thing to us. It is a cash economy. There are no coins, and bills are in only four denominations: 100, 200, 500, and 1000 som. But 1000 som is worth approximately 50 US cents. This means that if you want to walk around with $20 in your pocket, you have to carry forty 1000 som bills! We have adopted Bob's method of dealing with the money, which is to divide the 1000 or 500 bills into packs of ten of a kind, and fold the 10th bill around the other nine, so you can look in your wallet and count groups of ten -- one group of ten 1000 som noted is approximately $5. There are no ATM machines (actually, there are two in the city, but neither is ever in service -- how could they function when they would have to be stocked with so many bills!), so you change money at a bank (the poor official rate 1500+) or in the market with the "official" black market guys at a much better rate (~1900 som to the dollar). When you change $200, you end up with a stack of bank notes that is approximately 3 inches high. Because it is a tightly controlled society,there is almost no petty crime (crime is all corruption at higher levels), and you'll see people walking around the market with "bricks" of money in hand. Bob carries his money in a zip-lock plastic bag in his pocket. Try closing your wallet with 40 bills in it!
Those of you interested in software will want to know that, although it is not yet available in the US, Microsoft 7 was for sale in Bishkek. Here in Tashkent, although we haven't been to a place selling software, Bob says he sent his assistant out several months ago to try and buy a legal copy of XP or Vista, and it turned out to be impossible. Legal copies of anything -- CDs, DVDs, software, whatever -- simply don't exist.
Here in Tashkent, as we have been wandering around the city, we see a real mix of clothing on women. Western-style clothing is always very dressy, usually with high heels (we find it amazing that women can walk as much as they do here in high heels!), whether with jeans, short skirts, or longer skirts. But we see lots of women of all ages in more traditional Muslim dress, with longer skirts and head scarves. Men also range from suits and ties to t-shirts.
Public transportation here in Tashkent is excellent, with an extensive system of light rail, metro, trolley buses, trams, buses, and mini-buses (and, of course, taxis). We have a map showing all the different routes in the city, and have been able to easily get anywhere we want to go -- and home again.
The markets are extensive and fascinating, and we have been in several. There are large separate sections for each type of merchandise, whether it be fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, bread, clothing, candy and cookies, etc. Uzbekistan's Fergana Valley is an agricultural area growing beautiful fruits and vegetables, and the melons from here are famous all over the former Soviet Union. We've been eating wonderful tomatoes (compensation for leaving home when our tomatoes were still producing) and cucumbers and eggplant. We bought a big melon several days ago and it was indeed very tasty, similar to our honeydew, but a very different shape, elongated and oval. Next we plan to try one of the watermelons. You see automobile-sized piles of them both in the markets and on street corners.
We spent time wandering around Khast Imom, the official religious center of the city, beautiful tiled mosques and minarets and domed buildings. On exhibit in one of the buildings was a section of the oldest known Koran in the world, dating from the 7th century, with huge pages made of deerskin. We also wandered through the nearby "old town" a maze of narrow dirt streets (many too narrow for cars) lined with low houses, almost all of which are inside walls and build around a courtyard, so you go along hoping for a courtyard door to be ajar so you can peek inside. We were followed for a little while by a couple of boys, about 8 or 9, trying out their very limited English, watching with great amusement when we made a turn that they knew would be a dead end, and laughing when we reappeared after backtracking. Another day we went to the Museum of Applied Arts, which has a spectacular collection of embroidered wall hangings and ceramics, housed in a beautiful traditional building with brightly colored mosaics and painted relief carvings on the outside walls and ceilings. We've been in the big parks, with fountains, the World War II memorial, and the huge state buildings.
Today Bob had the day off for the holiday, and drove us up into the mountains about 2 hours from Tashkent, where there is a big reservoir and an area where people go hiking or skiing, depending on the time of year. These mountains aren't as tall as the snow-capped peaks we saw in Kyrgyzstan, but were still quite beautiful, reminding us of the hills and mountains near San Francisco or Los Angeles. The Uzbek Olympic ski team trains there, and we met and talked to (or rather Bob talked to and acted as translator) one of their coaches in a cafe. He was wearing his Olympic jacket from the 2006 Torino games, and will be going with the team to the next games in Vancouver.
So now we are waiting for our passports to come back. If they come tomorrow, we may head out for Bukara tomorrow (depending on the time of the passports' return), or we may wait a day or two. If they don't come tomorrow, we'll be waiting until Monday for sure!
Love to all,
Ellen and Ron
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Last updated: 30 October 2009
