Uzbekistan

Having wanted to go to Uzbekistan for quite a long time, I finally found myself at the airport with destination "Tashkent", Uzbekistan's capital. I was in a group of 16 people, including the guide and myself. Everybody was quite a bit older than me, but that was the least of my concerns. Did I have any? Not really, other than I'm not the group-traveling person, so I wasn't sure what to expect of this trip. Hopefully, I would have enough time and possibilities to explore on my own! As I quickly found out, that wasn't a problem at all.
We flew with Turkish Airlines with a layover in Istanbul. 4 hours are quite long to spend at an airport, but unfortunately too short to take a ride into the city. We arrived in Tashkent around 1am; immigration was quite swift. The same can't be said for the unloading of our luggage. Quite annoying at this hour, even if it was the local time and for us it was really only 10 or 11pm. But eventually we got everything, met our local guide Marina and headed to our comfortable hotel downtown (the former Sheraton).

The next (late) morning we met for a city tour by bus. I must admit that I was positively surprised by this city, the 4th largest in the former Soviet Union (after Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kiev). There are many public parks and the streets are wide and lined with trees. There's quite a lot of open space. There aren't that many old buildings; some are very modern, but most are typical Soviet slab type buildings ("Plattenbauten" in German). Those aren't pretty to look at, but still, the overall impression of Tashkent was more favorable than I had expected. The main reason for this openness is an earthquake in 1966, which completely flattened the city. It was rebuilt within 4 years (hence the many slab type buildings). And this gave the city planners an opportunity to include large squares and parks, which they did. Amongst the buildings that survived the earthquake were a couple of mosques and medressas (schools), which gave us an idea of what we would encounter in Uzbekistan: impressive entrance portals and elaborate mosaics. Furthermore we visited the bazaar (market) of Tashkent, which is a very interesting place. (Unfortunately, I'm not too keen on taking pictures of locals, so there's nothing to show.) There are different sections: spices, vegetables, meat, bread, but also clothes, shoes, brooms and whatever else you might need in and around your house. Not being a big shopper myself, I wasn't really interested in what they were selling, but fascinated by the people milling about this bazaar. I'd say that short of black people, any ethny was present: there were people with Central Asian look (whatever that might be), people who seemed to descend from Russians (more European look), Koreans (whose ancestors had been deported in the 30s) and Mongolians (who seemed to have hung around since Genghis Khan had invaded that region in the 13th century).

The next morning at 9am we were going to leave for Samarkand. Shortly after 8am, I decided that there were a couple of things in Tashkent that I wanted to get a closer look at. I either saw them late in the afternoon when the light wasn't good to take pictures or I only saw them briefly from the bus, such as the Independence Square (formerly Lenin Square, the largest in the Soviet Union). I told our guide that I'd go for a stroll and bus and subway ride, gave him my cell phone number (just in case), but promised to be back by 9am. I thought to have caught a hint of a raised eyebrow and he did voice his concern that 45 minutes might not be enough to do what I anticipated to do. First, I walked to a building close by to take a picture in the morning sun with just the right angle of light fall. Then I wanted to catch a bus to the Independence Square where there were a couple of sculptures that I wanted to get a closer look at. So I boarded one that was heading into the general direction. (I must say, that I did have a city map in my "Lonely Planet" guidebook, so it wasn't like I could get terribly lost.) I'd known from the hotel's receptionist that tickets could be purchased on the bus. Sure enough there was a guy selling tickets who stood up front, right next to the driver. I gave him a 1000 Sum bill (about 1US$) for a ride that cost 160 Sum. Remember, he's the guy selling the tickets. What does he do? He hands my 1000 Sum bill to the driver who – at the same time that he is driving the bus with his elbows – counts 100 Sum bills to be returned to me! The "ticket seller" (or whatever his job may be) hands me 800 Sum and motions me to the back of the bus. There's another "ticket seller" who hands me the missing 40 Sum! By this time, the bus had arrived at its final destination, which just happened to be across the street from the Independence Square. Nowadays, the square is covered by a lot of grass and the walkways are lined by bushes, but from pictures I deduce that it used to be a huge military parade "playground" during Soviet times. One of the entrances to the really huge square is decorated by a newly built structure, the "Arch of Noble and Kind Aspirations". On top of it there's a silver sculpture with storks and a crane that are just about to fly away, off a globe prominently displaying Uzbekistan's shape. There's another globe in the background, this one golden (or sort of).
The square isn't really noteworthy (other than for its size), and was going to sink into oblivion next to squares that I was about to see later on this trip. But I had just wanted to get a closer look than the quick glimpse I got out of the bus.
The subway station was right there, so I took it for one station, back to the vicinity of the hotel. By 8:50am I was back in the hotel lobby and actually the first one there. When my travel companions showed up they thought that I had slept until then and at first had a hard time believing me that I'd already taken bus and subway that morning.
I guess that's when I established my position as an individual traveler within the group and I think from then on I had our guide's trust that I'd find my way around.

The bus ride to Samarkand took 5 hours. It used to be possible in about 4 hours, but an international border got in our way. When the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, some countries became independent that had never existed like this before. Uzbekistan was one of them. The cities I was going to visit used to be governed by a king - the function being called Emir or Khan. Those cities and their surroundings were called emirates or khanates. They were independent and fought each other. In the mid 1800s the Russians arrived and the khans and emirs became some sort of Russian puppet government. Then they became part of the Soviet Union. In the 1920s the Soviet Socialist Republic of Uzbekistan was founded and borders were drawn more or less arbitrarily. This had no big consequences in the Soviet Union where all republics belonged to the same country. But in 1991 these borders all of a sudden became international borders. The most direct (and best) road from Tashkent to Samarkand now goes through foreign territory - a corner of Kazakstan. If I understood properly, then it was still possible a few years ago to drive through that Kazak territory, but it seems that the border has been closed since - because too many Uzbeks went shopping in cheaper Kazakstan. Or so the president's reasoning goes. I'm not sure. They seem to be closing and opening border crossings to their likening; more closing than opening from what I hear. And to imagine that these have never been international borders before! Must be tough on the people living close to the border, because since the borders were arbitrary, they sometimes cut right through an ethnic people.