Today I fly from Ljubljana via Moscow to Tashkent, which is the capital of Uzbekistan. It takes all day to get here and I arrive at 2:30am local time. It’s an easy flash of the passport (no visa requirement) through emigration and there’s a transfer organised so it’s all fairly easy. Our organised tour starts tomorrow, well today…. but for now it’s time for a few hours sleep.
Day 1: We are staying in a central location in downtown Tashkent so we set out for a ramble to get our bearings and explore a bit of the city. Tashkent is the largest city in Central Asia with a population of over 2 million. It was part of the USSR until that fell apart and it got its independence in 1991. The city has a mix of Russian and Uzbek style and people; and all the signs, menus etc are in both Uzbek and Russian.
We find a bank to get some local money. The exchange rate is approx 10,000 som (cym) to the euro so we get a wad of notes and yet again I‘m a millionaire for a few days! We check out the local market and buy a really juicy pear.
We walk around the streets and jump on the metro to check out a couple of stations as they are all individually decorated like in Russia. According to the guidebook you’re not allowed take photos in the metro but apparently that’s out of date and we can snap away!!
Some of the stations are like art galleries:
We visit the Orthodox Church – The Church of the Assumption which is recognised for its golden domes and blue facade. Inside it’s big and bright with a large iconostasis and lots of icons.
We spot a stall selling somsas which looks really popular so, as it’s just about lunchtime, we decide to try them out. They are piping hot and are delicious. We get a couple of meat and a couple of cheese and it costs us less than €1.
Throw in a cup of cider, for all of 10 cents, and that’s lunch sorted!
A bit more rambling around checking out the buildings and roads and avoiding uneven paths and ditches…. there are ditches along the side of every pathway and road – they’re an absolute death trap!
In 1966 a massive earthquake hit the area and levelled most of the city. It measured 5.1 on the Richter scale and left 300,000 people homeless. Most of the historic buildings were destroyed so the city was rebuilt mostly by the Soviets. There are a lot of older Soviet buildings and new more modern buildings built since independence in 1991.
The famous Hotel Uzbekistan with its Soviet design is just around the corner. At night time it is lit up with different lights and advertising.
This evening we meet our tour group which consists of ten Australians plus me and one other older Irish woman from Dublin. Our guide is a young guy called Fazliddin aka Fazli. I’m definitely the baby on this trip… 😀
Day 2: Today we have a day of site seeing starting with a visit to the Khast Imom Complex which has a fairly newly built mosque .. it looks old but it’s fairly new…
Also in the complex is the Barak Khan Madrasa (a Madrasa is a college for Islamic instruction – this is the first of many we will see on this trip). The guide explains that the imam leads prayers in the mosque and in order to be an imam you must have memorised the whole Quran. We take the opportunity for our first group photo:
Fazli tells us the next “object” to visit is the Chorsu Bazaar, one of the largest and oldest markets in Central Asia. It’s a giant marketplace and a fantastic way to see locals going about their daily lives. There are amazing fruits and vegetables and the meat section, where we see horse, is quite a site to see…
We visit the Kaffal Shashi mausoleum where we see a Quran written by one of Mohammad’s four disciples. Also in the Library is the smallest quaran and quarans translated into many different languages, even one in Braille.
After lunch which is at an oddly modern US diner type restaurant we make a quick stop at the national ballet and opera theatre
We do a quick one hour run through the The History Museum which is just enough as it’s hard to take everything in. We do hear a lot about Amir Temür aka Tamerlane who was the most powerful ruler in the Muslim world in the late 1300’s and into the early 15th century. It’s apt then that our next stop is at Amir Temur Square in the central park with the statue of Amir Temur on horseback and the imposing Hotel Uzbekistan behind.
Our last stop of the day is at the Roman Catholic Church of Tashkent. It has quite an unusual feel to it as when you walk in the main doors you have to go to the right and climb steps to get to the main church. It’s brightly decorated with minders stain glass windows. There’s a lot of Mother Teresa stuff around, must be because it was her birthday a couple of weeks ago (same day as me in fact!).
After a little rest back at the hotel we head out for dinner and have a feast of local meat and salad… delicious!
Tomorrow we head south to Samerkand so bye for now Tashkent.
odohertyelaine 