uzbekistan: tashkent

It took me a while to decide where I wanted to go for my 'spring' holiday, I finally settled on Uzbekistan. Since I am American, that meant I had to get a visa before getting on the plane, which was not fun. Finding information online as to how to get the visa was a bit confusing, as there are different rules for different nationalities, (of course,) different fees for different nationalities, (of course,) and I think differing procedures depending on which country you're in when you apply. Sigh.

For me, after asking several people, I found out that I did not need a letter of invitation, thank goodness. I had to use a link online to fill out an application, then print that out and take it to the local Uzbek consulate. (Note, the consulate is not the same as the embassy, and I didn't know this ahead of time.) I got lucky when I arrived at the embassy, as someone asked why I was there, and when I said I wanted to apply for a tourist visa they said it should be done at the consulate then walked with me to the consulate. 

Then the guy helped me get through security, and showed me where to go in the consulate. Then he got the people who were taking their lunch break to step out of the office to accept my application. In other words, it took me about 15 minutes total to apply for my visa. I'd heard horror stories of people waiting for hours, so I was thrilled. I was told to check online to see the status of my application, and come back when it was confirmed.

I went back to the consulate a week later, paid my $160 (lucky Americans have a higher fee than other nationalities,) and passed over my passport. The guy at the window (I had to wait this time, but only for 40 minutes or so,) put the visa sticker in the passport and sent me on my way. YAHOO!!

Getting to Uzbekistan was easy, I had a direct flight each way to the capital city of Tashkent. The flight arrived in the middle of the night, which was not so awesome, especially as the airport in Tashkent is not a major world airport. 

I found a chair, but it wasn't comfortable, and was close to the exit door, so it was rather cold.

When morning rolled around and an exchange stall opened up, I exchanged $100USD. This gave me 815,000som, a pile of money. I could easily be a millionaire in Uzbekistan :)

Tashkent is a modern city in an ancient country. There was an earthquake in 1966 which destroyed most of the city, so what is there now has mostly been built since then. 

A few buildings survived, but hundreds of thousands of people were made homeless, and a couple hundred people died.

I walked out of the airport and found a bus stop to take a local bus into town. I'd already downloaded a local map, and marked the location of my hostel on the map, which made everything easy. I only had to walk a little from the bus stop, and was able to check in immediately.

I spent a few hours in the hostel charging my electronics, figuring out what I wanted to see in the city, and figuring out the local time. (Uzbekistan is two hours ahead of Moscow.) This hostel had separate male and female dorms, and they were across the building from each other. I don't know about the male dorm, but each bed in the female dorm had a curtain that could be pulled across the bed, creating total privacy. Also, each bed had double plugs, which was also fantastic.

My first stop of the day was the main train station of the city. It wasn't nearly as fancy as I thought it should be, considering it was the main station of the capital city. Oh well. Across the street was a memorial for something, though it was written in Uzbek so I had no idea. To cross the street to get to that memorial I had to go through the walkway under the street, which had exits leading to several streets on either side of the main street.

As I walked, I saw at least three buildings with giant murals on the sides. I miss seeing these in Moscow, as I got used to seeing them in Kyiv. I walked through a park, but it wasn't very pretty as the trees were naked. (It was the middle of winter, and all the leaves that had fallen during autumn had been swept away.)

Eventually my walk took me past a Polish Catholic church. This surprised me, as I knew that Uzbekistan is mostly Muslim. 

At first the church appeared to be closed, but I found an open door on a lower level. As the church was made of stone it was quite cold inside, but the windows made it feel light and airy.

Near the church was something called Eco Park. I don't know how eco it was, but I liked the specific walking paths, and managed to avoid getting run over by the bikes not staying in the bike lanes. In this park was an 'I love Tashkent' city sign, of course I took a photo.

Eventually I got to what passes as the city center in Tashkent. The state hotel (I assume) called Hostel Uzbekistan was one of the most boring buildings I've ever seen. I really hope the interior was better than the exterior. Across the street was a massive, white government building. There were gates and guards, so I didn't get too close.

In the middle of this area was a giant statue of Amir Timur, a conqueror who lived mostly in the 14^th century. He was the founder of the Timurid empire in Persia and Central Asia. Uzbekistan is right smack dab in the middle of this part of the world.

Not too far away was the state history museum. There was an entry fee of 6000som, and they wanted 10,000som for permission to take photos! I opted not to pay the fee, out of sheer stubbornness. 

I understand the idea of making money, but prefer they just add a little to the entry fee for everyone, and don't charge an extra photo fee. Also, I have a sneaking suspicion that tourists are the only ones hit with that fee, not locals who come to the museum. 

The building in which the museum is located used to be a mosque, and is still absolutely gorgeous. The center atrium is huge, and there are several large mosaics to see. Absolutely lovely.

Along one hallway was a series of paintings, each of a leader in the Timurid dynasty. Since I didn't know anything about the history of this part of the world, it didn't help me to learn who was the son of who. Each painting had the name of the leader, as well as how/when they died. The one that made me laugh said the guy died when he "fell into the abyss after falling out of his pigeonry."

After leaving the museum I ended up at a park, one that is probably a whole lot nicer in spring or summer. With the empty trees, the park seemed a bit sad, especially as there was no grass, just benches and sidewalks and naked trees. Along one sidewalk many artists had set out paintings for sale.

Independance park was across the street from this mini park. Now this was a proper park, with an entrance gate and everything. 

Inside Independence Park I found an eternal flame, complete with a WW2 memorial. This memorial was pretty incredible, and unique. Large 'pages' had been created, and hinged to walls. Each page listed names of those who had died.

Continuing my walk brought me to the building of the ministry of agriculture and water resources, a ministry doing a terrible job. 

Uzbekistan is mostly desert, and yet the main crops it grows and exports are water intensive. The procedures taking place over decades have taken so much water that the Aral Sea in the west of the country has shrunk almost into nonexistance.

I also passed the circus building, which has what I think of as a 'typical Soviet' architecture. (Typical Soviet circus architecture, that is.)

As sunset started, I walked past a mosque, one of the few buildings that survived the earthquake. As it was originally built centuries ago, that meant there were heaps of gorgeous mosaic tiles all over the front. Beautiful.

At this point I was getting tired and hungry. I ended up buying some snacks from a street stall, all of them fried. I'm not all that sure what I ate, but they tasted good :) Who doesn't love fried food?

On the way back in the direction of my hostel I passed Hotel Uzbekistan again. At night it looked slightly better than in the day, as videos and photos were being shown against the building. Very cool. I did wonder if you could see the lights if you stayed in one of the rooms, as that would probably be rather annoying.

I decided to walk all the way home, which ended up being a lot longer of a walk than I'd envisioned. Ooops. By the time I got back to my hostel I was truly tired, and somewhat cold. I slept well :) 

The next morning it took me longer to get going that I wanted, but that's life. Maybe I could just blame it on me still being on Moscow time?

As I walked this day I passed a statue of Taras Shevchenko, the national poet of Ukraine. This surprised me, since I don't know that the two countries have much of a relationship these days. Or maybe the statue is from Soviet times, when all the Soviet countries sortof worked together, and sortof viewed themselves as a single entity.

Another surprise was a bust of Yuri Gagarin (the first astronaut/cosmonaut.) This was in another random park.

Eventually I got to my first sight of the day, a monument to Islam Karimov, the first president of the Republic of Uzbekistan. His statue was in the scientific and enlightenment memorial complex, which was surrounded by a fence and a security gate. I had to go through an xray check to get in!! Karimov is still very much in the minds of the Uzbek people, as he passed away in just 2016.

On the way to my next sight, I passed city workers sweeping water out of the street. I'm not sure why, but it struck me as something different. I'm pretty sure we don't have city, state, or federal employees in the states who sweep streets.

My next sight was another park, Alisher Navoy park. The front of the park is basically a giant platz in front of a theatre. I love the architecture of the theatre, I'd call it Soviet style. Behind the theatre was a sports stadium.

Finally behind all that I finally got to the green section of the park. I climbed up stairs to get to the statue of Alisher Navoy, it was under a cupola of sorts. There was a fence around the statue, so I wasn't able to get as close as I wanted, oh well. Since I wasn't visiting during high season I was the only one there.

From there I walked to a big market, called Chorsu Bazaar. That is the name given to what turned out to be quite a large area. It's a local market, with a LOT of vendors. I got the impression there is an official area of the market and an unofficial area just outside, with vendors selling the same things.

I could've bought pickled things, dairy foods, meat from a variety of animals, cooking oils of various types, fresh produce, ready made food, etc... 

Basically, I could've bought almost anything involved in the world of food. In the main building there was a second floor, where all the stalls were selling nuts and dried fruit.

After seeing all the food but not having any way to travel with it, I found a small cafe. I initially went in because I saw the employees placing uncooked dumplings in a steamer, which just looked neat. When I went in I saw people eating so I told the waitress I wanted what they had. YUM.

After walking out of the cafe totally stuffed, I went to find a metro station. I'd heard and read that the metro stations in Tashkent are worth seeing, so I wanted to see for myself.

I don't remember where I heard that the metro stations in Tashkent are worth seeing, but that place/person was totally right. I rode the length of one of the metro lines, (there are three,) stepping out of the train to see each of the stations. Trains seemed to come every ten minutes or so, something like that. My favourite stations were Alisher Navoy and Kosmonatav.

I finally exited the metro system from the station closest to the location of my hostel, and walked the remaining way home.

The next morning I was up really early, as I had to catch a cab back to the airport.