Tashkent’s city centre is too polished for my liking. The wide roads and square shaped parks are relatively new. Unfortunately, they are cold, dull and lifeless. In contrast you often felt and smelt the old city in Baghdad.
My memories of Baghdad are not of the all marble high rising towers, but of the narrow lanes, bustling bazaars and lively crowded street shops. For some reason, I didn’t even see any families having picnics in the polished parks of Tashkent. You no longer smell BBQ kebabs in the city centre, and that’s saying something.
The majority of roads away from the city centre were in very bad shape. Driving in zigzag directions to avoid going over big pot holes and major dips is generally accepted. Big cracks splitting major roads are there to stay.
Tashkent appears to be full of suicidal taxi drivers. There again with fares so low, may be they are simply thrill seekers. With no visible road markings, big pot holes and obscured traffic lights, who can blame them. I have seen many such drivers in Baghdad and other cities around the world, but what amazed me here is that they don’t seem to get frustrated or angry.
The worst road rage I experienced as a passenger, was when our taxi was badly cut off by a Lada driver with a newly refurbished Formica dashboard. I heard our driver mumbling something with no real eye contact toward the offending driver. They both regained control and calmly drove away. This is in contrast to two days back in Istanbul when a Turkish driver was threatening and lecturing driving rules to everyone outside his car. At some stage, he was literally banging his head on the steering wheel just because of a traffic jam.
Like in Iraq, cigarette smoking in public is strictly a man's thing. I didn't see any women smoking publicly. Amongst those you see in the streets, one gets the impression that the majority are smokers. This is probably encouraged by the selling of single cigarettes mostly by children on street corners. The wealthy however impress others with their cigars; of course.
Children and sometimes impoverished looking women also seem to sell a lot of cheap Chinese goods and a variety of chemically processed sweets. They often pick a popular pavements and setup shop there, making sure (of course) it is in the shade.
In Uzbekistan, you can see many restorations of old historical buildings. Some finished products were good but some were bad. It saddened me to remember the wonderful ancient monuments in Iraq that seems to be eternally doomed to neglect or mistreatment. Even during the best of times, bad restorations were nothing new. Uzbekistan has a wealth of historic cities. The flat roofs of Bukhara together with the ancient bazaars were another fond reminder of Baghdad. I could just turn any corner in Bukhara and it would certainly seem as if I was in old Baghdad.
In Bukhara one finds ancient places around unlikely street corners. It has many narrow alleys of old houses with heavily engraved wooden doors next to old mosques and street markets. With inhabitants cleaning the roads in front of their homes during the summer evenings, everywhere seem to be clean and fresh.
In Bukhara, you see German, French, Swiss, Scandinavian and Japanese tourists. I didn't spot many other nationalities apart from Russians of course. In Tashkent, I didn't find any tourists. It is not easy for a foreigner to be allowed entry to Uzbekistan. As a consequence and unlike the wonderful mix of nationalities and cultures you find in London, you have mostly central Asians from Tashkent, local cities or neighbouring countries. Many are of mixed blood. Having been under the umbrella of the Soviet Union for so many years, it is certainly apparent how many central Asians relate to each other on many levels.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|