Tashkent - the City of Stones (literally)

30 June 2022

When we arrived in Tashkent on our Uzbekistan Airways flight from Tblisi, the temperature was 43 Celcius as we left the terminal to walk the gauntlet through the horde of taxi drivers clamoring for our business. We eventually found one who ripped us off the least and on the way to the hotel he advised us to stock up on watermelons in a fridge to keep cool. Fortunately, the Old Tashkent Hotel also provided a swimming pool as well as a minibar and we availed ourselves of both without further ado.

Little remains from old Tashkent, apart from the name of our hotel. The city was completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1966 while the country was under Soviet rule. Some 300,000 people were left homeless but with matchless Soviet muscle the entire city was rebuilt (including 90% of the buildings) and restored. Indeed, it is said that construction work started the day after the quake. Volunteers from the Soviet Union who helped in rebuilding have left their mark. They have left broad avenues, too, lined with plane trees wearing white socks. We would see those socks on every tree in the country, painted at the base of the trunk for protection against insects and sun.

As a result, we found a charming mish-mash of restored 12th-century mosques and classical Russian architecture alongside blocky Brutalist buildings and statues of workers with bulging biceps. A prime example of faded Soviet glory is the Hotel Uzbekistan (the meeting place for our walking tour guide) which towers over the city’s main park.

It was also here with his statue in the same park that we had our first encounter with Amir Temur (1336-1405), «Conqueror of the World”, or at least with his image, which since the collapse of the Soviet Union and Uzbek independence in 1991 has apparently been supplanting Marx, Lenin and Stalin on plinths all over Uzbekistan. Here was a man whose empire stretched from the Mediterranean to the frontiers of China, but whose legacy is problematic: sublime buildings and patronage of art and sciences on the one hand, pyramids of cemented skulls on the other.

As we strolled around the center of city in the fading light, escaping the fierce heat of the day, we felt a rather European vibe, with lakeside beer gardens, landscaped public parks, and cafés next to most of the main tourist attractions. Another striking feature was that every car driving down the long avenues seemed to be a Chevrolet and most of them were white. We learned that the locally-produced cars had almost a monopoly here as it was cost-prohibitive to import other makes.

Also keeping a watchful eye on the proceedings were the so-called «tourist police», sitting in their little cabins, and on call should any tourist encounter difficulties with the locals. In the end there was never any problem with the Uzbeks, we found them to be friendly and courteous. Some spontaneously offered their assistance if they felt we were looking rather lost and they were also very curious as to where we came from. Tourists are still a novelty here. Our only difficulty during our whole stay in the country would be the language barrier, as neither of us spoke Russian (or indeed Uzbek), and English is not yet widely spoken (apart from some teenagers who followed us around to practice with us). Google Translate came to our rescue more than once.

In this vast city of almost 3 million inhabitants, with the main attractions spread out over a vast area, we soon found out that walking alone would not get us to where we needed to go. The local equivalent of Uber, MyTaxi, provided very cheap transport, once we managed to download and use their app, but we also traveled on the metro, which at 10 cents a ride (anywhere on the network) is perhaps the cheapest in the world but it is certainly the most ornate. Until 2018, it was forbidden to take photos of the extravagant designs and architecture we found in many of its stations.

The highlights of our sightseeing in and around Tashkent in addition to the metro:

Kukeldash Madrasah - dating back to the 16th century and currently being restored.

Chorsu Bazaar - Tashkent’s most famous farmers market, topped by a giant green dome, and a delightful slice of city life spilling into the streets off the Old Town’s southern edge. There are acres of spices arranged in brightly coloured mountains, huge sacks of grain, entire warehouses dedicated to sweets, and the freshest bread and fruits around. Mylene was given a crash course on how to prepare and bake the local bread in one of the bakeries housed there.

Hazrati Imam Complex - it includes several mosques, shrine, and a library which contains a manuscript Qur'an in Kufic script, considered to be the oldest surviving Qur'an in the world. Dating from 655 and stained with the blood of murdered caliph, Uthman, it was brought by Timur to Samarkand, seized by the Russians as a war trophy and taken to Saint Petersburg. It was returned to Uzbekistan in 1924.

Palace of Prince Romanov - during the 19th century Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich, a first cousin of Alexander III of Russia was banished to Tashkent for some shady deals involving the Russian Crown Jewels. His palace still survives in the centre of the city and was used to house his extensive art collection.

Alisher Navoi Opera and Ballet Theatre - built by the same architect who designed Lenin's Tomb in Moscow, Aleksey Shchusev, with Japanese prisoner of war labor in World War II. It hosts Russian ballet and opera.

Museum of Applied Arts - housed in a traditional house originally commissioned for a wealthy tsarist diplomat, the house itself with its colorful carved woods is the main attraction, rather than its collection of 19th and 20th century applied arts.

And the food? Many Uzbek dishes have all the hallmarks of USSR fare: unidentifiable boiled vegetables, uninspiring soups, and grey, overcooked meat: not much flair or flavor, but it fills a hole when you’re hungry. We visited the best rated plov (a greasy poor man’s risotto of lamb, raisins, carrot and onion) restaurant in Tashkent but the novelty of eating the national dish was soon to wear off. Every region claims to have the best recipe for plov but in reality they all tasted the same.

The city of Tashkent was founded over 2200 years ago and has been destroyed and rebuilt many times since. Its importance is often linked to its strategic position on the Silk Road, the main trading route between Europe and China for many centuries. It was now time for us to discover two further jewels of the Silk Road, namely Samarkand and Bukhara.