Out of the hotel at 7:30 in the morning to get our train to visit Sitora’s family in Zarafshan, a dusty city in the middle of the Qizilqim dessert….our train ride of 6 hours was comfortable and speedy…trains in Uzb are quite good, and they are building a high speed rail network that will make traveling the distances much easier…From Tashkent to Samarkand takes four hours by regular train, but with the fast train, only two hour
s.
We had a 6 person compartment in the 1st class rail car and the three of us were joined by an aloof businessman type and a young man who as the trip progressed made us aware in circumstances that his English was quite good…He apologized for having to get past us to go outside the compartment for example….Carol asked him near the end of the trip where he learned his English and he said that he had been an exchange student in Minnesota….that opened more conversation than just the short bursts of “excuse me,”. “I’m sorry,” etc….He said that he was from Bukhara and I noted that he was about the same age of the people we are heading to see later in the trip, so I started a litany of names to see if he knew any of them…Bukhara is a city of 300,000 so was unlikely, but there are doors in life that if you don’t open to see what is behind them you never know what you might find…after three: “Do you know,” names, on the fourth name Zulfiya, he said: “Yes, she is my cousin.”…I had several photos of “Zuzu,” as I call her, and so I showed him photos, and he smiled and said, yes that was her…one photo was of Zuzu with her mother, and he confirmed that the lady was the sister of his father…I had tried unsuccessfully to phone Zuzu when the train passed through Samarkand, but “Jim,” as he goes by with English speakers had her phone number stored in his phone and he called her and played a little game with her as to with whom he was traveling on the train…He then gave me the phone and she was so thrilled to hear my voice that she giggled through the conversation…we will stay with her in Samarkand in just over a week and now we had an extra connection….the two Jims decided that we needed to continue our conversation in Bukhara when we arrive, so we will have lunch together one day while we are there..you don’t open these doors in life, just to shut them without exploring all aspects possible.
After reaching Navoi, pronounced Nav-o-ee, we took a taxi to find a taxi which would take us to Zarafshan….it was a high speed race across the dessert at speeds that averaged 75 mph, hitting 90 whenever road conditions permitted. The driver had a friend who rode shotgun and so the three of us Carol, Sisi, and I were crammed into the back seat of a small car as we tore across the territory…there was absolutely nothing in between the two cities separated by 120 miles of desolation, save one small shop where water and munchies were sold at a police checkpoint where people are forced to stop.
As we sped across the dessert, I couldn’t help wondering: “Why does anybody live here?” Well, the answer is corporate wealth..Zarafshan is a mining area, phosphates and other minerals are torn from the earth in huge open pit mines, but the biggy is the gold mining operation…one of the largest gold mines in the world…Although developed by the Soviets in the 1960’s, it is now a joint U.S./Uzbek venture, another example how corporate eyes around the world lit up when the Soviet system of “republics,” came to an end in the early 90’s. When corporations open up operations in poor areas of the world, people will flock to the jobs created by those opportunities.
It is a hot, dusty place in the middle of the desert and has no earthly reason to exist, except for the fact that there is wealth to be pulled from the earth. When I was posting photos on facebook, Sitora was sitting beside me and I commented on a photo that it was a dusty place, she asked me not to say that about her home town….here I get on shaky ground…how do I explain as forthrightly as possible what I’m seeing and experiencing and still not offend sensibilities of those involved…it is a difficult balance at all times, but particularly when I have come to meet people and be in their homes…do I become politically correct or do I really tell my view of the world? Got to think about this a little more because there are homes and families to visit.
Sitora’s father, Ashraf, drove us around town to show us the “sights,” and it was certainly nothing to write home about…literally. All the time I’m thinking, as Sitora had said, that it was a really boring place to live, and I was saying to myself, “Okay, but this is like thousands of other places in the world that aren’t Las Vegas….just places where people scratch out a life…but then that all changed with a little bit of heaven as we went to the uncle’s Dacha…although it is in town, it still is a lovely little spot of earth…shaded from the hot sun by a grape arbor with spots for berries, vegetables, fruit trees and about an acre in total planted area….It was paradise and made me realize that we know so little about what we don’t see and it is easy to make decisions based on limited information that are totally wrong in reality.
The two uncles naturally brought out the vodka and I drank more than I have since…well, since the last time I was in Uzbekistan…I’m a lightweight on the drinking scene and had to beg off and limit my consumption…you can’t say no, but you can shorten the glass…they let me pour my own glass so I was glad for that….there is such a fine line between being a good guest and being impolite…they expect me to drink with them. I felt like the in-laws in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” Lots of good conversation about culture and society and it was a great afternoon.
Learned that Ashraf and Sitora’s mother, Zamira, had not met before the wedding day. They both came from traditional families…She was picked out by Sitora’s grandfather before he died as the future bride for his son…it’s worked, and they have been very happy.
Ashraf is the last of 11 children, born when his mother was 51…it’s amazing that the father died first and not the mother.
When you visit an Uzbek home you become the king and queen….we joked about this with the family as they refused to allow us to do anything, pay for anything, or lift a finger in any way to help and assist in even simple tasks….I always love to have my haircut during my travels…wandering around and finding a simple barber shop, preferably on the street is a joy and a wonderful experience that is always sort of a “Wonder what this will be like.” Ashraf took me to a fancier barber shop than I would have preferred, but again, the king does not decide these things. I want Carol to take a photo of my haircut, and motioned to her to come with us, but Ashraf motioned for them to stay in the car…I said I wanted her to photograph, but he insisted and so Carol and Sitora sat dutifully in the back seat in the heat until we returned…in the end, it was a good haircut, but I was not allowed to pay the 3,000 som $1,25 cents for the haircut…the barber, a boy of 16-18 was very nervous and careful…the other barbers in the shop cut 2-3 heads of hair while he worked on mine…clippers buzzed as he cut along the sides, looked at it from all angles and recut…as far as I could see in the mirror and feel on my head, he may have gotten one or two hairs…but he had to be perfect…Ashraf told me that the barber said: “I’m not washing my hands for a long time, I just cut an American’s hair.” Such are the perks when you are the king.
Ashraf knows everybody. He is a gregarious, warm-hearted man even considering he was an ex-red army officer….his gruff exterior belies his gentle nature that works its way out when he doesn’t have to be “on.” Going for a walk is an exercise in patience as he stops to talk with everybody, and a drive across town is punctuated by calls to people on the street as we pass by.
Zamira is a really sweet, soft-spoken and very, very shy lady…she rarely goes out of the house because she hates conversations…..when she speaks she speaks softly and with just a few words, but when seeing photos of our life in an album we always carry with us, the warmth just flows out…at 58, she still has her good looks, but does nothing to promote them…no make-up, no fancy clothes…At dinner time, she and the oldest daughter, Dilia, ate in the kitchen while Ashraf, Sitora, the king and queen ate at a small table in the living room…only on our last night did we all eat together.
Their flat is in a Soviet style block house that gives rise to the expression that Bella, our hosts in Moscow gave us: “The soviets gave everything for the body, but nothing for the soul.”…but inside, Zamira and Ashraf have created a nice comfortable home. Five rooms including the kitchen made up home for the family, four girls and the parents….the bathroom is broken up into two rooms..one with the toilet, very small but clean and utilitarian, the other with a tub, no sink…hands are washed in the tub by a faucet which extends over the bathtub and a shower nozzle hangs above…
The kitchen again is small, but utilitarian..washing machine on one side and a small stove to cook on…Carol looked at the amount of cupboard space and just shook her head….but this really works for the family…as Americans we look at this and wonder how we could cope, but also walk away with the feeling that we are so object, gadget, kitchen convenience-oriented that it makes us feel very over-indulgent of ourselves…the world does not work like this…the world does with so much less, and yet leads happy, fulfilling lives.
Uzbeks who don’t have residency in Tashkent cannot live in Tashkent for more than six months at a time…They must register and when the six months is up, they have to re-apply for permission to stay another six months…this is done to keep the population from deserting the provinces and creating an impossible situation in Tashkent by being overrun with provincials who lack skills. There is a definite pecking order in Uzbekistan as to who you are based on where you come from…Students in Tashkent, for example, do not have to go pick in the cotton fields like the students in the provinces have to do, and I have some female face book friends who have not had to pick cotton because somebody know somebody who can make a phone call to somebody else. Money is exchanged, credit is registered in collective brains for future use, or simple: “We take care of each other,” methods of operations are not uncommon here…it is very frustrating to my young friends who have not grown up in the Soviet system and are looking for a new way of doing things…we will see.
We finished off our visit with a desert picnic..driving out of town and into the void…you don’t have to go very far…the town is simply situated in the middle of the Kyzylkum so head any direction out of the town and you are in the middle of it…firewood was gathered from scrambling around looking for dried pieces of sage brush, and a little fire on which to cook our shashkik, (kebabs)…Ashraf, as always, wanted to do something special for us…Uzbeks are like that.
Our time in Zarafashon was a treat…not the touristy, glitzy cities like Tashkent, nor the ancient calls to times past as in Samarkand…just a real place where real people live real lives….lives which have as much value as any others in the fascinating world…I want to see it all.
s.
We had a 6 person compartment in the 1st class rail car and the three of us were joined by an aloof businessman type and a young man who as the trip progressed made us aware in circumstances that his English was quite good…He apologized for having to get past us to go outside the compartment for example….Carol asked him near the end of the trip where he learned his English and he said that he had been an exchange student in Minnesota….that opened more conversation than just the short bursts of “excuse me,”. “I’m sorry,” etc….He said that he was from Bukhara and I noted that he was about the same age of the people we are heading to see later in the trip, so I started a litany of names to see if he knew any of them…Bukhara is a city of 300,000 so was unlikely, but there are doors in life that if you don’t open to see what is behind them you never know what you might find…after three: “Do you know,” names, on the fourth name Zulfiya, he said: “Yes, she is my cousin.”…I had several photos of “Zuzu,” as I call her, and so I showed him photos, and he smiled and said, yes that was her…one photo was of Zuzu with her mother, and he confirmed that the lady was the sister of his father…I had tried unsuccessfully to phone Zuzu when the train passed through Samarkand, but “Jim,” as he goes by with English speakers had her phone number stored in his phone and he called her and played a little game with her as to with whom he was traveling on the train…He then gave me the phone and she was so thrilled to hear my voice that she giggled through the conversation…we will stay with her in Samarkand in just over a week and now we had an extra connection….the two Jims decided that we needed to continue our conversation in Bukhara when we arrive, so we will have lunch together one day while we are there..you don’t open these doors in life, just to shut them without exploring all aspects possible.
After reaching Navoi, pronounced Nav-o-ee, we took a taxi to find a taxi which would take us to Zarafshan….it was a high speed race across the dessert at speeds that averaged 75 mph, hitting 90 whenever road conditions permitted. The driver had a friend who rode shotgun and so the three of us Carol, Sisi, and I were crammed into the back seat of a small car as we tore across the territory…there was absolutely nothing in between the two cities separated by 120 miles of desolation, save one small shop where water and munchies were sold at a police checkpoint where people are forced to stop.
As we sped across the dessert, I couldn’t help wondering: “Why does anybody live here?” Well, the answer is corporate wealth..Zarafshan is a mining area, phosphates and other minerals are torn from the earth in huge open pit mines, but the biggy is the gold mining operation…one of the largest gold mines in the world…Although developed by the Soviets in the 1960’s, it is now a joint U.S./Uzbek venture, another example how corporate eyes around the world lit up when the Soviet system of “republics,” came to an end in the early 90’s. When corporations open up operations in poor areas of the world, people will flock to the jobs created by those opportunities.
It is a hot, dusty place in the middle of the desert and has no earthly reason to exist, except for the fact that there is wealth to be pulled from the earth. When I was posting photos on facebook, Sitora was sitting beside me and I commented on a photo that it was a dusty place, she asked me not to say that about her home town….here I get on shaky ground…how do I explain as forthrightly as possible what I’m seeing and experiencing and still not offend sensibilities of those involved…it is a difficult balance at all times, but particularly when I have come to meet people and be in their homes…do I become politically correct or do I really tell my view of the world? Got to think about this a little more because there are homes and families to visit.
Sitora’s father, Ashraf, drove us around town to show us the “sights,” and it was certainly nothing to write home about…literally. All the time I’m thinking, as Sitora had said, that it was a really boring place to live, and I was saying to myself, “Okay, but this is like thousands of other places in the world that aren’t Las Vegas….just places where people scratch out a life…but then that all changed with a little bit of heaven as we went to the uncle’s Dacha…although it is in town, it still is a lovely little spot of earth…shaded from the hot sun by a grape arbor with spots for berries, vegetables, fruit trees and about an acre in total planted area….It was paradise and made me realize that we know so little about what we don’t see and it is easy to make decisions based on limited information that are totally wrong in reality.
The two uncles naturally brought out the vodka and I drank more than I have since…well, since the last time I was in Uzbekistan…I’m a lightweight on the drinking scene and had to beg off and limit my consumption…you can’t say no, but you can shorten the glass…they let me pour my own glass so I was glad for that….there is such a fine line between being a good guest and being impolite…they expect me to drink with them. I felt like the in-laws in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” Lots of good conversation about culture and society and it was a great afternoon.
Learned that Ashraf and Sitora’s mother, Zamira, had not met before the wedding day. They both came from traditional families…She was picked out by Sitora’s grandfather before he died as the future bride for his son…it’s worked, and they have been very happy.
Ashraf is the last of 11 children, born when his mother was 51…it’s amazing that the father died first and not the mother.
When you visit an Uzbek home you become the king and queen….we joked about this with the family as they refused to allow us to do anything, pay for anything, or lift a finger in any way to help and assist in even simple tasks….I always love to have my haircut during my travels…wandering around and finding a simple barber shop, preferably on the street is a joy and a wonderful experience that is always sort of a “Wonder what this will be like.” Ashraf took me to a fancier barber shop than I would have preferred, but again, the king does not decide these things. I want Carol to take a photo of my haircut, and motioned to her to come with us, but Ashraf motioned for them to stay in the car…I said I wanted her to photograph, but he insisted and so Carol and Sitora sat dutifully in the back seat in the heat until we returned…in the end, it was a good haircut, but I was not allowed to pay the 3,000 som $1,25 cents for the haircut…the barber, a boy of 16-18 was very nervous and careful…the other barbers in the shop cut 2-3 heads of hair while he worked on mine…clippers buzzed as he cut along the sides, looked at it from all angles and recut…as far as I could see in the mirror and feel on my head, he may have gotten one or two hairs…but he had to be perfect…Ashraf told me that the barber said: “I’m not washing my hands for a long time, I just cut an American’s hair.” Such are the perks when you are the king.
Ashraf knows everybody. He is a gregarious, warm-hearted man even considering he was an ex-red army officer….his gruff exterior belies his gentle nature that works its way out when he doesn’t have to be “on.” Going for a walk is an exercise in patience as he stops to talk with everybody, and a drive across town is punctuated by calls to people on the street as we pass by.
Zamira is a really sweet, soft-spoken and very, very shy lady…she rarely goes out of the house because she hates conversations…..when she speaks she speaks softly and with just a few words, but when seeing photos of our life in an album we always carry with us, the warmth just flows out…at 58, she still has her good looks, but does nothing to promote them…no make-up, no fancy clothes…At dinner time, she and the oldest daughter, Dilia, ate in the kitchen while Ashraf, Sitora, the king and queen ate at a small table in the living room…only on our last night did we all eat together.
Their flat is in a Soviet style block house that gives rise to the expression that Bella, our hosts in Moscow gave us: “The soviets gave everything for the body, but nothing for the soul.”…but inside, Zamira and Ashraf have created a nice comfortable home. Five rooms including the kitchen made up home for the family, four girls and the parents….the bathroom is broken up into two rooms..one with the toilet, very small but clean and utilitarian, the other with a tub, no sink…hands are washed in the tub by a faucet which extends over the bathtub and a shower nozzle hangs above…
The kitchen again is small, but utilitarian..washing machine on one side and a small stove to cook on…Carol looked at the amount of cupboard space and just shook her head….but this really works for the family…as Americans we look at this and wonder how we could cope, but also walk away with the feeling that we are so object, gadget, kitchen convenience-oriented that it makes us feel very over-indulgent of ourselves…the world does not work like this…the world does with so much less, and yet leads happy, fulfilling lives.
Uzbeks who don’t have residency in Tashkent cannot live in Tashkent for more than six months at a time…They must register and when the six months is up, they have to re-apply for permission to stay another six months…this is done to keep the population from deserting the provinces and creating an impossible situation in Tashkent by being overrun with provincials who lack skills. There is a definite pecking order in Uzbekistan as to who you are based on where you come from…Students in Tashkent, for example, do not have to go pick in the cotton fields like the students in the provinces have to do, and I have some female face book friends who have not had to pick cotton because somebody know somebody who can make a phone call to somebody else. Money is exchanged, credit is registered in collective brains for future use, or simple: “We take care of each other,” methods of operations are not uncommon here…it is very frustrating to my young friends who have not grown up in the Soviet system and are looking for a new way of doing things…we will see.
We finished off our visit with a desert picnic..driving out of town and into the void…you don’t have to go very far…the town is simply situated in the middle of the Kyzylkum so head any direction out of the town and you are in the middle of it…firewood was gathered from scrambling around looking for dried pieces of sage brush, and a little fire on which to cook our shashkik, (kebabs)…Ashraf, as always, wanted to do something special for us…Uzbeks are like that.
Our time in Zarafashon was a treat…not the touristy, glitzy cities like Tashkent, nor the ancient calls to times past as in Samarkand…just a real place where real people live real lives….lives which have as much value as any others in the fascinating world…I want to see it all.
