Silk Road, and Local Cuisine!
During our first year teaching in Uzbekistan, …
“What the…?” I was staring in disbelief at the text on my phone. “Please, Dave, tell me this is not true! Tell me that I am somehow misinterpreting it. They can’t do that!”
“Oh, come on. You know they can do whatever they want.”
Dave was right, of course. Our school, as our employer, could do pretty much what they wanted. Within a month of our arrival in Uzbekistan we found out this ugly truth. The school expected all teachers to work without any holidays from the start of the school year to its bitter end in June. The students were getting their usual Fall, Winter and Spring Breaks, but not the teachers. We were expected to be in school attending next-to-useless workshops delivered by our tired and less-than-enthusiastic colleagues, or preparing and delivering our own, all to each other!
When we brought up how deceived we felt because we were not informed about this unique arrangement prior to signing our contracts, the Director’s argument was, “Well, this is Uzbek law. Nothing I can do about it.” After we pointed out that most International teachers choose this nomadic lifestyle to see something of their host country, which is hard to do cooped up in Nukus, she relented somewhat, “Yes, you can probably go but you can’t leave Uzbekistan.”
That was fine with us. At that point in time, most of the world outside Uzbekistan was messed-up by the COVID pandemic, and held little or no appeal to us. We wanted to see the historical cities that connected the fabled Silk Road!
A week after having been given this tacit approval, we began our trip. Just three days into our weeklong trip, however, an unwelcome message forced us to make a choice. Our VP at that time was a Kenyan whose English would occasionally bring us some mirth. He did not disappoint us on this occasion, but it was still not enough to take the sting out of the content. “Please, return back immediately. You will be taken away from your salary if you are not in school.”
Of course, we stayed our course and continued our trip as planned, even knowing we would not get paid for those days. Did it diminish our enjoyment? Not in the slightest. I go through life trying not to dwell on the past. If Dave wanted to even mention our decision or our school, I would say, “Shh, not a word! We are here and we love it!” and we did.
It is one thing to see photos of gorgeous tile mosaic-decorated historical wonders, straight from A Thousand and One Arabian Nights, and another to actually stand there with these architectural beauties towering above you. I spent a lot of time on that trip with my jaw dropping the way I normally reserve for when I am watching Sergey Polunin dance. The Uzbek government, jointly with UNESCO, has poured a lot of money into restoration and it has paid off. Uzbekistan is still under the radar of most travelers, and it reminds me of the Czech Republic thirty years ago, shortly after its ‘Velvet Revolution.’ Many buildings there had been severely neglected under the Communist rule. Since then, the restoration effort has brightened up the cities and given a lot of historical buildings a new lease on life. Uzbekistan will no doubt attract much more tourism in the future, once word gets out about what amazing sites it has and what fantastic value it offers compared to Europe.
Tashkent was the first stop on our trip, mostly since we had no choice but to fly there first from Nukus. We had very limited time there, though, so we decided to explore some of the Metro stations. This may sound strange, but the Tashkent Metro was built when Uzbekistan was still one of the Soviet Republics, and it became sort of a showcase of what the rule of the Proletariat could accomplish. Oh, if only it were that easy, with happiness depending on the beauty of subway stations! Alas, humans need more than that, but the project did accomplish its objective. Most of the subway stations are stunning in design and execution. In fact, a ‘tour’ of the choice stations is posted on some of the prominent travel web sites. They were certainly not stinting on tiles, marble and imagination. “Look at those!” I kept telling Dave, pointing at enormous crystal chandeliers that would make Louis the 14th envious.
Our trip from Tashkent to Samarkand was by high-speed, very futuristic ‘bullet’ train which, at times, reached speeds of up to 250 km/hour! The weather for our trip mostly co-operated. While in Samarkand, people were telling us that Bukhara was always warmer. At least two taxi drivers told us, “Yes, you go to Bukhara. Good! You like it. I lived there. It’s warmer than here. People are nice!” As luck would have it, we hit an exceptionally cold front in Bukhara. We shivered in front of Bukhara’s ancient Ark Fort, with its entrance through the old city wall, and spent only a fraction of the time it deserved standing in the cold in front of Ulugbek’s Observatory in Samarkand, pondering its historical significance. It was only while enjoying a hot tea in one of the numerous ‘chayovna’ (tea rooms) that I began to truly appreciate what we had seen earlier. The partially dug out sextant at the Observatory was a part of the remnants of the original structure, in which 15th century Ulugbek calculated some of the math that sailors were still using two hundred years after his death.
While getting to a chayovna, we used a ‘shared’ taxi. It’s one much used modes of transportation in many Central Asian cities. Essentially, the taxi driver is free to stop for any additional passenger as long as the destination doesn’t veer too far from the original one. It may add a bit to your travel time, but it’s ecologically sounder and you may meet some interesting people. The woman that was already in the car when we climbed in spoke a bit of Russian, but it was mostly her genuine grin that convinced us. We chatted a bit and, at one point, we were passing a restaurant with a big sign Milliy Taomlar. I noticed that it had several small metal chimneys – indicative of a place that would make many shashliks and kebabs. I pointed it out to her and asked, “Is Milliy Taomlar good?” Her big smile and vigorous nod were convincing. Dave and I promptly, for our own personal reference, renamed the place ‘Lily Tomlin,’ and decided to go there for dinner. The woman got off and we had continued a bit further when I spotted another ‘Lily Tomlin’ restaurant. “This is great! Look Dave. Another one – it must be a chain! If two can do well, it means it’s good! We’ll definitely go there for dinner,” I pointed out the similar-looking place with identical name to Dave.
That afternoon we refreshed ourselves with hot tea and wondered some more about the vagaries of history that brought about such characters as Amir Timur, who had conquered many of the neighboring regions. Amir Timur had learned much of his strategy and methods from Genghis Khan himself and who, by the way was the grandfather of Ulugbek the Mathematician. We were ready to explore some more! As we meandered through the neighborhood, we came across yet another ‘Lily Tomlin’ restaurant. “Is this a chain?” again crossed my mind, but chains are not really that common in Uzbekistan, so I asked Dave to bring up the translator on his phone. We laughed for a long time after we read that ‘milliy toamlar’ translates as ‘local cuisine!’