Taxis, Taxis, Taxis. Tashkent, Uzbekistan 2019. 12/30/2019

Before I begin… by popular demand… Above is the only photo I could get of one of the tables with the guy and his “dates..”  (see earlier post). Couldn’t get a shot of the other table with the three “couples.” Also, when we got back to the hotel and strolled to the entrance of the hotel – through that maze of lights (they love lights here… every building is adorned with twinkle lights…. ) and the photo ops with the Santas and the blaring music on the DJ’s playlist which includes everything from Uzbeki Rap to Xmas jingles… All of a sudden they were playing Rachmaninov!

And to those of you who commented on the Metro stations, photography was not allowed in the stations until June of 2018! The stations were seen as military installations and as shelters in the event of a nuclear attack. You could get arrested for taking photographs. But now it’s allowed, although we haven’t seen anyone else taking pictures, just us. Then again, we really haven’t seen any tourists, except when we are at the hotel.

And some other tidbits:

• A guy came up to talk with us while waiting for the train; his English was fairly good. Turns out he lived in Sweden for a year and learned English there. I think he was an engineer or in some kind of technology position. After just a few moments, he asked about the US and said he feared for the future of American democracy because of Trump.
• Pictures of Mike and me must be everywhere.. as there are a lot of street cameras, and when we arrived in Tashkent, as we were getting off an escalator (prior to going through Uzbeki Customs, an airport staffer was photographing (video) everyone deplaning.
• People rarely smile here in Tashkent
• Lots of people have gold teeth; someone said it was to provide “insurance” for the next generation.

So, now about today… Monday, December 30 –

We took the Metro to the Chorsu stop — requiring a change of trains – and headed to the famous Chorsu Bazaar, which did not disappoint. It’s a huge, huge market located in the center of the old town of Tashkent. It’s within a blue-green-color domed building and flows out into all the surrounding streets and up the stairs that lead to the bazaar. Apparently the word, chorsu comes from the Persian language and means something like “crossroads.” The building is about 10 stories tall at the center of the dome; it’s about 300 feet in diameter. There are a few smaller domes that surround the large one. There’s also a second floor “balcony” that surrounds the main dome on the inside. The Bazaar (the space under the main dome) has literally hundreds of stalls. Each sells a particular kind of food and the stalls are fairly well organized by food — all the meat is in one section; cheese in another; chicken and fowl in another part.. all of the stalls are in concentric circles matching the rings of the dome; on the upper level “terrace” they sell an amazing array of nuts and dried fruits; there is a whole section of stalls that sell pickles and pickled vegetables; there’s a noodle section; etc. etc. The bazaar is always crowded but especially so today since people were shopping for big New Year’s dinners (or so we think). Maybe because there are not many tourists in Uzbekistan at this time of year, or maybe it’s just the Uzbeki style… but there was little to no gawking and no one really tried to sell us anything. We love visiting markets and have seen some pretty exotic ones in various parts of Asia and Latin America – but this one was quite wonderful and different.

After strolling through the entire market, we emerged back onto the street and the many outdoor stalls selling clothing, fruits and vegetables (they pretty much have every kind of food including pineapples; the only produce we didn’t see was avocado), we decided it was time for lunch. So we stopped at a little stall selling shaslik.. and after a minute or two figured out the system (helped a bit by a woman who worked there who said “Sit down!”).. We found two seats (plastic chairs) at a little table and soon the woman emerged to tell us what they had (sort of in English, but not completely).

We ordered four skewers (they are small) of a “mixed grill” (my term, not theirs) – chicken, lamb, beef. And soon the food emerged, which we could see being cooked on a very makeshift grill in front of us. Actually, it turned out that they don’t put chicken on the skewers so we had two skewers of lamb, two of beef, and then an order of chicken grilled in another part of the stall. They brought over very fresh bread (they serve wonderful home-baked bread everywhere and it’s just part of the meal), and some pickled onions, and a sort of honey tea (which was really good). While we waited for our “order,” a guy (probably in his 40s) took a seat at our table (there were four chairs) and then a woman with two children sat down as well. There was a basket on our table, into which they put our bread.. and then they brought the bread for the guy and it went into the same basket. So we had quite a group! No one spoke any English. We couldn’t finish the last skewer so we gave it to the guy, who was appreciative and even almost cracked a smile.

Then we strolled through the outdoor sections of the market and got to the Kukeldash Madrash and the nearby mosque – both of which had been rebuilt after the 1868 earthquake and was one of the few buildings in the area to survive the 1966 earthquake. Today, the first floor (which has numerous tiny rooms) houses craftspeople who try to sell their products to visitors. We then walked into the surrounding neighborhood for a bit and then hiked back to the Metro station which was hard to find, since it literally is within the outdoor stalls of Chorsu.. We stopped at a stall and asked for directions (saying “meeetro”) and the woman decided it was best to have her daughter (maybe 10-years-old) escort us to the stairs leading to the station.. which was actually only about 50 yards away.

Then our evening adventures began.

Given the absurdity of last night’s dinner… we opted for a very low-key restaurant that we had read about called “Traditional Food.” We asked the hotel to get us a taxi and they said they didn’t know this restaurant and questioned whether we really wanted to go there. We did. So when the taxi arrived, they told the taxi the name and location of the restaurant (or at least we think they did, since the driver had no interest in seeing it on our GPS). The taxi driver spoke no English… and he drove about 15 minutes and dropped us off in front of a restaurant (that said it had Karaoke!) and off he went. Somehow it didn’t seem like the right place. Turned out to be a huge Chinese restaurant. We were intent on getting to the other restaurant, but needed someone to call for a taxi (I actually downloaded the local taxi app — you know I’m totally anti-Uber – but it’s all in Uzbeki).

There was a guy who seemed to be a bouncer near the door and I think he realized we were a bit lost, so he came outside (where we could hear each other, given the volume of the music inside). He had no English at all, but somehow we communicated that we needed a taxi.. and he called someone …. Probably a relative.. who showed up and drove us to the right restaurant. But now it was about 8:45 and we knew the restaurant closed at 9:00 so it was unknown whether or not we’d be able to eat there. The “driver” was incredibly nice. He spoke Farsi, Russian, and Uzbek — and a few words of English, which he used to tell us that English was a problem; we replied that Russian was a problem for us! He refused to take any money for the ride, but we gave him 20,000 Som (about $2.00, which was more than what it had cost to get to the Chinese restaurant). In the taxi, we said we were from California and he immediately responded “Schwartzenegger” … Amazing. This has happened to us before. Arnold has got to be one of the best known figures internationally — those movies sell.

The Traditional Food restaurant (definitely not its real name) is one very very large room. It took a while to figure out the system, especially since they were beginning to close and the food choices were very very limited by then. The restaurant is a cross between a soup kitchen and an old institutional dining room. As you approach, on the street, there are “cooks” making shishkebabs, a table with soups, and then huge vats that are cooking a variety of other local foods. But, the huge, huge, huge vats were empty and our only choice was shishkebab. So for the second time in one day… Anyway, a guy saw we didn’t quite understand the system and he came to help. His English was quite good. Mike says he works there, or maybe is an owner. When we asked about his English, he told us he was on the Law faculty of the University. He turned us over to a ‘waitress’ who had a little bit of English and she took our order, as we pointed to what we wanted (or what was available at closing time) – shishkebab and a dish of pickled vegetables. Again we got the green tea and good bread. The place has absolutely no ambiance. Plastic sheeting on the tables, nothing hanging on the walls.

There was a whole row of women (all women) who were making noodles… unbelievable scene. About a dozen women in a row, standing shoulder to shoulder. At one end two women were making sheets of a pasta-like product and then soaking it in water and then the other women would slice the sheets into very thin strips – no pasta making machines here. All done by hand. Since I was photographing non-stop as they made these noodles, another guy came up to us and he spoke some English – and explained that while they always make noodles here (which we tasted and they were really good – thick and spongy) they were preparing this huge batch because it is traditional for New Years to serve these cold noodles topped with horse meat. People were lining up to purchase pounds of it to go so they could make it tomorrow night. We politely rejected getting a portion. They call the dish “nori” or something like that. Or maybe the noodle part is the nori and the horse meat is another word.

Food was pretty bland, but authentic. Not sure if it all would have been a lot better had we arrived as planned, without the side trip to the Chinese restaurant and the second taxi.

Now we needed a taxi to get back to the hotel.

The waitress came to the rescue. She came outside with us, but didn’t phone for a cab. She stood in the street and suddenly a beat up old car stopped. She talked to the driver and told us he would take us to the hotel. As we got into the car, I saw that she gave the driver a few thousand Som (maybe equal to 50 cents or so). I got out of the car and tried to give her money but she refused to take it.. She said it was a New Years present from her. Clearly, this was not a taxi…. It was more like the old gypsy “cabs” in Brooklyn when I was a kid.. or like the many “informal taxis” that we took in Mexico City when going to and from the colonias populares. Anyway, the guy took us directly to the hotel, although he wisely let us out on the street rather than driving up to the hotel door. He knew the hotel had lots of police nearby and his beat up car would be a give-away! He wouldn’t take any money, since the waitress had already paid.

We strolled to the hotel, and went immediately to the top floor bar (where we think some of last night’s mafia group were also having drinks).

All the best as we approach the final day of 2019.

Fern