Living History in Uzbekistan
Just the short of it…
- Bukhara and Samarkand, major Central Asian Silk Road cities, are fascinating glimpses into a history that spans a millennium
- Uzbek hospitality and friendliness was a pleasant surprise — I couldn’t have asked for a better country to travel solo in
- Uzbekistan feels like a country on the verge of an exponential increase in tourists given recent policy decisions by the president and the country’s embrace of the tourism industry (albeit in very different ways between Samarkand and Bukhara)
Living History in Uzbekistan
When the Soviet Union carved up Central Asia, it intentionally chose arbitrary borders, bolstering its claim that one great power, the Soviet Union, was needed to manage the confusing border situation. The effects of those arbitrary decisions are still felt today. While Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are two different countries, they share a more sedentary culture and the same language (predominantly Tajik). In contrast, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan are dominated by a more nomadic culture and various different languages. In the carving up of countries, Uzbekistan lucked out with three of the major Central Asian Silk Road cities: Bukhara, Samarkand, and Khiva. Where it didn’t luck out is its limited access to water — it is one of only two double-landlocked countries in the world (meaning that it is landlocked and the countries around it are also landlocked). The other is Liechtenstein.
Over the past week, I traveled to both Samarkand and Bukhara and saw how two cities with similar histories and tourist attractions can have entirely different methods for building their tourism industry.
Bukhara’s mosques and mausoleums, some built as long as a millennium ago, are both humble and humbling given their immense history. The approach in Bukhara has leaned toward maintenance and restoration of these sites, in contrast to Samarkand which entirely reconstructed its mosques and madrassas.
My guide in Bukhara, Hilola, has her Master’s and PhD in English and taught at one of the language universities for many years. Ultimately, she left the classroom to become a full-time tour guide because of onerous classroom regulations and the desire for better pay. As a tour guide, she has more flexibility to visit her fiancé in Israel and she continues to make more money as the tourism season gets longer. She admits that Bukhara is changing — from her perspective, the biggest impact on Bukhara has been the number of hotels being built in the Old City. Much like Belgrade, locals are being pushed out of the Old City as what were once homes and apartments are knocked down to build hotels. Construction was happening throughout the Old City, which was particularly mind-boggling given that it was over 100 degree every day.
The thing that continued to blow me away about Uzbekistan was the kindness and generosity of the people. As I was walking through the Old City, I ran into a group of English-language students who were on the hunt for native speakers like me to practice their English with. I ended up spending the rest of the day with them, exploring the Old City and watching as they used one of their summer days to understand the immense history of the city they lived in.
They had many questions for me, like who was my favorite singer, Enrique Iglesias or Celine Dion, and what was my dream city, Dubai or Moscow. Many of the students wanted to be teachers or doctors, like their parents. One boy, who was probably 11 or 12, wanted to be an American businessman. I asked them and their teacher, Olim, what they thought of the number of tourists who came to Bukhara. They expressed a concern that was shared by their parents at home, which was that tourists might end up wearing down the old monuments, especially if they continued to come in increasing numbers. Given that visa restrictions have eased and the tourist season is getting longer, this seems likely. After the students went home for the day, Olim drove me thirty minutes to the train station because of his firm belief in Uzbek hospitality.
From Bukhara, I went to Samarkand, and if the monuments were humble and humbling in Bukhara, the mosques, madrassas (schools), and mausoleums of Samarkand were shockingly ostentatious. Samarkand has taken a different approach to restoration and has reconstructed many of the ancient sites, fully restoring them to all of their gold-leaf, cobalt and turquoise glory.
Samarkand is also a considerably larger city and feels much more commercial than Bukhara. Nevertheless, standing under a carefully constructed mosque “dome” replete with gold-leaf and cobalt and turquoise tiles, which are incredible feats of art and architecture today, helps you imagine what Turkmens must have felt 700 years ago.
In keeping with the more commercial feeling of the city, Samarkand has also entirely walled off the Old City where many local Uzbeks still live. You can enter easily enough if you know where to look, but it feels very much that there is a Samarkand for Uzbeks and a Samarkand for tourists. It was within the walled city that Timur, my guide, took me to 18th century synagogue. While there, I met another American (rare in Uzbekistan, I had only met one other person from the States at that point). It turned out that he was originally from Samarkand and was returning for the first time since he left in 1995. He told me that after the Soviet Union fell, many of the Jews in Uzbekistan were worried that they might be persecuted by the new government (there had been a history of discrimination against Jews) and nearly 20,000 Jews fled in the early to mid-90s to either Israel or New York. This man had gone to the US with $280 in his pocket, and now owned a company that employed 300 people in Seattle. He was traveling back with his wife and three children to show them his home and the synagogue that he had attended as a young man.
I asked Timur what he thought of the increasing number of tourists and he mentioned that tourism jobs are necessary to employ people with an education since there are not enough good-paying jobs in Uzbekistan. He had studied linguistics at university, and he said the other option aside from being a tour guide would have been to become a teacher of languages, which requires long hours and doesn’t pay well. Thus far, the theme of this trip seems to be that tour guides, educated and passionate about imparting knowledge to others, would make great teachers, but opt for jobs in tourism to get paid more and work better hours.
To understand why tourism has been increasing in Uzbekistan, one need look no further than the current president. In 2016, the president of 25 years, Islam Karimov, died and a new president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, came to power in a mostly peaceful transition. Since then, he has made a series of more liberal policy changes, including easing visa restrictions for many countries.
He has also released religious and political prisoners, provided slightly more freedom of the press, improved relations with bordering countries, and loosened currency restrictions (massive inflation had occurred under Karimov and in 2017, the currency was devalued by almost 50%).
As a holdover from Soviet times, there is still a lot of suspicion of seeming “too Muslim” and men can be arrested for sporting a beard or attending mosque too frequently. There continues to be a noticeable police presence and reports of arbitrary detentions and imprisonment continue. I had one minor encounter with the police and it went smoothly enough. One of Timur’s buddies, Timur — nicknamed Moose — was pulled over while driving me back from the train station and he was given a slap on the wrist and a fine of about $25.
Most importantly for tourists, Mirziyoyev eased visa restrictions for many countries, enabling e-visas or visas upon arrival. In 2017, travel and tourism made up 2.8% of Uzbekistan’s economy. I am very curious what it will be in 2018 and 2019 (numbers are not yet available). Both Hilola and Timur commented that tourism season was lasting longer and there were more tourists overall.
Overall, it seems that Uzbeks generally feel positive about the new president, and it will be interesting to see if the recent liberalization continues. Certainly, quality of life continues to improve for many Uzbeks and there seems to be more hopeful feelings about the future. Uzbekistan truly feels like a country on the verge of an expontential tourism increase, as word gets out about its incredible history and the friendliness and generosity of the people who live there.
Next stop, adventures with Ania in Tajikistan!
