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Published: September 10th 2004
Registan
I like itDamnit, I just wrote a huge thing about Uzbekistan and the goddamn generator lurched. The horrible part is it was enough to shut my computer down, but the guy next to me didn't have any problems. So I am mainly going to post some photos here. I refuse to write it all over again, I'm sorry. We went to the cities of Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva, Nukus, and Moynaq. Moynaq is the epicenter of the Aral Sea disaster, where almost overnight the sea receded due to Soviet irrigation projects in the desert, and shrunk to something like 40% of it's original size. It turned a lot of fishing villages into desert towns, with the local populations having the highest rates of birth defects and cancer of anywhere in the world, due to the chemicals fertilizers used to increase crop yields in the 60's and 70's there.
Samarkand, Bukhara, and Khiva, are all the historic cities of the silk road, and they are all really architecturally amazing, unlike anything I'd seen before I came to Central Asia. We met a lot of French people in Uzbekistan, and some Swiss. We once went to a wine factory where my father... well, he
Tilework
Is good basically tricked to director into giving us a free tour and about 7 bottles of vodka and wine as gifts, because he told the director he was interested in alcohol importing to the US. It was a good time though. I also mentioned that I really enjoyed the food in Uzbekistan, the kebabs and pilaf, palau, but the breakfast food was shit, hot dogs with mayonaise and plastic eggs. Oh, and amazing fruit, the best melon I've tasted anywhere in the world. Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta also commented on this when they travelled through. So much for Uzbekistan in detail, but I can't really afford to write for ANOTHER hour considering the internet in Afghanistan is about $2.20 per hour. I mean, I have to eat right? Oh man, and there's this art museum in Nukus, incredible, it was one of the highlights of Uzbekistan for me, with amazing art, it is all the art of Russia that was suppressed by the communists, and sent to exile, which means basically 70 years of the best art in the entire Soviet Union condensed in one place. That's my opinion at least. I think that museum alone is worth the trip
Doors
I want a door like this on my house to Uzbekistan. I really enjoy travelling in the desert. Here are some photos
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