Huma Rising: Tashkent, Uzbekistan

It’s not Tashkent’s fault that we entered the city sickly both times we went, though it was an odd coincidence.

The first time was because we got food poisoning in Kokand (two posts ago), and, after a four-hour train ride of getting feverish chills and somehow fending off the need to run to the toilet the entire time, it hit us both in earnest in Tashkent, where we spent the first 36 hours lying in bed, barely leaving the room or seeing daylight.

The second time, two weeks later, was coming off a 17-hour train ride all the way from Khiva on the other side of the country, and was not the fault of food poisoning, but rather, of our own misguided judgement thinking it would be a good idea to split a whole bottle of cognac between just the two of us during a long, hot, dusty, bumpy overnight train ride. It was, in fact, not a good idea.

You’ll forgive us, then, for not having done or seen much at all in Tashkent, Uzbekistan’s urban capital of over two million people.

As it turns out, many fellow travelers barely stop here at all, spending a day or two just to catch flights or transit through. Indeed, compared to the rest of Uzbekistan’s ancient cities of history, art, and awe, it may be hard to appreciate Tashkent’s modern, at-times soulless avenues and government buildings. However, it was here where we most felt the sprouting seeds of change that is slowly transforming this country in the last few years under the new administration of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev; in fact, people have started to dub this time the “Uzbek Spring.” There is an undercurrent of energy that comes from building-the-new, disentangling-the-old, figuring-out, and opening-up that is constantly felt in everything in Tashkent—from the subway system and all the working young professionals dressed in suits and ties who fill that subway, to the shiny new modern mosque and the country’s new hockey team.

With a recent history far more complex than we can get into here, it can be said that modern-day Uzbekistan is coming up for air for the first time since its independence from Russia in 1991. Islam Karimov was president the entire time, from 1991 until his unexpected death only three years ago in 2016 (he was a dictator, really, who “won” in several fraudulent elections and who continued to run as a candidate even as their own constitution disallows it after two consecutive terms). During this time of religious suppression, closed journalism, and known human rights violations, parts of Uzbekistan was fraught with violence and attacks relating to ethnic clashes, dissenting protesters, and the rise of both Uzbek nationalism and Islamic radicalism—attracting few, if any, foreign investment, aid, or visitors, and isolating it even from its closest neighboring countries.

In 2016, when Karimov died and Mirziyoyev took over, it seemed like everything finally had the chance to change. Of course, there is a still a lot of work to be done toward fair democratic processes—Mirziyoyev’s election was not untainted either, and these things take a lot of time—but foreign relations have improved with neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan; exports, tourism, and foreign investment have all increased dramatically in the past couple years, improving the economy; and government control over everyday life has relaxed. The people of Tashkent (at least those we met, including three college boys whom we met through Couchsurfing, and a young female professional whom we met through an Uzbek friend in the U.S.) allude to these changes all the time, and while they don’t go so far as to say “good riddance” to the past, they often refer to a clear line in the sand for what life was like pre-2016 and post-2016.

We already talked about the changes in tourism and the reforms in cotton labor in our past two posts, so we won’t repeat them here, but we learned about a few other noteworthy transformations from our Tashkent friends that we found particularly interesting and indicative of what’s to come:

- Uzbek citizens can now more easily obtain long-term, 10-year travel passports, allowing them to freely leave and travel for both business and leisure (economic means and other countries’ visa limitations notwithstanding), something that did not exist previously. And, the exit visa was only abolished earlier this year. North Korea is another country to require a visa for their own citizens to leave their own country—not good company.

- We were told that freedom of religion is allowed again, which, interestingly, works to strengthen both sides of the coin: it is now more OK to reject religion if one wants to (“We don’t go to the mosque much, and many young people here don’t; there are more atheists coming out in the last few years,” the college guys told us), or to fully recommit oneself (“We need to watch out for extremists coming back because now they can practice again,” whereas beforehand, the highly religious were suppressed or shut down).

- Tashkent’s subway lines, which are quite efficient and effective (though you still have to walk very far in between the city’s massive Soviet blocks!), are still chock full of armed guards requiring security checks and metal detectors—but now you can take photos inside the stations and trains, something that was strictly forbidden several years ago.

- Foreign investment into Uzbekistan is on the rise. The first phase of “Tashkent City”—a sparkling new financial, commercial, and residential development located in the city center, representing heaps of foreign investment and a vote of confidence in the city’s future business prospects and income levels—opened to much fanfare while we were there, with the rest planned to open over the next few years. We didn’t get a chance to really experience it as we just walked by at night, but with its new futuristic-looking Hilton Hotel and water fountain light shows, it seemed to us like a Hudson Yards + Dubai IFC + Las Vegas. Several locals recommended that we go check it out, so it seemed like something of which they were proud.

- The government is making great strides to further develop and build up the nation’s oil & gas industry, including adopting international reporting and transparency standards earlier this year; streamlining management, production, and delivery systems to increase production volume and sales; and preparing for an IPO in the next five years to attract capital from both foreign and local investors.

Speaking of oil & gas, the college students we met all attend Gubkin University, the Tashkent arm of a larger Russian oil & gas university of the same name; they study gas exploration and are all sponsored by industry companies, with promised jobs and free tuition if they work for them for five years after graduation. Thankfully, they are also taking courses on renewable energy.

We also learned from them that most of the cars in Uzbekistan are fueled by natural gas, one of Uzbekistan’s more ample natural resources, instead of by gasoline. Maybe we’re behind on this one, but we had never heard of that before!—we know electric cars and hybrid cars, but we never knew one could power a car with natural gas. Turns out this is quite common in China and Uzbekistan (and probably in other countries with a lot of natural gas). It makes a lot of sense, and explains why every car and taxi we stepped into in Uzbekistan had a giant “red balloon” in the trunk (their name for it)—a large red natural gas tank that we initially thought was just storage or even extra gasoline. They take up a lot of room and sometimes made it difficult to fit our backpacks into the trunk, especially when we had four people and four packs. Natural gas is much cheaper than gasoline; however, the natural gas stations are much more elaborate, as they have to build special facilities and safety features. Drivers and passengers actually step out of the car while it’s being refilled—in case it blows up!

Walking down the broad boulevards of Tashkent, the sights and sounds felt fitting for a deeply historical and diverse country on the cusp of so many changes. Reminders of this seamless crossover were everywhere:

When we visited the Minor Mosque, a powerful central prayer site for locals, which we then learned was only completed in 2014.

When we felt comfortable and cozy as we ate Italian pasta and gelato one hour, and then felt daunted and small alongside the imposing buildings of the Parliament and Independence Square the next.

When we ate KFC in a brand new store that features touchscreen ordering, before exploring the city’s traditional Chorsu Bazaar, a massive market that is both chaotic in its sprawling stalls selling every material item imaginable, and orderly in the way it organizes its meat, spices, nuts, and cheeses in rows of concentric circles underneath a beautiful green-and-blue-tile dome reminiscent of its Uzbek roots. (Also, no judging about KFC!—we had eaten seven weeks of plov and manti by then, and were interested in why KFC has a Tashkent location.)

When we heard many different languages across this cosmopolitan city. Russian is the common tongue here, more so than Uzbek. For example, the college guys all spoke Russian and English to each other, since one is of Kazakh descent and knows Kazakh and Uzbek, while another is from Samarkand and knows Tajik but not Uzbek or Kazakh, while the third is Russian Tatar who knows neither Uzbek, Kazakh, nor Tajik.

And when we met diverse visitors from all over the world in our Tashkent guesthouse, eager to see for themselves what the new Uzbekistan is all about. Noteworthy ones comprised the wealthy young professionals from Dubai, including one of the architects for the famous Dubai Mall and the new Museum of the Future (which looks awesome and is set to open in 2020); the giant Kazakh/Russian family, who for some reason threw a one-year-old birthday party at 7am and woke up nearly everyone in the guesthouse for it; and finally, the six young Afghan college students who were in town for an international development conference. These students in particular left an impression on us, even though we didn’t get to know them well. They spent a lot of their time at the hostel, just playing video games in the common room or playing guitar and singing in the courtyard. Once, when we joined them for a few minutes, they told us right away—without any prompting from us—that they were simply hanging out so much because it was relieving to be away from home in Afghanistan for a bit, where “life is very stressful,” they shared. They couldn’t do what they were doing back home—namely, sit around and sing and laugh loudly. “Even though we love home and we will go back, it is good to be away.” It was both unbelievable and humbling to us that people were coming to a freshly-post-dictator country to find relaxation and escape, but it just goes to show that everything is relative. For six young intellectual women and men attending university in Afghanistan’s current environment, trying to study international development to find a way up for their country, Tashkent is heaven on earth.

On our last night in Tashkent—which was also our last night in Uzbekistan and in Central Asia overall—we went to a local hockey game with the college guys, and that was perhaps the best analog of the city’s zeitgeist, making it a fantastic way to cap off our time there.

If you didn’t realize that hockey is an Uzbek thing, you’d be right. The local team, Humo Tashkent, was founded just last year in 2018, and after a season with the local Uzbek hockey league, they just moved to the Russian Supreme Hockey League (VHL) for the 2019/20 season. So, the team is new. The very nice Humo Ice Dome where they play is also new, having just opened in March 2019. Thus, the sport and its fans are all also new. The ~4,000 people in attendance that night (about 40% capacity) were excitedly cheering on a team they barely knew, playing a game whose rules are only starting to become familiar. Everyone was learning, getting used to this new team, this new facility, this new league, this new world.

And hovering over this newness and shininess is the Huma bird, a mythical bird found throughout Persian, Ottoman, and Sufi literature that represents happiness and freedom, and from which the hockey team derives its name. We first saw renditions of the bird portrayed in the tile designs of a famous madrasa in Bukhara. The Huma bird is said to never land on the ground, perpetually flying above the earth. In some variations—including in the logo for team Humo Tashkent, which features the bird in blue and fiery orange—the bird has phoenix-like qualities, consuming itself in fire and then rising from the ashes again. The metaphor is not subtle.

That night, Humo Tashkent won, beating their Russian opponent 3-2 in an exciting game featuring a close last few minutes that required intense defense from Humo. We chanted and cheered loudly for team Uzbekistan along with our new friends.

Closing the chapter on Central Asia after nearly seven weeks across its mountains, steppes, and sacred sites made us both wistful and grateful. The common themes of unmatched hospitality, untouched natural beauty, and untold history throughout Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan make this “corner” of the world unlike anywhere else we’ve ever been. We will not soon forget the wide smiles and curious minds that we encountered here, and that elicit the same in us whenever we think about them.

Karen & Michael

Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Oct 10-11 and 24-25, 2019