Category: 2022-10 Aktau to Almaty

Margilan is a town in the Fergana Valley that borders Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in the south-eastern corner of Uzbekistan. Although it’s often listed as a highlight of the country because of its links to the silk trade, it actually felt well off the tourist trail – probably because it is in the opposite direction from Tashkent to other big-hitting sights such as Samarkand.

The journey involved taking a 7-hour train from Tashkent. Although it was an afternoon train, we were in a sleeper compartment because this was only one part of the train’s much longer route across Uzbekistan. We felt fortunate that we did the journey in the daytime, as the views across the border to the snow-capped mountains in Tajikistan were stunning.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have the best journey because our compartment-mates weren’t exactly welcoming. They had already commandeered one of our beds before we arrived (we never got this back) and at one point they banished Oli from where he was sitting (on our other bed) because they wanted to eat lunch at the table. He was so taken aback that he actually moved for them! There were other things, too, but maybe I won’t get started….

We’re pretty sure that they felt able to behave like this because they were older than us; respect for elders, particularly men (eye roll 🙄), is very important in Uzbekistan. We’ve seen lots of deferential behaviour on buses, but we didn’t realise that the expectation would extend to us not being able to sit in our booked seats! Or perhaps they just thought we were pushovers – who knows? Either way, it was another thing to add to the growing list of frustrations in Uzbekistan. On a happier note, we played an excellent round of Public Transit Roulette on the local marshrutkas when we arrived in Margilan, so things were looking up!

We had one full day in town and our main aim was to explore the Kumtepa Bazaar, 5 km out of town. As far as we understood, this ran every day, but was particularly buzzing with sellers of locally-produced silk on Thursdays and Sundays. Much like in Tashkent, the bazaar was arranged into zones, but these were even more fascinating. There was a whole zone dedicated to sewing machines and overlockers (Oli had to hold me back) and an area for used car parts and all sorts of unidentified (to us, at least) mechanical paraphernalia. Sadly, I wasn’t that inspired by the fabrics for sale (I had a very specific idea of what I wanted – which will be no surprise to anyone who knows me well!) but this was probably for the best, given I’d have to carry any purchases for the next few months.

Without a doubt, our favourite part of the bazaar was discovering a BBQ zone, where we had an exceptional lunch.

In the Chorsu Bazaar in Tashkent, where we had a similar meal, the staff were at least cooking in rudimentary kitchens (below left), but in Margilan we saw the real deal: even the deep fat fryer was wood-fueled (below right)!

Unsurprisingly, the chefs really knew what they were doing and the food was cooked to perfection – it was such a good demonstration of how simple ingredients combined well can be SO delicious. The chicken was smoky, salty and succulent, with just a hint of cumin, and the slaw was crunchy, tangy and fresh.

We also couldn’t resist trying what was being churned out from the deep fat fryer as there was a constant queue of people buying up bags of fried snacks. Some Googling after the fact suggested that they were probably baursaki, most associated with Kazakhstan but eaten across Central Asia, and they were savoury, crunchy and very satisfying, much like deep-fried Yorkshire puddings.

This lunch was a real highlight – other than this, we ate without a doubt the worst run of meals in Margilan that we’ve ever eaten, anywhere! The less said about them the better…

While we were sipping our tea after lunch, two chaps on a neighbouring table beckoned us over, so we joined them for several more cups of tea. Communication was a little tricky, but we gleaned that one of them had worked in Germany for several years. This gave Oli the opportunity to test out his secondary-school German skills, and this may be the first time ever that they have helped, rather than hinder, communication!! The chaps were baffled at the concept that we were married and didn’t have children – by their estimation, we should have had ten by now (this seemed a little ambitious, as we’ve been married for seven years…) Oli was highly amused that I showed them a picture of Thomas when they asked about children!

There was an awful lot of gesturing about how I should be producing children, cooking and doing the cleaning. While I understand that they have a very different worldview and so I wasn’t offended as I may have been in another circumstance, I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to question their assumptions about my and Oli’s roles, so I told them that Oli also cooks and cleans. They roared with laughter, but Oli also said that they wouldn’t look him in the eye after this, which I thought was fascinating. We did realise afterwards that perhaps we didn’t make it quite clear enough that in normal circumstances (i.e. when we’re not travelling), I would also be working full time and not sitting idly around the house with no children to care for while Oli earned all the money AND did the cleaning! Oh well.

After we said farewell to our new friends, we stopped off at the Yodgorlik Silk Factory. If we had been short of time, we probably would have skipped this because we’d read very mixed accounts of people’s experiences online, but as we were passing we thought we would pop in.

The one thing I did know about Ikat fabric in advance of our visit is that it is yarn-dyed (i.e. the threads are dyed before being woven), and it was really interesting to see how this works in practice to produce a print: the threads are wrapped around a huge frame and hand-sorted to keep the pattern roughly in line. We also saw how the silkworms’ cocoons are unravelled to produce the silk threads, how the dyes are produced from natural materials (such as walnut shells), and how the threads are woven into silk, cotton and blended fabrics on hand and machine looms.

Although it was nice to see the traditional hand-loom method, the machine looms were the real stars of the show – the noise was incredible, even though only two were running in a room of around 18!

We had mixed feelings about this visit. For a sewing fan like myself, it was cool to see the traditional methods used to produce the fabrics, but it was abundantly clear that the factory was no longer operating at any kind of scale. We strongly suspected that the workers started just as we entered each room and stopped as soon as we left. It felt a bit like being in the Truman Show!

On our return journey to Tashkent the following day, we had a compartment to ourselves and a very relaxed journey. That is, it was very relaxed until the conductor tried to extract a payment from us for keeping our compartment empty (which we didn’t ask him to do – and we’re sure that the seats weren’t booked as the carriage was patently half-empty). In frustrating moments like these, we really had to remind ourselves that we’ve also experienced real kindness from a lot of people in Uzbekistan – like the cafe owner who wouldn’t accept any money for a pot of tea the previous day, or the marshrutka driver who I accidentally rerouted to drop us off directly outside the station entrance that morning, and who did so with a smile and a flourish!

All in all, we were a little relieved to be leaving Uzbekistan the following day. We were just hoping against hope that our paperwork was enough in order that they would actually stamp us out of the country! Spoiler alert: they did, and more on that soon.

Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, is a large, modern city of imposing buildings and vast public squares. To our relief, the grid layout of roads were frequented by proper city buses that made it easy to get around by public transport. For once, we felt like we’d won Public Transport Roulette on the route between the train station and our hotel.

Tashkent’s closest thing to a city centre is Amir Timur Square, a circular park at the intersection of the ancient Silk Roads connecting Asia to Europe. Over the years, statues of various historical figures have occupied the plinth in the centre of the park, including Joseph Stalin and Karl Marx. Today, the park’s focal point is a 48m statue of Timur (Tamerlane), with the conqueror shown riding a horse with his hand raised and cloak blowing out behind him. As impressive as the statue is, the horse turned out to be missing an important body part, the whereabouts of which is apparently one of Tashkent’s great mysteries. When recounting this anecdote in a family group chat, we got the response: “People are the same wherever you go, aren’t they?” So true!

We spent some time exploring Tashkent’s monuments and memorials the evening after we arrived, starting at the Senate building (below left) and Independence Square (below right). The latter’s Independence Monument replaced a statue of Lenin following the fall of the Soviet Union.

Later, we came across the incredibly moving Crying Mother Monument, which depicts a seated woman facing an eternal flame (below left), flanked on either side by plaques containing the names of approximately 400,000 Uzbeks who lost their lives during the Second World War. To try to put this into perspective, I counted 240 names on a single plaque (below centre), then stepped back to take in the full magnitude of the row of 28 books, each containing 52 plaques (below right).

We also learnt about the earthquake of 1966, which destroyed most of the buildings in the city. Following the earthquake, men and women travelled to Tashkent from many surrounding Soviet republics to assist in the massive rebuilding effort. This provided an explanation for the modern Soviet appearance of this ancient “stone city” (a literal translation of Tashkent). These men and women are honoured in the statue below, standing atop a pile of rubble, and connected to a clock by a fissure recording the precise date and time of the earthquake.

After this crash-course in Tashkent’s history, we were keen to experience some of the city’s present day life, and for this we headed to the Chorsu Bazaar. Now, Sara sees herself as a bit of a market connoisseur, and yet this was still the largest bazaar we’ve visited to date. With its colossal turquoise domes, it certainly gave Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar a run for its money in beauty, then blew it out of the water for authenticity.

We found ourselves squeezing through alleys of clothing and shoes one minute, and dodging past trays of raw meat and huge piles of vegetables, cheeses, prepared salads, nuts and spices the next. If you wanted a medical uniform, a birthday cake, gardening supplies or a new sink or toilet, you could find these here too. Exploring the market was thirsty work, so we took advantage of one of the stalls selling fresh pomegranate juice. And to top it all off, we discovered a huge multi-restaurant conglomeration, where we happily sampled some shashlik through the thick barbecue smoke blowing across every table.

Old Tashkent was most visible at the Hazroti Imom complex, a collection of medressas, mosques and mausoleums surrounding yet another vast and largely empty square. The small Moyie Mubarek Library Museum, which holds what is said to be the world’s oldest Quran, lies stranded towards the centre of the square. Despite the considerable size of some of these buildings, they were still somehow overshadowed by the Centre for Islamic Civilisation, currently under construction. While hugely impressive (it must be one of the largest buildings I’ve ever seen by volume), we couldn’t help wondering what had to be cleared to make way for its massive footprint.

We were delighted to find that Tashkent’s metro not only provided an efficient and comfortable means of transport, but its stations were also an attraction in themselves, with each station boasting a unique theme. We entered the Metro at Chorsu, but hopped off at Kosmonavtlar station to marvel at the astronaut-themed decoration, before jumping back on the next train seven minutes later. We’d read that photography in the metro stations had been strictly forbidden since the 1999 terrorist attack, although we’ve since learnt that these rules have been relaxed in recent years. Still, this BBC Article covers the artwork way better than we ever could.

The metro ride however was merely a warm up for what was to follow – a visit to Tashkent’s open-air railway museum. While information on the exhibits was light, the experience itself was very much hands-on. We happily clambered onto, into and around many of the locomotives, with their splendid exterior paint-jobs contrasting heavily with their rusted and rotten interiors. I’ve since read that the museum contains steam locomotives from the Russian Empire, the USA, and even Nazi Germany!

At this point, the rain set in and didn’t stop for a couple of days. We eventually ventured out with two goals: to explore the Soviet architecture of Navoi Park and to complete a bit of clothes shopping to prepare us for the fast-approaching winter. However, when we hopped off the bus, we were confronted instead by a rather unexpected slice of Disneyland. It featured little recreations of London’s Houses of Parliament and Samarkand’s Registan, which was a nice summary of our journey to date. In the end, this slightly surreal corner of the park overshadowed the architecture and statues we’d come to see in the first place, while also providing a handful of much-needed clothing shops.

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With our time in Uzbekistan almost over, we managed to squeeze in one last trip to Margilan, the source of the silk that gives its name to the ancient trade route we’d followed since leaving central Europe.

Avid fans of the first series of Race Across the World will recall that the third checkpoint was in Tashkent, and specifically at the Hotel Uzbekistan. We couldn’t make it to the second checkpoint (Baku) because of Azerbaijan’s closed land borders, but we were now back on track! Much like in the episode, we approached the hotel via Amir Timur square (not because we are super fans, just because that’s where we disembarked our bus…) and it was a great first view of the brutalist, Soviet monolith of a hotel.

The Hotel Uzbekistan was completed in 1974 and in its prime it was one of the premier 5* hotels in the city, favoured by visiting dignitaries. Nowadays, it has a certain faded glamour and some of the worst TripAdvisor reviews we’ve ever seen of a hotel that we’ve then gone on to book! We couldn’t resist though – it’s a must-see attraction in Tashkent because it is such a brilliant example of the architecture of the period. I was a big fan of its striking design, but I can see why it might divide opinion.

We briefly debated calling this post the Soviet Fawlty Towers, but it really wasn’t that bad in the end. We had a strong start though – as we approached the reception desk and asked to check in, the staff looked totally panicked, almost as if it was everyone’s first day. We had already overheard them telling other people that their rooms weren’t ready, despite it being well past check-in time (no wonder, we realised later, when we saw that check out was until 1pm and check in from 2pm…), so we were prepared for the same. Indeed, they told us our room wasn’t ready and then promptly handed us our key. We were confused but happy that the hotel was living up to expectations!

I’d read on the depths of the Internet that under no circumstances should we book a standard room, as we were likely to be faced with a non-renovated room that might not have working hot water. Threadbare carpets and worn furnishings we can happily tolerate, but cold showers when the weather was just starting to feel wintery sounded rather less appealing, so we heeded the warning. This left us with a twin room, since all the superior doubles were booked. Just like the dormitory at Malory Towers!

If this was renovated, I was curious to see how a non-renovated room would look (everything was pretty ancient) but most things worked and it was generally clean, so we were content. We may as well have been sleeping on the floor for how soft the beds were, though – no jumping on the beds in our dormitory!

The view from our 15th floor windows was also great, once we looked past the crumbling concrete facade and as long as we didn’t lean too far out of the huge windows that opened fully 😬

Probably my favourite part of the whole experience was breakfast, which had been the subject of many scathing reviews. Granted, it did feel like a bit of a mass feeding session, but c’mon, it was in a ballroom! Given the scale of the operation, we thought it was pretty good. By the second morning, I even managed to get a smile out of the rather fierce omelette chef, so that was something.

In a city full of accommodation that we’d read was overpriced and poor quality, the Hotel Uzbekistan seemed like exceptional value – we paid under £40 per night including breakfast. I think the key was having our expectations set appropriately (the TripAdvisor reviews will do that for sure). Overall, we thought it was a great experience and definitely worth it to officially reach the third checkpoint!

As one final parting gift, the reception staff printed our registration slips (which provide evidence of where we stayed in the country) on the back of another lady’s passport photocopy. “No matter!” they said, not at all reassuringly, when we let them know. I wonder where our passport photocopies are now…