Over a mountain pass coming into the Ferghana Valley
Driving through the Ferghana ValleyFERGHANA
When I last wrote we had arrived in the Ferghana Valley, the only partof Uzbekistan that makes it into the news (although there is a murkystory emerging about how the Bukhara train station blew up[!!!] theother day, through some combination of fire and a rusty Sovietammunition dump). In Fergana we stayed in a creaking Soviet hotel inthe city of Ferghana.
Man cooking Shashlik in FerghanaKOKAND
We but took a day trip to Kokand, also in the Ferghana Valley. Kokand was the capitol of one of the three majorkhanates in Central Asia (the other two being Bokhara and Khiva). Themain attraction was the Khan's palace, which avoided being destroyedlike most of the other old buildings here because a Soviet dignitaryvisited it in the 1920s and said "This place is nice. We shouldn'tknock it down, should we?". Anyways, thanks to him we were able to see an interesting throne room, harem, etc.
Throne roomWe came across the site of a 1799 madressa that had also survived butit didn't look like it was open to tourists. At the last minute an oldman came over and invited us in and went around unlocking variousbuildings as we eaked out a tour in Uzbek and Turkish. This is one ofvery few functioning madrassas left in Uzbekistan and the place wasworking overtime, swarming with dozens, maybe hundreds of boyscarrying little green Koranic workbooks. They were very friendly andexcited that we were from America and laughed when I showed themphotos of themselves. They were basically just kids. Of course afterten years of monotone drivel at the madrassa, they'll become men doingthey're best to drag their country back into the middle ages. Or maybenot.
The old man continued his tour by showing us a big gated cemetary andtwo unrestored but very nice shrines for the Khan's family. In betweenhe told us that he loved America and especially Donald Rumsfeldbecause not only did the Defense Secretary come to Tashkent and shakeKarimov's hand, but he also kicked the "Pashtun" Taliban out ofethnically Uzbek Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan. This was probably themost Islamic slice of the most ardently Muslim city in Central Asiaand here we had a madrassa-master praising Rummy. It makes you wonderwhat's possible in the rest of the Near East with some more visionaryleadership.
The madrassa master guides us around, speaking Uzbek
This woman arrived with a key to open up a nearly forgotten masoleumn for usTO KYRGYZSTAN
The next morning we took a shared taxi to the Kyrgyz border viaAndijon, the scene of the 2005 massacre. The passenger on my right,Avro, was a lively 45-year-old man who spent the ride joking with theoverweight squinty driver. He befriended through a mixture of Uzbekand hand signals. At about 10:45 he asked if I drank, to which I said,"sure I like beer sometimes." The car immediately screached to theside of the road and Avro ran over to a booth to buy beer. "Yok, yok",I protested, "It's only on bir o'clock". But he came back with two 1.5liter of 12% beer which we put a big dent in. We picked up a homely,41-year-old woman with gold teeth in Andijon, and Avro decided that itwas his job to pimp her out to me, asking me how much and thenoffering to pay himself, to which the woman laughed theatrically. Thisbehavior persisted for about a half of an uncomfortable hour.
The next morning we took a shared taxi to the Kyrgyz border viaAndijon, the scene of the 2005 massacre. The passenger on my right,Avro, was a lively 45-year-old man who spent the ride joking with theoverweight squinty driver. He befriended through a mixture of Uzbekand hand signals. At about 10:45 he asked if I drank, to which I said,"sure I like beer sometimes." The car immediately screached to theside of the road and Avro ran over to a booth to buy beer. "Yok, yok",I protested, "It's only on bir o'clock". But he came back with two 1.5liter of 12% beer which we put a big dent in. We picked up a homely,41-year-old woman with gold teeth in Andijon, and Avro decided that itwas his job to pimp her out to me, asking me how much and thenoffering to pay himself, to which the woman laughed theatrically. Thisbehavior persisted for about a half of an uncomfortable hour.
Lunch on the way to the Kyrgyz border. Driver, left and Avro, right. Beer is center.
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