Tashkent

Tashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan.

below: Tashkent has a subway system with 29 stations. This is the entrance to one of them (you go down the stairs that are under the relief sculpture).

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below: The entrance to another metro station.  Looks rather quiet doesn’t it!

a mother and child walk towards a low circular building which is a metro entrance, part of the Tashkent subway system. It is surraounded by pavement. There are no other people in the picture

below: A class of school children link hands and form a circle around the base of a minaret.

school children link hands to form a cirlce around the base of a minaret

below: A small WW2 memorial in a residential area of Tashkent. It looks like a list of names.

memorial to WW2 veterans in an residential neighbourhood

below: A young man waits for a bus.

a boy waits for a bus at a bus stop

below: A playground in the foreground, the circus behind.

old playground structure

below: You have to be careful where you walk! The drainage ditches sometimes have covers and sometimes don’t! Also, the sidewalks and metal grates aren’t always in the best condition!
broken tiles on the sidewalk and broken metal drain covers as well

below: Two men change the billboard, one strip at a time. There are very few billboards in Uzbekistan.

two men are changing a billboard by hand. Each strip of the picture has to be changed

a man is drawing a portrait of a young woman, outdoors

two men are selling items on the sidewalk. They have the things laid out on a blue piece of fabric

two men play backgammon at a low table while they wait for people to buy things they are selling outdoors.

below: An apartment building from the Soviet era.

high rise building from the Soviet era in Tashkent Uzbekistan

below: A modern looking building. It may be in fact a building from the Soviet era that has been re-clad as the Uzbeks erase as many traces of the Soviets as possible.  Uzbekistan has been an independent country for 25 years.

modern office building in Tashkent

below: As close as one gets to murals on buildings in Tashkent

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below: The front of the Hotel Uzbekistan

front facade of Hotel Uzbekistan in Tashkent

below: If you go up to the restaurant on the top floor of the hotel, this is the view from out the window.  This is Amir Temur Square and if you look closely, you can see a statue in middle.  Independence Square is at the top right.  One of the white buildings at the very top of the picture is the National Security building… no photos allowed!  The problem is that it is right beside the park and the park looked lovely with the autumn leaves and the people and yes, I got in trouble.   Sort of.  Stupid tourist seemed to be the  Uzbek soldier’s response and he sighed and rolled his eyes while making sure I deleted the picture.

view from top floor window of Hotel Uzbekistan overlooking Amir Timor Square

below: And this is the statue.  You can’t go anywhere in Uzbekistan without hearing about Amir Temur (also written as Amir Timur or Tamerlane).   He was born in 1336 and spent most of his adult life fighting wars and winning.  I can’t even begin to summarize the complicated history of Central Asia at the time so suffice it to say that he beat the Persians, sacked Aleppo and Damascas,  captured Delhi, and died on his way to wage war against what is now China in 1404.

statue of Amir Temur ohn his horse, large, bronze, in the middle of a park in Tashkent

below: Another view from the top of the hotel.  The building with the blue dome is the Amir Temur museum.   There aren’t many cars on the road at the moment, but it’s not always that way!

view from top floor window of Hotel Uzbekistan overlooking part of Amir Timor Square and some of the buildings beside it.

below: A theatre

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below: I didn’t get the opportunity to explore all of Tashkent but in the parts that I did see, there was very little graffiti.  This was the one that stuck out the most.  It’s sprayed on the base of a minaret.

a happy face in black spray paint on the bricks at the base of a minaret, a small piece of graffiti

below: There were a couple of trees that were marked, but this was rare.

a heart and the word love have been etched into the bark of a tree

The remaining pictures are taken at the Chorsu Bazaar.  Most towns have an a market place, often outdoors.  Chorsu was the largest one that I saw and it was a marvellous place.

below: Bakers at work.

baking bread at the bakery

below: The bread is baked on the sides of a dome shaped oven.

baking bread on the walls of domed shaped ovens

below: The finished product.  All the bread that I saw was circular like this.

selling round loaves of bread from a cart at the outdoor market in Tashkent

selling things outside on the ground

sitting on the steps outside the covered market, a woman sits with boxes of goods to sell

a man pushes a small cart on which there are flat circular loaves of bread to sell

below: Dried cheese

green and blue plastic containers of smell whitish coloured balls of dried cheese

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looking down at the lower level of the market from upstairs

clothes for sale

mannequin heads wearing head scarves and big sunglasses

people buying bags of onions from the back of a truck

pomegranates for sale, piled up on a table

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tash_market_rice_vendor

tash_market_sellers_outdoors

tash_market_vendors_stairs

tash_market_woman_sweeping