A business trip to Uzbekistan

During the week from 02nd March to 08th March I had the opportunity to travel to Uzbekistan. I started in Dushanbe by plane, what itself has been more than an adventure. The planes are old and even the seats are not properly fixed anymore – so one starts to discover the meaning of religion again during the flight. But luckily landed in Khojand it took me some minutes to recover. I continued the trip through the Fergana-Valley with a DED-colleague to the Uzbek border and changed the care after finalizing the custom procedures. A DED-colleague from Tashkent took me to the Uzbek capital, where I found a marvelous accommodation in a spare expert’s cottage.

Tashkent is a harsh contrast to the small and provincial capital Dushanbe. Tashkent inhabits more than 3.6 Mio people and has been considered in soviet times as one of the cultural centers of the union (there is the second “Bolshoi Theater” of the former union). The night life is more active and the consuming behavior is already well established.

Two days later – after the duties were done – I continued with two colleagues to Yangikishlog. This is a tiny village situated between the Kyzylkum Desert, the Aidarkul Lake and the Nuratau-Mountain, where a UNDP workshop was held by the steering committee of the local program towards the establishment of the biosphere reservation. DED contributes to one component of the project through the placement of an expert. I used the opportunity to make some field studies for a short report on the project.

The next morning we left that beautiful place heading southwards through the mountains to reach after three hours Samarkand, the famous city with lots of Islamic ancient heritage. Because we had only limited time and the stop has not been included in our official mission, I visited just the Registan complex and some minor site located close to it. But it’s impressing, though re-built after severe earthquake damages, war and just the time passing…

We stayed overnight in Sharizabs – a somehow remote provincial town on the way to Termez – and tried the local brands of beer. The evaluation result reveals only little enthusiasm for intensifying the amounts of consumption, though a few sorts are enjoyable.

The remaining journey on our last day led us through beautiful countryside of south Uzbekistan, close to the border of Afghanistan. Except some sheeps, cows and village dwellers, we did not encounter any Mujahedin or Taliban. We assume they predominantly left southwards to Pakistan, where they can stir up the religious masses more efficiently than in the former soviet countries. The regimes here strictly prohibit the expansion of any social-islamic movements. I have listened to a muezzin just once during the last two months. Any Islamic engagement will be smashed immediately if it’s getting public, like it was obvious during the recent Andijan-Events in Uzbekistan, where officially hundreds and in-officially thousands of demonstrators were killed through gunfire into the masses.

We finished our round-trip crossing the Tajik border at Tursunzade and reached after one hour Dushanbe.