Walking myself to exhaustion in Tashkent

My plane landed in Tashkent at one o’clock in the morning, but fortunately I was not dazed enough to forget to exchange money. A few taxi drivers fought over me in the parking lot, but as a matter of principle I stuck with the first person I approached – the alternative had been a burly man who flung his arm around my shoulder in a manner that would have seemed friendly had it been easier to extricate myself from his embrace. He followed us to the car insisting to my driver that I was to go with him for a higher price, and exchanged some choice words with him – though thankfully no more than that – as I climbed inside.

When I arrived at the front desk of my hotel, I was told that due to some undisclosed circumstances, the hotel was not operational, but that I was being moved to its sister establishment just around the corner. The change was a considerable upgrade, but I was too tired to perform enthusiasm to the receptionist who guided me from my original destination. As we rounded the corner and came into view of the hotel, whose high-flung name should doubtlessly have rung some bells, the receptionist turned to me expectantly asking “So, how do you like it?” to which I meekly responded that I had not yet been inside. To temper my fatigued sense of humour I added that I was sure it would be fine.

I found out the following day that my original abode had been temporarily closed because of licensing issues – a fact that the receptionist doubtlessly did not intend to hide from me, but which ended up being concealed by his limited English vocabulary. For my part, I was far too tired and wary of misunderstandings to pull out my meagre Russian skills. I should add that although the change in hotels was an upgrade, my enjoyment of my room was somewhat limited by the fact that the building’s air conditioning settings had not yet been changed from winter heating to summer cooling, so I went to sleep at a toasty thirty degrees.

I ventured into the city at around ten in the morning, armed with a few screenshots of useful bus connections and the hotel manager’s assurance that I could use my debit card on public transport. Google Maps, I had found over breakfast, is completely clueless about public transport in Tashkent, so I downloaded Yandex Maps for the screenshots and promptly proceeded to ignore it for the rest of the day.

My first stop was the Oliy Majlis – the parliament of Uzbekistan. I gleaned it was not a very frequented attraction, but I wanted to see its blue dome inspired by Central Asia’s traditional architecture. The reason why the parliament is not very popular became apparent as soon as the whole building came into view: it is (one might even say predictably) surrounded by a big iron fence. My next stop was the City Park, which was far more accessible but strange in a different way. The place was manicured almost to a fault, and inoffensive music beamed from the loudspeakers along its paths. Quite appropriately, I found that the park bordered several blocks of European-inspired townhouses, but they were too tidy and identical to date to the nineteenth century. The ground floors in this area were all occupied by luxury shops, which did not seem to be attracting many customers.

From these new parts of town, I finally found my way to a building of older provenance: the Kukeldash Madrasa. Built in the sixteenth century, the blue-domed complex was transformed into a caravanserai and fortress before – with a massive serving of irony – the Soviets converted it to a museum of atheism. As its classrooms indicate, the madrasa has been restored to its original function since Uzbekistan’s independence. To the east, the madrasa also happens to neighbour the Hoja Ahror Valiy Mosque, and just a short walk north of the two lies the sprawling Chorsu Bazaar. I did not spend much time at this last location, though it was just enough time to observe that one of the most frequently sold items was anti-cockroach spray.

Had my map indicated that it is practically impossible to walk through the Abdulla Kadiri Recreation Park – which appeared to be undergoing extensive renovations – I would have taken the metro to my next destination. Instead, I awkwardly traced the contours of this park all the way to the Abdulla Qodiriy Monument, a statue dedicated to an Uzbek literary luminary. Qodiriy was favoured by Akmal Ikramov, the leader of Uzbekistan’s communist party, but both of them were arrested and executed as part of Stalin’s Great Purge of 1938.

A short walk north of the statue of Abdulla Qodiriy stands the newly constructed Islamic Civilisation Centre. Built in traditional Uzbek style, this massive building can be seen from kilometres away. Its claim to fame is that it houses the oldest extant copy of the Quran, though I am not really sure what the whole rest of the structure could possibly be used for. The centre stands right in front of the Hazrati Imam complex, which is built on the grave of the first imam-khatib of Tashkent. While some parts of the complex are still reserved for prayer, much of it is now dedicated to shops selling clothes and souvenirs, and all the open space around it is a perfect spot for children to run around flying their kites.

At this point in my excursion, I began to feel tired, and more importantly, I began to think that I may need to use the bathroom. It occurred to me that the public toilets outside the Islamic Civilisation Centre would likely all be of the squatting variety, but I saw a glimmer of hope when I found the bathrooms were wheelchair accessible. This hope was quickly extinguished. To this moment, I still wonder how wheelchair users are supposed to dangle themselves above a squat toilet, and I might keep on wondering for a good while. In any case, trying to squat above the porcelain hole in terror and pain was a surefire way to shock my body into suspending all of its needs until I returned to the hotel.

Seeing as I did still feel tired, I decided to rely on the metro as much as I could for the rest of the day. It first took me to Amir Timur Square, which is dedicated to the conqueror Timur, more commonly known in the West as Tamerlane. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan has been cultivating a veneration for its national heroes, and Timur has been adopted into this pantheon thanks to his undisputably local connections. While he campaigned a considerable deal from India all the way to Anatolia, he was born and buried in modern-day Uzbekistan. Of course, Timur was of Mongolian descent, albeit majorly Turkified.

From the Amir Timur Square with its mounted statue of Timur and the temporarily closed State Museum of the Timurids, I took another metro to the north of the Monument of Victims of Political Repression, from which I continued to the Minor Mosque, a relatively modern building perched atop the Chirchiq River. Tashkent is not a particularly walkable city, and its newer attractions especially are quite widely spaced out. I breathed a sigh of relief when I sat down on the 67 bus and let it carry me all the way back to my hotel.