uzbekistan

“travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness”

Mark Twain

Sometimes you book a trip, do a bit of research about the place you are going, and then quickly come to the realisation that, well, you have absolutely no idea what you are in for.

I think this is one of the true joys in life, to step off a plane in a totally new place, a place as far from your norm as you can get, open your arms and say “Come at me!”.

Uzbekistan was this for me. When that realisation hit, the only plan I made was to wake up each morning and walk. Walk the length and breadth of the city I was in. Step off the main roads and work my way through the backstreets. Eat everything. No matter how it looked or smelt, buy it and try it. Go where the locals go. Talk to them. Sit with them in their bars. Ask them what beer they drink. What they snack on with their beer. What they eat in the evenings. What I need to make sure to try before I leave. Use food as my medium to understand the place a little better. 

I think there’s a lot to be said for being ok to just wing it. Accepting that a road may lead nowhere. That a meal may be average, or bad even. That you may stumble upon something you don’t like, enjoy, or want to see. I find that accepting that these things may happen is the best way to accidentally stumble upon the best a country has to offer. The hidden gems that you wouldn’t have discovered had you followed an online guide.

I like to do what I can to avoid tourist attractions, resorts and planned itineraries. I sometimes feel that they build a façade, and paint an incomplete or inaccurate picture of a place.

Luckily, there are places in the world where these things barely exist, if at all.

Uzbekistan is one of these places. Totally free from the big brands, the Big Mac’s and Caramel Lattes that appear in almost every city. 

It’s a bit East Asian, a bit Middle Eastern, a bit Soviet, but almost completely untouched by the influence of the western world. Uzbekistan is a bizarre mix of all that is good and bad in this world.

Let’s be honest, it’s probably a place you know little about. I would go as far as saying that the majority of people wouldn’t recognise its flag, or be able to place it on a map. I had barely even heard of it before the opportunity to visit presented itself. But, it’s totally understandable. Compared to the countries around it, it’s a relatively unassuming place. No recent wars, no real global impact, nothing noteworthy in the media. However, it hasn’t always been that way. It was once a truly vital part of the world.

The significance of Uzbekistan dates back to the beginning of trade, and the start of globalisation. The city of Samarkand, ‘the crossroad of cultures’, was once the main stopping point on the Silk Road which, itself, was one of the most important trade routes to ever have existed. You could say that, at one time or another, Uzbekistan was the centre of the world. 

But, times have changed. The world has shifted. Uzbekistan has been through a wild ride since then and, as a result, has moved out of focus.

Since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, it has become a bit of a confused culture. Because of such dramatic shifts in rule, cities like Tashkent, the capital, have developed a strange aesthetic. Not solely in the crossed cultures sort of way, it just feels a little odd. There’s a familiar thread of the wealth of the past and the dreams of the future running through the city, but they’re being met with present realities of what is actually feasible and affordable. 

It feels like they are building everywhere in Tashkent, but half of it seems to be abandoned. You get the sense that the historic ‘centre of the world’ mentality, and the wealth that came with it, is still a big part of the way of thinking. However, the reality is slowly dawning that the demand for these buildings does not meet the ambition of those funding them. Budgets are being cut, investment is being placed elsewhere and, as a result, there are skeletons of buildings scattered all around the city. 

The TV tower that dominates the skyline feels almost like a relic of a time long gone. A memory of the Soviet rule, left as a reminder of all that once was. The metro stations, as beautiful and captivating as they are, give off a similar feeling. An abandoned theme park sits in the heart of the city, and seems to blend directly into an, equally abandoned looking but completely open, planetarium and circus. It’s surreal. It’s almost dystopian

There are old mosques that date back thousands of years, and then there are mosques that are just a handful of years old built in the same style. Side by side, it is hard to tell the difference. There are also huge megaplex size construction sites where they are building mega-mosques for the generations to come. 

Walking down any road in Tashkent, you could feel like you are being transported around the world just by looking at the architecture. It shouldn’t work but, somehow, the old soviet blocks blend seamlessly with the islamic architecture. It really really shouldn’t work. It shouldn’t be so beautiful. But, it is. It’s an absolute dream to explore by foot.

Leaving Tashkent, the landscape opens up. The dense city quickly makes way to mountains and lakes. The old soviet influence quickly dissipates, and you get a real feel for what this country originally looked like. Looking at cities such as Samarkand, Khiva and Bukhara, you get a glimpse into just how far back this culture goes. The Islamic architecture is like nowhere else, combining Arabic, Chinese and North Indian styles into one building.

However, in the middle of Tashkent, there is a place that captivated me like no other. Chorsu Bazaar. A mighty circular market that, over the years, has spilled out onto the streets and squares that surround it. The middle section, under the domed roof, is home to rings upon rings of butchers, cheesemakers and picklers. There is a whole building just for bread. Bakers line every wall and kids roam the halls with wheelbarrows filled with loaves, transporting them in each and every direction. There are also countless spice merchants and vegetable vendors, creating a scene abundant with colours and smells.

But, it’s not just produce. Deep in the heart of the bazaar, you’ll start to smell something different. Something delicious and enticing.

Follow your nose and you’ll soon reach a steam-filled space occupied by rows upon rows of vendors. They’ll be grilling meats, filling breads and producing an assortment of things you’ve probably never seen before. When I reached this place, I veered straight to a stall where they were cooking kebabs right on the coals, stuffing the meat into the local bread, and topping with raw onions, vinegar and a spice mix.

Sometimes, I think it’s worth it to go to the end of the world for the right food or the right experiences. It was worth going to Uzbekistan for this kebab. I saw so much during my trip, learnt so many things, ate so many new foods, but this kebab stands above all of it. I can honestly say, with absolutely no hint of hyperbole, that this little stall, nestled away under the chaos of Chorsu, produces one of the best and purest pieces of street food I have ever had. 

I wanted another but deciding that variety was best, I went to explore the other options. The camera around my neck made it obvious that I was a tourist and, as such, I was invited over by every vendor I passed.

I pride myself on being a ‘try anything once’ type of guy. Offered a local delicacy, my view is that it’s rude to decline without reason. So, I accepted a plate of food from one of the vendors, without any insight into what it might be. 

It was only after I finished that the she explained what I’d eaten. It was something I’d never had before. Something I may never have ordered if I’d known what it was. It was my first taste of horse meat.

I can’t say it was bad. In fact, I can’t say it wasn’t delicious.

I’m definitely a meat eater, there’s no doubt about it. But, the people of Uzbekistan are meat eaters on a whole different level. Meat is in abundance in their meals, and they use animal fat in an extraordinary way. Their national dish, Plov, is essentially rice and meat swimming in rendered sheep's fat. It’s everywhere, and it’s unavoidable.

In the western world, there is a significant part of the food chain that many of us manage to put out of our minds when eating meat. The fact that the meat we are eating was once a living thing, and that it was put to slaughter in order to feed us. 

There are times, most times even, when the food industry works its magic to remove any element of resemblance to the living thing from the object we eat. It’s hard to see a cow in a burger, a pig in a slice of bacon or, even, a chicken when eating a breast. 

This means that many of us will go our whole lives without ever having to kill for our meal, without ever bearing witness to the death that precedes eating meat, and without the guilt that arises from those acts.

However, there are other times when this transition of life is made more obvious. Chorsu market is one of those places. It’s not just the rings upon rings of butchers inside that do this, it’s the single elements that shock you. A photo of a horse hanging above a butcher describes an alien concept. The sheep’s heads, eyes still in sockets, tongues hanging out, are part of the same stall as the fatty rear ends hanging on hooks, and the surprisingly normal looking steaks that, somehow, seem completely out of place. 

There is an abundance of death. In some cases it’s carried out elsewhere before being carted to these stalls for butchering. In others, it’s happening right in front of your eyes. 

The noise, the smell, the sights; this is a place void of corporate shielding. With no qualms or squeamish customers to worry about. Just nature doing its thing, transferring life from one animal to another. The body of one feeding another, the circle of life and death.  

It’s raw, it’s real, it makes you value every bite of meat you eat, and really understand the implications of what you consume. That is why, in Uzbekistan, they use every single part of the animal. There is no waste.

I ate a lot of things in Uzbekistan. From the Somsa you get on every street corner, to the honey I got from a farm I visited in the mountains, to an incredibly Russian meal in the TV Tower, as well as everything in between.

The food of Uzbekistan is changing. You can see that people are starting to take more of an interest in what they’re eating. You can see it reflected in the coffee and brunch culture that is beginning to creep in.

But, most is still the same as it ever was. Big meals to fill your stomach and give you an opportunity to spend time with family and friends. People seem to be slowly bringing in aspects from other cultures, but the revolution has not quite happened yet. Not fully, anyway.

However, aside from the love of meat, in this part of the world, no matter your background, wealth or privilege, bread is a fundamental and deeply respected part of life. It is considered rude to go to anyone’s house and not bring bread. The mornings in Tashkent consist of lines and lines of people waiting outside tiny bakeries, waiting to purchase stacks upon stacks of round loaves. The bakeries, turning out as much bread as they can, churn on and on.

Every morning, I would queue up outside the local bakery and wait, excitedly, for my freshly baked loaf. Most times, it would be straight out of the oven, too hot to even handle. Some days I would eat it plain, some days I would dip it in some of the local honey I bought. Uzbek bread is insanely good. Tashkent non in particular, that delicious circular loaf, is fabled to be the very best tandoor cooked bread in the world. It has a perfectly chewy crust and an open crumb, with a delicate flavour of roasted grain, and a little char. It’s incredibly moreish, it’s no wonder bread has become so deeply ingrained in local life.

On one of my trips to the baker, I asked if I could hang around a while and watch him work. It was amazing to me, to see how fast he moved in such a tiny, incredibly hot room. Stamping the dough with a little perforated design, flipping it onto a cloth, leaning head first into the oven and pressing it into the wall or roof, he would process 50-odd loaves in one go. A few minutes later, the loaves, stuck to every surface inside the oven, had puffed up and begun to smoke. At that point, they are ready to go. Using a metal rod, he flicks each loaf out of the oven and stacks them ready to hand out. Cash is left in a bowl on the table, solely based on trust, and the customers disperse back to their homes. He then gets cracking on the next batch.

I had never seen anything like it. The speed and precision of his process, creating loaf upon loaf, all completely uniform, hour after hour, day after day. It was mesmerising and utterly awesome to behold.

Uzbekistan hit me on so many levels. I had no idea what I was in for when I landed, but I never expected to be surprised, inspired, awestruck and educated in so many different ways, in such a consistent fashion. I was there for just under a week. I know I have a lot more to see, a lot more to try for the first time, and a lot of things that I would love to do again, but it also opened my eyes to how many places like this there might be in the world. Places that, right now, I know so little about. Places where I would feel the same things I felt in Uzbekistan. That would hit me in such similar ways.

Now, let’s say for a second that there is absolutely no way in your mind that Uzbekistan could be this way for you. With that, I think it is exactly the type of place you should visit. Go to the places you know very little about. Go to learn, to be shocked, to challenge yourself and experience something totally new. Form your own opinion of a place, instead of believing what you read. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll be surprised at how wrong you had it the whole time.

I’ll admit right now, I was 100% wrong about Uzbekistan.