Trolling for Trouble In Tashkent
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After the unforgettable evening with the ghosts of old Khiva, it was time to return to Tashkent for one last night with Victor and Irina. At the airport I was told that the jet servicing Khiva crashed recently. To replace it, an older model Antonov-24 propeller-driven airliner was being used. However, because of its age, it could not carry a full complement of 48 passengers. So the manifest was limited to 38 people plus bags or the aircraft could not get off the ground. Calculations such as this I never studied in engineering school. When you sit on a big, modern jet, you never think about the plane being too heavy, only where to jam your carry-on bags. I hoped the Russian engineers allotted the traditional fudge factor to compensate for math errors, cheap components, and unfavorable alignment of the planets.
So far the visit to western Uzbekistan has been relatively straightforward. The Spousal Unit and I have been able to find accommodations and transportation when we needed it. Restaurants are scarce but the markets have more than compensated. The legendary police hassles have not materialized—I am disappointed. ’Let’s raise our profile and troll for trouble so I have something to write about.’
In the airport we strut about prominently, making it obvious we are tourists, to bait officials and crooks who are, often as not, one and the same. Our bags are weighed, x-rayed, and weighed again. Our passports are checked a half dozen times, the last time by a representative of OVIR, the local surveillance and control folks, who verify our whereabouts in Khiva with the Orkanchi Hotel. Lucky for us the hotel registered us properly or the cost of an airline ticket would have increased significantly.
Eventually the plane arrives and the Unit and I board through a small, oval-shaped door. Needless to say, we did not check any luggage. One of the reasons I travel so light is to keep my bag in sight at all times. Large tour groups have less worries because they are basically guests of the state. Individual travelers, on the other hand, are generally viewed as private sources of income. No need to put the seatback in the upright position, the seat does not move backwards. Curiously, though, it does fold all the way forward, making a great foot rest if the seat in front of you is unoccupied. Little round port holes serve as windows. There are no flashing seat belt signs, overhead vents, or other modern amenities. Anticipating the customary absence of toilet facilities on the plane as well, the Savvy Travelers availed themselves of disgustingly dirty facilities which they found in an obscure corner on the second floor of the terminal building. Actually the one man Uzbek Airlines staff had to show us where it was because the door was unmarked and locked.
Victor’s dacha
Victor’s country house, or dacha, outside Tashkent is a ramshackle building on a small plot of land where every square inch is filled with flowers, vegetables, fruit trees, and birds. The long, sunny growing season makes gardens here spectacularly productive. Irina is not present. Instead, Victor’s ’sister’ who is half his age and favors tight hot pants, joins Mikhail and us for a last get together. Victor cooks up a huge pot of plov (rice with meat and vegetable bits) in the backyard and I succumb to Victor’s assault by hospitality. From the guidebook: ’Whether it’s being poured down your throat by a zealous host, or driving others into states of pathological melancholy, brotherly love, anger or violence, alcohol is one of the biggest problems travelers now face in the former Soviet Union. The Islamic injunction against alcohol has had little obvious impact in Central Asia. Some Central Asians drink vodka in moderation, though the Russians seem to slam the stuff back with the sole aim of getting blitzed as quickly as possible.’
Well, now that I am out of the country, I guess I can speak freely. Victor and his family, including his ’sister,’ were a cold lot. They tolerated us only because they wanted our dollars. We never felt welcome. No one was warm or friendly, something the language barrier should not have inhibited. Perhaps they were annoyed that we did not spend more money to take advantage of their guide or taxi services. Independent travelers are still a novelty in Uzbekistan. Convincing locals in a less prosperous foreign country that you are not rich or, heaven forbid, prefer to travel cheap, is not an easy task. Thanks to Hollywood and the worldwide proliferation of VCRs, foreign nationals often aspire to the American Dream more than a lot of Americans. As it was, the amount we paid for one night at Victor’s flat was equal to a month’s wages for a teacher in Uzbekistan. No reason to be disappointed, Victor. Based on my impressions of the Russians in this country, and I know I’ll be sorry if I say this, the sooner the Uzbeks kick them out, the better.
The next day at the long distance bus station the Unit and I again went trolling, flaunting our western goods. From Robert Kaplan’s book, The Ends of the Earth: ’Tashkent’s bus station was populated with young toughs in thin fake-leather jackets and polyester shirts drinking vodka. A few weeks earlier in Samarkand, an American backpacker had been beaten nearly unconscious and had his bags stolen. A Western ambassador told me that both his wife and his daughter had had bags lifted from them on separate occasions at Uzbek bus terminals. These victims may have been careless, or their appearance may easily have given them away as prosperous foreigners. Or they may have been simply unlucky. I didn’t know. What I did know, simply from looking at the crowd in the terminal hall, and having a New Yorker’s instinct for self-preservation, was that I was back in a place ... where the social fabric was thin.’
When our promenade failed to elicit any interest, we approached a bartender to change a little money on the black market. Spending off the last of your local currency when you are about to leave a foreign country (assuming it is not convertible) is always a challenge, especially when your traveling companion insists on getting her hair cut in the salon of the only international hotel in town on the last day. The bartender was very nervous because a couple men came into the bar during mid-transaction. He asked us if we were being followed. Of course, since this is precisely what I hoped, I said no. Our obligation to the itinerary provided by MIR was over so we had plenty of time for interrogation, arrest, or whatever. However, the strangers went away and the barkeep gave us 58 cym to the dollar. Curse that greedy Victor—he said 48:1 was the best he could do.
The ticket agent refused to sell us tickets out of the country because we did not have a stamp from the bus police. However, the police were out to lunch so we deployed ignorance and obstinance and blockaded the ticket agent’s window, much to the great dismay of those in the queue behind us, until the agent relented. Afterward the Unit and I visited the OVIR office to get a chit permitting us to use the bus tickets we had bought. Hoping for the worst, I spread out a plethora of ticket stubs, hotel bills, and exchange receipts to show where I had been. Of course, I went completely dumb with written or spoken Russian. One fat, red-faced officer could not take his eyes off the Unit’s money belt which she brazenly wore on the outside of her clothes. He kept pointing to schedule of fines posted on the wall. After a while I gave the man a curt look and said, ’Chill out, dude. You don’t even have a gun!’ My mates from the overland truck in Africa would have been proud of me. |
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