Similarly dissimilar my friend, rekhmat!

Similarly dissimilar my friend, rekhmat!

Uzbekistan diary 3

Liquor shop at a petrol station

Last Saturday I had posted about our visit to dried-up Aral Sea in Karakalpakstan and the abandoned ships lying there for decades now.

We had arrived in Khiva by an overnight train (Uzbekistan Railway) from Tashkent the morning before. The train body was narrower than those in India with four passengers in a cabin and no side berths. One railway employee deployed in each coach was the attendant, cleaner and ticket-checker, everything.

There was a narrow compartment near the door of the coach in which burned a coal fire to heat the whole coach as well as water in a small container with a tap from which you could use water for tea. Two sachets each of green and black tea and four small packs of sugar cubes were provided in each coupe.The train brought us to the quiet Khiva station right on time at 10.55 a.m. Khiva, a nearly 1500-year-old city, was a well-known market of Persian and Russian slaves in the 17^th to 19^th centuries.

We went straight to the hotel, a big, swanky, new building. The next three hours were a test of our patience, language skills as well as the dawning of the realisation that not all family-owned hotels were professionally ready to handle overseas guests. The receptionist (front desk if you please) would not allow us to check in before 2.00 pm unless we paid a day’s tariff in dollars. The owner, we were told, was sleeping, and could not be disturbed, the restaurant was not functioning and the wi-fi service was not exactly equipped to connect us to the rest of the world.

You can now understand how focused we must have been on going to Aral Sea because we stayed two nights there.

The taxi drivers who had brought us to the hotel were quite eager to take us for the city tour in the afternoon. Suffice it to say that that proved to be a lesson for us.

The drivers picked us up at 3.30 p.m. They were insistent that we first visit the mausoleum of Shayx Muxtor Vali, about half an hour away and visit the walled city later.

Unable to keep my internet gyan to myself, I said the walled city of Itchan Kala, clearly visible from outside the hotel, closes at 6.00. p.m. and we should go there first, we can see the maqbara (mausoleum) later. But the know-all drivers butted, “No, Itchan kala is open 24 hours”.

Mausoleum Photo: Gyanesh Tiwari

The looking-at-one-another-and-nodding-of-heads ritual followed and respecting the majority decision, we first drove half an hour outside the city to see the maqbara.

Located in a walled-in quiet park, the mausoleum is a small building. A short narrow passage leads into a main hall where the Imam sits and recites the Holy Quran or holds meetings. We came out, curious about the gate leading to the area adjacent to the site.

Photo: Gyanesh Tiwari

It opened into a graveyard and there were scores of whitewashed hut-like graves, about seven feet in height.

There was not much to see, read or know about the Shayx or the site. We drove back intending to visit the walled city. When we reached there, the small ticket office was open and the two women sitting there knitting, were keen to sell the tickets to the museum, but one of them warned that they started closing at 5.45 p.m. It was already 5.23 p.m. It was no point going in when we could not have seen much. First the hotel and then the drivers, had wasted at least five precious hours.

Fortress walls 

It is fair to say that I was the most disappointed because I had warned everyone about the place closing at 6.00 p.m. What I also understood was that I should have been more specific in mentioning that the historical sites inside Itchan Kala i.e., the museums, mosques, minarets, etc., which had earned it a place on the UNESCO Heritage Sites list,  had a closing time.

So, we missed out on going inside any of these - Kunya-Ark Citadel, Tash-Khovli Palace, Mukhammad Amin Khan Madrasah etc. Juma masjid, Islam Khoja Complex and saw them merely from outside.

Khiva fur caps

Left with not much to do, we decided to walk around the place and ‘soak in’ the atmosphere. There were similar-looking mud-coloured structures everywhere. These were houses, hotels, hostels, and restaurants.  Small kiosks along the road, sold the usual items that we had seen at other places. Khiva being purely a tourist destination, the prices were high. The one unusual item I noticed was the Khiva caps, made of animal fur.

Although the walled area is open day and night, as the sunset was bringing in the cold night, shops were slowly closing for the day.

Top: Huge courtyard-like space inside the fortress. The two clay ovens are for bread-making demonstrations for tourists. 

Bottom: Kiosks selling Uzbek craft and souvenir items. You can see the Islam Khoja minaret in the background. Both photos: Gyanesh Tiwari

We consoled ourselves that what we were going to see the next day was the site we had come to visit (Cemetery of ships, Aral Sea) and was not known to most tourists.

Ever since our return from the trip, I have heard several people say that so and so they know, recently visited Uzbekistan and how this land-locked Central Asian country is a popular tourist destination nowadays.

Is it because Uzbekistan is very cheap compared to Europe, the Americas or far East Asia, even our own Bharat Mahan (great India)?

One Indian rupee is roughly 148 Soum, the Uzbek currency. With the wad of one or two lakh soum notes in your hand, you feel like a millionaire. And things are cheaper too. Just think of how the Euro and USD handling people must be feeling- Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, even if their pygmy versions!

Here I would, however, point out something that caught my attention. Some Persian and Arabic words used in Uzbek are similar in Hindustani/Hindi/Urdu and if you pay attention, you can pick them. The Uzbeks, however, say it with an ‘o’ sound instead of an ‘aa’ as we do. And their ‘h’ sounds more like ‘kh’, so it is not mehmaan (guest) but mekhmaan. I am giving a short table for your information.

S No.	Uzbek Word	Meaning in English	Hindi/Urdu word
1.	Behtarin	best	behtareen
2.	Dokon	shop	dukaan
3.	Dikkat	difficulty	diqqat
4.	Darwaza	door	darwaza
5.	Hunarmand	skilled	hunarmand
6.	Kitap	book	kitaab
7.	Mekhman	guest	mehmaan
8.	Mushkil	difficult	muskhil
9.	Maqbara	mausoleum	maqbara
10.	Harom	forbidden	haraam
11.	Manzil	destination	manzil
12.	Darya	river	Dariya
13.	Maktab	school	maktab
14.	Maqsad	Goal	maqsad
15.	Anjir	fig	anjeer
16.	Anor	pomegranate	anar
17.	Raqs	dance	raqs
18.	Rekhmat	Kindness	rehmat
19.	Rakmi	amount	rakam
20.	Vaqt	time	vaqt
21.	Tarjima	translation	tarjuma
22.	Tabiyat	health	tabeeyat
23.	T’alim	education	taaleem
24.	Tandir	clay oven	tandoor
25.	Choy	tea	chai

In fact, Uzbeks thank you with a rekhmat (rehmat). I could add more words, but I am not sure if you are in the mood for a language lesson.

And in the end, to answer Sunayana’s question, we did not see any cops, policemen, patrol cars or sirens flashing in the seven days in any of the cities we visited. If you ask me what an Uzbek policeman looks like, I have neither an answer nor any photo to show.

https://kun.uz/en/news/2022/08/16/uzbekistans-position-in-ranking-of-countries-by-crime-rate-

says According to the Numbeo portal, Uzbekistan ranked 104th out of 142 with an index of 33.68 in the ranking of countries by crime rate for the first half of 2022. 

Is it because Uzbekistan is a nominal democracy or has a Putin-style government and crime is crushed with an iron hand, or is it that the people are peace-loving? Somebody please let me know!

Meanwhile, please be ready to visit Bukhara with me next Saturday.

A newly-married couple pose for a photo shoot in Itchan Kala bozor (bazar).

        The groom was so tall that my limited photography skills did not do                   justice to his head.                                                                                                                                                                                                 -Anupama S Mani