Tag Archives: Uzbekistan
Uzbek football, Korean streets and the Games. A 2018 wrap-up.
The last trip of the year ended today. I crossed the crucial threshold somewhere between the Brazilian rainforest and the Atlantic, blissfully unaware of it as I slept in my airplane seat wrapped in one of those duvets that are … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan, South Korea, Uzbekistan
Tagged 2018, 2018 retrospective, 2018 World Nomad Games, Beirut, Bukhara, Buxoro, Cholpon Ata, End of year, Football, Incheon, Korea, Kyrchyn, Kyrchyn Jailoo, Kyrgyzstan, Night, Seoul, South Korea, Sport, Uzbekistan, World Nomad Games
15 Comments
To the last city.
No, that’s a misnomer. Tashkent was, if anything, Uzbekistan’s first city, at least in the modern sense of the term. First one to be occupied by the Russians, first one to be reached by a railroad, first to host all … Continue reading
Posted in Central Asia, Uzbekistan
Tagged Asia, Central Asia, Christianity, City, Cityscape, Cycling, Earthquake, Food, G55 AMG, Hotel Uzbekistan, Islam, Islam Karimov, Karimov, Kazakhstan, Korean, Kosmonavtlar, Lenin, Marx, Mercedes, Mirobod, Soviet, Soviet Union, Street photography, Urban photography, USSR, Uzbek Koreans, Uzbekistan
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Looking up in Uzbekistan.
Remember shoegazing, that 1980s genre? Well, had any of those musicians been in Ulug Beg Madrasa, in Samarkand, they’d have missed this. Sometimes it’s useful to be walking with one eye to the heavens and one to the floor. Especially … Continue reading
Posted in Central Asia, Uzbekistan
Tagged Amulet Hotel, Bazaar, Bibi Khanum, Bukhara, Chasma Ayub, Chorsu, Chorsu Bazaar, Cupola, dOMES, GoPro, Hero, Islam, Job, Madrasa, Madrasah, Mausoleum, Religion, Samarkand, Tamerlane, Tashkent, Ulug Beg, Uzbekistan
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Buxoro PFC home: an excursion into Uzbekistan’s Premier League.
It is normally the case, at least for me, to be stumbling upon great finds almost entirely by chance, and today was exactly one such case. We were sitting on a topchan at the hotel, yet again cheered by endless … Continue reading
Posted in Central Asia, Uzbekistan
Tagged Bukhara, Buxoro, Central Asia, Fans, Football, Goal, Pakhtakor, Paxtakor, Premier League, Soccer, Super League, Tashkent, Ultras, Uzbekistan
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A sunset over Po-i-Kalyon
Showcasing Bukhara must be the easiest job ever, or so I thought with the clarity that suddenly comes when you’re into your third pint-sized bottle of Portland beer (the fact that an Uzbek brew had the picture of a clipper … Continue reading
Posted in Central Asia, Uzbekistan
Tagged Afghanistan, Bokhara, Bukhara, Central Asia, Chor Minor, Dushanbe, Eastern Approaches, Fire cult, Fitzroy Maclean, Genghis Khan, Iran, Isfahan, Islam, Madrasah, Madrassa, Mausoleum, Minaret, Mir-i-Arab, Muslim, Nadir Divan-Beg, Po-i-Kalyon, Portland beer, Siddikyon, Somoni, Tajikistan, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Zoroastrianism
16 Comments
And then I was invited to tea.
Bukhara the holy, Bukhara the saint, Bukhara the erudite, Bukhara the city where light floods from the ground up and not from the heavens down. Or perhaps the Bukhara, in the words of traveller and linguist Ármin Vámbéry, ”whose whole … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, Central Asia, Uzbekistan
Tagged Abdul Aziz Madrassah, As salaam alaikum, Asia, Backgammon, Bokhara, Bukhara, Buxoro, Central Asia, Chai, Children, Chor Minor, Doors, Madrassah, Masjid, Mosaic, Mosque, Mud walls, Old town, People, Po-i-Kalyon, Registan, Samarkand ko'chasi, Stork, Stork next, Street photography, Tea, Topchan, Urban decay, Urban exploration, Urban tourism, Uzbekistan
22 Comments
The whistling man of Registan.
Denying it would be pointless, and I won’t: I am an unabashed Morricone fan and – the two go hand in hand, really – an Alessandroni devotee. Whilst I appreciate that Morricone’s fame is somehow a given, I’m aware that … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, Central Asia, Uzbekistan
Tagged Architecture, Art, Asia, Bibi Khanum, Central Asia, Control, Freeloaders, Islam, Madrassah, Millyi Gvardiya, People watching, Police, Registan, Registon, Religion, Samarkand, Samarqand, Selfies, Shir Dor, Tamerlane, Tillya Kari, Timur, Tourism, Ulug Beg, Uzbekistan
21 Comments
Postcard from Uzbekistan.
I cannot, writing straight away, give you an idea of this marvel. If I were to thread the words, mosaics, pediments, spandrels, bas-reliefs, niches, enamels, corbels, all on a string in a sentence, the picture would still be incomplete. It … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, Central Asia, Uzbekistan
Tagged Asia, Central Asia, Jules Verne, Postcard, Samarkand, Shah-I-Zinda, Shohizinda, Uzbekistan
21 Comments
“Out of Steppe” by Daniel Metcalfe, Arrow – Random House
If the passion for travelling off the beaten path, exploring places that don’t make it on the top-shelf brochure at your local Trailfinders (but, let’s face it, they don’t even make it to the bottom one), was a genetic strand … Continue reading
Posted in Books review
Tagged Afghanistan, Aral Sea, Arrow, Asia, Books review, Bukhara, Bukharan Jews, Byron, Central Asia, Colin Thubron, Daniel Metcalfe, Iran, Karakalpakstan, Kazakhstan, Moynaq, Pakistan, Random House, Tehran, The Economist, Thesiger, Travel literature, Travel writing, Uzbekistan, Volga Germans, Wilfred Thesiger, Yaghnobi
12 Comments
Disaster by design: the death and partial rebirth of the Aral Sea (Part 2).
I’d seen Serik a long time before we met in the parking lot outside the Altair hotel; in fact, I first read about him on Al Jazeera. Dubbed “Aralsk’s only tour guide”, he’d accepted to be my guide for the … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, Kazakhstan
Tagged Aqespe, Aral, Aral Sea, Aral sea ships, Aralsk, Asia, Beached boats, Boat, Camel, Cotton, Desertification, Disappearance of Aral sea, Ecological disaster, Ecology, Impact on health, Kazakhstan, Lenin, Moscow, North Aral Sea, Salinisation, Ship Graveyard, Ships, Soviet Union, Travel, USSR, Uzbekistan, White Gold, World Bank, Zhalanash
22 Comments
