Uniquely Uzbekistan

A perfect combination of exotic Central Asian grandeur and unrivalled beauty, Uzbekistan is being touted as one of the hot new countries for 2019. We take you to Tashkent, Bukhara and Samarkand—three cities where you will find everything you’re looking for in a refreshingly offbeat destination!

By Raul Dias 



(This article first appeared in the January-February-March 2019 issue of HDFC Imperia magazine)

All is Wine!

Said to be introduced by the Romans and developed by the Russians, Uzbekistan’s all but forgotten wine industry is seeing a renewed interest in it as the Central Asian republic slowly re-discovers indigenous Uzbek varietals like the robust Saperavi and the fruity Rkatsiteli among others.    

By Raul Dias

“Samarkand, Bukhara, and other magnificent cities are places decorated with gardens and vineyards!” Even Marco Polo seems to concur with me as I traverse the largest and richest republic in Central Asia—Uzbekistan. As my train from the capital Tashkent en route to the historic city of Samarkand passes through the lush, vineyard-infested countryside (currently Uzbek vineyards total 127,000 hectares), I’m reminded of what the 13th-century Venetian explorer had to say about this part of the world. All this, as I try to put a lid on my wide-eyed surprise. I mean, who has ever heard of the words “Uzbekistan” and “wine” strung together in the same sentence, right?

History in a Bottle!
While it may have very well been the Romans who probably introduced wine in Uzbekistan thanks to the Silk Road, it was Russian settlers who first commercialised winemaking in Uzbekistan in the 1860s. In fact, I later learn that a few wines even won prizes at international competitions in Paris and Antwerp in that era.
As a result of this, the number of wineries in Uzbekistan continued to grow as it amalgamated into the Soviet Union in 1924. Sweeter, indigenous varietals like Bayan Shirei and Kuldginskii led many Uzbek vintners to specialise in dessert and semisweet wines like the once-renowned Gulyakandozes, Shirins, Aleatikos, and Farkhods.
However, lack of both innovation and quality in Uzbekistan’s wine industry caused it to stagnate in the later part of the 20th century, when the low-priced, fortified wines were consumed in only in the Soviet Union and rarely ever exported. The final nail in the coffin came about during Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1985-88 campaign to combat alcoholism that all but decimated Uzbekistan’s already limping wine industry.

Through it all
And though the casualties may have been several, one winery that survived through it all is the Samarkand-based Khovrenko Winery that’s been in continuous business since 1868 after it was founded by a Russian merchant named Dmitriy Filatov. I find myself in its well-appointed winemaking museum in Samarkand’s historic Jewish quarter, after getting lost a number of times thanks to a faulty directions’ app. I’m here for the one-hour wine tour that sets me back by 50,000 Som (around Rs. 1,000).
As I’m the only guest, my guide Abdulaziz Yoʻldoshev lavishes all his attention on me as he takes me through the mahagony-lined main hall’s exhibits. “It was only in 1927 that true fame came to the winery when Russian scientist, wine-maker and chemist Michael Khovrenko joined Khovrenko, eventually buying it off from the earlier owners,” Yoʻldoshev lets me know. “It was he who designed the technical methods for producing such vintage wines as Gulyakandoz, Shirin and Liquor Kaberne—three of our most successful ones.”
I am then led to the winery’s 100-year-old cellar called the ‘library’. Here, narrow passageways run among the shelves, on which—much like books—one by one, bottles of wine covered with a thick coat of dust are arranged. It is here that I enjoy my sampling of everything from the 10-year-aged, amber-hued Filatov cognac to the cloyingly sweet, but yummy USSR-style Kargof dessert wine that’s a blend of Georgian and Cabernet grape varietals.

The Others…
But as I was soon to learn, while making my way back to Tashkent a few days later, it’s not just the aromatic and sweet Soviet period-style wines that are in demand today. On the road to Ferghana, some 100km away from Tashkent, at an altitude of 1,600 meters, the Hamkor Vineyard at Parkent is known to craft wines that have a distinct European profile. Dedicated for the greatest part to exports, the vineyard with an unmistakable Francophile hangover (pun unintended!) created brands like Champs Elysées, Joséphine, Louvre and Monte Cristo that I’m told are wildly popular in countries like Japan, China and neighbouring Kazakhstan.
Started in 1993, the Tashkent-based Mehnat Group crafts dry wines made with both traditional French grape varietals like Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon and local Uzbek ones like Saperavi and Hindogni for the red wines, with Riesling and Rkatsiteli for the whites. It currently exports 20% of its production to Russia, Kazakhstan and other republics of Central Asia, besides catering to the burgeoning local demand, of course.
Interestingly, during my stay in Uzbekistan, its President Shavkat Mirziyoev announced that as a result of his recent October 2018 trip to France, 60,000 French grape varietal cuttings—including Chardonnay, Cabernet, and Sauvignon—were being delivered to produce high-quality Uzbek vintages. All this, in an attempt to boost Uzbekistan’s moribund wine industry, along with imminent plans for an annual international wine festival—a historic first in any predominantly Muslim country.
Well, the trip’s surprises never seem to end for me, it seems! 


TRAVEL LOG

Getting There 
There are direct flights from Mumbai, New Delhi and Amritsar to Tashkent on Uzbekistan Airways. The superfast Afrosiyob train service links Tashkent with Samarkand in under two hours. Travel within Samarkand is very easy with cheap and plentiful transport options available, including taxis, buses and mini vans. The easy-to-procure visa to visit Uzbekistan can be obtained online and takes just two working days to process for a fee of US $20.

Stay
Samarkand has an excellent selection of hotels to choose from to suit all budgets and tastes. Two such options are the Asia Bukhara Hotel (asiahotels.uz) and the Hotel Registan Plaza (registan-plaza.com) that’s centrally located just off the leafy University Boulevard in the heart of the city.

Tip
* Similar to an Indian naan, the heavier Samarkand non has a darker crust that is coated with a light brushing of oil and thus has a long shelf-life. Best purchased at the city’s huge Siab Bazaar, this kind of bread makes for the perfect souvenir to take on journeys or as gifts for far off friends and family.
* Located close to the Siab Bazaar, the Shah-i-Zinda necropolis is one of Samarkand’s most mysterious and inimitable architectural gems that is a unique ensemble consisting of eleven dazzling shrines covered in bright turquoise porcelain tiles. Each of these shrines is dedicated to a noble man or woman, including Kusam ibn Abbas, a cousin of the Prophet Muhammad.


(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 26th January 2019 issue of The Hindu Business Line newspaper's BLink section on page 21  https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/takeaway/old-wine-new-high/article26089114.ece)

Notes from Tashkent

By Raul Dias

I’m technically still on Indian soil, sitting ensconced in a giant metal tube that’s taking the form of an Uzbekistan Airways’ airplane, en route from Mumbai to Tashkent. But I’m also instantaneously being made aware of the fact that remnants of the former USSR are very much alive and kicking in the country I’m to be deposited in, four hours later. The cabin crew greet me with a hearty “dobro pozhalovot!” in Russian. The safety briefing is a trilingual English-Uzbek-Russian one, the rather robust wordage and flat intonations of the last language not lost on me. But that’s just the tip of the proverbial ‘Soviet-influence iceberg’, constant montages of which reveal themselves to me at almost every turn I take over my next two days in Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent.

Past Perfect
An hour after I land, I find myself on the brink of a mini meltdown as I try to navigate my way through block after block of bleak, Khrushchyovka-style residential buildings in the Tashkent suburb of Chilanzar. Bereft of a charged cell phone, I’m trying desperately to locate the elusive building number 26 where Yura Vedenin, my friend of Russian descent has promised to let me spend the night in his tiny, two-room apartment. Named after Soviet statesman Nikita Khrushchev—in whose era these low-cost, concrete-panelled apartment buildings were developed all over the former Soviet Union during the early 1960s—the ‘Khrushchyovka’ is a suburban Tashkent mainstay.
The next day, at the city’s glitzy Tashkent Janubiy Vokzal southern train station, I try to make sense of the indecipherable Cyrillic alphabets that form alien words printed onto my bullet train ticket to my next destination, the ‘Silk Road’ city of Bukhara. God bless the kind-hearted ticket counter lady who takes the effort to pen down all the vital details on the back of my ticket in Roman numerals and alphabets. Without her intervention, I’d surely be in Cyrillic blunderland!
On my way back to Chilanzar from the train station, I burrow my way underground to experience for myself the brilliance of the Tashkent Metro I had heard a lot about. Opened in 1977, the metro today has 29 stations, each a shining (pun intended!) beacon of the former USSR’s legendary hubris. ‘Opulent’ as an adjective doesn’t really do justice to the grandeur and scale with which each of them has been built and decorated, with everything from pink marbled walls to be-chandeliered ceilings. One of the most beautiful of these is the Kosmonavtlar station where Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova—and the first woman in space—is immortalised with a mural, wherein the ceramic wall panels surrounding her portrait fade from blue to black in imitation of Earth’s atmosphere.

Spaces like no other
And speaking of space, just like this station that was influenced by the ambitious USSR space program, Soviet architecture in Tashkent too greatly references the cosmos and science fiction. One such building in Tashkent is the turquoise-domed Tashkent Circus built in 1976, that pays homage to Yuri Gagarin’s epic journey into outer space with its flying saucer like appearance and alien limb-like pillars.
But it is the typical soviet, brutalist style of architecture that augments the USSR’s overarching influence over Tashkent, 27 years after Uzbekistan declared its independence as a brand-new nation in 1991 post the historic breakup of the Soviet Union. It was the devastating Tashkent earthquake of 1966, that gave rise to this style of utilitarian architecture where form and function trump ostentation and ornamentation of any kind.
Seemingly caught up in a time warp when bell bottoms and acid rock ruled, the gargantuan Hotel Uzbekistan, centrally located at Tashkent’s Ground Zero—Amir Timur square—is the perfect specimen of 70s Soviet modernist architectural style that’s associated with social, utopian ideology and influenced by the works of Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Though a tad tired and scruffy looking today, this icon of Tashkent’s Soviet past draws in nostalgists by the busloads eager for a morsel of melancholy…however brutal. 

(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 20th January 2019 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 7  https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/travel/notes-from-tashkent/article26035588.ece)

‘Non’ Negotiable!

A distant cousin of the Indian naan, Uzbekistan’s revered flatbread called non is that all-important axis around which almost every aspect of socio-cultural life in the Central Asian country pivots—from its bread-related folklore to its myriad regional iterations.   

By Raul Dias

The announcement over the PA system has just been made. It’s precisely five minutes to go before Uzbekistan’s pride and joy, the superfast Afrosiyob train service from the capital Tashkent to Bukhara is to pull up at the Samarkand Railway Station for its much-anticipated 15-minute halt. Suddenly, there’s a palpable sense of anxiety mixed with excitement in my compartment as the startlingly modern glass and steel façade of the station comes into clear view.
A phalanx of co-passengers is already crowding the doorway, ready to leap out onto the platform and get their hands on a type of bread that’s considered the best in the country. The Samarkand non. A version of what we, here in India, know as naan, the Samarkand non is also baked in an oven similar to a tandoor. The major difference, however, lies in its appearance. This style of flatbread has a darker crust, and it is heavier, larger and more filling with a texture that is dense. The finished loaf is coated with a light brushing of oil which is why this version of non is the preferred one to take on journeys or as gifts for far off friends and family.
I later help my cabin mate stuff two gleaming, circular disks of the flatbread he’s just purchased from the platform kiosk into his carry-on, as the zipper of the bag threatens to give way. But we soldier on till we are certain that his family in Bukhara will get their quotidian dinner share of the bread that’s now comfortably ensconced between his clothes.

Bread Talk
Over the next few days as I traverse the country, I am made aware, on an almost daily basis, of how important the non is to the Uzbeks. In Bukhara, over a tub full of bubbling xamir—a sourdough prepared the night before—Alisher, the chief bread maker or nonvoy at a friendly neighbourhood nonvoy khona (bakery) near my hotel is giving me a crash course in all things non. All this, peppered with several bread-based proverbs thrown in for good measure. “Respect for non is respect for country” is what my translation app spits out at me, as Alisher turns his attention to a batch of soon-to-be-baked Bukhara-style, nigella seed-topped non that he embosses with his signature bread stamp called a chakich that even has his cellphone number etched onto it! “We never waste bread. Even if a crumb falls onto the floor, we pick it up and touch it to our forehead. Also, we never use a knife to cut bread. Tearing it with one’s hands is the norm,” says Alisher. In fact, in the country’s autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan, once the non is passed around, the most distinguished guest should be the first one to snap a piece off the disk.
I encounter more ‘bread-folklore’ that night at my hotel as I lay my head down onto the fluffy pillow. My reverie is interrupted by a slight bump underneath the pillow near the nape of my neck. It turns out to be a piece of dry bread that I later learn the housekeeping staff place under every pillow in the hotel as a sort of amulet to ward off nightmares.

Same, yet Different…
In Tashkent’s gargantuan Chorsu Bazaar, I dodge past qazi or horsemeat sausage vendors, as I make my way towards the source of the yummy aroma wafting through the nonvoy khona section. Here, I pick up two plump, lamb-stuffed somsas that are dead ringers for our desi samosas. Only here, the breading is super flaky and made from pea flour called sorgo.
Later that day, en route to the airport, I stop by the city’s open-air Chigatay Darvoza Non Bazaar for some Tashkent lochira non. This unique mould-formed non is baked from short crust pastry made from milk, butter, and sugar. It has a perimeter that is marked with spoke-like patterns that come from a tool called a bosma, which in olden days used to be made out of repurposed spokes from a bicycle wheel.
I pick up half a dozen to take back home. Only this time, it’s me singlehandedly trying to stuff the lochira non into my rather unyielding suitcase!


Between Breads—Uzbekistan’s Bread Folklore
* At an engagement, a loaf of bread is divided equally between both sides, signaling a fair partnership.
* Special kulcha non dough is rolled between the feet of a child when they take their first steps.
* When going off to war, a soldier is given a bite of bread and his family keeps the remaining loaf to signify that the family and the bread is waiting for his safe return.
* “Be as respected as bread” is a commonly heard blessing in Uzbekistan.

(A shorter, differently edited version of this article appeared in the 19th January 2019 issue of the Mint Lounge newspaper, India on page 14 https://www.livemint.com/Leisure/OFn8bW8p6xlElOBxSLOpyJ/Uzbekistans-bread-winners.html)

Budapest’s ‘dawn’ at dusk!

A magnificent city that is brimming with everything from some jaw-dropping architectural gems to its spa culture and chic ruin bars, Budapest is best enjoyed at night. Raul Dias shows you the top ways to spend your evenings in the twinkling Hungarian capital. 

By Raul Dias

Never mind the stunning visuals put out there of Budapest by night that you may encounter when planning your trip to the Hungarian capital (whose name is a portmanteau of the city’s two neighbourhoods of the hilly Buda to the west and flatter Pest on the east). Or even in a travel article such as this, for that matter. Trust me. They do absolutely no justice to the nocturnal charms of the city, however well-composed they may be. You simply have got to see it with your own eyes, as I recently did on a trip to Central Europe.
Very little actually prepares you for that exact shade of cobalt blue of the night sky that you’ll see reflected onto the mighty Danube as the crimson sun melts into the river’s waters. No amount of reference is enough to catch a real-time glimpse of the Gothic Parliament Building all lit up, sitting mightily perched on the river’s banks. And you need to actually cross the river forded by the iconic Széchenyi Chain Bridge to realise how imposing it really is—with its twin arches illuminated by thousands of flickering lightbulbs.
Perhaps, no other city—save for Paris, France—has ever had such an impact on my senses as Budapest did, all under the cover of dusk. Here’s my list of the best take-aways from Budapest at night:

Enjoy sunset at Buda Castle
Overseeing the city that lies beneath it, the imposing Buda Castle sits atop a hill on the Buda side of the Danube. You can head here in the early morning hours, or better still at sunset for breathtaking photo ops, or come during open hours for a guided historical tour that’s free. Part of the palace complex of the Hungarian kings in Budapest, the massive Baroque castle was built between 1749 and 1769 and sits on the south tip of Castle Hill, bounded on the north by what is known as the Castle District of Várnegyed. The castle now houses the Hungarian National Gallery and The Budapest History Museum along with other 19th-century houses, churches and public buildings.

Join the Heroes!
A famous landmark in Budapest, the Hősök Tere Heroes Square with its colonnade remains a local and tourist favourite at night when it’s all lit up. If you love history, monuments and statues this is a great area to explore and take some pictures, specially of the iconic statue complex featuring the Seven chieftains of the Magyars and other important Hungarian national leaders. The Memorial Stone of Heroes often (wrongly!) referred to as the tomb of the unknown soldier can also be found here, as well as one of Hungary’s biggest museums for art and culture lovers—the Museum of Fine Arts!

An evening dip, perhaps?
Legendary for its many therapeutic thermal baths that can be found across the city, Budapest is a spa-junkie’s dream come true. And one of the best places for a post-sundown soak or splash about is the Szechenyi Spa Bath in the Pest side of the city. Here is where you can take part in the traditional Hungarian past time of going to a spa bath. Think huge tubs to choose from, lots of people resting and relaxing in the thermal pools, and snack bars to hang out at, all while making some new Hungarian friends! Interestingly, this spa offers occasional (and very popular) pool parties here as well, if you are willing to pay the hefty (almost Rs 4,000) price ticket, that is.

Cruising along
What better way to get to know Budapest by night than to see all of it while sailing the Danube on a leisurely dinner cruise? Sail past the superbly lit up Parliament Building, the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, the Liberty Bridge and Matthias Church. All this, as you sip Hungarian wine and tuck into traditional Hungarian dishes like the paprika-rich goulash stew and the exotic horsemeat sausage called lo-keilbasa.

Get ‘ruined’!
As the birthplace of the ruin bar, Budapest has a very impressive cache of them indeed—places that are perfect to wind up your evening about town at. It all goes back to the early 2000’s when people who were looking for cheap places to drink started frequenting these lively and stylish bars that were often housed in derelict buildings and unused outdoor spaces in the Jewish Quarter of the city’s Bohemian 7th District. Here, check out places like Szimpla Kert that was the city’s first ruin bar and one that remains iconic or perhaps Anker’t that is one of the most popular party venues in Budapest, with its large courtyard that’s surrounded by bars and dance rooms.

(An edited version of this column first appeard in the 13th January 2019 issue of The Free Press Journal newspaper's Weekend section on page 3 https://www.freepressjournal.in/travel/budapest-is-best-enjoyed-at-night-and-heres-how/1435487)

A-N-A-T-O-M-I-Z-E: Uzbek Plov

By Raul Dias

I’m already convinced that I’ve made a total spectacle of myself flailing my arms wildly above my head, trying desperately to draw the attention of any one of the phalanx of supremely busy servers who seem to march past me. Each set of outstretched arms carrying platters of a fragrant dish I had insanely researched that was now in front of me. And when I finally do manage to pin down a particularly dour-faced young man, my assortment of mock equine sounds and riding mimes does zilch to convey to him my predicament…
A little back story first. I’m at the very popular Magistral Plov Center on the outskirts of the city of Bukhara in the Central Asian country of Uzbekistan. I’m here for my first taste of a version of a dish that’s known multifariously all over Asia as palov, polov, polo, polu, pilaf and of course our very own pulao. Here in Uzbekistan, the rice and meat preparation goes by the name of plov and is considered the national dish…nay, obsession!
Now, depending on whom you speak with, it is believed that all the above mentioned iterations originated from the Indian subcontinent. But not many in Uzbekistan are willing to buy into this theory. Indeed, try telling that to my table mates—a gregarious bunch of vodka-quaffing local Bukhari businessmen who seem to have co-opted me into their raucous fold. Never mind the fact that they speak not a word of English, nor I, Uzbek.
Plov itself is a very simple preparation where medium grain rice is first fried in the nutty-tasting rapeseed oil along with onions, garlic, chunks of fatty lamb, golden sultanas and a fistful of sugared yellow carrot juliennes. All this is then stewed along with a generous splash of cumin powder-enhanced lamb stock for hours in a dough-sealed, humungous cauldron called a kazan. A few hours later the head plov maker called an oshpaz breaks the seal to reveal the kazan’s fragrant contents that he then goes on to aerate by separating the meat and rice grains with a large spatula in a cascade of moist yumminess.
Traditionally turned out on a blue and white platter called a lagan from the country’s pottery capital of Fergana, the plov is then studded with boiled chickpeas, pearly white, tiny quail eggs and the reason for my earlier disappointment i.e. the de rigueur horsemeat sausage called kazi that was rather strangely missing from my heaped lagan of plov. Perhaps the servers were under the (erroneous!) assumption that I, as a foreigner, would not be able to appreciate its dense texture and gamey, but supremely divine flavour. Something that I finally got to savour after my ‘nth’ comical Black Beauty impression! 

(An edited, shorter version of this column first appeared in the 6th January 2019 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 8)

Manila Travel

(An edited version of this article first appeared in the January 2019 issue of Jetwings Domestic in-flight magazine of Jet Airways http://www.jetairways.com/EN/IN/jetexperience/magazines.aspx)

The Journey Ahead…

Poised to be the year that redefines the word ‘travel’, 2019 has a lot in store for the intrepid traveller—from Artificial Intelligence-enhanced hotel stays to the Instagram vacation. Travel writer Raul Dias introduces you to a few such exciting new possibilities for the New Year.

    

By Raul Dias

On many levels, today is one of the most important days in our year. Never mind the fact that said year began just a few hours ago! Some of us have already begun to set new goals, both personally and professionally and chart a fresh, new game plan for the year ahead. But if you’re like me, then one of the first things you’ve probably done is decide how your travel year is going to pan out. Will I finally make it to elusive Madagascar? Is this the year that sees me embark on my very first luxury train journey through India’s ancient sites? Should I sign up for that deep-sea diving course in the Andamans that I’d been contemplating? All important questions seeking even more important answers.
But then, there are always those among us who seem to need a little nudge in the right direction—travel wise that is. And so, I’ve put together a list of what I think will be trending this 2019.
One of the most interesting and au courant styles of vacationing will surely be the ‘Instagram Holiday’ what with most of us putting the “Instagrammability” of our holiday destination above all else. Catching onto this trend, Shoot My Travel is a vacation photography platform that pairs travellers with local professional photographers at the vacation destination to capture your trip memories.
In this era of both TV and digital entertainment platforms, travel based on shows aired/streamed will be big this year. And I’m sure that the upcoming last season of Game Of Thrones will also inspire trips to Croatia, Iceland and Northern Ireland, home of the famous Dark Hedges trees. This year is also poised to be the year of the solo traveller and an increase in LGBTQ-friendly travel. Platforms such as Destination Pride are harnessing the power of multiple data sources to provide travellers with a ranking of how LGBTQ-friendly their chosen travel destination is.
As far as lengths of vacations goes, I see the ‘micro vacation’ being the “in” thing, so that one can now squeeze in more curated travel itineraries into shorter time frames. All this, thanks to improvements in flight routes, transport, cheap flights, on-demand car rentals and accommodation.
Speaking of accommodation, Booking.com says that keyless room-access with your phone and the robotic concierge who can communicate with guests in their own language will be big. Also, 2019 will also see more tech developed for use pre-trip at research stage with aids like the virtual travel agent and augmented reality helping travellers familiarise themselves with a destination before they arrive.
So, get set to hit that exciting new road ahead this 2019!

(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 1st January 2019 issue of The Free Press Journal newspaper on page 20 https://www.freepressjournal.in/lifestyle/peek-into-2019-the-journey-ahead/1426410)