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)

Time for Tashkent!

A unique blend of its Soviet past and Central Asian exotica, Uzbekistan’s capital Tashkent is the hottest new destination for the intrepid Indian traveller, says Raul Dias who recently flew to the city on Uzbekistan Airways’ brand new direct flight from Mumbai.   

By Raul Dias

“Uzbeki-where!?” was something I kept getting spat back at me by almost everybody—bewildered expressions pat in place—after I had told them of my impending trip to the Central Asian country of Uzbekistan. Even the immigration officer at Mumbai’s International Airport looked back at me as though I was speaking Greek to him when I told him that my destination was Tashkent.
But, in hindsight, it really wasn’t anyone’s fault for not knowing anything about the doubly landlocked country that was once an important milestone along the ancient Silk Road. Central Asia has never really fit into the mould of the average Indian’s ‘foreign holiday’ destination! And as for that ill-informed immigration offer, who should have known of Uzbekistan, I’ll let that pass, as the Uzbekistan Airways’ direct flight linking Mumbai and Tashkent I was to board that morning had just commenced operations a few days before.

First Impressions
A comfortable four hours spent enjoying the gracious hospitality aboard my Uzbekistan Airways flight and I was deposited into the beautiful, startlingly modern city of Tashkent. One of the first things that caught my attention on the ride to my hotel from the airport was the sheer number of green spaces and parks that dot the spotlessly clean city. Later that day I would visit a few of them, but more on that a little later.
A relic of the Soviet era with its typical brutalist style architecture, my home for the next two nights in Tashkent was the grand Hotel Uzbekistan located in the heart of the city on Musakhanov Street. Once the epitome of Soviet-style luxury with its cavernous ballroom and international cuisine restaurants, today, the hotel remains a looming reminder of the city’s USSR past, brusque service et al.
And speaking of past, the 29 Tashkent Metro stations—one of which, called Emir Temur Metro Station was just in front of my hotel—are each a lesson in grandeur and glamour with their marble and polished granite clad walls and crystal-glass chandeliered ceilings, all built in the 1970s. It’s a real pity that the police are rather strict about enforcing the ‘no photography’ diktat in these stunning underground stations.

Parks and Recreation
One of the first places my guide had me visit was the grand statue of Uzbekistan’s greatest hero the Turco-Mongol conqueror Amir Temur known multifariously as Timur, Tamerlane and yes, Taimur! Located slap bang in front of the Hotel Uzbekistan, the memorial garden that houses his horse-riding statue is a fecund paradise where blushing Uzbek newlywed couples come to have their wedding pictures taken. Just a few yards from the garden, the Amir Timur Museum is a good place to get an insight into the life and times of the warrior who is perceived very differently in places outside of Central Asia.
Equally picturesque are the well laid out parks that flank the city’s ‘Broadway’. Officially, Saligokh Street, this boulevard that starts at the south end of the Amir Temur Garden is home to scores of street artists and painters. The northern end of the boulevard is where the city’s fashion elite come to drop wads of cash at the designer boutiques and trendy restaurants.
Next on my carefully prepared itinerary was a stop at the Polish Catholic Church on Sadiq Asimov street, a good half an hour walk from the hotel. More formally known as the Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral, the church was almost fully destroyed during the 1966 earthquake but was reconstructed to its former glory with the help of the Polish Embassy of Tashkent. Though the main cathedral was shut for the day, I sat mesmerised by the choir practicing their hymns in the crypt below the church.
A few meters away, I payed homage at the memorial dedicated to India’s very own former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri who passed away in Tashkent on 11 January 1966 when he visited the city to sign the Tashkent Declaration with Pakistan. Even the street that the memorial is housed on is named Shastri street and attracts quite a few nostalgic, selfie-seeking Indian travellers.   

A Taste of the Exotic!
All that walking about simply had to be rewarded in the best way that I know. Eating. Hopping onto a super-fast metro train, I found myself deposited into the bowels of a beast! Confused? Well, so was I when I saw the sight that is Chorsu Bazaar above the ground as I climbed my way back to surface level. There is a saying in Tashkent that you can get everything from a pin to an elephant in the humungous market and I guess they aren’t kidding!
The main domed market is an enclosed space that is divided into various sections selling meat (including the very popular horsemeat sausage called kazi), pickles, fruits and vegetables, dairy along with the salty and decidedly exotic hard fermented sheep’s milk cheese called kurt that’s very much an acquired taste that I’ve yet to acquire…
What I did relish with gusto, however, was a plate of fragrant plov or osh which is very similar to a spice-bereft biryani, where cumin-dusted pieces of lamb are stewed with sweetened carrots and rice and served with boiled chickpeas and slices of kazi. Simply called non, the circular disks of freshly baked bread were the perfect accompaniment to the meal that was washed down with a salty lassi-like yogurt drink called ayran.
I simply couldn’t think of a more perfect way to end my first of many days in exotic Uzbekistan!


Getting There and Around
Uzbekistan Airways (www.uzairways.com) has recently started its thrice a week, direct flight from Mumbai to Tashkent with a flying time of just four hours. Uzbekistan Airways also links New Delhi and Amritsar to Tashkent with direct flights. Travel within the city is very easy with cheap and plentiful transport options available, including taxis, buses, mini vans and the super-fast Tashkent Metro. 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.

(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 9th December 2018 issue of The Free Press Journal newspaper's Weekend section on page 3 https://www.freepressjournal.in/travel/tashkent-the-hottest-new-destination-for-intrepid-indian-travellers/1411680)