Beautiful Subways

First Tour to the Subway -October 10, 2009

A knock on my hotel door and an Uzbek standing outside. He tells me he is the tour leader and that we are going to go visit subway stations in 15 minutes if I want to come along. Wow, of course I do. At least I had woken from my nap when he knocked so I didn't have to do much to be ready to go.

The whole group was coming. It is a group of 7 that came in from England last night, I make 8 and there is another man yet to arrive also from the U.S. so I will not be the only token American on this trip. Our guide said it was a 15 to 20 minute walk but I think it took us about 30. Just wonderful, another time challenged tour leader. I always seem to get them where they think we will be walking for ½ hour and it turns into a 3 hour marathon. I’ll just go until I drop I guess.

It wasn’t a bad walk. He did warn us that crossing streets is a national sport and you cannot ever guarantee that cars will stop. He was like a shepherd guard dog getting us across the streets.

When we finally reached the subway he warned us that we could not take photos in the subway at all and if we were caught, they would either take the entire roll of film or make us delete every single photo on a disc if it were digital. Poo. When asked later why, he said they feel the subways are "strategic points" in their defense so no photos. Paranoid much? Leftover communism much?

Each subway we visited was lovely and we visited 5 and passed by one station where we did not exit the train. Some were built during the Soviet era but as other stations have come on line, they have continued to build them with a theme, sort of, or at least decorated each one in some fashion.

One station was Cosmonaut station. It had large almost abstract drawings from photographs of different Cosmonauts and the people who had designed the rocket engine and the one who built it. Another station was dedicated to cotton and was covered with floor to ceiling tiles with a cotton bud motive. Another station had cotton bud chandeliers. One station was dedicated to their literature giant – their William Shakespeare – and had bas reliefs of characters from his stories. All the stations were lovely with marble and tiles and lighting that was elegant.

Another nice person story: As we got on board one of the trains, a young girl stood up and offered me her seat because I am walking with a cane. How polite! I love it when I see people do that. I used to do it a lot myself to let people sit who looked like they needed it more. Now it is me needing to sit so I appreciate it a lot. She was very gracious about it and the two men sitting next to her never even blinked an eyelid to let me sit down. I figure she has a mother or aunt who needs help so she is used to doing that. It was quite nice for me though.

I have visited North Korea and you are allowed to visit two subway stations there that are beautiful, albeit full of propaganda, but lovely just the same. These stations weren’t full of propaganda and were quite as ornate but were quite pretty. How odd that they still won’t let you photograph them BUT our tour leader assured us we could find photos of all of them on line. It appears that the Japanese used their cell phones to take photos before anyone knew that cell phones could do that.

We also went up to the surface at one point and walked through a park dedicated to Tamerlane (which actually means Tamer the Lame so they don’t call him that but call him Amir Tamer). It had a huge statue of Tamerlane on a horse. There are three provinces that have Tamer statues and these three provinces honor him as a hero. Our leader said that other provinces still look on him as an enemy because he conquered them.

We passed the Hotel Uzbekistan on the corner across from the park. It is a huge hotel that was the largest in Central Asia when first built (the 70’s I think he said). He said it also had the largest cockroaches when it was first built and nothing they did could get rid of them. Finally when the hotel was renovated several years ago, all furnishings, carpets, draperies, etc were taken out of the hotel and then they managed to get rid of the cockroaches. Half hidden in the trees was also a fairly new government building with a statue of two birds on the top. We will see it better during our city tour. The two birds are either storks or cranes but symbolize unity and prosperity and peace.

The park was not that busy but several people were playing games of backgammon and other locals were doing the ubiquitous photo essay (taking photos of your boyfriend/girlfriend in front of every conceivable picturesque sight in town). Back to the subway and back to our stop. Our tour leader offer a taxi back to the hotel but we all decided to walk and then three of us stopped to have the local delicacy in a local restaurant. It was a rice mix of onions, rice, garlic, some sausage which was quite tasty in spite of the way it looked, and a side salad of tomatoes and onions and cucumbers. I had a local beer which is brewed by the Carlsberg brewery in Tashkent. Per my husband, it is always safe to drink the beer as it is boiled when it is made. You might not get the same standard even with bottled water. It was a nice meal. The walk back to the hotel from the restaurant was a bit chilly. Finally I think I am going to get to use my warm clothes which haven’t been out of the suitcase since the first week in Iceland. A very nice first tour.