Tashkent Is In The Heart

Wandering around Tashkent, a set on Flickr.

I realize that I haven’t posted up many pictures of Tashkent besides those of my street and my house. Today, I took the time to walk around some of the main sights. I was happy to discover that both buses near my house pass along the main roads (Rashidov, Navoi, Amir Temur, etc.). where some of the monuments are. It also stops near my friends’ pod of apartments which is another huge plus.

I got lost walking to the TV Tower from Navoi - not realizing it is a lot further away from the city center than it looks. Luckily, despite this mistake, I was still able to get a great shot of the tower from one of the canals and hopped in a cab to get back to the Amir Temur area.

I also took the metro today (600 soum aka 30 cents per ride), I was asked for my passport by the militsia and was able to mutter about being a teacher (ya oochee-teel) at American shkola (American school) in my pidgin Russian. He left me on my merry way. Following Uzbek law, I did not bring out the camera for pictures of the big chandeliers (YES, chandeliers) that light the platform. Militsia are everywhere and they can/will confiscate cameras if you’re caught taking pics as the stations are considered bomb shelters and therefore, heavily guarded. Needless to say, the stations are quite beautiful and very clean.

Tashkent is a nicely landscaped city and relatively well planned by the Soviets who reconstructed it after the earthquake of 1966 that destroyed many of the ancient structures. There are parks everywhere and trees heavily line all the main roads. I joke with my friends that the trees are to hide the ugly Soviet apartment blocks. I hope to get more shots of the “lovely” Soviet architecture as the days go by.