Dear Friends,
Welcome to all who have chosen to join my trip to Uzbekistan this year. This is one of my most exciting destinations and I’m sure that you are going to have an amazing time. I am writing to introduce you to the trip blog. Over the course of the year I will be sending a series of emails with additional information to help you prepare for the trip. This information is also available on my website so you can refer back to it at later date. The e-mail address of the blog is: http://www.jewishjourneysltd.com/blog---extra-information
Last year I went to Uzbekistan with my son Josh to prepare for our trip. At the time we kept a journal of our impressions. The first 2 blog posts are those first impressions, to give you a picture of what we will find in Uzbekistan. Later I will be send details of our flights and also the visa requirements for entering Uzbekistan.
If you have any questions or problems please do not hesitate to contact me at: [email protected]
Chaim
______________________________
OUR FIRST VISIT TO UZBEKISTAN - PART 1
Day One - Tashkent:
Never having travelled to Central Asia, I didn't know what to expect, and after a day in Tashkent I'm still trying to figure out what categories to place Uzbekistan in. We were met with a whole range of contradictions: huge Soviet-style buildings side by side with ancient tiled mosques and minarets; Middle-East style bazaars with a strong smell of pickled onions and horsemeat; the oldest Koran in the world and a contemporary art museum; rumours of a strict dictatorship, with friendly and open people and a thriving black market. The long plane ride (which was fairly comfortable, apart from an air hostess who told me she gave pillows to women and children only, before giving in and handing me one) coupled with the five-hour time difference might have added to the dreamy sense of wandering a new and strange part of the world, but we managed to see a fair bit of the city before coming back to the hotel and calling it a night (or a morning, or whatever).
Day Two - Samarkand:
The fabled golden road to Samarkand turned out to be a surprisingly modern high-speed train which sped through the Uzbek landscape, giving us glimpses of anonymous villages, donkey carts and lots of fields. People walking around wearing fur hats and silk robes reminded me of haredim in Jerusalem, and we were wearing the smallest kippot in the town. Samarkand has a long and rich history, and each of the sites we visited taught me more about the past and explained parts of the present that we were experiencing. We saw mind-bogglingly beautiful and huge mosques and madrassahs, an ancient observatory and the tomb of the Prophet Daniel, which was rumoured to grow by 18cm a year and is now phenomenally long. We also started to discover Jewish life in the city, met with some members of the local community, visited the synagogue (with chickens running around the courtyard) and heard lots of interesting stories, which prompted lots of questions we hope we'll manage to answer in the coming days.
Day Three and Four - Shabbat in Buchara:
We managed to fit in a few last visits and meetings in Samarkand before moving along the Silk Road towards Buchara. Buchara is also packed with castles, pools, dervish lodges, bazaars and ancient buildings, but our main focus was on building up a relationship with the Jewish community. The community used to number tens of thousands, but Communism and aliyah have seen it dwindle to around two hundred. We went through the alleys of the Old City until we found the synagogue, and then joined them for a nice Friday evening service. (Their tradition of serving tea and coffee in the middle of the service is something we could think about adopting back home!) We joined a young Jewish family for dinner, and even though our Tajik and Uzbek language skills aren't yet fluent, we managed to hold a conversation in a mix of languages, and swapped Shabbat songs. We also explored the city, and heard more of the story of Uzbekistan, which is finally starting to fall into place.
That's all for now. We are off to Khiva and there will be more to follow in a few days.
Chaim
Welcome to all who have chosen to join my trip to Uzbekistan this year. This is one of my most exciting destinations and I’m sure that you are going to have an amazing time. I am writing to introduce you to the trip blog. Over the course of the year I will be sending a series of emails with additional information to help you prepare for the trip. This information is also available on my website so you can refer back to it at later date. The e-mail address of the blog is: http://www.jewishjourneysltd.com/blog---extra-information
Last year I went to Uzbekistan with my son Josh to prepare for our trip. At the time we kept a journal of our impressions. The first 2 blog posts are those first impressions, to give you a picture of what we will find in Uzbekistan. Later I will be send details of our flights and also the visa requirements for entering Uzbekistan.
If you have any questions or problems please do not hesitate to contact me at: [email protected]
Chaim
______________________________
OUR FIRST VISIT TO UZBEKISTAN - PART 1
Day One - Tashkent:
Never having travelled to Central Asia, I didn't know what to expect, and after a day in Tashkent I'm still trying to figure out what categories to place Uzbekistan in. We were met with a whole range of contradictions: huge Soviet-style buildings side by side with ancient tiled mosques and minarets; Middle-East style bazaars with a strong smell of pickled onions and horsemeat; the oldest Koran in the world and a contemporary art museum; rumours of a strict dictatorship, with friendly and open people and a thriving black market. The long plane ride (which was fairly comfortable, apart from an air hostess who told me she gave pillows to women and children only, before giving in and handing me one) coupled with the five-hour time difference might have added to the dreamy sense of wandering a new and strange part of the world, but we managed to see a fair bit of the city before coming back to the hotel and calling it a night (or a morning, or whatever).
Day Two - Samarkand:
The fabled golden road to Samarkand turned out to be a surprisingly modern high-speed train which sped through the Uzbek landscape, giving us glimpses of anonymous villages, donkey carts and lots of fields. People walking around wearing fur hats and silk robes reminded me of haredim in Jerusalem, and we were wearing the smallest kippot in the town. Samarkand has a long and rich history, and each of the sites we visited taught me more about the past and explained parts of the present that we were experiencing. We saw mind-bogglingly beautiful and huge mosques and madrassahs, an ancient observatory and the tomb of the Prophet Daniel, which was rumoured to grow by 18cm a year and is now phenomenally long. We also started to discover Jewish life in the city, met with some members of the local community, visited the synagogue (with chickens running around the courtyard) and heard lots of interesting stories, which prompted lots of questions we hope we'll manage to answer in the coming days.
Day Three and Four - Shabbat in Buchara:
We managed to fit in a few last visits and meetings in Samarkand before moving along the Silk Road towards Buchara. Buchara is also packed with castles, pools, dervish lodges, bazaars and ancient buildings, but our main focus was on building up a relationship with the Jewish community. The community used to number tens of thousands, but Communism and aliyah have seen it dwindle to around two hundred. We went through the alleys of the Old City until we found the synagogue, and then joined them for a nice Friday evening service. (Their tradition of serving tea and coffee in the middle of the service is something we could think about adopting back home!) We joined a young Jewish family for dinner, and even though our Tajik and Uzbek language skills aren't yet fluent, we managed to hold a conversation in a mix of languages, and swapped Shabbat songs. We also explored the city, and heard more of the story of Uzbekistan, which is finally starting to fall into place.
That's all for now. We are off to Khiva and there will be more to follow in a few days.
Chaim
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