I had some fears whether going to Uzbekistan with my 1,5 year old girl would be a good idea. In the end it's not the most developed country. I heard some stories that in the hospitals they use multiple times the needles, that hepatitis A is easy to catch and that food poisoning is a norm. So I bought an extra travel insurance, I vaccinated my daughter, took with me all the food for her and booked high level hotels. It cannot be that bad!
So just before Easter we took our flight to Frankfurt and from there we were supposed to fly with Uzbekistan Airlines to Tashkent. But we almost didn't fly out. We couldn't receive our boarding passes for the flight to Tashkent in Brussels, as Uzbekistan Airlines wasn't connected to the system. We were told we had to pick up the boarding passes at the gate at the airport in Frankfurt. So after arrival, we slowly headed to the gate, but this airport was so huge! We had to take an internal train between the terminals and at some point we realized that the time is very tight! And while we were almost there - just before heading to the right terminal - we were asked at the entrance for the boarding passes, which we didn't have. We nervously started to look for the booking confirmation in our emails, but there were no our names in the reservation and we couldn't find the right one! It was crazy, I really thought that we would miss this flight, as the lady didn't want to let us through. In the end she did, she said she believed us, but then there was a passport control and another security check.... Super stressed, we were the very last people at the gate. But at least we got an extra seat for Nina (normally she should be sitting on our laps, as she is less than 2 years), what made our trip very comfortable. It would be highly difficult to fly 6h with her on our laps...
We arrived to Tashkent in the evening. The passport control went smoothly and while we were walking with the crowd to the right counter, the airport staff - seeing that we are with a baby - let us go through without queuing :)
After we left the airport, our driver organized by a hotel was already waiting for us. I knew that the price (11$) was far too high, but on the very first evening, tired after the flight, I didn't want to look for anybody and just wanted it to be easy. We had a great first night in the great hotel Ichan Qal'a Hotel.
In the morning, after a great sleep and after a great breakfast we headed for the sightseeing. But before that, we had to exchange our money. We investigated a bit on how to exchange money and apparently changing it in the black market was not profitable anymore. We then went to the bank, located on our street. The exchange rate was about 9 970 soms for 1 euro, which made all the calculations very easy (we were simply dividing every price by 10 000 and we had a value in euros). But it wasn't very easy to hold all this money as for 150 euro we received 150 notes, which wasn't very easy to keep in the wallet ;-)
In the hotel we were recommended a "City sightseeing bus" departing from in front of the famous Hotel Uzbekistan. We arrived there partly by foot - so we could sightseeing the interesting architecture of our district - and partly by metro - so we could admire the beautiful design of the metro stations.
Tashkent Metro was the first metro in Central Asia. Built in Soviet times, it reminded me a bit of Moscow metro with its beautiful stations. Each station is different, has a different architecture, but most of them are very interesting. As Tashkent metro is actually a place of strategic importance for the country, it is illegal to take photos there, I managed though to take a few.
A monument "In memory of the victims of repression" is located next to the TV tower and with a beautiful background. There's also a museum depicting the sad faith of thousands of Uzbeks tortured, deported and killed by Soviets.
We also had a short break allowing us to see the Khast Imom complex, which is Uzbekistan's official religious centre and which comprises the
Barak-Khan-Madrassah, the Tillya-Sheik-Mosque, the
Muji-Mubarak-Medressah. The last one contains the hair of Prophet
Mohammed. In the Madrassah, a 7th century version of Koran, as well as
other important manuscripts are kept.
On the way to the Independence Square, there was alley full of local painters. One of them proposed us to make a drawing of Nina for only 4 euros - we thought it would be a very nice memory from Uzbekistan :)
The Independence monument in a form of globe was not accessible to the tourists, we could only admire the huge construction connecting columns, on the top of which there was a sculpture of storks symbolizing peace.
Last place we visited on that day was the Chorsu Bazaar, where we got easily by metro. It's a market for locals to shop rather than a typical souvenirs' touristy market. It was huge and divided into sections where a particular products could be bought. There was then a huge meat section, fruits' section, eggs' section, spices' section etc. Invited by some sellers, we bough some tea and spices and of course we very much overpaid for our purchases (what we found out later ;-)). Knives' sellers were trying to send us their knives, but we didn't really need them... ;-)
I loved this place. It was so authentic and colorful. The world we don't see anymore in Europe. And people were very nice - it was not a problem at all for me to take photos.
And for the dinner we chose the best (according to Trip Advisor) restaurant in Tashkent called Afsona. Food was indeed delicious.
