Sketches of Tashkent
The border crossing from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan was rather stressful. The whole process took 4.5 hrs, which is not my best record but not the worst either, but having to defend my position in the queue from the neighbors who were constantly looking to cut the line was not only tiring, but it also gave me a sad feeling that I might have to play this ‘low game’ sooner or later.
On the Uzbek side, the occasional smiles and playful gestures of the border officers gave me a warm first impression, which was something I could not easily notice in the preceding country.
Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, was just some 40 minutes away from the border area by car. Having read earlier that tourists to Uzbekistan first visit Tashkent because there are limited flights to Samarkand, a major tourism destination in Central Asia, I had naively assumed that Tashkent was not particularly interesting. But on the first day of exploring the city, I was already impressed by its large size, modern infrastructure, and the general level of organization. This was a major modern city that I had not visited in a long while.
I especially enjoyed the daily experience of taking the metro. Physically, it was an easy shelter from the heat outside – the temperature reached up to 36 °C on a normal day. But more importantly, I liked the atmosphere that the tradition-inspired decorations were creating, with themes unique to each station. I later learned that the development of Tashkent as a city including its transportation system had been proactively planned and executed by the Soviet leaders, who envisioned the city to be the hub of Central Asia.
Riding the metro every day, I could not help but notice another intriguing aspect of the capital: its remarkable ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity, while the demographic core seemed to be of Asian origin. The identities I encountered included Uzbek, Tajik, Russian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uyghur, and Koryoin (ethnic Koreans who were force-migrated during the Soviet time), and there were also the “in-betweens”. Seeing the mixed group of people going about their lives harmoniously seemed like a major human achievement, and in that aspect, it reminded me of New York City but with an ethnic base being Asian.
However, the unmissable glorification or heroization of Amir Timur, the founder of the Timur Empire, seemed like a hint that social integration is an ongoing project. The installation of an overtly dominant statue in the center of the city, ironically, made me wonder if the country’s core unifying identity was weak. (Interestingly, the nomadic Uzbek tribes actually clashed with and replaced the Timurids.)
And where the modern metro lines do not cover, Tashkent still managed to show me neighborhoods with strong local vibes, giving me a sense of anticipation for discovering more local towns on my route to Samarkand over the next several days.
@ Tashkent, Uzbekistan, June 23, 2026
