Dear Friends,
As you may have guessed from the long post you received on Turkmenistan, we are having trouble sending posts. Were not allowed to send any in Turkmenistan so I just kept writing. We arrived in Tashkent, Uzbekistan this morning and it has taken me a couple of hours to manage to send the one you received as the web is so slow here. I will try to send another while we are in Tashkent, which is only 24 more hours. Once we leave the city, I am concerned that the connection will be even slower or non existent. Please bear with us. Now back to where I left off…………..
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Been a busy couple of days with no time to write. The other evening we did stay in the room and eat what we had — caviar, crackers, pears and scotch. Nice balanced repast and we did not have to get out of our cozy robes.
Next morning we were picked up by Musa and a new driver with a 4×4 for our overnight trip into the mountains. Heading out of town we passed many industrial and manufacturing complexes. Gradually they were replaced by large wheat and cotton fields and desert land planted with trees as wind and sand barriers. The mountains rose gently in the near distance on our left and the desert reached out into infinity on our right.
Fascinated by the many female street sweepers we have seen everywhere in the city, we asked Musa about them. They are paid about $250 per month tax free to sweep a section of street or road on a rotation basis. If they do the job for 5 years they receive a free apartment as incentive to do such menial work. This is another Soviet style subsidy that gets the job done and makes people willing to work. Musa says most do not last that long. It is quite a sight to see them work the sides of the roads with cars whizzing by. Fortunately, we stopped seeing them once we got away from the city. The highway is in surprisingly good condition and the speed limit is 110 KPH.
FIrst stop was a pretty turquoise mosque called Geok Depe or “Green Hill”. We were even allowed to take photos inside. It is the second largest mosque in Turkmenistan and was built by the first president to honor the thousands of people killed by the Russians in the mid 1800’s when they invaded the area and whipped out the local population.
Back on the road we learn that another subsidy is provided if you have more than 5 children–less tax and more services–since the government wants to increase the population. Most people pay 10% of their income in tax, 2% more goes toward their pension and another 4% goes for health insurance. If you don’t pay for health insurance you only receive the most basic health services. Doesn’t that sound familiar? The country is still very Soviet politically, but the cost of living is more now and travel to other post Soviet countries requires visas and is very costly. Even though some people are returning to their religious roots, most of the country remains secular and appears to like it that way. I got the feeling from Musa’s comments that he would almost prefer to have the Soviet Union back. He tried once to have a business of his own and was unsuccessful, so he decided to work for a salary and not think about business. He also wants to travel like he used to but does not have the money or visas to do so. I suspect he is not alone in his thinking.
Our next stop was Arkadash, a stud farm where some of the famous Ahalteka horses are bred and reared. The name comes from the Teka tribe in the Ahel province of Turkmenistan, from where it is believed the horses originated. The breed is pure thoroughbred. To preserve the purity of the breed, the International Ahalteka Association was founded 24 years ago by Turkistan and the USA. Each of the approximately 5000 living horses has a chip or “passport” implanted in them that provides their history. They are tall, slender, animals with small heads, short manes and long thin legs. They weigh about 400 kilo, mature at 7 years of age, come in several colors and are beautiful to behold.
The owner of the farm, Ashir Geldive, was most gracious and welcoming. He talked a lot about the breed and had a stable boy bring out several for us to admire and one for me to ride on for a few minutes. I was amazed at how comfortable the horse was to sit on as his body was so slender and his gait so long. Ashir has 35 horses at the moment, including 10 new foul this season. His family was in the horse business for many generations until the Soviets stopped them in 1917. He has been rebuilding the business for 15 years and hopes to get up to 60 animals during the next 15 years. He is vary particular about his operation, does not allow artificial insemination and is picky about who buys his animals, which he sells for $15,000 to $30.000. I would have loved to spend a day riding one of them. Apparently he does allow such rides, once he is sure of the rider’s ability to handle the horse. Oh well, maybe next time.
After leaving the farm, we drove on and into the mountains to the village of Nokhur and home of the family hosting us for the night. As we were a bit late, we sat down immediately on the wall to wall carpets in the main room for a big lunch spread set out on oilcloth on the floor. No furniture was in the room, except the heating stove and a TV sitting on a stand. We were served a hot beef and potato stew-like soup, which I declined, and plov, a popular Central Asian dish composed of seared beef, carrots, onions, raisins and raw rice steamed in juice until the rice is done. The plov was very tasty and I filled up on it. The spread also included: tomatoes, cucumbers, bread and home made butter, apples, candy and a wonderful home made cherry juice. Stuffed, we went to our room for a few minutes to settle in. The room was immediately adjacent to the main room and nearly as large. The only furniture was a cupboard filled with bedding on one end and a low table holding a TV on the other. Turkish carpets covered the floor here too. We put our bags on the floor and considered that we were as settled in as we were going to get.
Back outdoors, we jumped in the car and drove from the village at 1000 feet up to the crest of the hills at 4000 feet where we got out and went for a lovely hike in what I call Heidi or Sound of Music country with gently rolling, green, nearly treeless hills, a cliff with a small waterfall and many animal trails. I kept expecting to hear the sound of cow bells, but enjoyed the fresh air, deep blue cloudless sky and quiet. Mark and Musa walked up and down the hills head on, while I followed the animal trails around the hills at a gentle grade. Along the way I spotted tiny red tulips in full bloom, a perfect, edible mushroom (confirmed by our driver) and a large empty turtle shell.
When I reconnected with the boys, we walked down to a stone house in a meadow that just happened to belong to the family of our driver. It was the perfect place to have a house in the country and reminded me of our ranch. This house has been in our driver’s family for generations and is called a dacha, or country house. Originally, I learned, dachas were property in the countryside, leased indefinitely and without charge, to Soviet civil servants. The practice started under Nikita Kruschev. Today the term has become generic, but country properties are no longer free unless you have one from Soviet times. While we were hiking, the driver went to his and had the caretaker set out bread, butter, cherry jam and tea for us. Still full from lunch, I could only manage a cup of tea with a spoon full of a home made concoction of cooked cherries in heavy syrup, which was very good. This house was designed similarly to the one we are staying in. A long and narrow main room, with 4 other rooms entered directly off it. No furniture, just wall to wall turkish carpets covering the floor. After an hour we departed down the mountain back to the family guest home.
Once there, we were invited to sit on carpets outdoors on a porch under a grape arbor overlooking the village. It was a pleasant setting and we lounged there until dusk. After dinner, which consisted of grilled tortilla-like pastries stuffed with spinach, squash or minced goat meat, our hosts, Gaip and Enebai Ekaiev, sat down with us and were happy to chat. They have been happily married for 40 years, have 8 children and more than 16 grandchildren (I thought is funny that they could not remember the exact number). Most of their children live in Ashgabat, while three live nearby. We met the youngest son and his wife and baby daughter who live in the house with Enebai and Gaip. Two other sons and their wives and children live across the street in separate houses. They all seem to get along happily. According to Gaip, he taught his children to be good people and to follow the example of he and his wife. I was charmed by how respectful the children and grandchildren were and how well behaved the younger set was. Everyone was curious about us, but they were quiet unless spoken to directly. Later we visited one daughter-in-law’s house to watch her weaving silk into fabric for dresses, bags, table runners, etc. Her sister-in-law sews the clothes and other products from the weavings. Clearly this is a very enterprising family with the elder couple renting rooms nearly every night during the season and the women selling items to those same guests. They wanted me to buy something, but I did not see anything that appealed to me.
Musa was with us along with Gaip in the daughter-in-laws house so we sat on the floor and chatted with the women and their children. I asked the ladies what it was like to live in such a big family only to find out they each came from equally big families and thought it was just fine. Under the circumstances, there was no way I could ask anything more personal. As they both wore scarves that covered their heads and mouths I asked about this tradition. First of all, women do not cut their hair and single women do not wear scarves, but wear their hair in long braids. Traditionally newly married women wear scarves and cover their head and mouth. They are not to speak to men, other than their husband, until they have been married a couple of years or have had their first child. The most traditional women will cover their head and mouth in public at all times. Meanwhile, in the city, many women are not bothering with the scarf at all or wear it as a stylish hair wrap only. All three daughters-in-law we met covered their mouths, using their teeth to hold it in place.
Finally, we were too tired to try conversing any more and bid the family goodnight. They helped us create a bed from 3” thick cotton pads, comforters and extremely dense and heavy pillows. Then we went outdoors to the bathroom, cleaned up as best we could and called it a night. Fortunately, we both slept reasonably well. Next morning we were up by 6:30am and went for a walk about the village before breakfast. After breakfast of yogurt, apples, cheese, bread and home made butter and chunky apple jam, we said goodbye to Gaip and Enebai and hit the road. We enjoyed the home stay, but were not totally comfortable with the situation and the frustrating language barrier.
We made three stops on the way back to Ashgabat. The first was at a car wash where our driver paid to have all the dust removed by a high pressure sprayer. The second was an oasis with a cave containing an underground, warm, spring-filled lake. Supposedly very therapeutic, the place was mostly very tired. However, we walked down the 247 uneven steps to the small lake trying not to depend on the rickety railing as we went. Changed clothes at the bottom and and went swimming for about half an hour in the dimly lit cavern. This was and is a popular activity with locals and Russians who travel here for the “waters”. Once back up in the sunshine, we sat on a tapchan, or tea bed, under ripe mulberry trees sipping green tea and listening to hundreds of little birds chatter noisily.
Our last stop another hour down the road was at an outdoor chaikhana, or tea house, where we had tasty kebabs of lamb, chicken, lake fish and minced beef to accompany our green tea. We were all tired and did not talk much. Back in the car we headed into town and our familiar hotel. We were really glad to be back in luxurious surroundings, even if only for a few hours.
May 2, 2013
What a night….and morning. We were to catch a 12:30am flight to Tashkent, so Musa and our driver picked us up at 9:30 after spending 7 hours in our room cleaning up, repacking, writing and reading and not much resting. We got to the airport to learn that the flight was delayed for at least 3 hours so we drove back to the hotel to rest in the room we had just left. I was so tired, i climbed into bed and slept soundly for an hour and a half, when Musa called to say the plane was coming and pre boarding was beginning. We raced down stairs to jump into the car only to realize we had a flat tire. (Mark just reminded me that this is the fourth time we have had a flat tire while in route to an airport in a foreign country. Ask us about them if you are interested.) Luckily, the official black hotel car was sitting front and center under the porte-cochere. Musa grabbed the hotel driver and off we went, leaving our driver to change the tire on his own. This was the fastest ride we have had in Turkmenistan. I asked Musa how the driver got away with the speed and he said the car provided such privileges. A police state perk, I guess. We arrived in plenty of time to get trapped in other misadventures. Musa accompanied us as far as he could.
Once we were on our own and attempted to pass through security, we were stopped and told to remove the computer, cameras, I Pad and cell phones and hand them over along with our passports. Everything disappeared into a room and we were left standing there wondering what would happen next. Luckily an entire Lufthansa crew was standing around waiting for their electronic gear to be returned too. We did not feel so isolated. Eventually we got everything back, but I made a thorough check of the camera to see if they had deleted anything. All was well and we proceeded to the gate to cool our heels until the 3am departure. The Uzbek Airways plane was an old Russian number and I was nervous the whole flight wondering if we would make it as the engine made strange sounds several times along the way. Mark slept through it all until we were handed custom forms to fill out. We had been told to be very precise and make no mistakes on the forms or we could be held up in customs. So we spent extra time filling them out, including the exact amount of money we were carrying and details on the electronic gear we have with us. We will be required to produce everything we brought into the country when we leave and the same or fewer dollars.
We both felt better when we were outside the airport and in the care of our new guide, Eugene. His English is even better than Musa’s and he is most charming. We arrived at the hotel at 7am and agreed to meet up with him at 2pm for a city tour. Had breakfast and then came to our new room. Not as luxurious as the Sofitel, but it is good enough and has wifi as well as a connection, however tedious, to my blog. Have sent one post on Turkmenistan and will hopefully send another post soon.
Bye for now. Hope you are enjoying nice spring weather. Our weather is near to perfect here. Dry, sunny and not too hot.
Love and Hugs to you all,
Julia
Adventures with Julia 