REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN 

Flag and State Emblem of the Republic of Uzbekistan

 

         

 

Geography

Uzbekistan is a completely landlocked country located in the Central Asian region of the Eurasia landmass in the Eastern hemisphere. It is slightly larger than California covering 447,400 sq km, bordering Afghanistan in the south, Kazakhstan in the north, Turkmenistan in the west, and Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in the east.

 

 

The Afghan border is the shortest (137km), but most guarded and watched.  However it is still porous due to the lack of resources to maintain adequate border control and the corruption of custom officials. The Tajikistani border is 1,161 km long and is the second most guarded including measures like unmarked minefields on certain stretches and permanent garrisons of Special Forces and National Security Service battalion in addition to the regular border guard. Still it is reported to be porous and is crossed regularly by smugglers, drug traffickers and terrorists. The same is true for the border with Kyrgyzstan, with which Uzbekistan has an unresolved territorial dispute, although there are no reported minefields or deployments, other than border guards and customs. The borders with Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan are considered of no security risk and have border guards and customs on lowest alert.

 

Climate          

The climate of modern Uzbekistan has been characterized by a lot of fluctuations due to the drying out of Aral Sea. Generally it is extremely continental. In a zone of deserts and steppes covering all of the plain area, winter is short, snow is not enough, and it thaws quickly, but summer is hot, long, dry and dusty. Autumn is cool and rainy. The average temperature in January is from -12°C (10°F) in the north to +3°C (37°F) in the south, in July it ranges from 26°C (79°F) in the north up to 46°C (114°F) in the shade in the south.

In the west and northwest, Uzbekistan is not protected from humid air coming from the area of the Volga River or from the Northern Caucasus bringing extremely cold snaps in winter. In summer these air masses, moving over the deserts, are getting warmer and drier causing a lot of precipitation in the mountains of Tian-Shan and Pamir in the northeast and east.

 

Precipitation in the territory of Uzbekistan is distributed irregularly because of the location of the republic in the depth of the wide continent and the complexity of its relief. The western plain and the Fergana valley are the driest zones with 100 - 300 mm of precipitation a year. From the plains to the foothills there is more precipitation and on the western and southwestern slopes of the mountains, which are open to the humid air mass, there may be more than 2000 mm of precipitation a year. 

Terrain           

Nearly four-fifths of Uzbekistan's territory, the sun-dried western area, has the appearance of a wasteland. In the northwest the Turan Plain rises 200 to 300 feet (60 to 90 metres) above sea level around the Aral Sea in Qoraqalpoghiston. This terrain merges on the south with the Kyzylkum (Uzbek: Qizilqum) Desert and farther west becomes the Ustyurt Plateau, a region of low ridges, salt marshes, sinkholes, and caverns.

 

View of semi desert in early spring and early summer

Southeast of the Aral Sea, small hills break the flatness of the low-lying Kyzylkum Desert, and, much farther east, a series of mountain ridges partition Uzbekistan's territory. The western Tien Shan includes the Karzhantau, Ugam, and Pskem ranges, the latter featuring the 14,104-foot (4,299-metre) Beshtor Peak, the country's highest point. Also a part of the western Tien Shan are the Chatkal and Kurama ranges.

The Gissar (Hissor) and Alay (Oloy) ranges stand across the Fergana valley, which lies south of the western Tien Shan. The Mirzachul desert, which is southwest of Tashkent, lies between the Tien Shan spurs to the north and the Turkestan, Marguzar, and Nuratau ranges to the south. In south-central Uzbekistan the Zeravshan valley opens westward; the cities of Samarkand (Samarqand) and Bukhara (Bukhoro) grace this ancient cultural centre.

ß Zeravshan mountain range

Two big rivers – Syrdarya in the north and Amudarya in the south - supply water to an area in the northeast  and southeast of the country in which most of the population live. They run southeast to northwest almost parallel to each other and empty into Aral Sea, which only 30 years ago was comparable to Lake Superior but now is quarter of its former size and a fifth of the volume. Pollution, including nuclear waste from buried weapon manufacture process materials, pesticides, and human generated refuse reached critical level and now being spread globally, by winds, from exposed dry lakebed. Water is still being diverted from both rivers, despite numerous international accords to restore Aral, signed by Uzbekistan, and after being used for irrigation, dumped into manmade lakes.

View of the shore of artificial lake Aydarqul

Population  

According to 2006 estimates the population stands at 27,000,000 but an accurate number is increasingly hard to arrive at due to unreliable government data and migration out of the country, because of unemployment that is estimated at 4,000,000, with more than 90% of these people working in Russia. Since independence, President Karimov and his inner circle have devoted themselves entirely to privatization of profits of all income producing public entities, letting them formally stay public, which has led to the rapid redistribution of wealth, resulting in a concentration of capital and ownership in the hands of less than 1% of the population with the rest of the people simply getting by. Uzbekistan has a 99% literacy rate and the compulsory education age is 7. Uzbekistan has a draft for military service at the age of 18. 

 

 

 

Government  

Uzbekistan declared independence from the Soviet Union in September 2001.  Islam Karimov, taking advantage of his position as First Secretary of the Communist party and Chairman of the Uzbek Council of People Representatives, following examples of “democratization” in Russia and elsewhere in the former USSR, won presidential elections in 1991, in the first contested elections ever. In August 2001 he seized an opportunity, provided by the aftermath of the August Coup in Moscow, and on his own power terminated the Union agreement. Uzbekistan adopted its new constitution in 1992, with the country declared a democratic republic, with Majlis – parliament, convened out of freely elected representatives of the people and the president elected for a five-year term both by general, direct elections with a secret ballot. In reality, through abuse of executive branch, Karimov arranged for referendum in 1995, extending his term in office until 2000 and in 2002 called for another one, this time having people to vote on the change of the term in office from five to seven years. He is up for reelection in 2007. In 2005 Uzbekistan, on initiative of the president, passed a constitutional amendment, creating the senate as an upper chamber of the legislative assembly, but all senators were handpicked and appointed by the president himself, based on personal loyalty to him.      

 

Oliy Majlis (Parliament)

building in Tashkentà

                                                                

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The vertical power structure in Uzbekistan is absolute with all local hokims (mayors of towns and provincial governors) appointed personally by Karimov, confidentially at first, with subsequent sessions of Majlis formally confirming them in office. 

Appointed mayor of the town à

 

History              

The first human settlements discovered in Uzbekistan, date back 35,000 years. For thousands of years people in the area survived on subsistence farming and trade, which became lucrative with the emergence of the Great Silk Road, linking China and the Far East with Europe. That trade gave rise to the cities Samarqand, Bukhara, Khiva, Urgench, and Kokand. 

 

                                       Sherdor Madrasa in Samarqand  à

                                       

After Portugal discovered a sea route to India, the Great Silk Road started losing its importance and eventually fell into decline, as international trade logistics on land withered, and trade by sea prospered, with the entire Central Asian kingdom suffering stagnation and depression.         

 

  Minori Kalon in Bukhara

In 1865 Russian expeditionary corps invaded Central Asia and brought its three kingdoms – Khiva, Kokand and Bukhara under dominion of the Russian Emperor. Russians started growing cotton in hopes of competing with and displacing Britain, as a major cotton producer and textile manufacturer, which led to the emergence of cotton as a monoculture in Uzbekistan. It still remains such today.

 

The Soviet Socialist Republic of Uzbekistan was formed in 1924, on Stalin’s orders, dividing former Soviet Turkestan into five republics, roughly along the ethnic lines, which eventually became independent states, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Modern Uzbekistan is a peculiar mixture of failed agricultural, industrial and social policies and institutions, both Soviet and post-Soviet, kept afloat only by a balance of people’s patience and government repression. Contrasts, as in pictures below, are a way of life and most curious probably, is the development of cellular networks while sewers are failing, or even absent.                                         

 

Lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel Very clean outhouse

 

 

Repression manifested itself fully in May 2005, when popular uprising in Andijon, one of the major cities of the Fergana Valley, where population density is the highest and unemployment is rampant, was brutally crushed.  More than a thousand people, including women and children, were hit by machine-guns and run over by armored personnel carriers.

 

 

Friendly police captain

 

Armored Personnel Carrier of the Ministry of Interior Special Assignments Battalion patrolling in Andijon

 

According to eyewitnesses, soldiers appeared drugged and shot their AK74 assault rifles indiscriminately, causing the death of a few emergency medical personnel and incidents of friendly fire. Recruitment into the Uzbek Special Forces and especially the National Security Service and Ministry of Interior battalions is increasingly taking a medieval turn, with preference given to orphaned boys, who are raised in the spirit of absolute loyalty to the president.

 

Foreign Relations  

In 1991 Uzbekistan was recognized by the USA, European Union and United Nations, becoming a member of the UN and is now signatory to every major international treaty, including some that require its government to provide for human rights and liberties and freedom of economic relations. One of many ways Uzbek leadership avoids accountability, is that it does not ratify signed treaties. Direct US-Uzbek relations started in 1992, with the visit of the then Secretary of State James Baker, and did not have any particular importance to the US, except for human rights violations and mining of gold by Newmont Mining, Inc. After 9/11 however, Uzbekistan came into prominence as a potential ally in the War on Terror, and the Uzbek government cooperated with the US State Department and DoD, providing the old Soviet airfield at Khanabad as the forward operating base, known as K2.

 

Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld with Uzbek president Karimov in 2001 

 

With the peaceful democratic revolutions in Georgia in 2002, Ukraine in 2004 and Kyrgyzstan in 2005, Karimov became increasingly suspicious that his regime is next in line. So he openly accused the US of sponsoring democratic opposition movements in all of the above countries and Uzbekistan, broke off security cooperation, gave the US an ultimatum on K2, setting the deadline for the base closure, suspended activity of all international NGOs, including Peace Corps, in Uzbekistan and forced them out of the country.

 

Uzbekistan has been a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization since its inception, and started promoting it feverishly lately, especially after May 13, 2005, the Andijon massacre. Right then Karimov made hasty visits to Moscow and Beijing, where he got assurances of unwavering political and economic support from the old imperial master – Russia, and old party comrade – China.

 

Uzbek president Karimov with Russian president Putin

 

Presidents of the SCO member countries in Shanghai: left to right – Karimov, Putin and President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev.

 

Karimov with Chinese premiere Jian Ze Ming

 

Since May 2005 Uzbekistan has been openly hostile towards the United States and is relying on Moscow, Beijing and neighboring Kazakhstan in its foreign policies.

 

Economy        

Major exports of Uzbekistan are cotton, natural gas, gold, non ferrous ores, oil, electricity and uranium, with cotton accounting for more than 80% of export revenues. Uzbekistan today, is second only to the US in cotton export, and given the size of the country, it is obvious that this ranking comes at the expense of other crops, needed badly, especially for foodstuffs production. Economic activity and foreign investments are greatly hampered by the government choke hold on business and micromanagement. Uzbek law does not allow private ownership of land or any other major means of production. The country is still, probably second in the world last, next to Cuba, in exercising central planning of the economy. This is a major weakness. The country is dependent on cotton exports disproportionately. Energy exports are significant but revenues are not invested in the modern, growth providing sectors of economy and absence of free enterprise is holding up the development. Generally, Uzbekistan is still an agrarian economy with a rapidly diminishing industrial sector.

Religion         

Islam is by far, the declared dominant religious faith in Uzbekistan. In the early 1990s, many of the Russians remaining in the republic, (about 8 percent of the population) were Orthodox Christians.

 

A miniscule number of people are familiar with the Muslim tradition, which was completely destroyed during the Bolshevik revolution and subsequent building of socialism in the early 20th century. Very few are practicing Muslims, who pray 5 times a day, go on the haj and adhere strictly to the prescribed Islamic conventions. People generally are open-minded, which led to a proliferation of missionaries and cults. The government, at first, flirted with Islam as a national identity idea, and president Karimov even took an oath of office in 2002 on the Holy Quran.

 

Later years saw an increasing hostility to Islam, practiced outside of registered and monitored mosques, culminating in open repression, taken to unreasonable extent, with detention of any bearded men on suspicion of being radicals, extremists and terrorists.

           

Ethnic Groups           

The Uzbek nation today is comprised of the following ethnicities: Uzbek 80%, Russian 5.5%, Tajik 5%, Kazakh 3%, Karakalpak 2.5%, Tatar 1.5%, other 2.5% The ”other” category includes representatives of 130 ethnic groups, who reside in Uzbekistan due to migration, evacuation, deportation, refugee crises, natural disaster recovery effort etc. including descendants of Germans, Austrians, Hungarian, Polish, Chech WWI POWs, WWII Japanese POWs and peoples (Volga Germans, Koreans, Chechens, Crimean Tatars) forcibly relocated during 1930-40s.

 

Second row left to right - Russian girl, Kyrgyz youth. First row left to right - Uzbek and Tatar girls.

Tajik girl
Young Uzbek couple

 

Uzbekistan enjoyed ethnic harmony well into 1980s, save for one major incident of clashes in the Fergana Valley in 1990, whereas elsewhere in the former Soviet Union ethnic tensions were rising, leading to outbreaks of violence between ethnic groups, sometimes on the scale of civil war.

Today, there is national peace in Uzbekistan, but rather due to the oppression, than to a true coexistence of people of different ethnicities, and given deteriorating economic violence between them is a strong probability.

 

ß Uzbek official in front of the portrait of Muhammad Solih, leader of the banned political party Birlik.

 

Culture              

For most of the twentieth century, Uzbekistan had what today is condemned across-the-board, as “Soviet culture”. It was a cohesive culture, with strong emphasis on unity of all working people of the world and an equally strong belief in eventual triumph of communism. Despite official condemnation and attempts to substitute it with a new, truly Uzbek national identity, customs and holydays, the cultural references and habits of Soviet times survive today. Uzbeks eagerly embraced Navruz, the ancient, pre-islamic New Year, which was declared a national holyday and is celebrated on March 21, along with Valentine’s Day, which is celebrated informally, along with the old Soviet March 8th – International Women’s Day. 

Search for national identity began in 1991 and became an urgent political necessity for the government, trying to present itself as a new government of all people.

Authorities, in their search for a unifying figure produced Amir Timur – a 14th century conqueror of Mongol descent, who built a vast empire, with Samarqand as its capital.

Contrary to historical evidence, Uzbek leadership created an image of a wise, caring, paternalistic nation builder, erected monuments in every major city and directs the Ministry of Education to teach history in schools according to this political doctrine. A personal cult of the current president is surfing the wave of reverence towards this artificial representation of Amir Timur.

Uzbekistanis of all ethnicities are generally very respectful of family, family values and their elderly, although with today’s economic hardship traditions are rapidly eroding. Probably the surge of traditionalism on the part of people with means is characteristic of difficult times, whereas people of modest means and low-income classes, which is more than 80% of the population, are increasingly turning to Western culture, particularly, modern Russian, in search of ways of survival. 

Contrary to the expectations of Westerners and constant talk in the State Department and US media Uzbekistan is not a Muslim country. Religion is absolutely of no concern to the overwhelming majority of people and the only influence on lifestyle is limited to celebrations of circumcisions for the boys and funerals. Uzbekistanis are a fun loving, partying and drinking nation with strong devotion to soccer.

Weddings typically last at least three days.

 

 

              Typical summer party à

 

Family The

Traditional Uzbek family usually stretches for three generations with quite a number of families, particularly in rural communities having four generations living together. Improved economic conditions and socialized healthcare, during Soviet times, lead to an explosive population growth, which somewhat slowed in the 1990s and even more so in the new century. Still Uzbekistan has most of its population younger than 21.

 

Elders have a say, but decision makers are increasingly more and more income producers, so the influence of elders is overrated in most accounts published in the West. Women’s liberation took place in the 1930s and continues to this day. Despite futile attempts of some clerics and traditionalists, women play a more and more important role in today’s Uzbekistan, in some cases, especially in the capital, appearing to be a decisive economic force.

 

Foods 

It is hard to even begin to describe the diversity and taste spectrum of traditional Uzbek cuisine. Unfortunately, as is the case with many sophisticated food cultures, Uzbek food is no exception, and has suffered transformation into a short order, quick bite, fast food culture.

In order to fully appreciate traditional cuisine one should have time and connections.

A major dish readily available in the streets during lunch hour is palov. The generic variety is pot roast of beef, lamb mixture with layers of carrots and rice on top, spiced by cumin. Shashlik – pieces of lamb on the stick over coals is a staple of lunch hour everywhere side by side with palov. During spring –summer-fall there is a variety of fresh fruit and vegetables in abundance, which led to a whole industry of salad making. Taste is usually superior to that of typical Western salad, because of freshness, but one should exercise caution, due to water quality.

 

Arts     Song and dance are the most beloved art forms that came to flourish under independence, at the expense of professionalism that was characteristic of Soviet times.

Since state control is now limited only to attacks on the president and official economic policies, anything goes in song and dance. Because it is relatively cheap to produce in Uzbekistan, varieties of performances are staged in every club and restaurant, and sometimes devolve into shocking, seedy displays.

 

Amateur dance ensemble à

 

Classic ballet is state supported and the troupe of the Navoi Theater tours the world regularly.

Music is predominantly pop, with some national tinge to it. Old, traditional music is performed live during weddings, and there is an enormous archive of recorded traditional forms.

The most lucrative crafts these days are carpet making, lacquered box painting and woodcutting.

 

 

Outdoor entertainment is a traditional game on horseback – uloq - and races and darboz – tightrope walkers, masharaboz – clown shows.

 

  

ß Darboz performing in Seattle      

 

Sports were always very strong and still today Uzbek athletes have a strong showing in international events, especially women, with Olympic Gold medals in freestyle, judo, Greco-Roman wrestling, Silver in gymnastics and a winning team in the Asia Cup in soccer.

 

Members of Junior National Gymnastics Team à