Report from the Field: A Year in Tashkent

By: Jackson Kellogg

Editor’s Note: Post-bac student Jackson Kellogg worked in Kyrgyzstan as a Peace Corps volunteer from 2001 to 2003 before spending the 2004-05 academic year in the Uzbekistan program.

Tashkent was built to be the model Socialist City, a place that Soviet leaders could bring leaders from other countries to tell them, “This all could be yours, if you embrace our system.”

Most people think of camel caravans and sand dunes when they think of Uzbekistan, but in fact, Tashkent is a very modern city, complete with a subway system, freeways and high-rise housing developments. It has an excellent and inexpensive cultural life: it is possible to see a symphony concert or a famous opera almost every night of the year.

With a population of 2.3 million, it was the fourth largest city of the Soviet Union, right after Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev. It was a Soviet center of heavy industry and is famous for its manufactured products, ranging from airplanes to tractors.

Tashkent’s subway system is perhaps the world’s most beautiful. The Soviet Union’s best artists and craftspeople labored for years to decorate the palatial stations, making lavish use of gold, marble and hand-painted ceramic tile. The station “Independence Square” is decorated with polished marble and lit with crystal chandeliers.

Anther station near my apartment, “Kosmonatlar,” remembers the Soviet space program. Large paintings of medieval Uzbek astronomers and modern Soviet cosmonauts appear to float in space against a blue tile background. Like much of the architecture in Tashkent, the subway has a bold, futuristic style, although it also seems a bit retro—as if from a cool, 1950’s sci-fi movie.

I lived in a modern part of Tashkent in a comfortable one-bedroom apartment, inside a four-story mid-rise built for KGB employees in the early 1980’s. I had cable television, hot and cold running water, and dependable heating and air conditioning. My tree-lined street had an electric tramline. I lived within a fifteen-minute walk of two metro stops, a medium-sized supermarket and a large, covered market. Quality produce was available all year for less than I would have had to spend in the United States. Occasionally shiny red apples from Washington State even appeared in the supermarket!

Tashkent is a cosmopolitan city with people of least eighty distinct nationalities represented. In addition to Uzbek—the language I had come to Tashkent to study—everybody speaks some Russian, and some people speak Russian as their first language. Still, despite 150 years of Russian domination, almost all Uzbek people speak the Uzbek language.

I studied Uzbek with three different tutors for at least three hours every day except Sunday. One tutor specialized in grammar, one in literature, and the third made “field trips” with me around Tashkent, providing conversation practice in everything we saw. On one trip, we visited the Old City and knocked on doors, asking to see the inside of the old houses. My tutor assured me that this would be a fine thing to do and, in fact, most of the people invited us in.

Traditional houses in Uzbekistan, like houses in most parts of Central Asia and the Middle East, are focused on the interior space. From the street they are very plain and mostly look the same. A contrast exists between a severe plain wall and metal gate on the outside, and the pleasant courtyard and comfortable house on the inside.

When I visited homes in chilly November, colorfully dressed women were sleeping away the snow. As I write this in August, I can imagine them sitting in a courtyard, drinking green tea under the branches of an apple tree.

Note: Due to political unrest, the Uzbekistan program was suspended in 2006. However, students may select from several other programs in Central Asia.

Shakrizinda in Samarkand, Uzbekistan

Hamid Olimjon Square Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Jackson Kellogg with teacher Mekhribon Abdurakhmanova of Tashkent's World Economy and Diplomacy University.