Today is the last day of our Five 'Stans trip. It promises to be a long one since our flight home leaves at 4am tomorrow. More about that later. Let’s enjoy today.
Spent the morning at a colorful, delightful bazaar – the Tolkuchka Bazaar. The guidebook says “the sight of withered men haggling for shaggy sheepskin hats, a braying camel suspended in midair by a crane or sheep being driven away in a sidecar are a few of the oddities you can expect from the Tolkuchka Bazaar, one of Central Asia’s most spectacular sights. The enormous market sprawls across acres of desert on the outskirts of Ashgabat, with corrals of camels and goats, avenues of red-clothed women squatting before silver jewelry, and villages of trucks from which Turkmen hawk everything from pistachios to car parts. Whatever you want, it’s sold at Tolkuchka.” I think that accurately describes what we saw and experienced. We went first to the animal market that is on one side of the market, driving distance from the main market. Indeed women were there in abundance selling every conceivable item. This is a locals market – not a tourist one – which made it fascinating for us all.
Our guide was invaluable as she helped me to haggle over the price of jewelry and hats, my main areas of interest. Hard to bring a camel home in my suitcase. There were only a few women selling jewelry and our guide explained that these pieces would be purchased by local people and used for wedding ceremonies. She said that brides would wear heavy amounts of jewelry for 40 days after the wedding and then wear almost none during the rest of their lives. I bought a couple of small pieces and one larger one which she assured me was quite old, older than the 50-year limit that Turkmenistan customs allows to be taken out of the country. This resulted in a very funny sequence of events where she disappeared for a long time and returned with what she described as “special paper” that I should use to wrap my jewelry in to prevent the x-ray scanners at the airport from detecting them. The “special paper” turned out to be aluminum foil. Heaven help us all if aluminum foil will “foil” our international security system. More about this later!
Stayed all morning at the market in the blazing sun. Afterward had lunch inside a building we’d all been curious about that looks rather like a giant space capsule that has fountains running down all sides. Very difficult to describe. Had excellent views of the fantasy fur tree plantings and marble buildings. Our guide arranged for a group of traditional musicians and folk dancers to perform for us.
After lunch many opted out of the day but Scott and I continued on. We drove half and hour to the outskirts of the city to a hippodrome to see famous Turkmen akhalteke horses (http://www.turkmenistanembassy.org/turkmen/history/horses.html). I don’t know the first thing about horses (although many in our group did) but I was dazzled by their beauty. We saw a simmering golden palomino, a white horse with black trimmed that Scott said made it look like a zebra without stripes and several others. I have pictures of each one.
At around 3:30 we drove to a private home to see (new) Turkmenistan rugs. The prices were so reasonable that we bought a small one that will be shipped to us. Hope to receive it in a month. Returned to the hotel at about 5:15 and needed to be at a “special surprise event” at 5:50.
Our surprise was a visit and Q&A session with Will Stevens, the Director of Public Affairs at the US Embassy in Ashgabat. It was a very interesting session and we had the chance to ask all sorts of questions which he (the walls have ears) gingerly and diplomatically answered. But meanings were clear. He explained that the primary purpose of the any US Embassy is to assist Americans traveling overseas in that country. In terms of diplomacy, the US has three major interests relating to Turkmenistan:
- helping in the war in Afghanistan
- helping Turkmenistan to expand supply routes for its natural resources (and hopefully to help the US gain access to these resources which today it does not have)
- helping Turkmenistan to further democratize by providing assistance in such areas as election monitoring and education programs
He said that Turkmenistan has made great strides at "opening up" over the past three years. The internet, for example, was banned until three years ago. We were shocked to learn that, due to political shenanigans in Washington, there has been no Ambassador to Turkmenistan for the past four years. Everyone had lots of questions and came away with a greater understanding of the political situation been the US and Turkmenistan as well as the situation within Turkmenistan itself.
- helping in the war in Afghanistan
- helping Turkmenistan to expand supply routes for its natural resources (and hopefully to help the US gain access to these resources which today it does not have)
- helping Turkmenistan to further democratize by providing assistance in such areas as election monitoring and education programs
He said that Turkmenistan has made great strides at "opening up" over the past three years. The internet, for example, was banned until three years ago. We were shocked to learn that, due to political shenanigans in Washington, there has been no Ambassador to Turkmenistan for the past four years. Everyone had lots of questions and came away with a greater understanding of the political situation been the US and Turkmenistan as well as the situation within Turkmenistan itself.
Afterward we moved to the dinning room for our farewell dinner. This hotel serves excellent pizza and Italian food and we can’t seem to get our fill after the largely bland meals we’ve been eating for the past couple of weeks.
We had the super-delux opportunity to keep our rooms until 2am, our departure time for the airport. I went back up at 8:30 to pack, shower and try to get some sleep. Bags out at 1am. The porter got mixed up and knocked at our door at midnight. It didn’t matter; I was awake for most of the time but it was wonderful to have a chance to lie down and rest.
The security screening check in process at the airport is a trip in and of itself. Our bags were screened and passports checked three times before we even got to the airline check-in counter. I got through the screeners just fine; no red alarms set off by my aluminum-foil-wrapped jewelry. But another fellow who bought a dagger (also wrapped in aluminum foil) wasn’t so lucky. They saw it, checked it, but it wasn’t confiscated. I was pretty relieved that aluminum foil couldn’t completely undermine airport security, particularly in Central Asian countries where almost nothing would surprise me.
Flew Turkish Airlines from Ashgabat for Istanbul at 4am. This is about a 4-hour flight. Arrived at 7am Istanbul time. Had coffee in the very nice (it looks like a dazzling shopping mall after the modern-but-no frills Ashgabat airport) Istanbul terminal with Larry and Renee. They headed off for the second of four legs of flights to get them back to Albuquerque. They should arrive in Santa Fe at midnight tonight. Scott and I departed Istanbul at 11am. Turkish Airlines, btw, is a very nice airline. Had a great bulkhead seat in coach on an enormous plane; very comfortable for our 10-hour flight to JFK. Arrived New York at 3pm and were back in our apartment at 4.
It was amazing but we slept only on the Ashgabat to Istanbul (comatose would be a more accurate way of describing my condition) and didn’t sleep for one minute on the 10-hour flight. Stayed up until 9pm and slept wonderfully all night so we’re hoping for minimal side effects from let-lag.
Closing thoughts about our trip in general: I'm sure I’ll change my feelings about the trip as I get farther away from it, but here are few comments. I adored the time we spent in Samarkand and Bukhara. I could have stayed there longer to have more time to explore (there are more sights we didn’t see) and time to wander and photograph. I would have liked to visit other sites in Uzbekistan like Khiva and Shahr-i-Siyabz but to do so would have meant adding a significant amount of time to the itinerary and accommodations would be rugged. I'm not sure that spending one day going to Tajikistan was worth it. It was a difficult day given the amount of time required for border crossing and the time spent to get there was not worth it given the small amount we were able to see in Pendjikent. I would have liked to find antique textiles for purchase. I should have done advance work on this topic and possibly tried to make appointments with textile dealers. But I'm not sure this would have been practical given our busy itinerary or worth it given restrictions on export of antiquities (50 years old +). A major disappointment was the realization that people no longer wear ikat or embroidered clothing. Or if they do, they do not live in or come to a city. This tradition must have been wiped out during Soviet years. People wear store-bought printed cotton or velvet clothing, or modern jeans and high heels, depending upon the country. I don’t think that visiting Kazakhstan is necessary unless you love to hike. A visit to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan is worth a detour.
But looking back over the whole, I do feel I have a much greater understanding of what Central Asia is all about. I know there are no commonalities across the countries; despite in many cases having a common ethnic heritage (i.e. Turkmen), each country is completely different from the other and must be seen as having different needs and political issues. I'm glad to have had the chance to see and experience these little snippets and put my toe in each of the Five ‘Stans.
Welcome back. I have enjoyed reading the blog and looking at your uploaded pictures. Did you manage to bring home a small gold statue of their fearless leader?
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