Tashkent City Tour

The statue commemorating the 1966 earthquake.

The central mosque of Tashkent.

... and inside.

The entrance to the madras.

The bazaar from the outside...

and the inside.

John buying a meat filled bread.

The bakery.

The Metro stop that commemorates the Soviet space program.

The first woman astronaut, Valentina Tereshkova.

Another station...

 ... and a third.

The inside of the main part of the Applied Arts Museum.

The ceiling of the museum.

One of the paintings...

and some of the fabric.

Our local guide Sean.

Sunday, April 20th.

Today was the first day of our Adventure Abroad tour. We met our local guide and boarded the coach at 9:30. We had an interesting day long city tour of Tashkent. Our first stop was at the monument commemorating the 1966 earthquake that decimated the city. Sean told us that Tashkent means ‘Stone City” and has a population of 3.5 to 5 million depending where the boundaries are. It was the 4th largest city in the USSR behind Moscow, St Petersburg and Kiev. The earthquake of April 26, 1966 at 5;25am was 9 on the Richter Scale. Most of what we see now was rebuilt in a short period of time with the help of the Russians. Then we visited the Hoja Ahror Valiy Mosque, the major mosque in the city, part of which was under renovation, but we were allowed inside and could take photos. We visited a small museum that houses the oldest Koran in Uzbekistan and is written in ink on deer leather pages. We took the local Metro to several stations. All of the stations are decorated by Russian artists and are quite beautiful. One was dedicated to the astronauts of the Soviet Union. We visited the WWII war memorial and the permanent flame honouring their sacrifice. Then we had lunch at an outdoor restaurant. We were served several courses: salad and bread, borsch soup, a meat platter and a fruit platter. Then we went to Independence Square. They achieved their independence 1991. The city is very green and lush with lots of park space. There are sprinklers everywhere as the city gets no rain for four months in the summer. The last stop was the Museum of Applied Arts which was housed in the house of a famous local person. The actual walls and ceilings were stunning and a great environment for the artifacts housed there. They were from the last century of fabrics, carpets, wall hanging, musical instruments and copper works. Then back to the hotel for the evening. John and I went for a swim and then to the bar where we had a beer and a small mushroom pizza each, which were both signs of our improved health.