Uzbekistan
The most populated country of Central Asia, Uzbekistan has been on a mission to open up since the death of its previous leader in 2016. Nick Redmayne meets the proprietors hoping to take advantage of a tourism boom
the promise of jobs in the city, or abroad. Among the elderly, whose pensions have diminished, there’s a rose-spectacled nostalgia for the certainty of the Soviet period, when ‘no one had much, but everyone had enough’. These days, traditional heritage and skills are diminished as men and women abandon their roots, often for good.
Around 50 kilometres east of Tashkent at Kumyshkang village however, among dwellings originally erected for workers at a former Soviet silver mine, a transformation is taking place. ‘Today is my birthday,’ announces Antonina Germanova, a diminutive and obviously industrious woman in her 60s. Through a metal gate and along a terrace populated by red and white geraniums, Antonina leads the way into a richly decorated living room at her guesthouse, one of the first in Kumyshkang. ‘We’ve just had Chinese people. They stayed for four days,’ she says, pouring tea.
Though the mine has long closed, the village’s location, set below the hilltop mosque of Hazrat Ali, and its healing spring waters, also attracts local visitors.