Sunday, April 13, 2014

Nukus, Karakalpakstan April 14, 2014

Tashkent was very wet, but not cold.The airport was pretty chaotic but we eventually found our baggage among all the cardboard boxes.

Tashkent was flattened by an earthquake in 1966 and was rebuilt in the Soviet era with some grand Soviet style buildings and lovely wide boulevardes. Spring has just sprung and so there is fresh green on the trees and flowers and blossom. We started in old Tashkent and visited some mosques and madressas which pre date the earthquake but not Genghis Khan  We next visited the bazaar and then rode the metro. No photos on the metro but it has pretty impressive architecture (like Moscow) and one station is dedicated to Romeo and Juliet.

 Our driver was chatting to his girl friend and was later for the rendezvous but we made the plane to Nukus which was full of Bangladeshis off on some contract probably looking for oil or gas in this area.

Hasti Imam Complex? 
More IslamicArchitecture
 
 Lots of wooden Koran stands.
Even some of the street lamps have finely carved wooden bases.

Ladies outside Chorzu bazaar. The vegetables were very good quality and plentiful.
Inspecting nuts and delicious dried apricots.

 
 Judging by the mouthful of gold teeth there is money in potatoes!
 
Looking over part of the meat section which is modern and orderly.

 Independence Square has lovely gardens and Timurlane has replaced Stalin.
 We are now at Mizdakhan outside Nukus - a burial ground since the 4thC B.C. originally Zoroastrian.
Inside the restored 14thC Mausoleum of Mazhum Khan Shu.
 A local shop - note the very yellow butter.
 
We drove 200+km to Moynaq which used to be a big fishing port but is now surrounded by desert. The World War 2 monument now has the information boards about this huge ecological and environmental disaster.
 
 Above as the sea was, and below as it is now.
 

 One of the rusting hulks in the graveyard of fishing boats.

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