Coming back to Tashkent

I arrived in Tashkent six weeks ago. In September I presented my credentials to President Karimov (letters from The Queen confirming my appointment as Ambassador). I was one of four Ambassadors to see the President that day. Each of us formally handed over our Letters of Credence, and then spent some time in one-to-one conversation with the President, mostly about relations between our countries and plans for the future.

I was last in Tashkent nearly 20 years ago, soon after independence. I was working as a consultant for the EU Tacis programme, which supported economic and governmental reform in the newly independent countries of the former Soviet Union. I only visited briefly then as I was based elsewhere in the region. Some things about the city have changed very visibly. Karl Marx has gone from the main city square, replaced by an impressive statue of Amir Timur, or Tamerlane – portrayed here as a strong but enlightened ruler, a champion of science and culture as well as a military genius. Along the bigger roads and around the central square are vast new buildings of glass and marble, designed to project grandeur – business centres, banks, parliamentary buildings. The Russian language is much less prevalent than it was. In the Metro the announcements and almost all the signs are in Uzbek only. According to recent figures 40% of the country’s population are under 18, and 64 % under 30. So a large part of the population have grown up since the collapse of the Soviet Union – and as President Karimov said at a recent seminar on business development, have a different mentality, and different ambitions and expectations.

I’m looking forward to getting to know the country better.

I’ll aim to blog here at least once a fortnight, with impressions of Tashkent and Uzbekistan. I’m not going to be commenting on political issues, but will hope to give a sense of what life is like, through the eyes of a – long-term – foreign guest. Please feel free to comment below.