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UZBEKISTAN HOTEL REPORTby The central Asian Republic
of Uzbekistan is making a concerted effort to increase tourism, especially
to the fabled cities lying along the Great Silk Road which Marco Polo
traveled en route to the then-unknown Orient. Some General Notes on Uzbekistan HotelsUzbekistan became independent in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Six years later it is still remarkably "Soviet" in many ways. (In fact, Uzbekistan's current President, Islam Karimov, who now rails at the injustices of Soviet rule, was the last Soviet ruler of the republic.) If you missed the Soviet Union in its heyday, you can still get a taste of it in Uzbekistan. Perhaps one reason for the soviet feel of most hotels is that the vast majority of the staff with whom you will come in contact is of Russian (or at least European) extraction; native Uzbeks seemed to be in a distinct minority. Also, every hotel I stayed in seemed to have a few young men in dark, ill-fitting suits standing about the lobby doing nothing in particular. I don't know for sure if they were "state security" but anyone who has read a cold war spy novel would be hard-pressed to peg them as anything else. "Rack Rates" for hotels tend to be quite high. If you are traveling as part of a tour group, the pro-rata price you pay for a night's lodging will be considerably lower. Those who attempt to travel "independently" in Uzbekistan (that is, wander into a hotel and book a room) will find the rack rates to be cast in stone; no corporate rates or AARP discounts here. Hotels also have a two-tiered pricing system: one for foreigners and one for Uzbeks or citizens of the CIS (Confederation of Independent States, the successor to the old Soviet Union). As you might surmise, the prices quoted to foreigners are considerably higher than those quoted to ex-soviet brethren. To obtain a tourist visa to Uzbekistan, you must pre-book a minimum of two nights in a hotel. If you go this route, I would recommend booking those two nights at a Tashkent hotel, for your first and last nights in Uzbekistan. Just be aware that keeping your lodging budget under control on subsequent nights will require either Machiavellian bargaining skills
or compromises in quality and comfort. Efforts are being made to refurbish
some of these establishments (notably the Intourist hotels) but generally
speaking staying in a soviet-era hotel means a sharp step down from Western
standards. Expect the rooms to be worn and threadbare, the plumbing unreliable,
and the service brusque to nonexistent. Hotel food in these establishments
is nothing to write home about either, with the cuisine leaning heavily
toward Russian Institutional, which is a shame since Uzbekistan has a
vibrant and delicious cuisine of its own. (By the way, bottled water is
essential in Uzbekistan, regardless of where you are staying.) There may
be hotels, quite inexpensive ones, that don't quite fit the ex-Intourist
or ex-Sputnik category, but I didn't visit any. The fourth category, and a very promising one for both Uzbekistan and the budget traveler, is the bed and breakfasts that are popping up in the major tourist cities. They offer lodging (and breakfast) for $20 to $30 or so per person, per night. The government, in the form of UzbekTourizm, is creating an "association" of B&Bs, which may be just a way of keeping a closer eye on this form of nascent capitalism. Hopefully, it will result in
marketing a much needed budget alternative to the high cost of hotels
in Uzbekistan. I have been promised a complete list of B&Bs, which
I have yet to receive. When I get it, I will post it here. Finally, I should mention that spur-of-the-moment invitations to stay at an Uzbek home are not at all uncommon. Striking up a conversation with an Uzbek on the flight over could very well result in a free night's lodging. The Uzbeks are a gregarious and open people and, from everything I have heard and observed, invitations like this are genuine gestures of hospitality rather than something that should be regarded with suspicion. TASHKENTTashkent will be your gateway to Uzbekistan. It is the only city (so far) to which international flights arrive. The visitor to Uzbekistan will inevitably spend at least two nights here, the night of arrival and the night prior to departure. Hotel UzbekistanWhen I visited the Hotel Uzbekistan,
which I gather was once the preeminent Intourist hotel in town, it was
in the process of undergoing a reported $31 million renovation. I stayed
in three different rooms and got an instructive before-and-after look
at the place. Each floor has a central lobby
with a desk presided over by a "gornichnaya", typically a burly
Russian woman of indeterminate age, who functions as a jack of all trades.
Her primary function is to hand out keys to the individual rooms, but
she will also arrange to have your laundry done (at rates that will be
quite high unless you bargain aggressively and successfully) or to get
you a massage, which she might administer personally. The gornicnayas
at the Hotel Uzbekistan also exchanged money (at a fair bit less than
the going black market rate) and even offered one member of my party the
services of a $50 whore. My first room was in the unrenovated
southern wing of the building. It was small and drab, more like a dormitory
room than a hotel room. The mattress was hard and worn and I received
a nasty scratch from a spring when I rolled over in bed. The television
worked erratically. Once the BBC World channel appeared but only once;
the rest of the time only Russian and Uzbek channels were available. The bathroom was small and
cramped, the sink had only the most tenuous connection with the wall and
cockroaches provided a homey touch for a native New Yorker. The tub (if
that's the right word) was a shallow square about the size of a shower
stall and showering proved to be the preferred mode of bathing. The second
room was much the same although it had the advantage of an Eastern exposure. Rooms facing the front of the
hotel (West) look out through a modernist concrete lattice work hung a
few feet from the outside wall. This design strategy (which looks quite
spiffy from the street) allowed the architect to save some rubles by running
the pipes down the exterior wall but it makes for a dark and dingy prospect.
Rooms on the back of the hotel (East) open on to small balconies, a marked
improvement, although the rising sun (Tashkent has few cloudy days) may
prove irksome for late sleepers. By the time you read this,
the old wing will be closed for renovation. However, I suspect that many
soviet-era hotels in Uzbekistan still continue to serve up a similar ambiance
and so the above description may prove useful. The renovated northern wing
is a study in contrasts. The hallway floors are plushly carpeted and the
walls semi-paneled in a rich reddish wood. The renovating architects have
often knocked together two small rooms to create one spacious one. I saw
three distinct varieties of rooms here: small doubles with a bath containing
a shower stall, large ones with copious closet space but still with a
shower-only bathroom, and large doubles with a deep tub in the bathroom.
All rooms have televisions and (empty) mini-bars and the furnishings and
appointments are modern and comfortable. The lobby was still unrenovated
when I visited and it is showing its age. There are some overpriced souvenir
stands which have the virtue of telling you what not to pay for various
items, a newsstand with only one English language paper (the Central Asian
Press) on offer, and a snack bar and bar where you can buy the bottled
water you will need at two to three times what you will pay at the nearby
Mir Supermarket. Interestingly, the prices quoted for the same item at
the snack bar varied widely from day to day depending on who was on duty
and what he felt the traffic would bear. The restaurant is large and
only partially used. I only had breakfast at the hotel (and then only
because breakfast was included). My traveling companions had their complaints
about the breakfast buffet but I actually grew to like it. For one thing,
it was plentiful and if one item proved to be not to your liking there
were plenty of others to sample. There were fried eggs and a selection
of not too good breads. There were also greasy cabbage and eggplant dishes,
bland hot dog-like sausages, and rice. For the more health-conscious,
fresh fruit and yogurt were available. There are waiters at breakfast
but their only function seemed to be to man the table to which you came
to have hot water poured over instant coffee crystals or tea bags, at
which time they would interrupt their gossiping to offer to exchange dollars
on the black market. The Hotel Uzbekistan is centrally
located, I guess, although what exactly constitutes Tashkent's "center"
I never did figure out. Just outside, is Amir Timur Square, which in soviet
times housed a mammoth statue of Lenin. Today the Square, a spacious and
leafy park that is in essence a large traffic circle, takes its name from
the equestrian statue of Tamerlane (know to Uzbeks as Timur), the 13th
century conqueror of much of the land from India to the Black Sea. A Metro
stop is just down the steps from the hotel's entrance offering speedy
access to the rest of Tashkent. Across the street is the Istanbul
Restaurant, which I didn't try but which is recommended in the guidebooks
(although it is expensive by Uzbek standards). A perfectly good meal is
available a short walk away, through Amir Timur Square, and up Saiyelgokh
Kuchasi. On your right, you will find a series of outdoor restaurants.
Here you can have plov (mutton pilaf), lachman (a spicy noodle soup with
mutton broth) or shashlik (shish-kebab of lamb or beef). A bowl of plov
or lachman, accompanied by a round loaf of non, the traditional unleavened
bread of Uzbekistan, washed down by a Coca Cola cost just 200 sum (about
$1.33 at the then current black market rate of exchange). Shashlik costs
a bit more. A little farther along, on
Matlubochi Kuchasi, is Mir Burger. This is actually a sort of food court
under the Mir brand name. You can also get pizza and very good pastries
here. The Tashkent equivalent of a Big Mac meal will set you back about
$2.50. This is also a great place to check out Tashkent's Generation-X.
Next door is the Mir Supermarket, where bottled mineral water (the highly
recommended Samarkand brand) is about 80 sum (as opposed to anywhere from
200 to 400 in the lobby of the Hotel Uzbekistan). Hotel Uzbekistan LeMeridienJust behind the Hotel Uzbekistan
is this spiffy modern hotel. When the hotel opened in August of 1995,
it was an UzbekTourism operation; in April of 1996 it changed hands, coming
under the ownership of Bakri, an Indonesian company. It's now under British
management and has recently (August of 1996) been brought into the LeMeridien
family of hotels which is giving it a thorough dusting and cleaning. I
am told that the room furnishings left something to be desired and that
the current remodeling will bring the hotel more in line with international
standards for luxury hotels. I didn't stay here or eat here
so I can't comment except to say that the public spaces look quite nice,
if a little bare and empty. I did have the opportunity to speak with an
American tour group who were staying in the hotel; they gave the place
high marks. Apparently, only about 3 percent of their business comes from
the leisure market, with business travelers accounting for the rest. Hotel LeMeridien Hotel InterContinentalThis very posh hotel was the
only hotel I saw in Uzbekistan that actually looked like its luxury counterparts
in, say, New York or Paris. The lobby is small but extremely well-appointed
and was chock-full of Japanese and Arab businessmen when I dropped by. The InterContinental, which
I am told is owned by the Foreign Ministry, boasts two very nice Western-style
restaurants. The Brasserie on the Park serves a European buffet in the
evenings. The cold buffet is $12 and the hot buffet $19. Soup is $6 additional
and dessert is $8. The Allegro restaurant on the mezzanine serves Italian
food, with pastas ranging from 760 to 1090 sum, fish dishes from 2350
to 2770, meat entrees from 2180 to 2690, and desserts from 840 to 1010. Next door is a small amusement
park by a lake. A bit farther along is Tashkent's landmark TV Tower, which
is scarcely worth the visit. Hotel Intercontinental FERGHANAHotel ZiyoratThe Hotel Ziyorat was memorable
for its toilet paper which apparently goes directly from the bark of the
tree to the roll with no intervening processing. Surely they're in line
for some sort of environmental award. It was the only area in which
the hotel excelled, however. This is the sort of establishment for which
the adjective "fading" was created. The rooms are looking their
age and the plumbing is temperamental, although the hot water seemed to
be reliable. The public spaces are small
and drab and undecorated (the pool in the lobby was dry and occupied by
a small table from which soda and candy was being sold). The restaurant
is thoroughly undistinguished and the live evening musical entertainment
forgettable; the public restrooms near the restaurant are dirty and malodorous. All that being said, the place
is comfortable enough and the staff is friendly and helpful. The rooms
are clean and tidy (with an amusing fire
warning posted on the door) and while the walls are thin the lack
of guests made for a quiet night. The hotel grounds are pleasant and the
lobby opens on to a small canal. The hotel is just a short walk from the
bazaar, where freshly baked Uzbek bread makes for a far better breakfast
than that served up in the hotel. Hotel Ziyorat Part II of this report covers Samarkand, Bukhara, and Khiva.
Note: Information was accurate as of October, 1997. This article copyright 1997 by Kelly Monaghan. All rights reserved. Didn't find what you were looking for? Try a Google search.
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