Celebrities in Ikat

I thought it would be rather fun to end the year with images of famous people wearing gorgeous ikat clothes.

Let's start with the incomparable Sophia Loren, photographed by Richard Avedon for Vogue, November 1966 issue.

Sophia Loren in a spectacular ikat coat that she found in Moscow in 1965

On her first visit to Moscow in 1965,  Sophia Loren discovered Uzbek ikat quite by chance. She was so fascinated by the beauty of this textile, that she took some ikat pieces of clothing back to Italy.  She wore this coat for the Vogue photo shoot and Avedon's images created a sensation in the modern European fashion world.

Below is Rudolf Nureyev lounging in his apartment on Quai Voltaire, Paris. (Architectural Digest, 1985). Nureyev was famous for his collection of carpets and antique textiles.

Rudolf Nureyev in his apartment on Quai Voltaire, Paris, 1985

Bjork performed in ikat with matching makeup!

Bjork performed in ikat with matching makeup!

Kristen Stewart went to the MTV Spoilers in this *rocker chic* ikat look by DKNY.

Kristen Stewart in *rocker chic* ikat

Emma Stone wore a Fendi ikat frock to a premier of Spiderman.

Emma Stone in a Fendi ikat frock at a Spiderman premier

Cameron Diaz, on the set of the film The Other Woman in New York, is wearing an Altuzarra crepe de chine ikat print dress.

In the Soviet period ikat crepe de chine was very popular in Uzbekistan. It is still possible to purchase vintage, unused yardage - let me show you when we are travelling together.

I wish all Uzbek Journeys clients, and readers of this website, a wonderful 2019 full of adventures. And I certainly hope there is a little piece of ikat in your New Year's Eve outfit.

Cameron Diaz in an Altuzarra ikat print frock

Related posts:
Ikat: The "Thread That Connects Generations" Exhibition, Tashkent
The Story of Uzbek Silk Production: Step by Step
Uzbek Ikat as Interior Design Element
Feruza's Ikat Store, Bukhara
Human House - Tashkent's Coolest Design Space 

The Birth of Suzani - Madina Kasimbaeva's Exhibition, Tashkent

Tashkent's best autumn exhibition - The Birth of Suzani - was held at the House of Photography late October.

Madina Khasambaeva's huge suzani - 6 x 4 metres: it took 2 years to complete.

It was the final part of art historian Binafsha Nodir's exhibition projects dedicated to the revival and preservation of the traditions of the Tashkent school of embroidery.  

It featured the work of Madina Kasimbaeva, the sole needlewoman to successfully revive the unique tradition of the Tashkent school.

The exhibition, which detailed the creation of modern Tashkent palyak suzani from initial design sketch to the finished embroidered piece, immersed the viewer in the creative atmosphere accompanying the birth of this new incarnation of a tradition once lost.

The highlight was Kasambaeva's immense 6 x 4 metre suzani, superbly displayed in the "Secret Room", which took two years to complete.

Madina Kasimbaeva and Binafsha Nodir

A stunning catalogue was also produced by sponsor, the Islam Karimov Foundation. It features essays and magnificent images from Kasimbaeva's 2016 exhibition Sacrament of Magic Yarn and the 2015 exhibition The Light of Faraway Stars.

As Nodir notes in her essay "As well as creating replicas of antique pieces, Kasimbaeava periodically gives herself over to pure inspiration, when new designs and compositions pour out of her, with each new pattern in perfect harmony with the basic structure of the classic traditional designs. The rich, inner world of this craftswoman, her inexhaustible imagination and unerring taste, as well as her excellent knowledge of national culture, find expression in her striking embroidery".

Kasimbaeva teaches embroidery techniques and shares her experience with her many students, who will one day become virtuoso needlewomen in their own right".
  
On an Uzbek Journeys tour we visit Madina's little store in Tashkent's old city. She is also a regular exhibitor at the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market, scheduled for mid-July 2019. You can contact her via her Facebook page.

Below are some gorgeous images from the catalogue and exhibition.

Related posts: Sacrament of Magic Yarn
Uzbek Suzanis: Like Flowers in the Sand
Symbols in Stitches: Uzbek Suzanis
Valentino Haute Couture Meets Suzani

Detail of Madina Kasimbaeva's suzani

Installation at the Birth of Suzani exhibition - conceived and installed by artist Bobur Ismoilov

Catalogue cover of The Birth of Suzani -  layout and design by Inna Sandler

Georgian painter Levan Lagidze's London exhibition: Bach Exercises

Levan Lagidze's Autumn Gardens

If you are in London before 8 December, this is an unmissable exhibition.

Described as a ‘living legend’ by Dante magazine, Levan Lagidze is one of Georgia’s most prominent artists. His work is collected by national museums across the former USSR (including the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and the National Gallery in Tbilisi) and in the US and Europe.

This autumn The Georgian Museum of Fine Arts in Tbilisi opened a new building with a hall dedicated to the artist’s work.

Lagidze is known for his highly structured and layered abstract paintings, philosophical approach to art and his unwavering support for Georgian art and artists.

He is sought-after in the international art world, where his paintings have recently fetched high sums at auction in New York, but is notoriously reclusive and shy of wide exposure, preferring to exhibit exclusively in his own gallery in Tbilisi.

London's Katrine Levin Galleries Pall Mall is hosting Bach Exercises, the first major exhibition that the artist has agreed to outside Georgia for 20 years. It will run until  8 December 2018.

"The exhibition title reflects the 'cadence' of the paintings, where the myriad of tiny universes built up along a grid intermingle in a symphony of rich chromatic notes. Through this rhythm Lagidze seeks to know the universe through colour as Bach did through sound" said Katrine Levin, curator.

Levan Lagidze’s works are accessible and self-explanatory. Layers of colour and structure entice the viewer to look deeper into the paintings where they discover connections to universal narratives such as landscape and urbanisation.

Colour is at the heart of his work: "It is said that painting is the art of showing colour – but to me it is the art of hiding colour. Colour needs to be hidden in order to entice the viewer into searching deeper", commented the artist.

Levan Lagidze's Village in the Mountains

Born in 1958 in Tbilisi, Georgia, Lagidze graduated from Tbilisi State Academy of Arts in 1981. He founded and led the Artists’ Studio in the Tbilisi Artists’ House in 1983 and served as Chairman of Georgia´s Young Artists' Union from 1986 to 1989.

Lagidze continued his support of young Georgian artists during the turbulent and violent decade following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In 2011 he founded the Lagidze Gallery that showcases his works and hosts exhibitions, presentations and talks in Georgia's capital.

There you will often find a mix of writers, composers, diplomats, and corporate leaders who have dropped in for an exchange of jokes or a philosophical discussion.

Bach Exercises presents 25 recent paintings created specifically for the London exhibition and is open to the public until 8 December at La Galleria Pall Mall, Pall Mall, London.

Listen to a 3-minute conversation below with the artist, with English subtitles. [If your device does not display the clip, go directly to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5kHLyIqVxA].

Related posts:
Central Asia in Art: From Soviet Orientalism to the New Republics  
Sotheby's London Exhibition: Contemporary Art from Central Asia & the Caucasus
Alexander Volkov: Of Sand and Silk, an Exhibition at Christie's, London

Farmers in Kyrgyzstan try to capitalize on global quinoa fad

Quinoa farmer, Azamat Kaseyev.

This article, written by Leila Saralayeva  was published by Eurasianet 14 November and is posted with permission.

Step into a grocery store anywhere in Kyrgyzstan and ask for quinoa, chances are you will receive little more than blank stares. All the same, one farmer on the southern shores of Issyk-Kul lake has for the past few years been trying his hand at cultivating this most trendy of grains.

Azamat Kaseyev, 44, got his first batch of quinoa seeds – the South American strains of Regalona and Titicaca – in 2012. The results have been impressive. "The yield of this crop is quite high – if you sow 2.5 kilograms [of seeds] across one hectare [10,000 square meters], it yields one to three tons of quinoa,” Kaseyev told Eurasianet.

With the crop selling at anywhere between $2 and $16 per kilogram on international commodity exchanges, the returns have been robust, he said.

That, however, is where the problems begin. Getting Kyrgyz-grown quinoa onto the international market is proving tough and farmers complain the authorities are doing nothing to help.

Kaseyev’s efforts at the moment are on adapting the grain to local conditions and testing the crop in all of Kyrgyzstan’s regions. Quinoa has flourished most in the highlands and under certain temperature conditions. The plant likes heat in the daytime and cold at night. The Tong district of the Issyk-Kul region, the Bakai-Ata district of Talas region and the foothills of Jalal-Abad region have been found to be the best locations.

Introduction of quinoa to Kyrgyzstan has been spearheaded by the Dubai-based International Center for Biosaline Agriculture, or ICBA, which co-organized an event in 2016 to explore new regions in which to grow the crop. Central Asia has proven particularly receptive. Neighboring Tajikistan and Uzbekistan too are now dipping their toes into quinoa cultivation.

Central Asian farmers are tapping into a global craze. If only eight countries were cultivating quinoa in 1980, that figure had risen to 75 by 2014.

Twenty additional countries began sowing quinoa in 2015 alone. For all that, around four-fifths of global output is still accounted for by the plant’s native lands, Bolivia and Peru.

Enthusiasm in Kyrgyzstan is being tempered by a host of difficulties, however. As Kaseyev explained, Kyrgyz farmers have no mechanical equipment for sowing, weeding, harvesting, threshing or processing the crop.

UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) expert Omurbek Mambetov points out that technical limitations are inevitably hampering potential for domestic sales and export. "The domestic market is not developed because quinoa contains a substance called saponin, which gives the crop a bitter taste. It is contained in the shell of the grain," Mambetov said. "In order to get [the crop] onto the export market, it is necessary to learn how to separate out the saponin. But there is no equipment [for doing this] in Kyrgyzstan as yet".

In these early years, there are also bound to be stops and starts.  Alisher Uraimov, a farmer from Jalal-Abad region who began growing quinoa around the same time as Kaseyev, suffered a dismal harvest this year. He sowed 32 hectares, but only five hectares gave any yield.

“We had a good harvest in previous years, so I increased my sowing area. But unfortunately, agriculture in Kyrgyzstan is a risky business. Because of the hot summer, this was not a very good harvest,” Uraimov said. Uraimov said he is now in talks to sell around six tons of quinoa to Italian and German partners to whom he previously sold dry fruits.

Azamat Kaseyev with other quinoa farmers

Doing that will mean overcoming considerable bureaucratic hurdles though. Even if the local government were in a position to issue certificates of origin and quality for Uraimov’s quinoa, these would likely prove insufficient for the European market. Instead, Uraimov will have to summon a sanitary expert from Europe or Turkey, which could cost anywhere from $3,300.

"For one farmer, that is of course an insurmountable amount, but if all us farmers chip in, we could do it," he said. Industry experts say the government has provided no help in either developing the crop or assisting in export.

We have just introduced scientists and teachers from the Agrarian University and employees at the Agriculture Ministry to this culture, but there has been little interest so far,” said Mambetov, of the FAO.

Kyrgyzstan’s unsettled political scene is blamed for this lassitude. “The annual change of prime minister, and with him the minister of agriculture, leads to very low efficiency levels. We have not had one minister of agriculture who has been in place for more than 12 months. I don’t even try to remember their names,” said Aziza Yuldasheva, head of the Zher Azygy agriculture industry lobby group.

Roman Kovalenko, manager of the Ecoland health food store in Bishkek, complained it is farmers that are pricing themselves out of sales. "They charge quite a lot as they know they do not have competition on the domestic market. And it is a major disadvantage that they have not learned to grind and process the grains, which are bitter as a result," he said.

Tajik farmers are also trying to cultivate quinoa

 This is all a pity, as there is great potential, he said. "I myself regularly eat porridge made with quinoa, because every 100 grams contains around 14 grams of protein. It is consumed by people on diets to lose weight and people who are on gluten-free diets,” Kovalenko said. “Kyrgyz farmers need to learn processing technologies and the demand will be huge, even on the domestic market".

Related posts: 
Sumalak, Kyrgyzstan's Nowruz Treat for the Pure of Heart
Tea with Bread and Jam – a Traveller’s Appreciation of the Finer Things in Kyrgyz Life
Samarkand: Recipes and Stories from Central Asia and The Caucasus

Ikat Still Rules at the House of Oscar de la Renta

Gorgeous ikat frock from the House of Oscar de la Renta 2019 SS collection

From his sensational 2005 collection in which Uzbek ikat patterns burst upon the international fashion scene, until his death in 2014, Dominican-born designer Oscar de la Renta included ikat fabrics in his collections ranging from clothing and accessories to furniture fabrics.

Collaborating with Rasuljon Mirzaakhmedov, master craftsman from Margilan, in the Ferghana Valley, his collection included adras (cotton and silk ikat), baghmal (silk velvet ikat) and atlas ikat (satin ikat) in bright, graphic patterns.

Indeed the revival of silk velvet ikat in Uzbekistan can be attributed to this collaboration.

Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia  were appointed  co-creative directors of the House of Oscar de la Renta in 2016.

The pair are no strangers to the label - Kim worked there from 2003, and left as design director, while Garcia joined in 2009 and left as a senior designer.

The 2019 ready-to-wear spring collection showed a relaxed look - oversized robes, embroidered frocks and jackets, cropped trousers. And many of these gorgeous clothes were crafted from Uzbek adras - the silk/cotton ikat mix.

It seems the fashion world's love of ikat is undiminished.

More images from the collection below.

Related posts:
Ikat Porcelain Tableware
Basso & Brooke Meet Ikat on the New Silk Road Project
Giorgio Armani's Take on Ikat
The Story of Uzbek Silk Production
Fashion's Obsession with Central Asian Design
Ikat: The "Thread That Connects Generations" Exhibition, Tashkent

Ikat trouser suit from the House of Oscar de la Renta 2019 SS collection

Relaxed off the shoulder dress in bold ikat from the House of Oscar de la Renta 2019 SS collection

Silk ikat loose coat from the House of Oscar de la Renta 2019 SS collection

Georgia: Soviet Modernist Mosaics from 1960 to 1990

Former haberdashery factory. Bordschomis kutscha 2, Chaschuri.
Artist: Wiktor Tschumburidse, 1970s

Travellers on Uzbek Journeys tours, and readers of this website, know my devotion to finding and documenting mosaic panels in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

So you can imagine my immense pleasure discovering this new book from Dom Publishers.  (This group also published the excellent Seismic Modernism - Architecture and Housing in Soviet Tashkent).

While buildings in the style of Soviet modernism in Georgia have received global recognition for several decades, the artworks created for architecture during this period – monumental, decorative mosaics – are still waiting to be discovered and appreciated internationally.

These glorious, colourful mosaics were, and still are, an independent yet inseparable part of the architecture in Georgia. They express the function of the respective building, structure its facade, and sometimes even merge with it to form an elaborate whole. However, many of these artworks, which were far more than simply bearers of state propaganda, are currently under threat of destruction.

This architectural guide – Georgia. Art for Architecture: Soviet Modernist Mosaics from 1960 to 1990 – represents the first systematic documentation of these unique relics of mosaic art in Soviet Georgia.

Former furniture factory Gantiadi. Kindzmaraulis kutscha 5
.Unknown artist, Unknown date

Nini Palavandishvili and Lena Prents, experts in this field, present photos and short essays to guide the reader through the multi-faceted world of Soviet mosaics in Georgia, which feature their own unique characteristics not found in other places in the former Soviet Union.

The mosaics were created not only in cities but also in villages and residential settlements. Most of them were hung on public buildings and industrial facilities, but also on canteens as well as conference and concert halls.

They can also be found in the form of independent decorative wells and wall structures. Unique examples of these mosaic-covered works of architecture include the former Café Fantasia on a boulevard in Batumi and the "bus pavilions" in Abkhazia.

Bus stops bedecked with mosaics still stand in small cities; complex, three-dimensional compositions are still to be found in health resorts such as Pitunda (also known as Bichvinta) or Kobuleti. The authors draw attention to this remarkable artistic heritage of a recent past and show its cultural significance, thereby also making a powerful appeal for its protection and preservation.

There are 350 splendid images in the soft cover book, which you can order directly from Dom Publishers.

More glorious images below.

Related posts: Turkmenistan: Tracking Down Mosaics
Kyrgyzstan: Monumental Art in the Provinces
Back in the USSR: Soviet Roadside Architecture
Uzbekistan's Decorative Architectural Panels #1

Former Café Fantasia. Batumi, Boulevard. Architekt | Architect: Giorgi Tschachawa in collaboration with Surab Dschalaghania, Artist: Surab Kapanadse, 1980

Fire station Ortatschala. Wachtang Gorgasalis kutscha 34. Artist: Giwi Kerwalischwili, 1979

Former palace of the pioneers. Schota Rustawelis gamsiri 6. | Unknown artist, 1979

Goglio bathhouse. Ketewan Zamebulis gamsiri 35. Schota Kawlaschwili, R. Kiknadse,
Artist: Kukuri Zereteli, Reconstruction 1977

Bride Abduction is Not Cool - Fighting Forced Marriage in Kyrgyzstan

Svetlana Dzardanova - initiator of the project

This article, written by Wolfgang Kuhlner, was first published by the German Institute for Foreign Relations.

"Ala kachuu" is Kyrgyz and translates as "Grab her and run". What sounds like an entertaining popular sport is actually the widespread practice of kidnapping women and forcing them into marriage.

With her initiative "Ala kachuu is not cool!" Kyrgyz Svetlana Dzardanova is taking a stand against the alleged custom.

In 2017 Deutsche Welle – Germanyʹs international broadcasting company – reported that every 30 minutes a woman in Kyrgyzstan is abducted and forced into marriage. The fact that young women are being dragged into cars in broad daylight, usually by several men, and brought to their future husband's parents' house is not regarded as a crime by many Kyrgyz, but rather as the preservation of a tradition.

A look into the past reveals, however, that the custom never existed in this specific form. Only with the collapse of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1990s, the associated socio-political upheaval and the spread of poverty was there a sharp rise in the number of bride abductions in Kyrgyzstan.

Without doubt there had been abductions before, but to a much lesser extent. In the magazine "Human rights for women", published by the women's rights organisation Terre des Femmes, author Anja Heifel sees this as an expression of wrongly understood masculinity and the subordinate gender role of women. In her opinion, the custom serves as a boredom alleviator in the everyday life of young men of marriageable age – "entertainment" at the expense of young women.

"A good marriage begins with tears"

The paradox of "Ala kachuu": even the female family members of the kidnapper, who have often been forced into marriage themselves, become perpetrators during this patriarchal practice. It is their job to persuade the abducted woman in the kidnapper's house to agree to the marriage. The "bride" often hardly knows her kidnappers, if at all. She is detained and in some cases even raped.

A return to the parents' house, on the other hand, becomes impossible after spending one night in the house of the unknown man. The social stigma would be too grave. Women therefore often do not contradict their fate. Despite the fact that even in independent Kyrgyzstan forced marriage is an offence punishable by law, such deprivation of liberty rarely ends in criminal prosecution. A Kyrgyz proverb sums up this impotence: "A good marriage begins with tears".

Bride abduction is a crime
 
Svetlana, former participant in ifa's CrossCulture Programme, refuses to accept this understanding of gender roles. Especially since she came frighteningly close to "Ala kachuu" during her studies in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, when several young men tried to kidnap her friend and roommate.

"On television, bride abduction seems far away from one's personal fate. But when it happens in your immediate proximity, it changes how you think. It really got to me," Svetlana remembers. Together the two students managed to dissuade the kidnappers from carrying out their plan.

However, the uncomfortable feeling stayed. "The tragedy of this story is that my roommate actually married her kidnapper a few months later", says Svetlana. Since then, all contact has been lost between the two friends.

There should be no future for bride abduction in Kyrgyzstan. Of that, Svetlana is convinced. With her project "Ala kachuu is no cool!" she has set herself the goal of convincing young people to acknowledge bride abduction for what it really is: a crime.

During the training workshop in Bishkek

In her opinion, it is essential that both young women and their parents become aware of their rights, duties and responsibilities.

In order to establish common ground, Svetlana gathered various experts around a round table: human rights representatives, scientists, journalists, religious scholars and interested citizens exchanged information about legal bases and existing local projects and thus contributed to clarifying the role of politics and media.


Tangible results

Based on the results of the expert discussion, Svetlana and some supporters organised a four-day training course for school children from the suburbs of the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek. Guided by expert instructors, the students discussed stereotypical gender roles that can take the form of discrimination or domestic violence.

Almost all participants brought personal experience to the workshop. Many of them knew kidnap victims personally or even men involved in a kidnapping. During the workshop they had the opportunity to exchange their experiences. By the end of the training course many participants were convinced that they did not want to participate in an abduction and would even seek to protect people at risk.

In addition to the workshop, Russian and Kyrgyz information brochures were produced and distributed in more than 40 schools and seven cities across the country. The brochures are particularly intended to target younger boys and girls, informing them about the alleged custom "Ala kachuu".

At one point the number 155 can be read in large letters. The number represents the article of the Kyrgyz Penal Code that states that the abduction of a woman with the intention of marriage may carry a prison sentence of five to seven years. "Let the criminal know this!" is the demand in the brochure. "The article is public, which means that every witness – not just the victim – has the right to report the crime."

Still from the animated film Erkinay

A short story published by the initiative has also attracted a lot of attention. In a two-minute animated film, the young Kyrgyz woman Erkinay finds herself on an emotional rollercoaster: despite being engaged to her partner Akjol, she is unable to defend herself against kidnapping. In the end, it takes the combined efforts of the police, her parents and her friends to free her. The film reached more than fifty thousand young people via social media, prompting much discussion in the appropriate channels.

Attracting cross-border attention

Looking back, Svetlana is delighted with the tangible results and the success of her commitment: "It is a great feeling to see people watching our film or holding the brochure in their hands and reacting to it."

"Only recently, a partner organisation in Bishkek supported us in printing our story in larger quantities. Now we have about 2,000 copies, which is fantastic," Svetlana says happily. "I hope that this is just the first step for me in offering solutions to this societal issue."

Svetlana is particularly proud of the fact that news of her project has reached human rights activists in the neighbouring country of Kazakhstan. There too "Ala kachuu" is a well-known issue. They are now aiming to distribute her information brochures and launch their own campaign against bride abduction.

Related posts:
Kyrgyz Space Program: Creating the First Kyrgyz Satellite Ever & It Will be Built by Girls
Kyrgyzstan: Social Entrepreneur Finds Foothold in Tien Shan Foothills
Kyrgyz Woman Singer Remakes Poem Traditionally Sung By Men
All-Woman Brewery Brings Craft Beer to Kyrgyzstan

Uzbek Haute Couture - Lali Fazylova's Retro Collection 2018

Lali Fazylova is an Uzbek designer, whom Vogue Italia featured in its May 2017 edition.

Her wondrous pieces fuse the beauty of Central Asian designs, traditional silk fabrics, hand embroidery, French and Italian guipure and simple, elegant forms.

Starting with one sewing machine in a small workshop in Tashkent in the mid-1990s, her collections have graced the runways of Fashion Week in Monte Carlo, Japan, Turkey and Kazakhstan.

Her 2018 autumn collection, reflecting the unique aesthetic of Uzbek fashion, was inspired by archival photographs of late 19th century Uzbek fashion,

Look at the images and video clip below, photographed in Tashkent's legendary puppet theatre, and swoon.

Travelling to Tashkent? Visit Lali's atelier in 32 Nukus Street - though make sure you call ahead on +998 93 381-50-59.

Related posts:
Oscar de la Renta's Love Affair with Uzbek Ikat
Basso & Brooke Meet Ikat on the New Silk Road Project
Fashion's Obsession with Central Asian Design
Valentino Haute Couture Meets Suzani 

On the Importance of Being Soviet, Part #1

On the train from Astana to Almaty. Image: David Trilling

This thoughtful piece by Dr Alexander Morrison was originally published on EurasiaNet, and will be of interest to any traveller to Central Asia.

Dr Morrison was Professor of History at Nazarbayev University in Astana and is now a Fellow in History at New College, Oxford. His articles for EurasiaNet always make for interesting reading.

Travelling one evening on the train from Astana to Almaty in Kazakhstan, I got chatting with the other three people in our four-berth compartment.

This kind of enforced sociability is often a joy of travelling in the former USSR. On this occasion my travelling companions were a young Russian man, a young Kazakh woman, and a grandmotherly figure whom I also took to be Russian.

When they discovered I was British, the Kazakh woman announced that her great-grandfather had been an Englishman. At first I was skeptical, but she explained that he had been an engineer working in the oilfields around Guryev (modern Atyrau) before the revolution, had married and remained after the Bolshevik takeover, and then been purged in the ‘30s. There was nothing implausible about this story – lots of foreign engineers worked in the mines and oilfields of the Kazakh steppe in the last years of tsarism.

This got us talking about ancestry, and the extraordinary mix of peoples in Kazakhstan. This was personally important for all of them – the Russian man was married to a Kazakh, the elderly lady whom I had thought was Russian had a German father and a Tatar mother.

Village children in Uzbekistan, 1980s

The Kazakh woman with the British great-grandfather was married to a Chechen. Here in microcosm was the diversity produced by two decades of deportations to Kazakhstan, and by migration to the Virgin Lands scheme which followed, what in Soviet times was known proudly as the "planet of 100 languages".

In one sense that term is misleading. We were all speaking in Russian. Most of the different peoples deported by Stalin to Kazakhstan and elsewhere in Central Asia – Poles, Germans, Latvians, Lithuanians, Koreans, Crimean Tatars – had become Russian-speaking within a generation if they were not so already.

However the diversity expressed in the idea of 100 languages is real. When the Kazakh poet Olzhas Suleimenov gave a famous speech in Semipalatinsk in 1989, announcing a movement against nuclear testing nearby, he made the point that the terrible effects of 30 years of tests on the local population could not be called a "genocide", because that referred to the extermination of just one people. In Semipalatinsk radiation was killing "every one of the 100 nationalities of which we were so proud".

Northern Kazakhstan is perhaps an extreme example of the ethnic and cultural hybridity that could be produced by Soviet rule, but similar blended identities are common from the Baltics to the Caucasus to the USSR’s great cities – Baku, Kiev or Tashkent. The Soviet Union was a high modernist project, which sought not just to sustain superpower status through economic development, military might and internal repression, but to create a new type of human being – Homo Sovieticus, "Soviet Man".

Long live the unity and brotherhood of the working people of
all nationalities of the USSR!

The meaning of this is slippery. The official version was that “Soviet Man” would transcend petty divisions of nationality, class and politics as the different peoples of the USSR were forged into a single, classless, ideologically unanimous Soviet people.

This was to be achieved through education, economic development, and ideological indoctrination. In practice the Soviet state’s grasp of its people’s aspirations and imaginations became more and more feeble after the 1960s. Nevertheless, something we might call Homo Sovieticus did come into being – a product not so much of indoctrination as of mobility.

Stalin’s deportations were the most brutal and sweeping case: deporting entire nationalities and dumping them in Central Asia. Under Khrushchev these movements became more voluntary – of young enthusiasts to the “Virgin Lands” of Kazakhstan, or technicians to cities. These migrations overlaid and sometimes reinforced earlier patterns of migration from before 1917.

When the new fishing port of Aralsk was opened on the newly constructed railway from Orenburg to Tashkent in 1905, it was populated by Bessarabian fishermen who migrated there from the Danube delta. The Russian empire was like its British and French counterparts in that it produced a bewildering cosmopolitanism in its great cities. Pre-revolutionary Baku, with its mixed Armenian/Azeri/Jewish/Georgian/Persian/Russian population, could easily stand comparison with Bombay or Alexandria in this regard. This cosmopolitanism persisted into the Soviet period when it became the capital of Soviet Azerbaijan.

Mingled populations are characteristic of empires, and they have suffered harshly from the nationalist dogmas of the 20th and 21st centuries, which decreed that Bombay belonged to Marathi-speaking Hindus, and that there was no longer any place for Greeks or Jews in Alexandria.

In some ways the Soviet Union held the tide of nationalism at bay for longer than might have seemed possible in 1917. Paradoxically it did so by conceding considerable ground to the principle of nationality, exemplified in the structure of the 15 Soviet republics: "national in form, socialist in content" seems an ironic slogan now because nationalism has proved so much more durable than communism.

Korean, Russian, Tartar, Ukrainian and Uzbek kids, school photo Tashkent, 1940s

However not everyone fit into the national categories recorded in Soviet passports, and not even the bewildering complexity of union republics, autonomous republics and autonomous oblasts could capture the full complexity of Soviet identity. Not only did multiple peoples live alongside each other in ways that defied territorial definition – they also intermarried across religious and ethnic boundaries, and produced new identities.

Nowhere was this truer than Ukraine and Kazakhstan. What is now eastern and southern Ukraine, which until the end of the 18th century had been home to small populations of Turkic nomads and mixed Turkic/Slavic Cossacks, became a destination for multiple migrations. Russians, Ukrainians, Greeks, Romanians, Bulgarians and Jews blended into a Russian-speaking – but not straightforwardly Russian – population.

Part #2 of Dr Morrison's article will be published in the near future.

Related posts: Uzbek-Korean Connections 
From Kremlin to Kremlin: African Americans in Uzbekistan
The Greek Community of Uzbekistan 
Tashkent: A City of Refuge

Kyrgyzstan's Fairy Tale Canyon

About 10 kilometres from the village of Tamga, on the south side of shimmering Issyk Kul lake, is a canyon of remarkable beauty - Fairy Tale Canyon - or Skazka Canyon as locals call it.

The magical Fairy Tale (Skazka) Canyon, near Tamga, Kyrgyzstan

It is so named because of the magical shapes and colours of the stones, eroded and transformed over the centuries by wind, ice and water.

Locals have given the formations names such as sleeping giants, dragons, snakes, young girls. Even the Great Wall of China is represented.

The entrance is not far from the main road - the fee is 50 Kyrgyz sum per person and it is open from 09:00 - 16:00 daily.

If the weather is fine it is easy to spend most of the day here tramping around the canyon. Good footwear is vital: although the landscape is dry, it is easy to skid.  No rivers run through the canyon now. However, if it rains, then walking around will be muddy and slippery.

Many of the herbs and plants used in traditional Kyrgyz medicines grow in this canyon: sage, ephedra, plantain, dog-rose, milfoil, sea buckthorn, barberry and many others.

The changing hues of the stones - yellow, orange and red - according to the light, are enchanting. Sit atop a small hill and gaze over this remarkable landscape to the blue waters of the lake and beyond to the snow-capped peaks of the Tien Shan mountain range.

View from Fairy Tale Canyon over Lake Issyk Kul

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Uzbekistan's Secret Underground

The very first post on this website, in May 2011, was about Tashkent's metro. In those days it was forbidden to take photographs of the glorious stations. Earlier this year, Uzbek President, Shavkat Mirziyoyev lifted that ban.

RFE/RL’s photographer, Amos Chapple, went underground to reveal the art, architecture, and nuclear-blast protection in Central Asia’s oldest subway system.  His photo-essay below is stunning.

Writhing figures in a relief at the exit to Buyuk Ipak Yuli (Great Silk Road) station.

A moment between trains in Kosmonavtlar (Cosmonauts) station. The stop is famous for its dreamlike portraits of cosmonauts.

Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, immortalized in Kosmonavtlar station. The ceramic wall panels fade from blue
to black in imitation of Earth’s atmosphere.

Passengers squeeze into a carriage in Pakhtakor (Cotton Worker) station.

Gafur Qulom station, named after an Uzbek intellectual. During the Soviet period, planners required a city’s population
to top 1 million before work would begin on a subway. Tashkent’s population reached the milestone in the early 1960s. 

Commuters in Pakhtakor station. Tunneling for the underground system got under way in 1971, and the Metro opened in 1977. 

A glistening corridor linking two stations. After an earthquake devastated Tashkent in 1966, newly cautious planners reportedly reduced
the depth and increased the strength of the Metro, tunneling within a few meters of the streets above. 

A late night commuter in Ming O’rik (Thousand Apricots) station. Metro trains run from 5 a.m. until midnight. 

A ceramic mural is revealed as a Metro car rolls out of Tashkent station. 

Chandeliers in Chilonzor station, named after a region of Tashkent. Artists were brought in from across the Soviet Union to work
on the Tashkent Metro. These 5-meter chandeliers were designed by Latvian artist Haim Rykhsin. 

A carefully monitored portrait of Alisher Navoi, considered one of the founders of the Uzbek poetic tradition. 

Mosque-like architecture inside Alisher Navoi station. 

A Metro car rumbles into Novza station, named after a region of Tashkent. The underground mostly operates similar cars to the
Moscow Metro, a model known for its screeching roar when driving at speed. 

A cashier at an entrance to the Metro. A trip costs 1,200 Uzbek soms, the equivalent of $0.15, making it the cheapest
subway ride in the former U.S.S.R. 

Many of the Metro stations were “decommunized” and had their names changed after the breakup of the U.S.S.R. in 1991. Amir Temur
Khiyoboni (Amir Temur Square) station is the former October Revolution station. 

A Red Army soldier waves a blank flag that apparently had its hammer and sickle removed. 

A ceramic panel depicting a woman playing a lute inside Alisher Navoi station. 

A mosaic of freshly puffed cotton bolls inside Pakhtakor station. Uzbekistan is one of the world’s leading producers of cotton 

Photography inside the the heavily policed Metro was forbidden until June 2018 because of the military sensitivity of its
second role: as a nuclear bomb shelter. 

This slab of steel is a blast door that would swing locked behind soldiers and civilians in the event of a nuclear attack. 

While the threat of a nuclear strike on Uzbekistan has faded, the new perceived menace of terrorism is reflected in signage
like this declaring: “Awareness is a requirement of the modern era!” 

While the threat of a nuclear strike on Uzbekistan has faded, the new perceived menace of terrorism is reflected in signage
like this declaring: “Awareness is a requirement of the modern era!” 

A decorative panel inside Alisher Navoi station. 

A portrait of Soviet cosmonaut Yuriy Gagarin, the first man in space, in Kosmonavtlar station. 

A wall relief shining in the glow of an approaching Metro car’s headlights in Milliy Bog (National Park) station. 

A mural celebrating 2,200 years since the founding of Tashkent, inside Tashkent station.

Characters from an epic poem by Oybek in the station named after the Uzbek poet. 

Commuters peering out at the novel sight of a foreigner taking photos of their Metro. 

Most of the Metro stations have humble entrances, giving no hint of the dazzling architecture below. Now that photography is permitted, however, the fame of the Soviet-era spectacle is likely to spread quickly.

Note: On an Uzbek Journeys tour, a visit to the loveliest metro stations in included. If you have free time, it is easy to spend an afternoon travelling on the metro admiring these underground works of art.

Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

Related posts:   Tashkent's Open Air Railway Museum
Travelling by Rail in Uzbekistan
Azerbaijan: Baku's Metro
Almaty, Kazakhstan - Riding the New Metro