The Road to Samarkand: More from Uzbekistan

SAMARKAND. Even the most jaded tourist should find it hard not to be moved by Samarkand. The Registan (pictured above) is one of the great architectural wonders of the world. The city should be overrun with tourists, like Florence is every summer. While many cities have to invent reasons to entice visitors, Samarkand is an ancient city with fabulous buildings and history.

In many ways, the setting is ideal for tourism. Although Samarkand unquestionably contains some of world’s greatest Islamic architecture, the city is no hotbed of religious fundamentalism. Few women wear so much as a head covering, let alone full chador or the burkha common on the Afghan side of the border.

Alcohol is served openly, and consumed widely, and the Registan is even less religious than the average west European cathedral. Virtually all of the old madrassahs are home to more souvenir stalls than mullahs. You’re far more likely to be asked politely to inspect a silk carpet than chastised for immodest dress.

While it is fashionable to attack tourism in the United States and the Caribbean as producing only low wage jobs, Uzbekistan could desperately use the hard currency and the jobs produced by visitors. Millions of people from this country work abroad, often under dire circumstances, as part of an effort to support their families. Remittances play a critical role in sustaining Uzbekistan.

Yet, despite the collapse of the Soviet Union, the city is barely on the world tourist map. The absence of tourist facilities is not the problem. There are good, fast trains between Tashkent and Samarkand. The city has quite a few B&Bs and more would undoubtedly sprout or expand as resourceful Uzbeks (well, really mainly ethnic Tajiks in this town) moved to challenge the famously indifferent state hotels if the demand should rise.

The Government of Uzbekistan unfortunately stifles what ought to be a fast-growing sector of the economy. Getting a visa to Uzbekistan is quite difficult and slow despite the incredible $150 processing fee. One tour guide based in another Central Asian country who regularly brought tourists into the country was denied renewal of his one-year visa, most likely as an effort to get twelve visa payments out of him instead of one.

However, the guide decided that the visas were expensive and that he didn’t want to spend a large portion of his life reapplying for visas. The shortsighted regime drove away someone who was bringing money and jobs into the country even as sections of the population are getting restive due to rising prices and wages which don’t keep up with them.

However, visas are just the start of the Uzbek bureaucratic nightmare. All hotels must register their visitors with OVIR (Office of Visa and Registration) which checks every day on the number of tourists. Meanwhile, tourists must carefully maintain slips of paper confirming their registration as well as the most detailed customs form I have ever encountered. I guess this creates employment in a roundabout way since both hotels and the police have to hire extra people to handle all of the bureaucracy.

The Government claims that growth is strongly positive but long-time observers believe that the official reports are works of fiction and that growth remains negative. It’s no myth that prices are up though. The cost of a ride on the Tashkent metro has gone up from 150 to 250 sum. This price rise, equivalent to eight U.S. cents, has now put the metro out of the reach of many locals.