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Culture Smart / Cultuur Bewust
Uzbekistan - Culture Smart!
Culture Smart! Uzbekistan will take you beyond the standard descriptions of minarets, kebabs with vodka, embroidered skullcaps, and Soviet-style bureaucracy. It will make you aware of the value systems, attitudes, and behaviors of the different cultural groups in the country, and offer an insider’s view of Uzbekistan’s fascinating history, national traditions, various cuisines, and cultural scene. It will tell you what the peoples of Uzbekistan are like at home, at play, and in business, and give practical advice on how to behave in different situations so as to make the most out of your visit. Uzbekistan is a land of paradoxes, both enjoyable and surprising for foreign visitors. It is famous for its fabulous architectural monuments and the exotic spirit of the Great Silk Road, the ancient trade route connecting East and West. Uzbekistan is a multicultural society where old and revived traditions coexist with modernity.
- GenresNonfictionTravel
168 pages, Paperback
Published May 1, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 7, 2026
Update Change of plan. we were going to Baku, Azerbaijan this afternoon on the 2.55 plane, but we missed it because the plane was at 02.55 am. Whoever heard of a plane going at that time in the morning? So as there isn't another flight to Baku until Saturday, we got a car for the 6 hr drive back to Tashkent and have booked into the Crowne Plaza for the night, flight to Almaty, Khazakstan tomorrow.
Not a good experience! We are in the Crowne Plaza because all the CP's have a really fantastic buffet breakfast and we thought we might need a good feed if we weren't going to get into the hotel in the evening. It is one of the things we judge hotels on. Generally we avoid chain hotels, or at least American chains, and these are our criteria:
1. is in the right location, either near what we want to see or if we just came to see the city, then in the centre of town,
2. has a buffet breakfast,
3. bathroom that does not have a fashionable glass wall or door into the bedroom. I don't want to have to put headphones on and pretend to be distracted whilst my nearest and dearest is grunting on the throne. This one we get occasionally because we couldn't tell if the hotel had a solid door or not and chatgpt lied, as it often does.
4. has a bath tub, because I live on a small island without mains water, only a cistern under the house, so we are not so extravagant with water as to have a tub, and so it's a luxury for me. This one I only get about 50% of the time.
First room had twin beds, so we moved to a king-size bedroom as booked. Second room had no hot water, so we got offered an upgrade to a very fancy room where the aircon didn't work (it was 32C or 89.6F). The manager said that maintance say it takes a long time for the cold air to reach up to the 6th floor. Never heard that one before. I said have you had complaints about this floor, he said we were the only one today! There are only 3 rooms on that floor. So we got moved to a very fancy two room suite where everything works and we get a free transfer to the airport (worth $4!) and a late checkout.
Just in case anyone is reading this and wants a hotel recommendation for Samarkand that isn't in the historic area, we stayed in the Zarafshon Parkside last night. It had the most exquisite gardens of any hotel I have ever seen, with beautiful draped gazebos, fountains, ponds and scented roses. Also a really good chef. We don't always stay in fancy hotels since we prefer local ones, but when we do, they aren't expensive, this was $132.
Architecture Something that struck me going from the airport to the hotel in Tashkent was that the modern buildings are solid, almost monumental and that the Uzbecks have love tall, narrow, arch-shaped windows. I thought maybe it was the Soviet influence. But no, in Samarkand the mosques, tombs and madrassas are among the biggest buildings I have ever seen, and the modern window shape is a present-day echo of the entrance and gateways all of which are arches.
__________
Update Samarkand. We drove down from Tashkent, it was first-world all the way and the best interstate-type cafe I've ever seen. A green outdoor glade with parrots, rabbits, peacocks and the sort of children's complex of slides and nets etc that people pay good money for a party. But Samarkand is not the same.
We drove through tiny streets of the old city of unremarkable houses and stopped at a tall metal wall, a barrier, our driver had to back out, too tiny to turn. Once through the barrier a whole world of green and wide streets, all pedestrianised opened out. Ok, 5 minute walk with luggage in 95F heat. This was a new area built in 'the old style' and every shop was a tourist shop, every cafe for one-time visitors, carpet, t-shirt vendors everywhere, but kind of tasteful. And the tourists it was meant for were Russians (a menu that says European food means for Russians), and others from the 'Stans (not Pakistan).
The hotel, the Sangoz is ok, nothing to write home about after the indulgent glories of the Leela Palace in Delhi. We asked about the electric golf carts plying the main street and were told they are 5K -10K som but you will be asked for 20K or more being tourists, you have to bargain. Ah, so we have left the one-price, first-world Tashkent behind.
Eating out here is not quite like tourist places in the US where they never expect to see you again, so serving some Sysco rubbish is fine, everything here, as in Kathmandu, Bhutan and Delhi is home-cooked, but it is heavy meat, fried, stewed and fatty food, not our taste. We found a lovely roof-top terrace restaurant with a view of the Registan Square three madrassas with beautiful blue-tiled domes and tonight we went to a very strange and pretty light show there showing civilization from the dawn of mankind ending in the ultimate glory of Samarkand (very strange).
The fast food places are quite Middle Eastern in keeping with the Muslim dress which is colourful and not black, shwarmas and kebabs, very cheap, only have to bargain a bit.
We got a bit screwed around by the receptionist. He offered us a one day trip to Tajikistan to see the seven lakes. My partner is American and doesn't need a visa, I do. It takes two weeks. First thing is he says he can get one in 24 hours for $120, payable afterwards. Trip will be a private tour with car, driver and guide $270 for the day. Then he says, do we mind if one extra person joins us? I said if you drop the price by $90, fine. He didn't reply. Then it is the visa may not come through until Monday because of the weekend. Then it is but I can lower the price to $200 if two more people can join your tour. We wanted to go to Bukhara on Saturday, willing to delay it until Sunday, but Tuesday.... So unless the visa comes through tomorrow, we're off on Saturday.
__________
The first thing that struck me on getting out of the airport in Tashkent was that the air was pure and clear and that the blue sky was vast. I hadn't realised how much the dense polluted smog of Delhi had affected me and that the sky had been grey every day, never a star even, at night.
The second thing was it was orderly. The wide roads had smoothly-flowing traffic and scarcely any horn blowing, no tuktuks and motorbikes weaving in and out of traffic and no trucks with 'Blow horn, use dipper at night' written on. I had only just begun to understand the organised chaos of the traffic in Delhi where horns are used as warnings, not as rebukes and that everything works on people letting people in, instead of defensive driving. But it's not like that here, it's cool and governed by traffic rules that people obey.
The atmosphere is quite different, Delhi is loud and colourful and glittery and full of trees, bird song, and broken-down pavements. Here it is kind of soulless, colourless, still lots of trees but not much bird song. The people too, in India they look Indian - not homogeneous by any means but still identifiable as a people. Not so here, some look Indian, some oriental, some European, some like they have come from the vast Mongolian plains, and all in the same family.
There are women wearing hijab and women wearing wide pants and crop tops, men in the traditional hats - tubeteika or in business suits and ties. Most are Muslim, but they have famous wine-growing regions and there is a fancy bar in the hotel, and you can have bacon for breakfast. What an interesting people!
So I got this book to try and understand what I see around me. Looking for it online, I found an absolute gem and am trying to persuade my partner to go there. Nukus.
Nukus is miles from anywhere, and in it is the Savisky Art Museum, situated deliberately too far from any city that the KGB would not investigate it.
"How does art survive in a time of oppression? During the Soviet rule artists who stay true to their vision are executed, sent to mental hospitals or Gulags.
Their plight inspires Igor Savitsky. He pretends to buy state-approved art but instead daringly rescues 40 000 forbidden fellow artists’ works and creates a museum in the desert of Uzbekistan, far from the watchful eyes of the KGB. Though a penniless artist himself, he cajoles the cash to pay for the art from the same authorities who are banning it. Savitsky amasses an eclectic mix of Russian Avant-Garde art." Read the rest at caravanistan DOT com/uzbekistan/karakalpakstan/nukus/savitsky-museum/.
So now I'm really excited and trying to persuade my partner that we really have to go to Khiva, which is far from Bukhara which was where he considered we could fly back to Tashkent, as Nukus is only a few hours from there.
This looks like a far more interesting country than the soullessness of this area of Tashkent and the almost municipal-plantings of gardens would suggest. I hope to read about them in this book.
Not a good experience! We are in the Crowne Plaza because all the CP's have a really fantastic buffet breakfast and we thought we might need a good feed if we weren't going to get into the hotel in the evening. It is one of the things we judge hotels on. Generally we avoid chain hotels, or at least American chains, and these are our criteria:
1. is in the right location, either near what we want to see or if we just came to see the city, then in the centre of town,
2. has a buffet breakfast,
3. bathroom that does not have a fashionable glass wall or door into the bedroom. I don't want to have to put headphones on and pretend to be distracted whilst my nearest and dearest is grunting on the throne. This one we get occasionally because we couldn't tell if the hotel had a solid door or not and chatgpt lied, as it often does.
4. has a bath tub, because I live on a small island without mains water, only a cistern under the house, so we are not so extravagant with water as to have a tub, and so it's a luxury for me. This one I only get about 50% of the time.
First room had twin beds, so we moved to a king-size bedroom as booked. Second room had no hot water, so we got offered an upgrade to a very fancy room where the aircon didn't work (it was 32C or 89.6F). The manager said that maintance say it takes a long time for the cold air to reach up to the 6th floor. Never heard that one before. I said have you had complaints about this floor, he said we were the only one today! There are only 3 rooms on that floor. So we got moved to a very fancy two room suite where everything works and we get a free transfer to the airport (worth $4!) and a late checkout.
Just in case anyone is reading this and wants a hotel recommendation for Samarkand that isn't in the historic area, we stayed in the Zarafshon Parkside last night. It had the most exquisite gardens of any hotel I have ever seen, with beautiful draped gazebos, fountains, ponds and scented roses. Also a really good chef. We don't always stay in fancy hotels since we prefer local ones, but when we do, they aren't expensive, this was $132.
Architecture Something that struck me going from the airport to the hotel in Tashkent was that the modern buildings are solid, almost monumental and that the Uzbecks have love tall, narrow, arch-shaped windows. I thought maybe it was the Soviet influence. But no, in Samarkand the mosques, tombs and madrassas are among the biggest buildings I have ever seen, and the modern window shape is a present-day echo of the entrance and gateways all of which are arches.
__________
Update Samarkand. We drove down from Tashkent, it was first-world all the way and the best interstate-type cafe I've ever seen. A green outdoor glade with parrots, rabbits, peacocks and the sort of children's complex of slides and nets etc that people pay good money for a party. But Samarkand is not the same.
We drove through tiny streets of the old city of unremarkable houses and stopped at a tall metal wall, a barrier, our driver had to back out, too tiny to turn. Once through the barrier a whole world of green and wide streets, all pedestrianised opened out. Ok, 5 minute walk with luggage in 95F heat. This was a new area built in 'the old style' and every shop was a tourist shop, every cafe for one-time visitors, carpet, t-shirt vendors everywhere, but kind of tasteful. And the tourists it was meant for were Russians (a menu that says European food means for Russians), and others from the 'Stans (not Pakistan).
The hotel, the Sangoz is ok, nothing to write home about after the indulgent glories of the Leela Palace in Delhi. We asked about the electric golf carts plying the main street and were told they are 5K -10K som but you will be asked for 20K or more being tourists, you have to bargain. Ah, so we have left the one-price, first-world Tashkent behind.
Eating out here is not quite like tourist places in the US where they never expect to see you again, so serving some Sysco rubbish is fine, everything here, as in Kathmandu, Bhutan and Delhi is home-cooked, but it is heavy meat, fried, stewed and fatty food, not our taste. We found a lovely roof-top terrace restaurant with a view of the Registan Square three madrassas with beautiful blue-tiled domes and tonight we went to a very strange and pretty light show there showing civilization from the dawn of mankind ending in the ultimate glory of Samarkand (very strange).
The fast food places are quite Middle Eastern in keeping with the Muslim dress which is colourful and not black, shwarmas and kebabs, very cheap, only have to bargain a bit.
We got a bit screwed around by the receptionist. He offered us a one day trip to Tajikistan to see the seven lakes. My partner is American and doesn't need a visa, I do. It takes two weeks. First thing is he says he can get one in 24 hours for $120, payable afterwards. Trip will be a private tour with car, driver and guide $270 for the day. Then he says, do we mind if one extra person joins us? I said if you drop the price by $90, fine. He didn't reply. Then it is the visa may not come through until Monday because of the weekend. Then it is but I can lower the price to $200 if two more people can join your tour. We wanted to go to Bukhara on Saturday, willing to delay it until Sunday, but Tuesday.... So unless the visa comes through tomorrow, we're off on Saturday.
__________
The first thing that struck me on getting out of the airport in Tashkent was that the air was pure and clear and that the blue sky was vast. I hadn't realised how much the dense polluted smog of Delhi had affected me and that the sky had been grey every day, never a star even, at night.
The second thing was it was orderly. The wide roads had smoothly-flowing traffic and scarcely any horn blowing, no tuktuks and motorbikes weaving in and out of traffic and no trucks with 'Blow horn, use dipper at night' written on. I had only just begun to understand the organised chaos of the traffic in Delhi where horns are used as warnings, not as rebukes and that everything works on people letting people in, instead of defensive driving. But it's not like that here, it's cool and governed by traffic rules that people obey.
The atmosphere is quite different, Delhi is loud and colourful and glittery and full of trees, bird song, and broken-down pavements. Here it is kind of soulless, colourless, still lots of trees but not much bird song. The people too, in India they look Indian - not homogeneous by any means but still identifiable as a people. Not so here, some look Indian, some oriental, some European, some like they have come from the vast Mongolian plains, and all in the same family.
There are women wearing hijab and women wearing wide pants and crop tops, men in the traditional hats - tubeteika or in business suits and ties. Most are Muslim, but they have famous wine-growing regions and there is a fancy bar in the hotel, and you can have bacon for breakfast. What an interesting people!
So I got this book to try and understand what I see around me. Looking for it online, I found an absolute gem and am trying to persuade my partner to go there. Nukus.
Nukus is miles from anywhere, and in it is the Savisky Art Museum, situated deliberately too far from any city that the KGB would not investigate it.
"How does art survive in a time of oppression? During the Soviet rule artists who stay true to their vision are executed, sent to mental hospitals or Gulags.
Their plight inspires Igor Savitsky. He pretends to buy state-approved art but instead daringly rescues 40 000 forbidden fellow artists’ works and creates a museum in the desert of Uzbekistan, far from the watchful eyes of the KGB. Though a penniless artist himself, he cajoles the cash to pay for the art from the same authorities who are banning it. Savitsky amasses an eclectic mix of Russian Avant-Garde art." Read the rest at caravanistan DOT com/uzbekistan/karakalpakstan/nukus/savitsky-museum/.
So now I'm really excited and trying to persuade my partner that we really have to go to Khiva, which is far from Bukhara which was where he considered we could fly back to Tashkent, as Nukus is only a few hours from there.
This looks like a far more interesting country than the soullessness of this area of Tashkent and the almost municipal-plantings of gardens would suggest. I hope to read about them in this book.
August 23, 2021
Interesting read.
September 28, 2025
I’ve read a few of the culture smart books and this is definitely one of the better ones. Worth reading before/during a trip to Uzbek or Tajik to deepen your understanding and experience.
October 14, 2024
This book offers a very general review of Uzbekistan's history, traditions, cuisines, and cultural scene.
It also gives practical advice on how to behave in different situations.
It was written in 2017 but I feel it is quite outdated
It also gives practical advice on how to behave in different situations.
It was written in 2017 but I feel it is quite outdated
December 7, 2025
Нужно понимать, что это не путеводитель, а книга о культуре, традициях, менталитете и поведении людей. Как человек, проживший несколько лет в Узбекистане, могу подтвердить, что автор точен в своих описаниях. Хотя книга написана почти 10 лет назад, она совсем не устарела по причине неторопливости восточного образа жизни и медленного проникновения в общество перемен.
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May 21, 2023Uzbekistan is a multicultural society where old and revived traditions coexist with modernity.
November 26, 2025
Yeah…I’m not going to put this one on the recommended list.
February 16, 2024
Good intro. Published in 2017 so may not be up to date in some sections
March 8, 2020
We are travelling to Uzbekistan in May and I found this overview very helpful in understanding the history and culture. An easy informative read.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews